120. The third coin will, I think, at once strike you by what we moderns should call its "vigour of character." You may observe also that the features are finished with great care and subtlety, but at the cost of simplicity and breadth. But the essential difference between it and the central art, is its disorder in design—you see the locks of hair cannot be counted any longer—they are entirely dishevelled and irregular. Now the individual character may, or may not be, a sign of decline; but the licentiousness, the casting loose of the masses in the design, is an infallible one. The effort at portraiture is good for art if the men to be portrayed are good men, not otherwise. In the instance before you, the head is that of Mithridates VI. of Pontus, who had, indeed, the good qualities of being a linguist and a patron of the arts; but as you will remember, murdered, according to report, his mother, certainly his brother, certainly his wives and sisters, I have not counted how many of his children, and from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand persons besides; these last in a single day's massacre. The effort to represent this kind of person is not by any means a method of study from life ultimately beneficial to art.

121. This however is not the point I have to urge to-day. What I want you to observe is that, though the master of the great time does not attempt portraiture, he does attempt animation. And as far as his means will admit, he succeeds in making the face—you might almost think—vulgarly animated; as like a real face, literally, "as it can stare." Yes: and its sculptor meant it to be so; and that was what Phidias meant his Jupiter to be, if he could manage it. Not, indeed, to be taken for Zeus himself; and yet, to be as like a living Zeus as art could make it. Perhaps you think he tried to make it look living only for the sake of the mob, and would not have tried to do so for connoisseurs. Pardon me; for real connoisseurs, he would, and did; and herein consists a truth which belongs to all the arts, and which I will at once drive home in your minds, as firmly as I can.

122. All second-rate artists—(and remember, the second-rate ones are a loquacious multitude, while the great come only one or two in a century; and then, silently)—all second-rate artists will tell you that the object of fine art is not resemblance, but some kind of abstraction more refined than reality. Put that out of your heads at once. The object of the great Resemblant Arts is, and always has been, to resemble; and to resemble as closely as possible. It is the function of a good portrait to set the man before you in habit as he lived, and I would we had a few more that did so. It is the function of a good landscape to set the scene before you in its reality, to make you, if it may be, think the clouds are flying, and the streams foaming. It is the function of the best sculptor—the true Daedalus—to make stillness look like breathing, and marble look like flesh.

123. And in all great times of art, this purpose is as naively expressed as it is steadily held. All the talk about abstraction belongs to periods of decadence. In living times, people see something living that pleases them; and they try to make it live for ever, or to make it something as like it as possible, that will last for ever. They paint their statues, and inlay the eyes with jewels, and set real crowns on their heads; they finish, in their pictures, every thread of embroidery, and would fain, if they could, draw every leaf upon the trees. And their only verbal expression of conscious success is, that they have made their work "look real."

124. You think all that very wrong. So did I, once; but it was I that was wrong. A long time ago, before ever I had seen Oxford, I painted a picture of the Lake of Como, for my father. It was not at all like the Lake of Como; but I thought it rather the better for that. My father differed with me; and objected particularly to a boat with a red and yellow awning, which I had put into the most conspicuous corner of my drawing. I declared this boat to be "necessary to the composition." My father not the less objected, that he had never seen such a boat, either at Como or elsewhere; and suggested that if I would make the lake look a little more like water, I should be under no necessity of explaining its nature by the presence of floating objects. I thought him at the time a very simple person for his pains; but have since learned, and it is the very gist of all practical matters, which, as professor of fine art, I have now to tell you, that the great point in painting a lake is—to get it to look like water.

125. So far, so good. We lay it down for a first principle, that our graphic art, whether painting or sculpture, is to produce something which shall look as like Nature as possible. But now we must go one step farther, and say that it is to produce what shall look like Nature to people who know what Nature is like! You see this is at once a great restriction, as well as a great exaltation of our aim. Our business is not to deceive the simple; but to deceive the wise! Here, for instance, is a modern Italian print, representing, to the best of its power, St. Cecilia, in a brilliantly realistic manner. And the fault of the work is not in its earnest endeavour to show St. Cecilia in habit as she lived, but in that the effort could only be successful with persons unaware of the habit St. Cecilia lived in. And this condition of appeal only to the wise increases the difficulty of imitative resemblance so greatly, that, with only average skill or materials, we must surrender all hope of it, and be content with an imperfect representation, true as far as it reaches, and such as to excite the imagination of a wise beholder to complete it; though falling very far short of what either he or we should otherwise have desired. For instance, here is a suggestion, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of the general appearance of a British Judge—requiring the imagination of a very wise beholder indeed, to fill it up, or even at first to discover what it is meant for. Nevertheless, it is better art than the Italian St. Cecilia, because the artist, however little he may have done to represent his knowledge, does, indeed, know altogether what a Judge is like, and appeals only to the criticism of those who know also.

126. There must be, therefore, two degrees of truth to be looked for in the good graphic arts; one, the commonest, which, by any partial or imperfect sign conveys to you an idea which you must complete for yourself; and the other, the finest, a representation so perfect as to leave you nothing to be farther accomplished by this independent exertion; but to give you the same feeling of possession and presence which you would experience from the natural object itself. For instance of the first, in this representation of a rainbow,[124] the artist has no hope that, by the black lines of engraving, he can deceive you into any belief of the rainbow's being there, but he gives indication enough of what he intends, to enable you to supply the rest of the idea yourself, providing always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like. But in this drawing of the falls of Terni,[125] the painter has strained his skill to the utmost to give an actually deceptive resemblance of the iris, dawning and fading among the foam. So far as he has not actually deceived you, it is not because he would not have done so if he could; but only because his colours and science have fallen short of his desire. They have fallen so little short that, in a good light, you may all but believe the foam and the sunshine are drifting and changing among the rocks.

127. And after looking a little while, you will begin to regret that they are not so: you will feel that, lovely as the drawing is, you would like far better to see the real place, and the goats skipping among the rocks, and the spray floating above the fall. And this is the true sign of the greatest art—to part voluntarily with its greatness;—to make itself poor and unnoticed; but so to exalt and set forth its theme that you may be fain to see the theme instead of it. So that you have never enough admired a great workman's doing till you have begun to despise it. The best homage that could be paid to the Athena of Phidias would be to desire rather to see the living goddess; and the loveliest Madonnas of Christian art fall short of their due power, if they do not make their beholders sick at heart to see the living Virgin.

128. We have then, for our requirement of the finest art (sculpture, or anything else), that it shall be so like the thing it represents as to please those who best know or can conceive the original; and, if possible, please them deceptively—its final triumph being to deceive even the wise; and (the Greeks thought) to please even the Immortals, who were so wise as to be undeceivable. So that you get the Greek, thus far entirely true, idea of perfectness in sculpture, expressed to you by what Phalaris says, at first sight of the bull of Perilaus, "It only wanted motion and bellowing to seem alive; and as soon as I saw it, I cried out, it ought to be sent to the god." To Apollo, for only he, the undeceivable, could thoroughly understand such sculpture, and perfectly delight in it.

129. And with this expression of the Greek ideal of sculpture, I wish you to join the early Italian, summed in a single line by Dante—"non vide me' di me, chi vide 'l vero." Read the 12th canto of the "Purgatory," and learn that whole passage by heart; and if ever you chance to go to Pistoja, look at La Robbia's coloured porcelain bas-reliefs of the seven works of Mercy on the front of the hospital there; and note especially the faces of the two sick men—one at the point of death, and the other in the first peace and long-drawn breathing of health after fever—and you will know what Dante meant by the preceding line, "Morti li morti, e i vivi paren vivi."

130. But now, may we not ask farther,—is it impossible for art such as this, prepared for the wise, to please the simple also? Without entering on the awkward questions of degree, how many the wise can be, or how much men should know, in order to be rightly called wise, may we not conceive an art to be possible, which would deceive everybody, or everybody worth deceiving? I showed you at my first lecture, a little ringlet of Japan ivory, as a type of elementary bas-relief touched with colour; and in your rudimentary series you have a drawing by Mr. Burgess, of one of the little fishes enlarged, with every touch of the chisel facsimiled on the more visible scale; and showing the little black bead inlaid for the eye, which in the original is hardly to be seen without a lens. You may, perhaps be surprised, when I tell you, that (putting the question of subject aside for the moment, and speaking only of the mode of execution and aim at resemblance), you have there a perfect example of the Greek ideal of method in sculpture. And you will admit that, to the simplest person whom we could introduce as a critic, that fish would be a satisfactory, nay, almost a deceptive fish; while to any one caring for subtleties of art, I need not point out that every touch of the chisel is applied with consummate knowledge, and that it would be impossible to convey more truth and life with the given quantity of workmanship.



131. Here is, indeed, a drawing by Turner, (Edu. 131), in which with some fifty times the quantity of labour, and far more highly educated faculty of sight, the artist has expressed some qualities of lustre and colour which only very wise persons indeed could perceive in a John Dory; and this piece of paper contains, therefore, much more, and more subtle, art, than the Japan ivory; but are we sure that it is therefore greater art? or that the painter was better employed in producing this drawing, which only one person can possess, and only one in a hundred enjoy, than he would have been in producing two or three pieces on a larger scale, which should have been at once accessible to, and enjoyable by, a number of simpler persons? Suppose for instance, that Turner, instead of faintly touching this outline, on white paper, with his camel's hair pencil, had struck the main forms of his fish into marble, thus (Fig. 7): and instead of colouring the white paper so delicately that, perhaps, only a few of the most keenly observant artists in England can see it at all, had, with his strong hand, tinted the marble with a few colours, deceptive to the people, and harmonious to the initiated; suppose that he had even conceded so much to the spirit of popular applause as to allow of a bright glass bead being inlaid for the eye, in the Japanese manner; and that the enlarged, deceptive, and popularly pleasing work had been carved on the outside of a great building,—say Fishmongers' Hall,—where everybody commercially connected with Billingsgate could have seen it, and ratified it with the wisdom of the market;—might not the art have been greater, worthier, and kinder in such use?

132. Perhaps the idea does not once approve itself to you of having your public buildings covered with ornaments like this; but pray, remember that the choice of subject is an ethical question, not now before us. All I ask you to decide is whether the method is right, and would be pleasant in giving the distinctiveness to pretty things, which it has here given to what, I suppose it may be assumed, you feel to be an ugly thing. Of course, I must note parenthetically, such realistic work is impossible in a country where the buildings are to be discoloured by coal-smoke; but so is all fine sculpture, whatsoever; and the whiter, the worse its chance. For that which is prepared for private persons, to be kept under cover, will, of necessity, degenerate into the copyism of past work, or merely sensational and sensual forms of present life, unless there be a governing school addressing the populace, for their instruction, on the outside of buildings. So that, as I partly warned you in my third lecture, you can simply have no sculpture in a coal country. Whether you like coals or carvings best, is no business of mine. I merely have to assure you of the fact that they are incompatible.

But, assuming that we are again, some day, to become a civilized and governing race, deputing ironmongery, coal-digging, and lucre-digging, to our slaves in other countries, it is quite conceivable that, with an increasing knowledge of natural history, and desire for such knowledge, what is now done by careful, but inefficient, woodcuts, and in ill-coloured engravings, might be put in quite permanent sculptures, with inlay of variegated precious stones, on the outside of buildings, where such pictures would be little costly to the people; and in a more popular manner still, by Robbia ware and Palissy ware, and inlaid majolica, which would differ from the housewives' present favourite decoration of plates above her kitchen dresser, by being every piece of it various, instructive, and universally visible.

133. You hardly know, I suppose, whether I am speaking in jest or earnest. In the most solemn earnest, I assure you; though such is the strange course of our popular life that all the irrational arts of destruction are at once felt to be earnest; while any plan for those of instruction on a grand scale, sounds like a dream or jest. Still, I do not absolutely propose to decorate our public buildings with sculpture wholly of this character; though beast, and fowl, and creeping things, and fishes, might all find room on such a building as the Solomon's House of a New Atlantis; and some of them might even become symbolic of much to us again. Passing through the Strand, only the other day, for instance, I saw four highly finished and delicately coloured pictures of cock-fighting, which, for imitative quality, were nearly all that could be desired, going far beyond the Greek cock of Himera; and they would have delighted a Greek's soul, if they had meant as much as a Greek cock-fight; but they were only types of the "[Greek: endomachas alektor]," and of the spirit of home contest, which has been so fatal lately to the Bird of France; and not of the defence of one's own barnyard, in thought of which the Olympians set the cock on the pillars of their chariot course; and gave it goodly alliance in its battle, as you may see here, in what is left of the angle of mouldering marble in the chair of the priest of Dionusos. The cast of it, from the centre of the theatre under the Acropolis, is in the British Museum; and I wanted its spiral for you, and this kneeling Angel of Victory;—it is late Greek art, but nobly systematic flat bas-relief. So I set Mr. Burgess to draw it; but neither he nor I for a little while, could make out what the Angel of Victory was kneeling for. His attitude is an ancient and grandly conventional one among the Egyptians; and I was tracing it back to a kneeling goddess of the greatest dynasty of the Pharaohs—a goddess of Evening, or Death, laying down the sun out of her right hand;—when, one bright day, the shadows came out clear on the Athenian throne, and I saw that my Angel of Victory was only backing a cock at a cock-fight.

134. Still, as I have said, there is no reason why sculpture, even for simplest persons, should confine itself to imagery of fish, or fowl, or four-footed things.

We go back to our first principle: we ought to carve nothing but what is honourable. And you are offended, at this moment, with my fish, (as I believe, when the first sculptures appeared on the windows of this museum, offence was taken at the unnecessary introduction of cats), these dissatisfactions being properly felt by your "[Greek: nous ton timiotaton]." For indeed, in all cases, our right judgment must depend on our wish to give honour only to things and creatures that deserve it.

135. And now I must state to you another principle of veracity, both in sculpture, and all following arts, of wider scope than any hitherto examined. We have seen that sculpture is to be a true representation of true external form. Much more is it to be a representation of true internal emotion. You must carve only what you yourself see as you see it; but, much more, you must carve only what you yourself feel, as you feel it. You may no more endeavour to feel through other men's souls, than to see with other men's eyes. Whereas generally now in Europe and America, every man's energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion, not his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because he has been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Every attempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions of sublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are all second hand; and we are practically incapable of designing so much as a bell-handle or a door-knocker without borrowing the first notion of it from those who are gone—where we shall not wake them with our knocking. I would we could.

136. In the midst of this desolation we have nothing to count on for real growth, but what we can find of honest liking and longing, in ourselves and in others. We must discover, if we would healthily advance, what things are verily [Greek: timiotata] among us; and if we delight to honour the dishonourable, consider how, in future, we may better bestow our likings. Now it appears to me from all our popular declarations, that we, at present, honour nothing so much as liberty and independence; and no person so much as the Free man and Self-made man, who will be ruled by no one, and has been taught, or helped, by no one. And the reason I chose a fish for you as the first subject of sculpture, was that in men who are free and self-made, you have the nearest approach, humanly possible, to the state of the fish, and finely organized [Greek: herpeton]. You get the exact phrase in Habakkuk, if you take the Septuagint text.—"[Greek: poieseis tous anthropous hos tous ichthyas tes thalasses, kai hos ta herpeta ta ouk echonta hegoumenon."] "Thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the reptile things, that have no ruler over them." And it chanced that as I was preparing this lecture, one of our most able and popular prints gave me a woodcut of the "self-made man," specified as such, so vigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that Phidias or Turner himself could scarcely have done it better; so that I had only to ask my assistant to enlarge it with accuracy, and it became comparable with my fish at once. Of course it is not given by the caricaturist as an admirable face; only, I am enabled by his skill to set before you, without any suspicion of unfairness on my part, the expression to which the life we profess to think most honourable, naturally leads. If we were to take the hat off, you see how nearly the profile corresponds with that of the typical fish.



137. Such, then, being the definition by your best popular art, of the ideal of feature at which we are gradually arriving by self-manufacture; when I place opposite to it (in Plate VIII.) the profile of a man not in any wise self-made, neither by the law of his own will, nor by the love of his own interest—nor capable, for a moment, of any kind of "Independence," or of the idea of independence; but wholly dependent upon, and subjected to, external influence of just law, wise teaching, and trusted love and truth, in his fellow-spirits;—setting before you, I say, this profile of a God-made instead of a self-made, man, I know that you will feel, on the instant, that you are brought into contact with the vital elements of human art; and that this, the sculpture of the good, is indeed the only permissible sculpture.

138. A God-made man, I say. The face, indeed, stands as a symbol of more than man in its sculptor's mind. For as I gave you, to lead your first effort in the form of leaves, the sceptre of Apollo, so this, which I give you as the first type of rightness in the form of flesh, is the countenance of the holder of that sceptre, the Sun-God of Syracuse. But there is nothing in the face (nor did the Greek suppose there was) more perfect than might be seen in the daily beauty of the creatures the Sun-God shone upon, and whom his strength and honour animated. This is not an ideal, but a quite literally true, face of a Greek youth; nay, I will undertake to show you that it is not supremely beautiful, and even to surpass it altogether with the literal portrait of an Italian one. It is in verity no more than the form habitually taken by the features of a well educated young Athenian or Sicilian citizen; and the one requirement for the sculptors of to-day is not, as it has been thought, to invent the same ideal, but merely to see the same reality.

Now, you know I told you in my fourth lecture, that the beginning of art was in getting our country clean and our people beautiful, and you supposed that to be a statement irrelevant to my subject; just as, at this moment, you perhaps think, I am quitting the great subject of this present lecture—the method of likeness-making—and letting myself branch into the discussion of what things we are to make likeness of. But you shall see hereafter that the method of imitating a beautiful thing must be different from the method of imitating an ugly one; and that, with the change in subject from what is dishonourable to what is honourable, there will be involved a parallel change in the management of tools, of lines, and of colours. So that before I can determine for you how you are to imitate, you must tell me what kind of face you wish to imitate. The best draughtsmen in the world could not draw this Apollo in ten scratches, though he can draw the self-made man. Still less this nobler Apollo of Ionian Greece, (Plate IX.) in which the incisions are softened into a harmony like that of Correggio's painting. So that you see the method itself,—the choice between black incision or fine sculpture, and perhaps, presently, the choice between colour or no colour, will depend on what you have to represent. Colour may be expedient for a glistening dolphin or a spotted fawn;—perhaps inexpedient for white Poseidon, and gleaming Dian. So that, before defining the laws of sculpture, I am compelled to ask you, what you mean to carve; and that, little as you think it, is asking you how you mean to live, and what the laws of your State are to be, for they determine those of your statue. You can only have this kind of face to study from, in the sort of state that produced it. And you will find that sort of state described in the beginning of the fourth book of the laws of Plato; as founded, for one thing, on the conviction that of all the evils that can happen to a state, quantity of money is the greatest! [Greek: meizon kakon, os epos eipein, polei ouden an gignoito, eis gennaion kai dikaion ethon ktesin], "for, to speak shortly, no greater evil, matching each against each, can possibly happen to a city, as adverse to its forming just or generous character," than its being full of silver and gold.

139. Of course, the Greek notion may be wrong, and ours right, only—[Greek: os epos eipein]—you can have Greek sculpture only on that Greek theory: shortly expressed by the words put into the mouth of Poverty herself, in the Plutus of Aristophanes "[Greek: Tou ploutou parecho beltionas andras, kai ten gnomen, kai ten idean]," "I deliver to you better men than the God of Money can, both in imagination and feature." So on the other hand, this ichthyoid, reptilian, or mono-chondyloid ideal of the self-made man can only be reached, universally, by a nation which holds that poverty, either of purse or spirit,—but especially the spiritual character of being [Greek: ptochoi to pneumati], is the lowest of degradations; and which believes that the desire of wealth is the first of manly and moral sentiments. As I have been able to get the popular ideal represented by its own living art, so I can give you this popular faith in its own living words; but in words meant seriously and not at all as caricature, from one of our leading journals, professedly aesthetic also in its very name, the Spectator, of August 6th, 1870.



"Mr. Ruskin's plan," it says, "would make England poor, in order that she might be cultivated, and refined and artistic. A wilder proposal was never broached by a man of ability; and it might be regarded as a proof that the assiduous study of art emasculates the intellect, and even the moral sense. Such a theory almost warrants the contempt with which art is often regarded by essentially intellectual natures, like Proudhon" (sic). "Art is noble as the flower of life, and the creations of a Titian are a great heritage of the race; but if England could secure high art and Venetian glory of colour only by the sacrifice of her manufacturing supremacy, and by the acceptance of national poverty, then the pursuit of such artistic achievements would imply that we had ceased to possess natures of manly strength, or to know the meaning of moral aims. If we must choose between a Titian and a Lancashire cotton mill, then, in the name of manhood and of morality, give us the cotton mill. Only the dilettantism of the studio; that dilettantism which loosens the moral no less than the intellectual fibre, and which is as fatal to rectitude of action as to correctness of reasoning power, would make a different choice."

You see also, by this interesting and most memorable passage, how completely the question is admitted to be one of ethics—the only real point at issue being, whether this face or that is developed on the truer moral principle.

140. I assume, however, for the present, that this Apolline type is the kind of form you wish to reach and to represent. And now observe, instantly, the whole question of manner of imitation is altered for us. The fins of the fish, the plumes of the swan, and the flowing of the Sun-God's hair are all represented by incisions—but the incisions do sufficiently represent the fin and feather,—they insufficiently represent the hair. If I chose, with a little more care and labor, I could absolutely get the surface of the scales and spines of the fish, and the expression of its mouth; but no quantity of labor would obtain the real surface of a tress of Apollo's hair, and the full expression of his mouth. So that we are compelled at once to call the imagination to help us, and say to it, You know what the Apollo Chrysocomes must be like; finish all this for yourself. Now, the law under which imagination works, is just that of other good workers. "You must give me clear orders; show me what I have to do, and where I am to begin, and let me alone." And the orders can be given, quite clearly, up to a certain point, in form; but they cannot be given clearly in color, now that the subject is subtle. All beauty of this high kind depends on harmony; let but the slightest discord come into it, and the finer the thing is, the more fatal will be the flaw. Now, on a flat surface, I can command my color to be precisely what and where I mean it to be; on a round one I cannot. For all harmony depends, first, on the fixed proportion of the color of the light to that of the relative shadow; and therefore if I fasten my color, I must fasten my shade. But on a round surface the shadow changes at every hour of the day; and therefore all coloring which is expressive of form, is impossible; and if the form is fine, (and here there is nothing but what is fine,) you may bid farewell to color.

141. Farewell to color; that is to say, if the thing is to be seen distinctly, and you have only wise people to show it to; but if it is to be seen indistinctly, at a distance, color may become explanatory; and if you have simple people to show it to, color may be necessary to excite their imaginations, though not to excite yours. And the art is great always by meeting its conditions in the straightest way; and if it is to please a multitude of innocent and bluntly-minded persons, must express itself in the terms that will touch them; else it is not good. And I have to trace for you through the history of the past, and possibilities of the future, the expedients used by great sculptors to obtain clearness, impressiveness, or splendor; and the manner of their appeal to the people, under various light and shadow, and with reference to different degrees of public intelligence: such investigation resolving itself again and again, as we proceed, into questions absolutely ethical; as, for instance, whether color is to be bright or dull,—that is to say, for a populace cheerful or heartless;—whether it is to be delicate or strong,—that is to say, for a populace attentive or careless; whether it is to be a background like the sky, for a procession of young men and maidens, because your populace revere life—or the shadow of the vault behind a corpse stained with drops of blackened blood, for a populace taught to worship Death. Every critical determination of rightness depends on the obedience to some ethic law, by the most rational and, therefore, simplest means. And you see how it depends most, of all things, on whether you are working for chosen persons, or for the mob; for the joy of the boudoir, or of the Borgo. And if for the mob, whether the mob of Olympia, or of St. Antoine. Phidias, showing his Jupiter for the first time, hides behind the temple door to listen, resolved afterwards "[Greek: rhythmizein to agalma pros to tois pleistois dokoun, ou gar hegeito mikran einai symboulen demou tosoutou]," and truly, as your people is, in judgment, and in multitude, so must your sculpture be, in glory. An elementary principle which has been too long out of mind.

142. I leave you to consider it, since, for some time, we shall not again be able to take up the inquiries to which it leads. But, ultimately, I do not doubt that you will rest satisfied in these following conclusions:

1. Not only sculpture, but all the other fine arts, must be for the people.

2. They must be didactic to the people, and that as their chief end. The structural arts, didactic in their manner; the graphic arts, in their matter also.

3. And chiefly the great representative and imaginative arts—that is to say, the drama and sculpture—are to teach what is noble in past history, and lovely in existing human and organic life.

4. And the test of right manner of execution in these arts, is that they strike, in the most emphatic manner, the rank of popular minds to which they are addressed.

5. And the test of utmost fineness in execution in these arts, is that they make themselves be forgotten in what they represent; and so fulfil the words of their greatest Master,

"THE BEST, IN THIS KIND, ARE BUT SHADOWS."

FOOTNOTES:

[123] See date of delivery of Lecture. The picture was of a peasant girl of eleven or twelve years old, peeling carrots by a cottage fire.

[124] In Durer's "Melencholia."

[125] Turner's, in the Hakewill series.



LECTURE V.

STRUCTURE.

December, 1870.

143. On previous occasions of addressing you, I have endeavoured to show you, first, how sculpture is distinguished from other arts; then its proper subjects, then its proper method in the realization of these subjects. To-day, we must, in the fourth place, consider the means at its command for the accomplishment of these ends; the nature of its materials; and the mechanical or other difficulties of their treatment.

And however doubtful we may have remained, as to the justice of Greek ideals, or propriety of Greek methods of representing them, we may be certain that the example of the Greeks will be instructive in all practical matters relating to this great art, peculiarly their own. I think even the evidence I have already laid before you is enough to convince you, that it was by rightness and reality, not by idealism or delightfulness only, that their minds were finally guided; and I am sure that, before closing the present course, I shall be able so far to complete that evidence, as to prove to you that the commonly received notions of classic art are, not only unfounded, but even in many respects, directly contrary to the truth. You are constantly told that Greece idealized whatever she contemplated. She did the exact contrary: she realized and verified it. You are constantly told she sought only the beautiful. She sought, indeed, with all her heart; but she found, because she never doubted that the search was to be consistent with propriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discern in Greek work is the first which you ought to discern in all work; namely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtained by simple and unostentatious means.

144. "That the object of the work has been rational!" Consider how much that implies. That it should be by all means seen to have been determined upon, and carried through, with sense and discretion; these being gifts of intellect far more precious than any knowledge of mathematics, or of the mechanical resources of art. Therefore, also, that it should be a modest and temperate work, a structure fitted to the actual state of men; proportioned to their actual size, as animals,—to their average strength,—to their true necessities,—and to the degree of easy command they have over the forces and substances of nature.

145. You see how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent, insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a thing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with modesty and Equanimity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or singular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious of the skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; no streets that are a weariness to traverse, nor temples that make pigmies of the worshippers.

It is one of the primal merits and decencies of Greek work that it was, on the whole, singularly small in scale, and wholly within reach of sight, to its finest details. And, indeed, the best buildings that I know are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases for sweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it were set by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, at Venice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn, at Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part, cube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. And they are better so.

146. In the chapter on Power in the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," I have stated what seems, at first, the reverse of what I am saying now; namely, that it is better to have one grand building than any number of mean ones. And that is true, but you cannot command grandeur by size till you can command grace in minuteness; and least of all, remember, will you so command it to-day, when magnitude has become the chief exponent of folly and misery, co-ordinate in the fraternal enormities of the Factory and Poorhouse,—the Barracks and Hospital. And the final law in this matter is, that if you require edifices only for the grace and health of mankind, and build them without pretence and without chicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely with little decoration.

147. From these principles of simplicity and temperance, two very severely fixed laws of construction follow; namely, first, that our structure, to be beautiful, must be produced with tools of men; and secondly, that it must be composed of natural substances. First, I say, produced with tools of men. All fine art requires the application of the whole strength and subtlety of the body, so that such art is not possible to any sickly person, but involves the action and force of a strong man's arm from the shoulder, as well as the delicatest touch of his finger: and it is the evidence that this full and fine strength has been spent on it which makes the art executively noble; so that no instrument must be used, habitually, which is either too heavy to be delicately restrained, or too small and weak to transmit a vigorous impulse; much less any mechanical aid, such as would render the sensibility of the fingers ineffectual.[126]

148. Of course, any kind of work in glass, or in metal, on a large scale, involves some painful endurance of heat; and working in clay, some habitual endurance of cold; but the point beyond which the effort must not be carried is marked by loss of power of manipulation. As long as the eyes and fingers have complete command of the material (as a glass blower has, for instance, in doing fine ornamental work)—the law is not violated; but all our great engine and furnace work, in gun-making and the like, is degrading to the intellect; and no nation can long persist in it without losing many of its human faculties. Nay, even the use of machinery, other than the common rope and pully, for the lifting of weights, is degrading to architecture; the invention of expedients for the raising of enormous stones has always been a characteristic of partly savage or corrupted races. A block of marble not larger than a cart with a couple of oxen could carry, and a cross-beam, with a couple of pulleys, raise, is as large as should generally be used in any building. The employment of large masses is sure to lead to vulgar exhibitions of geometrical arrangement,[127] and to draw away the attention from the sculpture. In general, rocks naturally break into such pieces as the human beings that have to build with them can easily lift, and no larger should be sought for.

149. In this respect, and in many other subtle ways, the law that the work is to be with tools of men is connected with the farther condition of its modesty, that it is to be wrought in substance provided by Nature, and to have a faithful respect to all the essential qualities of such substance.

And here I must ask your attention to the idea, and, more than idea,—the fact, involved in that infinitely misused term, "Providentia," when applied to the Divine Power. In its truest sense and scholarly use, it is a human virtue, [Greek: Prometheia]; the personal type of it is in Prometheus, and all the first power of [Greek: techne], is from him, as compared to the weakness of days when men without foresight "[Greek: ephyron eike panta]." But, so far as we use the word "Providence" as an attribute of the Maker and Giver of all things, it does not mean that in a shipwreck He takes care of the passengers who are to be saved and takes none of those who are to be drowned; but it does mean that every race of creatures is born into the world under circumstances of approximate adaptation to its necessities; and, beyond all others, the ingenious and observant race of man is surrounded with elements naturally good for his food, pleasant to his sight, and suitable for the subjects of his ingenuity;—the stone, metal, and clay of the earth he walks upon lending themselves at once to his hand, for all manner of workmanship.

150. Thus, his truest respect for the law of the entire creation is shown by his making the most of what he can get most easily; and there is no virtue of art, nor application of common sense, more sacredly necessary than this respect to the beauty of natural substance, and the ease of local use; neither are there any other precepts of construction so vital as these—that you show all the strength of your material, tempt none of its weaknesses, and do with it only what can be simply and permanently done.

151. Thus, all good building will be with rocks, or pebbles, or burnt clay, but with no artificial compound; all good painting, with common oils and pigments on common canvas, paper, plaster, or wood,—admitting, sometimes for precious work, precious things, but all applied in a simple and visible way. The highest imitative art should not, indeed, at first sight, call attention to the means of it; but even that, at length, should do so distinctly, and provoke the observer to take pleasure in seeing how completely the workman is master of the particular material he has used, and how beautiful and desirable a substance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting its unctious quality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass, its transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; in porphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, one should feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fasten together into rugged walls. In a marble country one should be always more and more astonished at the exquisite colour and structure of marble; in a slate country one should feel as if every rock cleft itself only for the sake of being built with conveniently.



152. Now, for sculpture, there are, briefly, two materials—Clay, and Stone; for glass is only a clay that gets clear and brittle as it cools, and metal a clay that gets opaque and tough as it cools. Indeed, the true use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductile clay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as you like, and which will neither crack, nor tarnish.

All the arts of sculpture in clay may be summed up under the word "Plastic," and all of those in stone, under the word "Glyptic."

153. Sculpture in clay will accordingly include all cast brick-work, pottery, and tile-work[128]—a somewhat important branch of human skill. Next to the potter's work, you have all the arts in porcelain, glass, enamel, and metal; everything, that is to say, playful and familiar in design, much of what is most felicitously inventive, and, in bronze or gold, most precious and permanent.

154. Sculpture in stone, whether granite, gem, or marble, while we accurately use the general term "glyptic" for it, may be thought of with, perhaps, the most clear force under the English word "engraving." For, from the mere angular incision which the Greek consecrated in the triglyphs of his greatest order of architecture, grow forth all the arts of bas-relief, and methods of localized groups of sculpture connected with each other and with architecture: as, in another direction, the arts of engraving and wood-cutting themselves.

155. Over all this vast field of human skill the laws which I have enunciated to you rule with inevitable authority, embracing the greatest, and consenting to the humblest, exertion; strong to repress the ambition of nations, if fantastic and vain, but gentle to approve the efforts of children, made in accordance with the visible intention of the Maker of all flesh, and the Giver of all Intelligence. These laws, therefore, I now repeat, and beg of you to observe them as irrefragable.

1. That the work is to be with tools of men.

2. That it is to be in natural materials.

3. That it is to exhibit the virtues of those materials, and aim at no quality inconsistent with them.

4. That its temper is to be quiet and gentle, in harmony with common needs, and in consent to common intelligence.

We will now observe the bearing of these laws on the elementary conditions of the art at present under discussion.

156. There is, first, work in baked clay, which contracts as it dries, and is very easily frangible. Then you must put no work into it requiring niceness in dimension, nor any so elaborate that it would be a great loss if it were broken, but as the clay yields at once to the hand, and the sculptor can do anything with it he likes, it is a material for him to sketch with and play with,—to record his fancies in, before they escape him—and to express roughly, for people who can enjoy such sketches, what he has not time to complete in marble. The clay, being ductile, lends itself to all softness of line; being easily frangible, it would be ridiculous to give it sharp edges, so that a blunt and massive rendering of graceful gesture will be its natural function; but as it can be pinched, or pulled, or thrust in a moment into projection which it would take hours of chiselling to get in stone, it will also properly be used for all fantastic and grotesque form, not involving sharp edges. Therefore, what is true of chalk and charcoal, for painters, is equally true of clay, for sculptors; they are all most precious materials for true masters, but tempt the false ones into fatal license; and to judge rightly of terra-cotta work is a far higher reach of skill in sculpture-criticism than to distinguish the merits of a finished statue.

157. We have, secondly, work in bronze, iron, gold, and other metals; in which the laws of structure are still more definite.

All kinds of twisted and wreathen work on every scale become delightful when wrought in ductile or tenacious metal, but metal which is to be hammered into form separates itself into two great divisions—solid, and flat.



(A.) In solid metal work, i. e., metal cast thick enough to resist bending, whether it be hollow or not, violent and various projection may be admitted, which would be offensive in marble; but no sharp edges, because it is difficult to produce them with the hammer. But since the permanence of the material justifies exquisiteness of workmanship, whatever delicate ornamentation can be wrought with rounded surfaces may be advisedly introduced; and since the colour of bronze or any other metal is not so pleasantly representative of flesh as that of marble, a wise sculptor will depend less on flesh contour, and more on picturesque accessories, which, though they would be vulgar if attempted in stone, are rightly entertaining in bronze or silver. Verrochio's statue of Colleone at Venice, Cellini's Perseus at Florence, and Ghiberti's gates at Florence, are models of bronze treatment.

(B.) When metal is beaten thin, it becomes what is technically called "plate," (the flattened thing) and may be treated advisably in two ways; one, by beating it out into bosses, the other by cutting it into strips and ramifications. The vast schools of goldsmith's work and of iron decoration, founded on these two principles, have had the most powerful influences over general taste in all ages and countries. One of the simplest and most interesting elementary examples of the treatment of flat metal by cutting is the common branched iron bar, Fig. 8, used to close small apertures in countries possessing any good primitive style of iron-work, formed by alternate cuts on its sides, and the bending down of the several portions. The ordinary domestic window balcony of Verona is formed by mere ribands of iron, bent into curves as studiously refined as those of a Greek vase, and decorated merely by their own terminations in spiral volutes.



All cast work in metal, unfinished by hand, is inadmissible in any school of living art, since it cannot possess the perfection of form due to a permanent substance; and the continual sight of it is destructive of the faculty of taste: but metal stamped with precision, as in coins, is to sculpture what engraving is to painting.

158. Thirdly. Stone-sculpture divides itself into three schools: one in very hard material; one in very soft, and one in that of centrally useful consistence.

A. The virtue of work in hard material is the expression of form in shallow relief, or in broad contours; deep cutting in hard material is inadmissible, and the art, at once pompous and trivial, of gem engraving, has been in the last degree destructive of the honour and service of sculpture.

B. The virtue of work in soft material is deep cutting, with studiously graceful disposition of the masses of light and shade. The greater number of flamboyant churches of France are cut out of an adhesive chalk; and the fantasy of their latest decoration was, in great part, induced by the facility of obtaining contrast of black space, undercut, with white tracery easily left in sweeping and interwoven rods—the lavish use of wood in domestic architecture materially increasing the habit of delight in branched complexity of line. These points, however, I must reserve for illustration in my lectures on architecture. To-day, I shall limit myself to the illustration of elementary sculptural structure in the best material;—that is to say, in crystalline marble, neither soft enough to encourage the caprice of the workman, nor hard enough to resist his will.

159. C. By the true "Providence" of Nature, the rock which is thus submissive has been in some places stained with the fairest colours, and in others blanched into the fairest absence of colour, that can be found to give harmony to inlaying, or dignity to form. The possession by the Greeks of their [Greek: leukos lithos] was indeed the first circumstance regulating the development of their art; it enabled them at once to express their passion for light by executing the faces, hands, and feet of their dark wooden statues in white marble, so that what we look upon only with pleasure for fineness of texture was to them an imitation of the luminous body of the deity shining from behind its dark robes; and ivory afterwards is employed in their best statues for its yet more soft and flesh-like brightness, receptive also of the most delicate colour—(therefore to this day the favourite ground of miniature painters). In like manner, the existence of quarries of peach-coloured marble within twelve miles of Verona, and of white marble and green serpentine between Pisa and Genoa, defined the manner both of sculpture and architecture for all the Gothic buildings of Italy. No subtlety of education could have formed a high school of art without these materials.

160. Next to the colour, the fineness of substance which will take a perfectly sharp edge, is essential; and this not merely to admit fine delineation in the sculpture itself, but to secure a delightful precision in placing the blocks of which it is composed. For the possession of too fine marble, as far as regards the work itself, is a temptation instead of an advantage to an inferior sculptor; and the abuse of the facility of undercutting, especially of undercutting so as to leave profiles defined by an edge against shadow, is one of the chief causes of decline of style in such encrusted bas-reliefs as those of the Certosa of Pavia and its contemporary monuments. But no undue temptation ever exists as to the fineness of block fitting; nothing contributes to give so pure and healthy a tone to sculpture as the attention of the builder to the jointing of his stones; and his having both the power to make them fit so perfectly as not to admit of the slightest portion of cement showing externally, and the skill to insure, if needful, and to suggest always, their stability in cementless construction. Plate X. represents a piece of entirely fine Lombardic building, the central portion of the arch in the Duomo of Verona, which corresponds to that of the porch of San Zenone, represented in Plate I. In both these pieces of building, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, is that of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremest subtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of varied curvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the finest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used, in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement would spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine jointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling the adjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quite gratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only sign of pre-eminence by the minute inlaying of the head of the Lamb, into the stone of the course above.

161. Proceeding from this fine jointing to fine draughtsmanship, you have, in the very outset and earliest stage of sculpture, your flat stone surface given you as a sheet of white paper, on which you are required to produce the utmost effect you can with the simplest means, cutting away as little of the stone as may be, to save both time and trouble; and, above all, leaving the block itself, when shaped, as solid as you can, that its surface may better resist weather, and the carved parts be as much protected as possible by the masses left around them.

162. The first thing to be done is clearly to trace the outline of subject with an incision approximating in section to that of the furrow of a plough, only more equal-sided. A fine sculptor strikes it, as his chisel leans, freely, on marble; an Egyptian, in hard rock, cuts it sharp, as in cuneiform inscriptions. In any case, you have a result somewhat like the upper figure, Plate XI., in which I show you the most elementary indication of form possible, by cutting the outline of the typical archaic Greek head with an incision like that of a Greek triglyph, only not so precise in edge or slope, as it is to be modified afterwards.

163. Now, the simplest thing we can do next, is to round off the flat surface within the incision, and put what form we can get into the feebler projection of it thus obtained. The Egyptians do this, often with exquisite skill, and then, as I showed you in a former lecture, colour the whole—using the incision as an outline. Such a method of treatment is capable of good service in representing, at little cost of pains, subjects in distant effect, and common, or merely picturesque, subjects even near. To show you what it is capable of, and what coloured sculpture would be in its rudest type, I have prepared the coloured relief of the John Dory[129] as a natural history drawing for distant effect. You know, also, that I meant him to be ugly—as ugly as any creature can well be. In time, I hope to show you prettier things—peacocks and kingfishers,—butterflies and flowers, on grounds of gold, and the like, as they were in Byzantine work. I shall expect you, in right use of your aesthetic faculties, to like those better than what I show you to-day. But it is now a question of method only; and if you will look, after the lecture, first at the mere white relief, and then see how much may be gained by a few dashes of colour, such as a practised workman could lay in a quarter of an hour,—the whole forming, if well done, almost a deceptive image—you will, at least, have the range of power in Egyptian sculpture clearly expressed to you.

164. But for fine sculpture, we must advance by far other methods. If we carve the subject with real delicacy, the cast shadow of the incision will interfere with its outline, so that, for representation of beautiful things, you must clear away the ground about it, at all events for a little distance. As the law of work is to use the least pains possible, you clear it only just as far back as you need, and then for the sake of order and finish, you give the space a geometrical outline. By taking, in this case, the simplest I can,—a circle,—I can clear the head with little labor in the removal of surface round it; (see the lower figure in Plate XI.)

165. Now, these are the first terms of all well-constructed bas-relief. The mass you have to treat consists of a piece of stone, which, however you afterwards carve it, can but, at its most projecting point, reach the level of the external plane surface out of which it was mapped, and defined by a depression round it; that depression being at first a mere trench, then a moat of certain width, of which the outer sloping bank is in contact, as a limiting geometrical line, with the laterally salient portions of sculpture. This, I repeat, is the primal construction of good bas-relief, implying, first, perfect protection to its surface from any transverse blow, and a geometrically limited space to be occupied by the design, into which it shall pleasantly (and as you shall ultimately see, ingeniously,) contract itself: implying, secondly, a determined depth of projection, which it shall rarely reach, and never exceed: and implying, finally, the production of the whole piece with the least possible labor of chisel and loss of stone.

166. And these, which are the first, are very nearly the last constructive laws of sculpture. You will be surprised to find how much they include, and how much of minor propriety in treatment their observance involves.

In a very interesting essay on the architecture of the Parthenon, by the professor of architecture of the Ecole Polytechnique, M. Emile Boutmy, you will find it noticed that the Greeks do not usually weaken, by carving, the constructive masses of their building; but put their chief sculpture in the empty spaces between the triglyphs, or beneath the roof. This is true; but in so doing, they merely build their panel instead of carving it; they accept no less than the Goths, the laws of recess and limitation, as being vital to the safety and dignity of their design; and their noblest recumbent statues are, constructively, the fillings of the acute extremity of a panel in the form of an obtusely summitted triangle.

167. In gradual descent from that severest type, you will find that an immense quantity of sculpture of all times and styles may be generally embraced under the notion of a mass hewn out of, or, at least, placed in, a panel or recess, deepening, it may be, into a niche; the sculpture being always designed with reference to its position in such recess; and, therefore, to the effect of the building out of which the recess is hewn.

But, for the sake of simplifying our inquiry, I will at first suppose no surrounding protective ledge to exist, and that the area of stone we have to deal with is simply a flat slab, extant from a flat surface depressed all round it.

168. A flat slab, observe. The flatness of surface is essential to the problem of bas-relief. The lateral limit of the panel may, or may not, be required; but the vertical limit of surface must be expressed; and the art of bas-relief is to give the effect of true form on that condition. For observe, if nothing more were needed than to make first a cast of a solid form, then cut it in half, and apply the half of it to the flat surface;—if, for instance, to carve a bas-relief of an apple, all I had to do was to cut my sculpture of the whole apple in half, and pin it to the wall, any ordinary trained sculptor, or even a mechanical workman, could produce bas-relief; but the business is to carve a round thing out of flat thing; to carve an apple out of a biscuit!—to conquer, as a subtle Florentine has here conquered,[130] his marble, so as not only to get motion into what is most rigidly fixed, but to get boundlessness into what is most narrowly bounded; and carve Madonna and Child, rolling clouds, flying angels, and space of heavenly air behind all, out of a film of stone not the third of an inch thick where it is thickest.

169. Carried, however, to such a degree of subtlety as this, and with so ambitious and extravagant aim, bas-relief becomes a tour-de-force; and, you know, I have just told you all tours-de-force are wrong. The true law of bas-relief is to begin with a depth of incision proportioned justly to the distance of the observer and the character of the subject, and out of that rationally determined depth, neither increased for ostentation of effect, nor diminished for ostentation of skill, to do the utmost that will be easily visible to an observer, supposing him to give an average human amount of attention, but not to peer into, or critically scrutinize the work.

170. I cannot arrest you to-day by the statement of any of the laws of sight and distance which determine the proper depth of bas-relief. Suppose that depth fixed; then observe what a pretty problem, or, rather, continually varying cluster of problems, will be offered to us. You might, at first, imagine that, given what we may call our scale of solidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be in regular proportion, as for instance, if the real depth of your subject be, suppose a foot, and the depth of your bas-relief an inch, then the parts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of it would be carved, you might imagine, at the depth of half-an-inch, and so the whole thing mechanically reduced to scale. But not a bit of it. Here is a Greek bas-relief of a chariot with two horses (upper figure, Plate XXI). Your whole subject has therefore the depth of two horses side by side, say six or eight feet. Your bas-relief has, on the scale,[131] say the depth of the third of an inch. Now, if you gave only the sixth of an inch for the depth of the off horse, and, dividing him again, only the twelfth of an inch for that of each foreleg, you would make him look a mile away from the other, and his own forelegs a mile apart. Actually, the Greek has made the near leg of the off horse project much beyond the off leg of the near horse; and has put nearly the whole depth and power of his relief into the breast of the off horse, while for the whole distance from the head of the nearest to the neck of the other, he has allowed himself only a shallow line; knowing that, if he deepened that, he would give the nearest horse the look of having a thick nose; whereas, by keeping that line down, he has not only made the head itself more delicate, but detached it from the other by giving no cast shadow, and left the shadow below to serve for thickness of breast, cutting it as sharp down as he possibly can, to make it bolder.

171. Here is a fine piece of business we have got into!—even supposing that all this selection and adaptation were to be contrived under constant laws, and related only to the expression of given forms. But the Greek sculptor, all this while, is not only debating and deciding how to show what he wants, but, much more, debating and deciding what, as he can't show everything, he will choose to show at all. Thus, being himself interested, and supposing that you will be, in the manner of the driving, he takes great pains to carve the reins, to show you where they are knotted, and how they are fastened round the driver's waist (you recollect how Hippolytus was lost by doing that), but he does not care the least bit about the chariot, and having rather more geometry than he likes in the cross and circle of one wheel of it, entirely omits the other!

172. I think you must see by this time that the sculptor's is not quite a trade which you can teach like brickmaking; nor its produce an article of which you can supply any quantity "demanded" for the next railroad waiting-room. It may perhaps, indeed, seem to you that, in the difficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct exertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so, however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and amusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except such as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing and invents easily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weight in mass, of balance, of perspective and opposition, in projecting forms, and of restraint for those which must not project, such as none but the greatest masters have ever completely solved; and they, not always; the difficulty of arranging the composition so as to be agreeable from points of view on all sides of it, being, itself, arduous enough.

173. Thus far, I have been speaking only of the laws of structure relating to the projection of the mass which becomes itself the sculpture. Another most interesting group of constructive laws governs its relation to the line that contains or defines it.

In your Standard Series I have placed a photograph of the south transept of Rouen Cathedral. Strictly speaking, all standards of Gothic are of the thirteenth century; but, in the fourteenth, certain qualities of richness are obtained by the diminution of restraint; out of which we must choose what is best in their kinds. The pedestals of the statues which once occupied the lateral recesses are, as you see, covered with groups of figures, enclosed each in a quatrefoil panel; the spaces between this panel and the enclosing square being filled with sculptures of animals.

You cannot anywhere find a more lovely piece of fancy, or more illustrative of the quantity of result that may be obtained with low and simple chiselling. The figures are all perfectly simple in drapery, the story told by lines of action only in the main group, no accessories being admitted. There is no undercutting anywhere, nor exhibition of technical skill, but the fondest and tenderest appliance of it; and one of the principal charms of the whole is the adaptation of every subject to its quaint limit. The tale must be told within the four petals of the quatrefoil, and the wildest and playfullest beasts must never come out of their narrow corners. The attention with which spaces of this kind are filled by the Gothic designers is not merely a beautiful compliance with architectural requirements, but a definite assertion of their delight in the restraint of law; for, in illuminating books, although, if they chose it, they might have designed floral ornaments, as we now usually do, rambling loosely over the leaves, and although, in later works, such license is often taken by them, in all books of the fine time the wandering tendrils are enclosed by limits approximately rectilinear, and in gracefullest branching often detach themselves from the right line only by curvature of extreme severity.

174 Since the darkness and extent of shadow by which the sculpture is relieved necessarily vary with the depth of the recess, there arise a series of problems, in deciding which the wholesome desire for emphasis by means of shadow is too often exaggerated by the ambition of the sculptor to show his skill in undercutting. The extreme of vulgarity is usually reached when the entire bas-relief is cut hollow underneath, as in much Indian and Chinese work, so as to relieve its forms against an absolute darkness; but no formal law can ever be given; for exactly the same thing may be beautifully done for a wise purpose, by one person, which is basely done, and to no purpose, or to a bad one, by another. Thus, the desire for emphasis itself may be the craving of a deadened imagination, or the passion of a vigorous one; and relief against shadow may be sought by one man only for sensation, and by another for intelligibility. John of Pisa undercuts fiercely, in order to bring out the vigour of life which no level contour could render; the Lombardi of Venice undercut delicately, in order to obtain beautiful lines, and edges of faultless precision; but the base Indian craftsmen undercut only that people may wonder how the chiselling was done through the holes, or that they may see every monster white against black.

175. Yet, here again we are met by another necessity for discrimination. There may be a true delight in the inlaying of white on dark, as there is a true delight in vigorous rounding. Nevertheless, the general law is always, that, the lighter the incisions, and the broader the surface, the grander, caeteris paribus, will be the work. Of the structural terms of that work you now know enough to understand that the schools of good sculpture, considered in relation to projection, divide themselves into four entirely distinct groups:—

1st. Flat Relief, in which the surface is, in many places, absolutely flat; and the expression depends greatly on the lines of its outer contour, and on fine incisions within them.

2nd. Round Relief, in which, as in the best coins, the sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete modulation into form, but is not anywhere undercut. The formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of course, the severest obedience to this law.

3rd. Edged Relief. Undercutting admitted, so as to throw out the forms against a background of shadow.

4th. Full Relief. The statue completely solid in form, and unreduced in retreating depth of it, yet connected locally with some definite part of the building, so as to be still dependent on the shadow of its background and direction of protective line.

176. Let me recommend you at once to take what pains may be needful to enable you to distinguish these four kinds of sculpture, for the distinctions between them are not founded on mere differences in gradation of depth. They are truly four species, or orders, of sculpture, separated from each other by determined characters. I have used, you may have noted, hitherto in my Lectures, the word "bas-relief" almost indiscriminately for all, because the degree of lowness or highness of relief is not the question, but the method of relief. Observe again, therefore—

A. If a portion of the surface is absolutely flat, you have the first order—Flat Relief.

B. If every portion of the surface is rounded, but none undercut, you have Round Relief—essentially that of seals and coins.

C. If any part of the edges be undercut, but the general projection of solid form reduced, you have what I think you may conveniently call Foliate Relief,—the parts of the design overlapping each other in places, like edges of leaves.

D. If the undercutting is bold and deep, and the projection of solid form unreduced, you have full relief.

Learn these four names at once by heart:—

Flat Relief. Round Relief. Foliate Relief. Full Relief.

And whenever you look at any piece of sculpture, determine first to which of these classes it belongs; and then consider how the sculptor has treated it with reference to the necessary structure—that reference, remember, being partly to the mechanical conditions of the material, partly to the means of light and shade at his command.



177. To take a single instance. You know, for these many years, I have been telling our architects with all the force of voice I had in me, that they could design nothing until they could carve natural forms rightly. Many imagine that work was easy; but judge for yourselves whether it be or not. In Plate XII., I have drawn, with approximate accuracy, a cluster of Phillyrea leaves as they grow. Now, if we wanted to cut them in bas-relief, the first thing we should have to consider would be the position of their outline on the marble;—here it is, as far down as the spring of the leaves. But do you suppose that is what an ordinary sculptor could either lay for his first sketch, or contemplate as a limit to be worked down to? Then consider how the interlacing and springing of the leaves can be expressed within this outline. It must be done by leaving such projection in the marble as will take the light in the same proportion as the drawing does;—and a Florentine workman could do it, for close sight, without driving one incision deeper, or raising a single surface higher, than the eighth of an inch. Indeed, no sculptor of the finest time would design such a complex cluster of leaves as this, except for bronze or iron work; they would take simpler contours for marble; but the laws of treatment would, under these conditions, remain just as strict: and you may, perhaps, believe me now when I tell you that, in any piece of fine structural sculpture by the great masters, there is more subtlety and noble obedience to lovely laws than could be explained to you if I took twenty lectures to do it in, instead of one.



178. There remains yet a point of mechanical treatment, on which I have not yet touched at all; nor that the least important,—namely, the actual method and style of handling. A great sculptor uses his tools exactly as a painter his pencil, and you may recognize the decision of his thought, and glow of his temper, no less in the workmanship than the design. The modern system of modelling the work in clay, getting it into form by machinery, and by the hands of subordinates, and touching it at last, if indeed the (so called) sculptor touch it at all, only to correct their inefficiencies, renders the production of good work in marble a physical impossibility. The first result of it is that the sculptor thinks in clay instead of marble, and loses his instinctive sense of the proper treatment of a brittle substance. The second is that neither he nor the public recognize the touch of the chisel as expressive of personal feeling or power, and that nothing is looked for except mechanical polish.

179. The perfectly simple piece of Greek relief represented in Plate XIII., will enable you to understand at once,—examination of the original, at your leisure, will prevent you, I trust, from ever forgetting—what is meant by the virtue of handling in sculpture.



The projection of the heads of the four horses, one behind the other, is certainly not more, altogether, than three-quarters of an inch from the flat ground, and the one in front does not in reality project more than the one behind it, yet, by mere drawing,[132] you see the sculptor has got them to appear to recede in due order, and by the soft rounding of the flesh surfaces, and modulation of the veins, he has taken away all look of flatness from the necks. He has drawn the eyes and nostrils with dark incision, careful as the finest touches of a painter's pencil: and then, at last, when he comes to the manes, he has let fly hand and chisel with their full force, and where a base workman, (above all, if he had modelled the thing in clay first,) would have lost himself in laborious imitation of hair, the Greek has struck the tresses out with angular incisions, deep driven, every one in appointed place and deliberate curve, yet flowing so free under his noble hand that you cannot alter, without harm, the bending of any single ridge, nor contract, nor extend, a point of them. And if you will look back to Plate IX. you will see the difference between this sharp incision, used to express horse-hair, and the soft incision with intervening rounded ridge, used to express the hair of Apollo Chrysocomes; and, beneath, the obliquely ridged incision used to express the plumes of his swan; in both these cases the handling being much more slow, because the engraving is in metal; but the structural importance of incision, as the means of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actual examples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world; one, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, its surface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet; Greek, this, and by a trained workman;—dug up in the temple of Neptune at Corfu;—and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recent alterations, face downwards, under the pavement of St'a Maria Novella;[133] both of them first-rate of their kind; and both of them, while exquisitely finished at the telling points, showing, on all their unregarded surfaces, the rough furrow of the fast-driven chisel, as distinctly as the edge of a common paving-stone.

180. Let me suggest to you, in conclusion, one most interesting point of mental expression in these necessary aspects of finely executed sculpture. I have already again and again pressed on your attention the beginning of the arts of men in the make and use of the ploughshare. Read more carefully—you might indeed do well to learn at once by heart,—the twenty-seven lines of the Fourth Pythian, which describe the ploughing of Jason. There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, nor set down in human words: but this great mythical expression of the conquest of the earth-clay, and brute-force, by vital human energy, will become yet more interesting to you when you reflect what enchantment has been cut, on whiter clay, by the tracing of finer furrows;—what the delicate and consummate arts of man have done by the ploughing of marble, and granite, and iron. You will learn daily more and more, as you advance in actual practice, how the primary manual art of engraving, in the steadiness, clearness, and irrevocableness of it, is the best art-discipline that can be given either to mind or hand;[134] you will recognize one law of right, pronouncing itself in the well-resolved work of every age; you will see the firmly traced and irrevocable incision determining not only the forms, but, in great part, the moral temper, of all vitally progressive art; you will trace the same principle and power in the furrows which the oblique sun shows on the granite of his own Egyptian city,—in the white scratch of the stylus through the colour on a Greek vase—in the first delineation, on the wet wall, of the groups of an Italian fresco; in the unerring and unalterable touch of the great engraver of Nueremberg,—and in the deep driven and deep bitten ravines of metal by which Turner closed, in embossed limits, the shadows of the Liber Studiorum.

Learn, therefore, in its full extent, the force of the great Greek word, [Greek: charasso];—and, give me pardon—if you think pardon needed, that I ask you also to learn the full meaning of the English word derived from it. Here, at the Ford of the Oxen of Jason, are other furrows to be driven than these in the marble of Pentelicus. The fruitfullest, or the fatallest of all ploughing is that by the thoughts of your youth, on the white field of its imagination. For by these, either down to the disturbed spirit, "[Greek: kekoptai kai charassetai pedon];" or around the quiet spirit, and on all the laws of conduct that hold it, as a fair vase its frankincense, are ordained the pure colours, and engraved the just Characters, of AEonian life.

FOOTNOTES:

[126] Nothing is more wonderful, or more disgraceful among the forms of ignorance engendered by modern vulgar occupations in pursuit of gain, than the unconsciousness, now total, that fine art is essentially Athletic. I received a letter from Birmingham, some little time since, inviting me to see how much, in glass manufacture, "machinery excelled rude hand work." The writer had not the remotest conception that he might as well have asked me to come and see a mechanical boat-race rowed by automata, and "how much machinery excelled rude arm-work."

[127] Such as the sculptureless arch of Waterloo Bridge, for instance, referred to in the Third Lecture, Sec. 84.

[128] It is strange, at this day, to think of the relation of the Athenian Ceramicus to the French Tile-fields, Tileries, or Tuileries; and how these last may yet become—have already partly become—"the Potter's field," blood-bought (December, 1870.)

[129] This relief is now among the other casts which I have placed in the lower school in the University galleries.

[130] The reference is to a cast from a small and low relief of Florentine work in the Kensington Museum.

[131] The actual bas-relief is on a coin, and the projection not above the twentieth of an inch, but I magnified it in photograph, for this Lecture, so as to represent a relief with about the third of an inch for maximum projection.

[132] This plate has been executed from a drawing by Mr. Burgess, in which he has followed the curves of incision with exquisite care, and preserved the effect of the surface of the stone, where a photograph would have lost it by exaggerating accidental stains.

[133] These two marbles will always, henceforward, be sufficiently accessible for reference in my room at Corpus Christi College.

[134] That it was also, in, some cases, the earliest that the Greeks gave, is proved by Lucian's account of his first lesson at his uncle's; the [Greek: enkopeus], literally "in-cutter"—being the first tool put into his hand, and an earthenware tablet to cut upon, which the boy pressing too hard, presently breaks;—gets beaten—goes home crying, and becomes, after his dream above quoted, a philosopher instead of a sculptor.



LECTURE VI.

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS.

December, 1870.

181. It can scarcely be needful for me to tell even the younger members of my present audience, that the conditions necessary for the production of a perfect school of sculpture have only twice been met in the history of the world, and then for a short time; nor for short time only, but also in narrow districts, namely, in the valleys and islands of Ionian Greece, and in the strip of land deposited by the Arno, between the Apennine crests and the sea.

All other schools, except these two, led severally by Athens in the fifth century before Christ, and by Florence in the fifteenth of our own era, are imperfect; and the best of them are derivative: these two are consummate in themselves, and the origin of what is best in others.

182. And observe, these Athenian and Florentine schools are both of equal rank, as essentially original and independent. The Florentine, being subsequent to the Greek, borrowed much from it; but it would have existed just as strongly—and, perhaps, in some respects, more nobly—had it been the first, instead of the latter of the two. The task set to each of these mightiest of the nations was, indeed, practically the same, and as hard to the one as to the other. The Greeks found Phoenician and Etruscan art monstrous, and had to make them human. The Italians found Byzantine and Norman art monstrous, and had to make them human. The original power in the one case is easily traced; in the other it has partly to be unmasked, because the change at Florence was, in many points, suggested and stimulated by the former school. But we mistake in supposing that Athens taught Florence the laws of design; she taught her, in reality, only the duty of truth.

183. You remember that I told you the highest art could do no more than rightly represent the human form. This is the simple test, then, of a perfect school,—that it has represented the human form, so that it is impossible to conceive of its being better done. And that, I repeat, has been accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And so narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it cannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire human form. The Greeks perfectly drew, and perfectly moulded the body and limbs; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by command of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and his safety to mortify.

184. The general course of your study here renders it desirable that you should be accurately acquainted with the leading principles of Greek sculpture; but I cannot lay these before you without giving undue prominence to some of the special merits of that school, unless I previously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though less disciplined, excellence of Christian art.

In this and the last lecture of the present course,[135] I shall endeavour, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like outline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of the two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison afterwards; and not answering, observe, at present, for any generalization I give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and more qualified statements.

And in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indifferently of works of sculpture, and of the modes of painting which propose to themselves the same objects as sculpture. And this indeed Florentine, as opposed to Venetian, painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly always did.

185. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest kind—engravings, or, at least, linear drawings, both; one on clay, one on copper, made in the central periods of each style, and representing the same goddess—Aphrodite. They are now set beside each other in your Rudimentary Series. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus, authoritatively assigned by Mr. Newton, in his recent catalogue, to the best period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of engravings executed, probably, by Baccio Baldini, in 1485, out of which I chose your first practical exercise—the Sceptre of Apollo. I cannot, however, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged to set the restricted type of the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside the universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air, earth, and sea; nevertheless the restriction in the mind of the Greek, and expatiation in that of the Florentine, are both characteristic. The Greek Venus Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters symbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the earth by a single flower in her right hand; but the Italian Aphrodite is rising out of the actual sea, and only half risen: her limbs are still in the sea, her merely animal strength filling the waters with their life; but her body to the loins is in the sunshine, her face raised to the sky; her hand is about to lay a garland of flowers on the earth.

186. The Venus Urania of the Greeks, in her relation to men, has power only over lawful and domestic love; therefore, she is fully dressed, and not only quite dressed, but most daintily and trimly: her feet delicately sandalled, her gown spotted with little stars, her hair brushed exquisitely smooth at the top of her head, trickling in minute waves down her forehead; and though, because there's such a quantity of it, she can't possibly help having a chignon, look how tightly she has fastened it in with her broad fillet. Of course she is married, so she must wear a cap with pretty minute pendant jewels at the border; and a very small necklace, all that her husband can properly afford, just enough to go closely round the neck, and no more. On the contrary, the Aphrodite of the Italian, being universal love, is pure-naked; and her long hair is thrown wild to the wind and sea.

These primal differences in the symbolism, observe, are only because the artists are thinking of separate powers: they do not necessarily involve any national distinction in feeling. But the differences I have next to indicate are essential, and characterize the two opposed national modes of mind.

187. First, and chiefly. The Greek Aphrodite is a very pretty person, and the Italian a decidedly plain one. That is because a Greek thought no one could possibly love any but pretty people; but an Italian thought that love could give dignity to the meanest form that it inhabited, and light to the poorest that it looked upon. So his Aphrodite will not condescend to be pretty.

188. Secondly. In the Greek Venus the breasts are broad and full, though perfectly severe in their almost conical profile;—(you are allowed on purpose to see the outline of the right breast, under the chiton:)—also the right arm is left bare, and you can just see the contour of the front of the right limb and knee; both arm and limb pure and firm, but lovely. The plant she holds in her hand is a branching and flowering one, the seed vessel prominent. These signs all mean that her essential function is child-bearing.

On the contrary, in the Italian Venus the breasts are so small as to be scarcely traceable; the body strong, and almost masculine in its angles; the arms meagre and unattractive, and she lays a decorative garland of flowers on the earth. These signs mean that the Italian thought of love as the strength of an eternal spirit, for ever helpful; and for ever crowned with flowers, that neither know seed-time nor harvest, and bloom where there is neither death, nor birth.

189. Thirdly. The Greek Aphrodite is entirely calm, and looks straight forward. Not one feature of her face is disturbed, or seems ever to have been subject to emotion. The Italian Aphrodite looks up, her face all quivering and burning with passion and wasting anxiety. The Greek one is quiet, self-possessed, and self-satisfied; the Italian incapable of rest, she has had no thought nor care for herself; her hair has been bound by a fillet like the Greeks; but it is now all fallen loose, and clotted with the sea, or clinging to her body; only the front tress of it is caught by the breeze from her raised forehead, and lifted, in the place where the tongues of fire rest on the brows, in the early Christian pictures of Pentecost, and the waving fires abide upon the heads of Angelico's seraphim.

190. There are almost endless points of interest, great and small, to be noted in these differences of treatment. This binding of the hair by the single fillet marks the straight course of one great system of art method, from that Greek head which I showed you on the archaic coin of the seventh century before Christ, to this of the fifteenth of our own era—nay, when you look close, you will see the entire action of the head depends on one lock of hair falling back from the ear, which it does in compliance with the old Greek observance of its being bent there by the pressure of the helmet. That rippling of it down her shoulders comes from the Athena of Corinth; the raising of it on her forehead, from the knot of the hair of Diana, changed into the vestal fire of the angels. But chiefly, the calmness of the features in the one face, and their anxiety in the other, indicate first, indeed, the characteristic difference in every conception of the schools, the Greek never representing expression, the Italian primarily seeking it; but far more, mark for us here the utter change in the conception of love; from the tranquil guide and queen of a happy terrestrial domestic life, accepting its immediate pleasures and natural duties, to the agonizing hope of an infinite good, and the ever mingled joy and terror of a love divine in jealousy, crying, "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave."

The vast issues dependent on this change in the conception of the ruling passion of the human soul, I will endeavour to show you, on a future occasion: in my present lecture, I shall limit myself to the definition of the temper of Greek sculpture, and of its distinctions from Florentine in the treatment of any subject whatever, be it love or hatred, hope or despair.

These great differences are mainly the following.

191. 1. A Greek never expresses momentary passion; a Florentine looks to momentary passion as the ultimate object of his skill.

When you are next in London, look carefully in the British Museum at the casts from the statues in the pediment of the Temple of Minerva at AEgina. You have there Greek work of definite date;—about 600 B.C., certainly before 580—of the purest kind; and you have the representation of a noble ideal subject, the combats of the AEacidae at Troy, with Athena herself looking on. But there is no attempt whatever to represent expression in the features, none to give complexity of action or gesture; there is no struggling, no anxiety, no visible temporary exertion of muscles. There are fallen figures, one pulling a lance out of his wound, and others in attitudes of attack and defence; several kneeling to draw their bows. But all inflict and suffer, conquer or expire, with the same smile.

192. Plate XIV. gives you examples, from more advanced art, of true Greek representation; the subjects being the two contests of leading import to the Greek heart—that of Apollo with the Python, and of Hercules with the Nemean Lion. You see that in neither case is there the slightest effort to represent the [Greek: lyssa] or agony of contest. No good Greek artist would have you behold the suffering, either of gods, heroes, or men; nor allow you to be apprehensive of the issue of their contest with evil beasts, or evil spirits. All such lower sources of excitement are to be closed to you; your interest is to be in the thoughts involved by the fact of the war; and in the beauty or rightness of form, whether active or inactive. I have to work out this subject with you afterwards, and to compare with the pure Greek method of thought, that of modern dramatic passion, engrafted on it, as typically in Turner's contest of Apollo and the Python: in the meantime, be content with the statement of this first great principle—that a Greek, as such, never expresses momentary passion.



193. Secondly. The Greek, as such, never expresses personal character, while a Florentine holds it to be the ultimate condition of beauty. You are startled, I suppose, at my saying this, having had it often pointed out to you, as a transcendent piece of subtlety in Greek art, that you could distinguish Hercules from Apollo by his being stout, and Diana from Juno by her being slender. That is very true; but those are general distinctions of class, not special distinctions of personal character. Even as general, they are bodily, not mental. They are the distinctions, in fleshly aspect, between an athlete and a musician,—between a matron and a huntress; but in no wise distinguish the simple-hearted hero from the subtle Master of the Muses, nor the wilful and fitful girl-goddess from the cruel and resolute matron-goddess. But judge for yourselves;—In the successive plates, XV.—XVIII., I show you,[136] typically represented as the protectresses of nations, the Argive, Cretan, and Lacinian Hera, the Messenian Demeter, the Athena of Corinth, the Artemis of Syracuse, the fountain Arethusa of Syracuse, and the Sirem Ligeia of Terina. Now, of these heads, it is true that some are more delicate in feature than the rest, and some softer in expression: in other respects, can you trace any distinction between the Goddesses of Earth and Heaven, or between the Goddess of Wisdom and the Water Nymph of Syracuse? So little can you do so, that it would have remained a disputed question—had not the name luckily been inscribed on some Syracusan coins—whether the head upon them was meant for Arethusa at all; and, continually, it becomes a question respecting finished statues, if without attributes, "Is this Bacchus or Apollo—Zeus or Poseidon?" There is a fact for you; noteworthy, I think! There is no personal character in true Greek art:—abstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue and vice,—yes: but there is no individuality; and the negative holds down to the revived conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo, when he tells you how you are to paint young women, and how old ones; though a Greek would hardly have been so discourteous to age as the Italian is in his canon of it,—"old women should be represented as passionate and hasty, after the manner of Infernal Furies."

194. "But at least, if the Greeks do not give character, they give ideal beauty?" So it is said, without contradiction. But will you look again at the series of coins of the best time of Greek art, which I have just set before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful? Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren, and Arethusa, have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure that if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither reach even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus Urania suggests at first, the idea of a very charming person, but you will find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples; the best I can find of art current in Greece at the great time; and if even I were to take the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already asserted, in The Queen of the Air, has nothing notable in feature except dignity and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic type of great beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could tolerate in their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by the coin represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three vases of the best time, to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was, in popular art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and finally,—and this you may accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness to the most subtle beauty—there is little evidence even in their literature, and none in their art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in infancy, or early childhood.