The Roman Mars has a slight advantage over Ares, for the name of Silvia is sweetly-sounding, but she should be represented alone, as the star of the wild Campagna, while yet it was forest-clad: the gleaming light whose rays are to illumine the earth. Mars may disappear with the wolf, but who can hide the glory of Rome?
It is difficult to connect the Hermes of the poet with the tedious expressionless figure commonly seen in painting, whose only costume is a helmet, and whose invariable province is apparently to look on and do nothing. For the sculptor he is a god; for the painter a symbol of subordination. A Rubens may give him the pulse of life, but only the sculptor can suggest the divinity. With the painter the winged helmet is a bizarre ornament; the immortal sandals are shrunken to leather; the caduceus is a thing of inertia which is ever in the way. But with the sculptor all these things may be endowed with the quickening spirit of a soaring mind, for does not Giovanni di Bologna show the lithesome god speeding through space ahead of the wind, the feathery foot-wings humming with delirium, the trembling air dividing hastily before the wand? True, the painter may represent the divine herald on his way through space, as when he conducts Psyche to Olympus, or leads the shades of the suitors to Hades; but the accessories present must surround him with an earthy framework, unless the design be confined to a ceiling, and shut away from things mundane with architectural forms, as in the plan of Raphael at the Farnese Villa, or to a fresco executed in the manner of a Flaxman drawing. Beyond these artifices the artist cannot go with propriety.
Few and worn are the scenes in the history of the god in which he takes a leading part. The head of Argus seems to be cut off, or awaiting separation, in nearly every collection, sometimes with Juno on a cloud deeply frowning with revengeful ire, occasionally with the peacock expectant of its glorious fan, but always with the weak-looking helmeted piper, passive and unconcerned as if fulfilling a daily task. A Correggio may weave his golden fancy around a scene where Cupid learns to strengthen his arrows with the rules of science and the wiles of art; but let the painter beware of the infant Bacchus in the arms of the messenger-god, lest a vision of the Olympian group arise and enfold his work in a robe of charity. The schemes whereby the cradled thief deceived the Pythian god are beyond the scope of the painter, though there is a certain available range in the charming actions surrounding the invention of the lyre. And if the designs relating to the unfortunate Lara be properly consigned to oblivion, surely the connection of Hermes with Pandora offers a field for the sprightly imagination. But save where the god is a symbol of commerce or speed, the helmet should be dispensed with, for it is hackneyed beyond endurance. The modern painter is not bound by custom unless the provision of beauty conflict with the lucidity of the design or the reverence for universal sentiment. Let the winged heels suffice, for the shadow of Persius will scarcely rise in protest.