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Greek   Sculpture 

and 

Modern  Art 


CAMBRIDGE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

ILonUon:    FETTER  LANE,  E.G. 

C.   F.   CLAY,   MANAGER 


i°°,  PRINCES  STREET 

Berlin:  A.  ASHER  AND  CO. 

1Leip>i8  :   F.  A.  BROCKHAUS 

£ein  gork:  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Bombay  anU  Calcutta:   MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD. 

Toronto :  J.  M.  DENT  AND  SONS,  LTD. 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 


All  rights  reserved 


Greek  Sculpture 

and 

Modern  Art 

Two  lectures  delivered  to  the  students 
of  the  Royal  Academy  of  London 

by 


SIR  CHARLES  WALDSTEIN,  Litt.D.,  Ph.D.,  L.H.D. 

Fellow  and  Lecturer  of  King's  College,  Cambridge 

Sometime  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Art,  Reader  in  Classical  Archaeology 
Director  of  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum,  Cambridge,  and  Director  of 
the  American  School  of  Archaeology,  Athens 


with  an  appendix 


ra 


Cambridge  : 

at  the  University  Press 

1914 


PRINTED   BY  JOHN   CLAY,    M.A. 
AT  THK   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


N 

7 

(A/3 
CCp.% 


PRINTED   IN  SRE'tT 


TO 
MY   FRIEND 

GEORGE    LEVESON    GOWER 


PREFACE 

IT  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  the  two 
lectures  on  Sculpture  which  I  delivered  in 
February  of  this  year  to  the  students  of  the  Royal 
Academy  Art  School  should  be  published  in  a 
more  permanent  form.  It  was  held  that  they 
might  prove  useful,  not  only  to  students  of  art,  but 
also  to  the  general  public,  as  an  introduction  into 
the  study  of  sculpture.  My  own  aim  was  a  more 
definite  one. 

The  domain  and  the  aims  of  Art  have  for  many 
centuries  extended  far  beyond  the  mere  expression 
of  Formal  Beauty.  They  have  encroached  in  all 
times,  even  the  earliest,  down  into  the  regions  of 
the  Useful,  they  have  blended  and  united  in  effort 
and  purpose  with  the  wide  and  high  spheres  and 
objects  of  Truth  and  Goodness.  The  artist  may 
primarily  and  ultimately,  in  many  cases  when  great 
works  were  produced,  have  conveyed  deep  thoughts 
in  his  own  peculiar  mode  of  expression,  have  re- 
corded the  True,  the  leading  and  essential  features 
of  things  of  the  outer  world  in  nature  and  of  the 
inner  world  in  man,  have  lifted  high  the  standard  of 
Goodness,  of  human  love  and  happiness,  even  have 


viii  Preface 

approached  in  expression  the  Divine  in  religious 
fervour.  He  may  be,  and  is  often,  spurred  on  and 
inspired  in  his  creation  to  express  his  own  emotions 
and  those  of  mankind,  as  evoked  or  affected  by 
things  that  can  be  realised  through  the  senses,  felt 
or  heard  or  seen.  Or  he  may  set  himself  the 
equally  arduous  and  worthy  task  of  merely  con- 
veying the  truth  of  the  things  themselves  in  the 
clearest  and  most  convincing  methods  of  artistic 
expression.  And  this  is  true  of  Art. 

Still  the  fundamental  truth  of  Art  is  that  it  has 
arisen-  out  of  man's  need  for  harmony  and  beauty, 
prevalent,  if  not  dominant,  in  the  earliest  stages  of 
his  life  of  sense.  As  art,  the  satisfaction  of  this 
fundamental  instinct  in  its  highest  forms  will  always 
remain  its  essential  characteristic,  if  not  its  ultimate 
aim.  The  direct  expression  and  realisation  of 
Formal  Beauty  will  always  be  one  of  the  leading 
purposes  and  aims  of  art,  even  though  it  is  far  from 
being  the  only  aim  of  the  artist.  But  it  must,  to 
some  extent  and  in  some  form,  enter  into  the  mani- 
festation of  the  artist's  work,  however  far  removed 
his  ultimate  purpose  may  be  from  this  primary  and 
elementary  aspect  of  his  effort.  His  truth  in  the 
rendering  of  things — things  of  nature  and  life,  or  of 
his  own  inner  emotional  experience,  must  be  ex- 
pressed through  the  "harmony"  of  that  truth — the 
comic,  the  tragic,  even  the  grotesque,  must  be  the 
harmony  of  the  comic,  the  tragic  and  the  grotesque. 
He  must  combine  in  its  expression  those  aesthetic 
features  which  produce  a  "harmony,"  in  which  every 


Preface  ix 

element  and  every  atom  of  expression  are  united  and 
fused  into  a  living,  an  organic,  whole,  which  is  the 
most  perfect  exposition  of  the  thing  conveyed  through 
an  artistic  vehicle. 

This  being  so,  the  artist  must  have  the  natural 
predisposition  and  bias  in  his  mentality  and  character 
and  imagination  towards  the  beauty-side  of  life.  At 
some  phase  or  other  of  his  education  and  in  his 
development  he  must  cultivate  and  encourage  this 
side  of  his  artistic  nature.  Without  it,  he  may  be 
a  most  skilful  and  painstaking  craftsman  and  may 
produce  works,  which,  because  of  the  technique  and 
the  honesty  of  labour,  are  interesting  and  valuable. 
We  must  be  grateful  for  their  production  and  receive 
them  with  sympathetic  appreciation  ;  but  they  will 
not  be  works  of  art  and  he  will  not  be  an  artist. 
He  may  also  prove  himself  a  most  acute  and  accurate 
observer,  but  he  is  not  therefore  an  artist.  He  may 
manifest  a  highly  developed  emotional  nature  which 
he  endeavours  to  analyse  and  present.  We  may 
be  interested  in  his  psychology  (if  we  can  always  be 
sure  of  having  realised  it  aesthetically  and  accurately 
—which  is  by  no  means  always  the  case),  but  he  is 
therefore  not  yet  an  artist.  It  is  his  primary  sense 
of  Beauty,  his  natural  and  acquired  sense  of  re- 
garding all  things  and  expressing  all  his  feelings  in 
the  light  of  "  harmony,"  that  makes  him  an  artist. 
This  apparent  truism  is  denied  by  many  artists  and 
those  practising  artistic  work,  especially  in  their 
theories,  when  they  write  and  talk ;  and  is  repeated 
by  a  number  of  acute  and  sincere  critics.  We  can 


x  Preface 

understand  and  forgive  this  aberration  on  the  part 
of  the  theorising  artist.  For  he  has  realised  rightly 
in  his  arduous  training  all  the  difficulties  of  technique, 
so  that  it  is  natural  for  him  to  exaggerate  its  im- 
portance and  forget  the  elements  of  his  nature,  his 
origin ;  as  people  are  likely  to  forget  or  ignore  the 
childhood  training  which  made  them  men.  But  we 
ought  not  to  forget  this. 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  the  kind  help  of  Mr 
A.  D.  Knox,  Fellow  of  King's  College,  Cambridge, 
in  revising  the  proofs,  and  also  to  thank  M.  Rodin 
for  his  kindness  in  authorising  me  to  reproduce 
several  of  his  works. 

C.  W. 


NEWTON  HALL, 

NEWTON,  CAMBRIDGE. 

November  i,   1913. 


LIST   OF 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

(at  end) 


PLATE 

I.  Artemis  from  Delos,  Athens. 

II.  Hera  of  Samos,   Louvre. 

III.  Apollo  of  Tenea,  Munich. 

IV.  Archaic  figure  from  the  Acropolis  of  Athens. 

V.  Similar  statue  from  the  Acropolis. 

VI.  Back  view  of  statue  from  the  Acropolis. 

VII.  Archaic  Apollo  from  the  Acropolis. 

VIII.  Female  figure  from  the  Acropolis. 

IX.  Bronze  head  from  Herculaneum,  Naples. 

X.  Marble  figure  from  pediment  of  Aeginetan  temple,  Munich. 

XI.  Head  of  bronze  charioteer  from  Delphi. 

XII.  Bronze    head    of   Polycleitan   Doryphoros   from    Herculaneum, 

Naples. 

XIII.  The  Polycleitan  Diadumenos,  Dresden. 

XIV.  Head  of  the  so-called  Lemnian  Athene,  Bologna. 

XV.  Bronze  head  from  Benevento  in  the  Louvre. 

XVI.  Bronze  statue  from  Cerigo,  Athens. 
XVII.  Bronze  head  from  Herculaneum,  Naples. 

XVIII.  Bronze  head  of  boxer,  Olympia. 

XIX.  Centaur  in  the  Capitoline  Museum,  Rome. 

XX.  Head  of  Apollo,  Western  Pediment,  Olympia. 
Head  from  Eastern  Pediment  of  Olympia. 

XXI.  Head  from  Eastern  Pediment  of  Olympia. 

XXII.  Lapith  Woman,  Western  Pediment,  Olympia. 
Head  of  River-god,  Eastern  Pediment,  Olympia. 

XXIII.  Heads  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 

XXIV.  Heads  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 

XXV.  Heads  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 
Head  from  the  Metopes  of  the  Parthenon. 

XXVI.  Heads  from  the  Metopes  of  the  Parthenon. 

XXVII.  Scopasian  head  from  Acropolis,  Athens. 

XXVIII.  Head  of  Cnidian  Aphrodite,  Vatican,   Rome. 

XXIX.  The  Kaufmann  Aphrodite,  Berlin. 

XXX.  Head  of  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles,  Olympia. 

XXXI.  Head  of  Eros  of  Centocelli,  Vatican. 

XXXII.  Marble  head  in  Dresden. 

XXXIII.  The  Petworth  Aphrodite. 

XXXIV.  Head  from  Chios,  Boston. 

XXXV.  Head   formerly    in    possession    of    M.    Palli,    Athens,    now  in 
Museum  of  Boston. 

XXXVI.  Head  of  Giant  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Altar  at  Pergamon,  Berlin. 

XXXVII.  Head  of  Giant  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Altar  at  Pergamon,  Berlin. 


Xll 


List  of  Illustrations 


PLATE 

XXXVIII.     Head  of  Laokoon,  Vatican,  Rome. 
XXXIX.      Marble  head  in  the  Louvre  Museum. 

XL.  Tomb  of  the  Medici  by  Michelangelo,  Florence.   Photo  Anderson. 

XLI.          Tomb  of  the  Medici  by  Michelangelo,  Florence.  Photo  Anderson. 
X  LI1.         Portrait  of  Octave  Mirbeau  by  Rodin. 
XLIII.        Portrait  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  by  Rodin. 
XLIV.         Portrait  of  Balzac  by  Rodin. 
XLV.         Portrait  of  a  lady  by  Rodin. 
XLVI.         Le  Baiser  by  Rodin. 
XLVII.        Le  Penseur  by  Rodin. 
XLVIII.       Le  Penseur  by  Rodin. 
XLIX.        The  Iron  Age  by  Rodin. 
L.  Danaide  by  Rodin. 

LI.  Horsemen  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 

LII.  Attic  Sepulchral  Slab  (Hegeso  Proxeno),  Athens. 

LIII.  Choiseul-Gouffier  statue  of  an  athlete,  British  Museum. 

LIV.  Standing  Figure,  Westmacott  Youth,  British  Museum. 

LV.  Doryphoros  of  Polycleitos. 

LVI.  The  Angelus  by  J.  F.  Millet.     Photo  Mansell  &  Co. 

LVII.  A  Miner  by  Meunier. 

LVIII.  A  Docker  by  Meunier. 

LIX.  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  by  Rodin,  in  the  Luxembourg  Museum, 

Paris. 

LX.  Theseus  (?  Olympos),  Eastern  Pediment  of  the  Parthenon. 

LXI.  The  Three  Fates  (?  Hestia,  Gaia  and  Thalassa)  from  the  Eastern 

Pediment  of  the  Parthenon. 

LXII.  Niobide  Chiaramonti. 

LXIII.  Charioteer  from  a  Frieze  of  the  Mausoleum  of  Halicarnassos. 

LXIV.  Dresden  Statue,  possibly  reproduction  of  a  Scopasian  type. 

LXV.  Victory  of  Samothrace  in  the  Louvre  Museum. 

LXVI.  Two  heads  from  the  Tegean  Pediment  by  Scopas. 

LXVII.  Hermes  carrying  the  infant  Dionysos,  Olympia. 

LXVIII.  Statuette  of  Aphrodite  or  a  maiden,  Antiquarium,  Munich. 

LXIX.  Marble   copy   of   the   bronze   statue   of  the    athlete  Agias   by 

Lysippus  from  Delphi. 

LXX.  Apoxyomenos,  marble  copy  of  bronze  typical  athlete  statue  by 

Lysippus. 

LXXI.  Portrait  of  Demosthenes. 

LXXII.  So-called  Seneca.     Bronze  from  Herculaneum,  Naples. 

LXXIII.  So-called  Scipio.     Bronze  from  Herculaneum,  Naples. 

LXXIV.  Laokoon,  Vatican,  Rome. 

LXXV.  Frieze  from  the  Altar  of  Pergamon. 

LXXVI.  Toro  Farnese,  Naples. 

LXXVII.  Boy  with  the  Goose.     Greek  genre  sculpture. 

LXXVIII.  Man  wasting  away.     Bronze  statuette. 


GREEK    SCULPTURE 

AND 

MODERN   ART 

The  practice  and  study  of  art  are  at  this  moment 
passing  through  a  critical  phase.  New  standards  of 
art-work  and  of  art-theory  are  being  established. 
They  imply  a  distinct  opposition  to  the  current 
methods,  the  technique  of  art-work;  and  an  opposition 
to  the  general  aim  which  the  artist  previously  held 
before  him,  which,  to  use  one  wide,  though  vague 
and  often  misleading,  term,  may  be  called  the 
realisation  of  beauty.  What  I  hope  to  show  in 
these  two  lectures  is,  that,  whatever  justification 
there  be  in  the  new  aspirations,  in  the  new  methods, 
and  in  the  new  outlook,  the  study  of  Greek  sculpture 
still  remains,  and  will  always  remain,  as  far  as  its 
fundamental  principles  and  its  main  achievements 
are  concerned,  a  subject  which  you  can  study  with 
profit  and  at  some  stage  you  must  study. 

Now  let  us  examine  a  little  more  closely  the 
nature  of  the  present  crisis  in  art,  both  as  regards 
technique  and  as  regards  subject-matter,  the  "how" 
and  the  "what"  of  art,  and  let  us,  if  possible, 
determine  the  "  wherefore  "  in  these  two  questions. 

w.  i 


Greek  Sculpture 


I.     THE  TECHNIQUE. 

As  to  the  question  of  technique  :  Each  period 
in  the  whole  history  of  art  invents,  or  rather 
evolves,  certain  modes  of  dealing  with  the  artistic 
material — in  fact  each  individual  artist  finds  his 
peculiar  mode  of  expression,  which  we  call  his 
"  style."  I  shall  hope  to  show  you  how  the  history 
of  Greek  sculpture  is  to  a  great  extent  the  history 
of  this  process  of  evolving,  modifying,  and  advancing 
the  mode  of  plastic  expression,  the  technique,  in 
order  to  express  more  truthfully  and  adequately  what 
the  artist  desired  to  realise.  It  is  soon  found  (in 
the  history  of  every  art)  that  certain  materials  ex- 
press more  adequately  than  others  the  subject-matter 
and  the  feelings  of  the  artist.  Each  new  material 
requires,  and  consequently  finds  or  evolves,  a  new 
technical  treatment,  new  drawing,  new  design,  and 
new  modelling.  In  ancient  Greece  wood,  clay, 
bronze,  marble  (tinted  or  untinted),  above  all  gold 
and  ivory,  will  be  found  to  have  had  this  effect. 
This  I  shall  illustrate  to  you.  There  is  thus,  on  the 
one  hand,  a  natural  advancement  of  technique  in  the 
course  of  time,  the  successive  artists  and  generations 
of  artists  profiting  by  the  labour  and  the  skill  of  their 
predecessors  in  the  manipulation  of  their  tools  and 
the  elaboration  of  the  material  with  greater  facility 
and  skill,  and  again  modifying  their  technique  by 
the  acquisition  or  adoption  of  new  materials  and  new 
tools.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  also  to 


and  Modern  Art  3 

count  with  a  tendency  to  stereotype  and  retard  this 
natural  progress.  There  is  a  natural  tendency  on 
the  part  of  the  artists  and  the  public  (whose  taste 
the  artists  influence  and  direct)  to  stereotype  the 
technique,  which  gradually  becomes  fixed  as  a  con- 
vention, until  it  may  become  removed,  and  even 
divorced,  from  nature.  There  then  follows  a  revolt 
against  the  tyranny  of  the  established  powers  and 
the  ruling  techniques,  and  there  comes  a  period  of 
revolution  in  which  new  needs  are  advanced  and 
new  experiments  made  in  every  direction.  The  new 
and  the  old  clash  and  struggle,  and  it  is  a  question 
which  will  survive.  This  is  a  most  natural  process 
and  one  that  constantly  repeats  itself  in  history. 

Let  me  illustrate  what  I  have  just  been  main- 
taining by  definite  instances  from  extant  remains  of 
Greek  sculpture. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  earliest  period 
of  Greek  sculpture  wood  was  the  dominant  material 
for  statues  in  the  round,  which  they  called  Xoana. 
Now  let  me  show  you  in  a  series  of  early  Greek 
statues  this  process  of  change  in  technique,  as 
affected  by  change  in  material,  and  illustrate  this 
process  especially  in  the  rendering  of  texture  in 
hair.  The  instances  I  shall  give  will  manifestly 
show  the  influence  upon  the  technique  of  the  dif- 
ferent materials  and  tools  used  for  wood-carving, 
modelling  in  clay  and  metal  work. 

The  three  statues  here  shown  are  the  Artemis 
from  Delos  (Plate  I),  the  Hera  from  Samos  (PI.  II), 
and  the  Apollo  of  Tenea  (PI.  III).  Though  of  early 

I 2 


4  Greek  Sculpture 

dates  themselves,  they  are  transcriptions  into  stone 
of  originals  far  older,  which  were  evidently  in  wood. 
It  will  readily  be  seen  how  the  Artemis  from  Delos, 
ending  in  the  lower  part  in  an  oblong,  with  the  feet 
shown  in  the  front,  reminds  one,  especially  in  the 
lower  part,  of  a  simple  board.  It  is  the  yS/aeras  or 
craw's  board  shape,  which  we  learn  existed  in  the 
earlier  idols,  and  thus  maintains  itself  even  in  the 
early  renderings  of  such  figures  in  stone.  The 
Samian  Hera,  on  the  other  hand,  is  composed  exactly 
within  the  compass  of  a  round  tree-stem,  reminding 
us  almost  of  some  of  the  early  wooden  Niirenberg 
toys  rudely  carved  out  of  wood,  though,  in  compari- 
son with  the  Delian  Artemis,  it  shows  considerable 
advance  in  the  modelling  of  the  female  figure  and 
greater  roundness  of  form.  It  will  be  seen  how  the 
indication  of  texture  in  the  folding  of  the  thicker 
upper  and  the  thinner  under-garment  is  attained  by 
the  cutting  of  parallel  grooves  in  the  manner  of  wood- 
carving.  The  statue  of  the  nude  youth,  called  the 
Apollo  of  Tenea,  though  showing  a  marked  advance 
in  the  art  of  modelling,  is  still  reminiscent  of  the 
early  wood  technique.  The  general  composition  still 
reminds  us  of  the  circumscribed  space  of  a  tree-stem, 
which  primarily  necessitated  the  close  position  of 
the  hands  to  either  thigh,  as  well  as  the  square 
blocking-out  of  the  thighs  behind,  like  the  chopping 
of  wood. 

But,  for  our  purpose  in  the  short  time  before 
us,  it  is  perhaps  most  instructive  to  consider  only 
one  special  feature  in  the  art  of  modelling,  namely, 


and  Modern  Art  5 

the  hair.  If  you  take,  as  regards  this  treatment  of 
hair,  merely  the  long  curls  that  hang  down  from  the 
back  of  the  head  over  the  shoulders  and  breast  in 
two  of  these  female  figures  (Pis.  IV  and  V),  you  will 
see  how  the  rough  texture  of  the  hair  is  here  in- 
dicated by  means  of  a  dog-tooth  pattern,  a  zig-zag 
notching  of  long  strips  of  material,  corresponding 
to  the  rudimentary  process  of  cutting  wood  with  a 
knife,  although  the  statues  are  later  reproductions 
of  the  type  in  stone  in  which  the  technique  of  the 
earlier  wood-carving  survived.  The  same  applies 
markedly  to  the  mass  of  hair  on  the  back  of  one  of 
these  figures  (PI.  VI).  Now,  when  these  curls  pre- 
sent a  succession  of  round  balls,  as  in  the  long  curls 
of  the  Apollo  carrying  a  young  bull  (PI.  VII),  the 
technique  corresponds  more  to  that  of  working  in 
clay,  in  which  successive  pinches  of  the  soft  clay 
produce  these  balls.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
these  curls  represent  a  continuously  twisted  spiral, 
you  have  in  the  marble  copy  (PL  VIII)  a  reproduc- 
tion of  the  peculiar  early  bronze  technique.  For  in 
the  earlier  bronze  sculpture  curls  or  ringlets  are  pro- 
duced by  actually  inserting  bronze  wire,  which  is 
twisted  in  spiral  fashion,  as  will  be  seen  from  the 
bronze  head  from  Herculaneum  (PL  IX)  which  is 
a  good  instance  of  ripe  Archaism  in  which  these 
twisted  wire  curls  are  actually  inserted  above  the 
forehead  and  below  the  braid.  The  snail-like  series 
of  ringlets  surmounting  the  forehead  of  many  heads 
in  marble  belonging  to  the  Archaic  period  are  really 
marble  copies  of  this  peculiar  early  bronze  technique. 


6  Greek  Sculpture 

One  of  the  most  authentic  instances  of  this  is  the 
head  from  the  nude  figure  of  the  Aeginetan  temple 
(PI.  X).  All  the  statues  from  the  pediment  of  this 
temple  are  of  marble  ;  but  the  Aeginetan  school  of 
sculpture  of  that  period  was  especially  famed  for  its 
bronze  work,  and  these  marble  statues  show  very 
clearly  the  predominance  of  the  peculiar  bronze  style 
of  that  school  and  period. 

A  most  important  landmark  in  the  development 
of  bronze  style  during  the  period  of  transition  from 
Archaic  sculpture  to  perfect  freedom  and  naturalism 
in  the  great  art  of  the  5th  century  B.C.  is  furnished  by 
the  famous  Charioteer  of  Delphi  (PL  XI),  a  work 
that  can  be  accurately  dated  about  the  year  470  B.C. 
It  will  here  be  seen  how  the  hair  follows  the  outline 
of  the  scalp  and  skull  in  one  smooth  and  compara- 
tively thin  layer,  distinctly  maintaining  the  shape  of 
the  bony  structure  beneath  the  hair.  The  locks  of 
hair  themselves  are  thus  indicated,  not  so  much  by 
pronounced  modelling  in  the  strong  rise  and  fall  of 
these  locks,  but  rather  by  the  surface  work  in  metal 
corresponding  to  engraving — resembling  rather  a 
metal-worker's  chiselling  than  the  actual  work  of 
the  modeller  in  wax  or  clay.  Higher  relief  and 
greater  freedom  are  shown  by  the  sculptor  in  dealing 
with  the  locks  of  hair  round  the  ear  and  in  the 
delicate  indication  of  the  nascent  whiskers  in  front  of 
the  ears.  Here  he  has  displayed  much  greater  free- 
dom and  naturalism,  as  we  should  expect  from  an 
artist  standing  on  the  very  threshold  of  a  period  of 
complete  freedom.  The  bronze  copy  of  the  head  of 


and  Modern  Art  7 

the  Doryphoros  of  Polycleitos  from  Herculaneum 
(PI.  XII)  in  the  Museum  at  Naples  (which  belongs 
to  the  great  period  about  the  middle  of  the  5th 
century  B.C.)  shows  this  same  bronze  treatment  which 
is  flatly  incised  or  closely  massed  following  the  shape 
of  the  head  ;  but  in  the  head  of  the  Diadumenos  (PI. 
XIII)  by  the  same  sculptor,  where  the  band  which 
the  athlete  is  tying  round  his  head  becomes  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  the  meaning  of  the  whole  figure, 
there  naturally  followed  a  bulging  out  of  the  locks 
above  and  below  the  band.  Thus  the  sculptor  was 
led  to  advance  beyond  the  flat  incised  treatment  of 
locks  of  the  Doryphoros  and  to  model  in  strong 
relief  with  greater  variety  and  sinuosity  each  lock  as 
it  projects  and  intersects  the  neighbouring  curl.  In 
the  same  way  the  head  of  the  so-called  Lemnian 
Athene  (PI.  XIV),  which  has  been  attributed  to 
Pheidias,  and  if  not  by  him  belongs  to  one  of  the 
prominent  artists  about  the  middle  of  the  5th  cen- 
tury B.C.,  shows  a  similar  advance  and  refinement 
in  the  rippling  elaboration  of  the  strands  and  locks 
of  hair  which,  however,  are  still  restrained  from  the 
bolder  and  deeper  incision  of  modelling  of  later 
periods  by  the  traditions  of  the  earlier  bronze  tech- 
nique. A  further  step  is  made  in  the  bronze  bust  in 
the  Louvre  Museum  (PI.  XV)  (supposed  to  have 
been  found  at  Benevento)  which  has  been  ascribed 
to  the  second  half  of  the  5th  century  B.C.,  in  which 
greater  variety  and  depth  of  modelling  are  introduced 
into  the  treatment  of  the  hair.  In  the  next  century, 
owing  especially  to  the  great  advance  made  in  the 


8  Greek  Sculpture 

indication  of  texture  in  the  sister  art  of  painting  and 
more  especially  in  marble  technique,  the  bronze 
treatment  of  hair  still  further  emancipates  itself. 
But  at  first  it  remains  more  conservative  than  the 
treatment  given  in  marble,  and  the  indication  of 
small  ringlets  with  a  crisp  rise  in  each  separate 
lock  is  maintained,  especially  in  the  head  of  athletic 
figures,  as  we  find  it,  for  instance,  in  the  beautiful 
bronze  from  Cerigo  (PI.  XVI).  It  was  owing  chiefly 
to  the  vigorous  naturalism  of  the  greatest  sculptor 
in  bronze  of  that  age  (perhaps  of  the  whole  of  Greek 
art) — Lysippos — that  the  treatment  of  hair  in  bronze 
makes  the  greatest  advance  in  freedom  and  in 
boldness  of  modelling*;  and  we  thus  find  that  in  the 
head  from  Herculaneum  (PI.  XVII)  in  the  Museum 
at  Naples  (which  probably  belongs  to  a  period  suc- 
ceeding Lysippos,  though  the  type  of  head  belongs 
rather  to  the  period  immediately  preceding  him),  the 
locks  which  we  noted  in  the  Cerigo  head  are  each 
one  of  them  modelled  with  a  height  and  variety  of 
relief  which  favours  the  sinuosity  of  the  metallic 
treatment  in  bronze.  This  combination  of  natural- 
ism, if  not  realism,  with  the  accentuation  of  the  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  the  metallic  material  in  bronze, 
is  well  illustrated  in  the  head  of  the  Olympian 
Boxer  (PI.  XVIII),  where,  both  in  the  hair  and  in 
the  beard,  the  single  locks  intertwine  and  cross 
each  other  and  each  single  lock  is  actually  modelled 
and  cast  in  strong  relief.  The  sculptor  revels  still 
more  in  this  achievement  of  his  art, — in  the  delight 
of  displaying  a  sinuosity  of  line  and  form  which  the 


and  Modern  Art  9 

material  itself  suggests,  in  the  period  succeeding  the 
4th  century  B.C.,  when,  as  in  the  Centaurs  (PI.  XIX) 
of  black  marble  (basalte  nero),  which  endeavour  in 
stone  to  imitate  as  closely  as  possible  a  bronze 
statue,  his  modelling  of  the  hair  and  his  indication 
of  the  sinuous  quality  of  bronze  reach  their  highest 
point.  I  may  say,  by  the  way,  that  no  people  have 
realised  so  thoroughly  this  artistic  quality  of  bronze 
and  all  metal  work  as  did  the  Chinese  and  Japanese 
in  their  masterly  casting  of  the  most  delicate  spirals 
and  curves  of  their  best  bronzes.  The  last  phase 
in  the  development  of  the  bronze  technique  in 
Classical  Art  and  the  styles  to  which  it  led  in  the 
later  Hellenistic  periods  in  the  schools  of  Asia 
Minor,  had  its  influence  on  the  marble  work  of  that 
period.  We  saw  before  that,  even  in  the  Archaic 
period,  the  bronze-worker  influenced  the  treatment 
of  the  marble  sculptor  in  dealing  with  hair. 

If  now  we  turn  to  marble  sculpture  we  shall  find 
a  similar  development,  as  regards  the  innovations 
introduced,  as  art  advances ;  and  these  are  directly 
produced  or  modified  by  the  material  used  and  its 
manipulation.  But  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember  in 
dealing  with  Greek  sculpture  that,  even  in  the  earlier 
periods  and  still  more  in  the  flourishing  period  of 
marble  sculpture  during  the  4th  century  B.C.,  poly- 
chromy  and  tinting  were  freely  applied  to  marble 
and  stone  sculpture.  In  the  pedimental  figures  from 
the  temple  of  Zeus  at  Olympia  we  see  a  period  of 
uncertainty  as  regards  the  evolution  of  a  tectonic 
style  appropriate  to  the  material  used.  This  may  be 


io  Greek  Sculpture 

seen  in  all  the  modelling,  and  especially  in  the  hair. 
The  hair  is  indicated  by  conventional  grooving  or  by 
equally  conventional  modelling  of  curves  and  ringlets 
(Pis.  XX  and  XXI);  but  it  is  quite  manifest  that  the 
sculptor  or  sculptors  relied  to  a  considerable  extent 
on  the  intervention  of,  or  assistance  to  be  derived 
from,  colour.  Thus  in  the  head  of  one  of  the  river- 
gods  (PI.  XXII)  the  hair  as  we  now  see  it  is  repre- 
sented by  a  smooth  cap-like  covering ;  but  un- 
doubtedly its  texture  was  indicated  throughout  by 
means  of  colour  which  has  entirely  disappeared. 
The  head  of  one  of  the  Lapith  women  from  the 
Western  Pediment  (PI.  XXII)  is  covered  by  a  cap- 
like  arrangement  of  bands  which  were  no  doubt  pro- 
fusely ornamented  with  colour.  The  mass  of  hair 
jutting  forth  below  the  band  around  the  forehead 
and  the  side  of  the  head  is  now  only  indicated  by  a 
projection  with  a  roughened  surface.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  roughened  surface  served  as  a 
ground  for  the  colour  which  was  applied.  The  extant 
heads  from  the  Parthenon  Frieze(Pls.  XXIII,  XXIV 
and  XXV)  show  a  variety  of  actual  modelling  in 
strands  and  locks  in  which  the  sculptor  worked  with 
free  chisel  and  mallet.  But  we  must  always  remember, 
in  dealing  with  these  works,  not  only  that  they  served 
as  architectural  ornaments  and  were,  therefore,  not  so 
carefully  and  highly  finished,  and  that  colour  was 
to  some  degree  added ;  but,  especially,  that  they 
were  meant  to  be  seen  at  a  considerable  distance 
at  which  these  details  could  only  act  as  masses.  In 
the  earlier  Metopes  from  the  Parthenon  (PI.  XXVI) 


and  Modern  Art  1 1 

we  find  a  variety  of  treatment  in  the  heads  of  Cen- 
taurs and  Lapiths  corresponding  to  what  has  just 
been  said  about  the  sculptures  from  Olympia. 

It  is  especially  in  the  4th  century,  however, 
notably  through  Scopas  and  Praxiteles,  that  marble 
as  a  material  for  the  highest  form  of  sculpture  really 
comes  in,  and  that  its  inherent  artistic  quality  is 
recognised  and  developed.  The  ancient  authors 
directly  tell  us  that  these  two  artists  did  thus  raise 
marble  to  the  height  to  rank  with  the  noblest 
materials  for  artistic  purposes. 

The  Aphrodite  head  from  the  south  slope  of  the 
Acropolis  (PI.  XXVII)  maybe  attributed  to  Scopas. 
It  will  readily  be  perceived  how,  in  the  treatment  of 
the  eye — especially  in  the  softer  treatment  of  the 
parts  surrounding  the  eyeball,  and  in  the  softer 
modelling  of  the  whole  face — the  actual  quality  of 
the  marble,  its  peculiar  power  of  absorbing  and  re- 
flecting light, — thus  accentuating  the  softness  of 
texture  in  the  human  skin, — are  here  felt  by  the 
sculptor  and  directly  utilised  to  produce  his  artistic 
effect.  Especially  is  this  the  case  with  the  hair, 
where  a  certain  superficial  vagueness  and  roughness 
of  texture  (in  contradistinction  to  the  sharp  marking 
and  engraving  of  the  bronze  treatment)  are  intro- 
duced to  absorb  the  light  and,  by  contrast  to  the 
smoother  modelling  of  the  face  itself,  bring  out  the 
true  quality  of  marble  as  they  accentuate  the  differ- 
ences of  texture  in  the  parts  of  the  human  head. 
But  it  must  again  be  remembered  that  in  the  time  of 
Scopas,  especially  by  Praxiteles,  colour  was  called  in 


12  Greek  Sculpture 

to  assist  the  sculptor  in  this  indication  of  texture  by 
means  of  tinting  and  even  by  some  form  of  encaustic 
painting  or  enamelling.  Thus  in  the  head  of  the 
Cnidian  Aphrodite  (PL  XXVIII),  which  unfortu- 
nately we  only  have  in  an  inferior  copy  of  the  Roman 
period,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  hair  was 
tinted  and  colour  was  even  added  to  the  other  parts 
of  the  face.  There  are  two  other  copies  of  the  head 
of  the  Cnidian  Aphrodite  among  many  inferior  ones 
which  come  nearer  to  the  famous  original  in  artistic 
quality  than  does  the  head  of  the  Vatican  statue. 
The  one  was  found  at  Martres  Tolosane  in  France, 
the  other — to  my  mind  the  best  of  all — is  the 
so-called  Kaufmann  head  at  Berlin  (PI.  XXIX). 
The  famous  Hermes  of  Praxiteles  at  Olympia 
(PI.  XXX)  definitely  preserves  traces  of  colour 
and  of  gilding  of  the  sandals.  But  being  an 
original  work  by  that  great  artist — though  far  from 
one  of  his  famous  works — it  more  adequately  re- 
presents his  marble  technique.  The  softness  and 
delicacy  in  the  modelling  of  the  features,  especially 
in  the  deep-sunk  eyes,  present  a  strong  contrast  to 
the  rough  blocking-out  of  the  hair,  which  on  its  part 
again  presents  a  most  marked  contrast  to  the  treat- 
ment of  the  locks  of  the  hair  in  bronze  sculptures  in 
the  instances  we  have  examined  above.  This  bold 
blocking-out  with  rough  surfaces  was  so  new  a 
feature  to  archaeologists  when  the  statue  was  dis- 
covered, that  they  at  first  thought  the  work  was  an 
unfinished  one.  But  it  merely  illustrates  the  main 
thesis  I  am  now  supporting,  that  the  Greeks  boldly 


and  Modern  Art  13 

introduced  innovations  in  technique  corresponding  to 
the  nature  of  the  materials  they  used.  Compared 
with  the  treatment  of  hair  in  the  Archaic  period,  this 
work  shows  the  introduction  of  innovation  as  bold 
as  is,  in  some  respects,  the  work  of  M.  Rodin  by 
contrast  with  that  of  his  predecessors  and  some  of 
his  contemporaries.  But  Praxiteles  adapted  his 
technique  to  his  subjects  and  did  not  establish  a 
convention  of  giving  to  all  the  hair  he  dealt  with 
this  unfinished  appearance.  In  the  case  of  his 
Aphrodite,  the  general  arrangement  of  the  hair 
differs  essentially  from  that  of  the  Hermes.  In  the 
famous  Eros  of  Centocelli  (PI.  XXXI),  which  is  a 
poor  and  late  copy,  I  see  an  underlying  original 
of  Praxitelean  type.  It  will  be  seen  how  the  hair  is 
worked  in  a  mechanical  manner  by  the  late  copyist 
with  mechanically  drilled  grooves  manifesting  hasty 
and  mechanical  workmanship.  But  the  general 
scheme  of  the  hair  shows  Praxitelean  innovation, 
and  no  doubt  the  roughnesses  of  the  surface  in  the 
original  produced  the  wonderful  refractory  effect  in 
the  marble. 

The  sons  and  successors  of  Praxiteles,  as  we 
know  from  ancient  authors,  carried  this  innovation 
of  texture  by  the  surface  treatment  of  the  marble 
still  further  than  did  the  artists  of  the  Praxitelean 
and  Scopasian  periods.  We  must  never  forget  that 
Lysippos  intervened  between  them,  and  that  in  his 
bronze  works  the  sculptor  carried  the  actual  refine- 
ments of  modelling  without  the  aid  of  colour  to  a 
higher  pitch.  A  transition  from  the  Praxitelean 


14  Greek  Sculpture 

style  in  the  indication  of  texture — in  bringing  out 
the  intrinsic  quality  of  the  material  and  in  indicating 
the  softness  of  the  human  skin — is  furnished  by  a 
head  in  Dresden  (PI.  XXXII),  which  to  me  still 
seems  Praxitelean,  but  which  leads  over  to  the  schools 
immediately  succeeding  Praxiteles.  These  are  repre- 
sented by  the  well-known  head  of  Aphrodite  at 
Petworth  (PI.  XXXIII),  and  still  more  perfectly  by 
the  beautiful  head  from  Chios  in  the  Boston  Museum 
(PI.  XXXIV).  It  has  been  suggested  by  Mr  Marshall, 
supported  by  M.  Rodin,  that  this  head  belongs  to 
the  period  of  Praxiteles ;  but  I  venture  to  hold,  and 
believe  that  I  can  prove,  that  from  the  greater  in- 
dividuality given  to  the  type,  the  still  softer  model- 
ling of  features  and  skin,  and  the  further  accentuation 
of  the  qualities  of  marble,  it  belongs  to  the  next  stage, 
in  that  school  identified  with  the  sons  and  successors 
of  Praxiteles.  A  still  further  step  in  this  direction 
is  marked  by  the  Aphrodite  head  (PL  XXXV) 
formerly  in  private  possession  at  Athens  and  now  in 
the  Museum  at  Boston. 

In  the  Pergamene  and  Rhodian  periods  which 
follow,  boldness,  if  not  sensationalism,  of  technique 
is  carried  still  further,  and  the  vigorous  modelling 
in  bronze,  as  introduced  by  Lysippos,  is  blended 
with  supreme  virtuosity  in  the  indication  of  texture  in 
marble.  This  is  best  illustrated  by  the  heads  of  giants 
from  the  Pergamenean  Frieze  (Pis.  XXXVI  and 
XXXVII)  and  the  head  of  Laokoon(Pl.XXXVIII). 
The  high-water  mark  in  this  rendering  of  texture  in 
marble  sculpture  seems  to  me  to  be  attained  by  a 


and  Modern  Art  15 

head,  as  yet  but  little  noted,  in  the  Louvre  Museum 
(PI.  XXXIX),  which  shows  the  individualism  in  the 
modelling  of  each  feature — eyes,  cheek,  mouth  and 
neck — contrasted  with  the  rougher  texture  of  the 
hair,  which  well  illustrates  the  development  of  Greek 
sculpture  in  technique. 

If  now,  with  an  abrupt  stride,  we  turn  to 
modern  times,  it  will  be  most  instructive  to 
examine  a  few  of  the  works  of  M.  Rodin.  I  have 
singled  him  out  among  all  contemporary  sculptors, 
not  only  because  of  his  great  achievement  and  emi- 
nence, but  because  he  has  himself  directly,  or  in- 
directly, undertaken  to  express  by  word  and  criticism 
the  theories  on  which  his  art  is  based  (or  he  supposes 
it  to  be  based) — from  many  of  which  I  venture  to 
differ.  What  is  most  important,  however,  is  that 
his  work  does  mark  a  new  departure  in  the  applica- 
tion of  the  sculptor's  technique,  especially  in  this 
indication  of  texture.  Great  artists  of  the  past, 
especially  Michelangelo,  already  ventured  to  vary 
the  scale  of  finish  in  their  work  in  order  thereby 
to  create  different  values  in  the  co-ordination 
of  parts,  to  express  an  artistic  idea  and  to  widen 
the  range  of  possible  emphasis.  In  the  Tomb  of 
the  Medici  (Pis.  XL  and  XL  I)  Michelangelo  no 
doubt  designedly  left  some  parts  unfinished  in 
order  to  accentuate  all  the  more  strongly  those  that 
were  completed  in  modelling.  M.  Rodin  carries 
this  still  further  in  that,  by  this  relative  contrast, 
with  various  gradations  from  the  elaborately  model- 
led to  the  rough  block  of  material,  he  could  also 


1 6  Greek  Sculpture 

bring  out  the  artistic  quality  of  the  material  he  uses, 
whether  marble  or  bronze.  Take  his  portrait  of 
Octave  Mirbeau  (PI.  XLII)  and  you  will  realise  how 
in  the  highly  finished  and  delicate  modelling  of  the 
whole  face — the  eyebrow,  the  upper  and  lower  eyelid 
with  the  intervening  orb,  the  peculiar  quality  of 
the  flesh  on  the  cheek  of  the  man  no  longer  in  the 
height  of  youth, — contrasted  with  the  almost  metallic 
accuracy  in  the  modelling  of  the  ear ;  the  lines  and 
curves  of  the  nose  and  chin,  contrasted  again  with 
the  rudely  blocked-out  moustache  [I  might  be 
permitted  to  question  whether  a  slightly  greater 
elaboration  of  the  moustache  would  not  have  helped 
to  convey  its  form  and  texture,  while  harmonising 
in  tone  with  the  general  scale  of  finish  of  the  rest  of 
the  head] — and  again,  in  the  wonderful  indication  of 
the  structure  of  the  skull  and  the  gentle  nodosities 
of  the  bald  skin  covering  it,  with  the  delicately 
modelled  thin  hair  on  the  side  of  the  head — there  is 
manifested  the  greatest  mastery  in  the  art  of  model- 
ling and  especially  in  the  indication  of  texture  through 
the  qualities  of  the  marble  material.  But  these 
qualities  are  still  further  emphasised  by  the  mass  of 
drapery  placed  round  the  greater  portion  of  the  head 
in  bold  folds,  which  powerfully  suggests  its  own 
texture  and  which  is  again  varied  in  the  degree  of 
finish  in  the  upper  portions,  as  contrasted  with  the 
lower  portions,  until,  round  the  neck  and  at  the  back 
of  the  head,  the  marble  is  left  in  its  crude  and  un- 
finished state.  There  is  thus  created  a  wide  scale  of 
values  in  light  and  shade,  approaching  to  the  very 


and  Modern  Art  17 

indication  of  colour,  which  can  hardly  be  separated 
from  form  and  chiaroscuro.  But  the  drapery  and  the 
unhewn  marble  surrounding  the  head  itself  help  to 
accentuate  all  the  refinements  of  modelling  in  the  in- 
dication of  texture  in  the  head  itself.  By  their  com- 
parative want  of  elaboration  they,  moreover,  force  the 
eye  to  concentrate  on  what  in  fact — in  real  life  and  in 
art — was  to  the  sculptor  the  one  important  element  of 
his  artistic  effort,  namely,  the  portrait  itself,  the  man's 
head.  Negatively  put,  the  attention  of  the  spec- 
tator is  thus  not  deflected  to  any  other  less  essential 
details  ;  and  positively  it  increases — I  was  almost 
going  to  say  idealises — the  presentation  of  individual 
character  in  the  portrait  of  a  human  head.  The 
same  boldness  of  modelling  is  to  be  noted  in  his 
portrait  of  the  great  painter,  Puvis  de  Chavannes 
(PI.  XLIII),  where  the  breadth  and  boldness  of 
modelling  lead  the  sculptor  to  avoid  some  of  the  re- 
finements in  the  previous  head,  in  order  to  accentuate 
the  sterner  and  more  serious  nature  of  the  character 
of  the  man  whom  he  is  presenting.  A  still  bolder 
step  is  made  in  the  elimination  of  minor  details  in 
his  monument  of  Balzac  (PI.  XLIV).  This  is  an 
outdoor  monument  and  is  thus  meant  to  be  seen 
from  a  distance.  I  regret  to  say  that  I  have  never 
seen  the  original  and  have,  therefore,  not  the  right 
to  pass  a  final  judgment.  But  I  venture  to  doubt 
whether  the  same  effect  of  vigour  could  not  have 
been  produced  by  a  slight  degree  of  more  detailed 
drawing  and  higher  finish.  That  Rodin  is  able  to 
produce  this  highest  finish  when  he  thinks  it 
w.  2 


1 8  Greek  Sculpture 

appropriate  can  be  realised  in  contrast  by  his  T£te  de 
femme  (PI.  XLV)  in  the  Luxembourg,  in  which,  in 
order  to  render  the  peculiarly  charming  and  typical 
qualities  of  French  finesse,  he  models  face,  neck  and 
hair  with  consummate  finish.  I  cannot  leave  the 
work  of  this  great  sculptor  without  pointing  to  a 
few  of  his  ideal  statues.  His  famous  large  work 
called  Le  Baiser  (PI.  XLV  I)  is  one  of  the  great 
masterpieces  of  the  age.  The  depth  and  purity  of 
meaning  in  this  group  of  the  strong  man  and  the 
strong  and  yielding  beautiful  woman  are  here  again 
powerfully  expressed  by  the  supreme  and  legitimate 
means  of  the  sculptor's  art,  in  the  general  com- 
position, in  the  movement  and  rhythm  of  the  figures, 
in  every  aspect  and  in  every  part  of  the  body,  from 
whatever  side  the  group  is  viewed.  But  though  it  is 
called  Le  Baiser  the  eye  of  the  spectator  is  not 
meant  to  dwell  upon  the  heads  and  still  less  the 
lips.  They  are  left  comparatively  unfinished  and 
thus  the  work  does  not  illustrate  a  casual  embrace, 
but  becomes  almost  cosmical  in  its  significance. 

The  same  largeness  of  meaning  and  of  treatment 
applies  to  his  two  masterpieces,  the  two  renderings 
of  Le  Penseur  (here  given  in  two  renderings,  Pis. 
XLV  1 1  and  XLV  1 1 1).  The  powerful  unintellectual 
working  man,  whose  vigorous  development  of  bodily 
strength  has  been  devoted  to  labour,  is  seen  in  one 
moment  of  concentrated  rest,  when  the  muscles 
(though  in  repose)  are  still  in  active  tension.  He 
stops  to  think  and  rest  his  chin  on  his  powerful 
hand,  he  seems  to  ponder  over  his  own  strength,  his 


and  Modern  Art  19 

own  claims,  his  potential  power  and  his  present 
weakness  in  human  society.  These  two  statues 
remain  among  the  greatest  works  of  sculpture  of 
modern  times.  The  same  applies  to  his  nude  figure 
to  which  he  gives  the  title  of  The  Iron  Age  (PI. 
XLIX).  The  arrested  and  complex,  though  har- 
monious, movement  of  the  figure  rising  to  its  erect 
position,  as  if  the  consciousness  of  strength  were 
just  born  in  it,  is  a  most  perfect  rendering  in  every 
respect  of  movement  in  sculpture.  The  sense  of 
form  and  beauty  is  carried  out  in  the  whole  and  in 
every  detail  and  satisfies  the  spectator  by  the  har- 
mony between  life  and  its  meaning  and  beauty  of 
form.  Let  me  finally,  among  the  few  works  of  the 
great  sculptor  that  I  have  singled  out,  draw  at- 
tention to  his  marble  statue  of  the  Danaide  in 
the  Luxembourg  Museum  (PI.  L),  in  which  the 
gradation  between  the  supremely  finished  treatment 
of  the  nude  in  the  modelling  is  accentuated  by  the 
comparative  absence  of  finish  in  the  treatment  of  the 
hair,  which  merges  into  the  suggestive  indication  of 
waves,  roughly  blocked  out,  but  thoroughly  sug- 
gestive of  the  swish  and  movement  of  water.  It 
is  in  this  work  that  the  actual  quality  of  the  marble 
itself  is  again  brought  out  through  the  art  of  model- 
ling and  becomes  an  element  of  aesthetic  delight ; 
as  in  similar  compositions  in  bronze  he  has  used 
that  material  to  produce  aesthetic  pleasure  in  bring- 
ing out  its  intrinsic  metallic  qualities  by  means  of 
his  modelling. 

In   this    rapid    survey   of    sculpture,    past    and 


2O  Greek  Sculpture 

present,  I  have  endeavoured  to  indicate  how  in- 
novations of  artistic  technique  constantly  introduced 
have  tended  to  supersede  the  older  established 
techniques,  and  I  especially  desire  to  remind  you 
that  such  a  struggle  between  old  and  new,  the  pre- 
sent traditions  and  the  aspirations  of  the  future, 
is  nothing  new.  But  I  must  now  remind  you,  in 
limitation  of  my  remarks  about  the  technical  innova- 
tions of  M.  Rodin,  which  we  have  seen  are  artistically 
justified,  that  there  is  danger  lest  such  peculiarities 
of  technique — as,  for  instance,  the  occasional  rough- 
ness of  the  marble  left  in  almost  its  natural  unhewn 
condition — should  become  themselves  a  convention 
to  be  followed,  a  trick  of  craft  arrogating  to  itself 
the  quality  of  a  "style."  Young  disciples  and  even 
apprentices  make  a  positive  quality  of  this  negative 
neglect  of  work,  leaving  their  compositions  un- 
finished and  rough  ;  and  then  the  public,  who  merely 
take  a  superficial  view  of  things,  associate  these 
eccentricities  with  the  well-known  work  of  a  great 
master  and  actually  demand  what  is  only  the 
absence  of  finished  work.  Such  practice  on  *  the 
part  of  novices  reminds  me  of  the  quaint  remark 
of  a  shrewd  Quaker  who,  while  listening  to  the 
exaggerated  rhetorical  display  of  a  young  lawyer 
at  the  Philadelphia  Bar,  said  to  his  neighbour, 
"  How  very  much  our  young  friend  reminds  him- 
self of  Daniel  Webster."  Every  artist  would  do 
well  to  remember  the  dictum  reported  of  the  great 
Greek  sculptor  Polycleitos — the  real  difficulty  of 
the  sculptor's  work  only  begins  when  the  clay 


and  Modern  Art  21 

adheres  to  the  finger-nails.  You  must  be  able  to 
reach  the  high  state  of  finish  in  the  honest  tech- 
nique of  drawing  and  modelling  before  you  can 
allow  yourselves  the  occasional  divergences  in  vary- 
ing this  degree  of  finish  in  order  to  produce  definite 
and  individual  effects.  There  is  one  further  point 
I  should  like  to  impress  upon  you  that,  justifiable 
as  all  these  developments  of  technique  are  in  their 
approach  to  the  rendering  of  texture  in  various 
objects  of  nature,  we  must  not  forget,  that  art  may 
thus  suggest,  but  must  not  imitate.  If  Rodin,  in 
his  marble  group  of  the  Danatde,  produces  so 
striking  an  effect  of  contrast  in  the  modelling  of 
the  nude  female  figure  and  the  composition  of  its 
lines  with  the  system  of  lines  running  in  horizontal 
curves  along  the  pedestal  on  which  the  figure 
itself  is  posed,  he  not  only  emphasises  the  quality 
of  texture  in  the  nude  Dana'ide,  but  he  also  sug- 
gests to  the  eye  of  the  spectator,  in  accordance 
with  his  subject,  the  swish  of  water  over  which 
the  figure  is  bending.  Yet  this  water  and  its  swirl 
are  only  suggested  and  are  not  imitated.  We  never 
forget,  and  we  are  never  meant  to  forget,  that 
it  is  modelled  marble  and  not  flowing  water ;  and  in 
thus  bringing  out  the  quality  of  the  marble  itself, 
the  play  of  light  and  shade,  the  various  refractions 
and  absorptions  of  light  which,  owing  to  his  model- 
ling and  to  the  wavy  treatment  of  the  marble,  he 
presents  to  the  eye,  he  has  produced  in  itself  a 
source  of  artistic  pleasure  which  is  essential  to  the 
sculptor's  art,  belongs  to  him  and  to  no  other  artist, 


22  Greek  Sculpture 

which  he  alone  can  do  and  certainly  can  do  best  in 
presenting  his  subject  of  the  Danaide  as  a  sculptor 
— not  as  a  painter,  a  poet  or  a  musician.  The  poet 
and  the  musician,  and  even  the  painter  and  draughts- 
man, would  treat  the  subject  in  quite  a  different  way 
to  produce  their  own  artistic  effects.  None  of  them 
should  ever  attempt  actually  to  imitate  water.  If 
they  were  foolish  enough  to  do  so,  they  would  (as  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  repeat  to  you  from  another 
point  of  view  later)  challenge  a  comparison  between 
nature  herself  and  art,  much  to  the  detriment  of  art. 
The  consideration  of  this  one  point  brings  me  to 
the  last  question  of  technique  with  which  I  mean  to 
deal  to-day,  the  question  :  "  Where  is  the  limit  to 
this  naturalism  of  technique  ? "  My  answer  is  : 
The  limit  after  all  must  be  sought  for,  and  will  be 
found,  in  the  nature  of  the  material  itself.  As  we 
have  just  recognised  that  M.  Rodin  has  manifested 
a  high  artistic  quality  in  his  sculpture  by  bringing 
out  to  the  full  the  nature  of  the  marble  and,  in  other 
cases,  the  nature  of  the  bronze,  or  whatever  material 
he  may  have  used  in  his  works,  so  the  whole  history 
of  sculpture  shows  that  the  limit  to  the  attempt  at 
producing  natural  illusion  by  means  of  technique  is 
to  be  found  in  the  essential  nature  of  the  material 
which  the  artist  uses.  The  sculptor  after  all  uses 
stone,  metal,  and  other  similar  materials  ;  he  does 
not  reproduce  the  actual  living  flesh,  and  bone,  and 
muscle,  and  skin  ;  nor  water,  nor  trees ;  nor  can  it 
be  his  object  ever  to  deceive  the  spectator  into 
believing  that  he  is  viewing  the  actual  objects  of 


and  Modern  Art  23 

nature  when  he  contemplates  the  work  of  sculpture. 
Though  in  the  treatment  of  your  material,  in  your 
composition,  and  in  your  modelling  you  may  use 
every  means,  however  new  they  may  be,  however 
unaccustomed  the  public  may  be  to  such  artistic 
treatment,  if  they  honestly  tend  to  express  the 
artistic  forms  you  wish  to  put  into  your  work ;  yet 
you  can  only  afford  to  do  this  after  you  have 
genuinely  learnt  modelling  as  such,  as  the  ancient 
Greeks  practised  it  and  have  carried  it  to  the  highest 
point  of  finish  in  their  work.  You  may  be  still 
further  encouraged  in  your  attempt  to  adopt  new 
methods  of  manipulation  when  you  recognise  that 
even  the  ancient  Greeks  were  not  as  limited  in  their 
material  and  in  their  technique  as  we  are.  They 
used  wood,  stone,  clay,  wax,  bronze.  But  one  of 
the  most  important  vehicles  of  plastic  art  in  the 
greatest  periods  was  what  they  called  chryselephan- 
tine sculpture.  These  huge  structures,  representing 
colossal  statues  and  compositions,  with  the  core  of 
wood  and  other  materials,  were  overlaid  with  model- 
led sheets  of  gold  and  delicately  adjusted  ivory  to 
which  were  added  enamels,  covering  and  accentua- 
ting the  raised  designs  and  ornamentations  and 
contributing  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  colour  to 
design  and  modelling.  Their  marble  statues,  more- 
over, were  tinted  and  coloured,  and  they  never 
hesitated  to  call  in  the  aid  of  another  process  or  any 
addition  of  materials  which  would  contribute  to  the 
legitimate  artistic  effect  which  their  work  was  to 
produce.  But  this  boldness  and  fearlessness  in 


24  Greek  Sculpture 

enlarging  technical  possibilities  were  always  regu- 
lated in  the  sculptors  by  the  most  complete  power  of 
composition  and  modelling  in  its  normal  and  central 
form,  by  the  rise  and  fall  of  light  and  shade  which 
the  treatment  of  the  surface  of  their  material  pro- 
duced, giving  the  correct  drawing  in  line  and  in 
mass  of  the  subject  they  wished  to  convey  to  the 
spectator,  and  thus  telling  the  whole  story  by 
means  of  composition  and  modelling  completely  and 
convincingly.  This  modelling,  moreover,  was  in 
conformity  with  the  essential  spirit  of  sculpture  as  a 
monumental  art ;  the  statue  fixing  and  fascinating 
the  eye  of  the  spectator  upon  itself  and  in  itself, 
where  the  artistic  harmony  was  to  be  found  irrespec- 
tive of  surroundings  or  accidental  conditions.  When 
you  are  able  to  produce  such  a  work  by  these 
essential  means  of  the  sculptor's  craft,  then  you  may 
adapt  your  work  to  further  pictorial  or  decorative 
effects,  and  you  may  consider  surroundings  and 
modify  your  technique  in  accordance  with  it.  You 
may  be  bold  when  you  are  masters  of  your  craft,  and 
courage  will  be  a  virtue ;  but  be  sure  that  you  have 
mastered  your  craft.  You  may  find  that  the  earliest 
childish  attempts  of  a  great  master,  his  hasty  sketch 
in  a  few  lines,  are  valued  by  a  subsequent  genera- 
tion, treasured  and  studied,  because  he  was  the 
great  master  who  presented  the  world  with  his 
completed  works.  But  do  not  think  that  you  as 
students  or  apprentices  may  directly  aim  at  pro- 
ducing works  corresponding  to  these  childish  en- 
deavours or  mere  sketches,  when  you  have  not 


and  Modern  Art  25 

proved  your  power  in  finished  work.  So  too  a 
definite  or  peculiar  subject  or  situation  may  call  for, 
and  justify,  a  new  and  peculiar  technical  treatment 
and  innovation.  This  may  be  right ;  but  beware 
lest  you  make  an  exclusive  habit  or  a  general  method 
of  such  an  exceptional  treatment.  In  the  Parthenon 
Frieze,  which,  as  you  may  know,  rises  to  2j  inches 
from  the  background  and  frequently  presents  two  or 
three  layers  of  figures,  riders  and  horsemen  one 
above  another  (PI.  LI)  on  this  shallow  rise  from  the 
background,  and  was  moreover  seen  under  peculiar 
conditions  of  light  by  the  spectator  standing  39 
feet  below  the  Frieze,  in  this  Parthenon  Frieze, 
I  say,  you  may  find,  for  instance,  that  in  the  bellies 
of  the  horses  and  other  portions  the  outline  is 
enforced  by  a  groove  running  parallel  with  it  and 
that  the  outline  runs  straight  at  right  angles  to  the 
background  of  the  relief.  This  peculiar  treatment 
was  adopted  by  Pheidias  in  order  clearly  to  define 
the  complicated  outline-drawing  of  the  figures  in 
the  Frieze  under  the  peculiar  conditions  of  lighting. 
It  has  accentuated  this  outline,  made  it  clear.  Some 
of  his  immediate  followers  or  contemporaries,  minor 
artists  or  satellites,  reproduced  these  peculiarities  of 
technique,  justified  by  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the 
work,  in  works  in  which  these  peculiar  conditions 
did  not  prevail.  So,  for  instance,  in  some  of  the 
sepulchral  reliefs  (PI.  LI  I),  which  were  meant  to 
be  seen  on  the  eyeline,  the  edge  of  the  relief  runs  at 
right  angles  straight  to  the  background  and  thus 
produces  a  disturbing  and  ugly  surface  when  seen 


26  Greek  Sculpture 

on  the  eyeline.  This  is  an  instance  of  the  intro- 
duction of  what  might  have  been  called  an  inno- 
vation, and  of  the  slavish  reproduction  of  tricks  of 
technique  evolved  by  a  great  master  with  a  de- 
finite purpose  but  not  meant  to  become  a  normal 
part  of  the  sculptor's  technique. 

But  let  us  turn  to  modern  times,  our  own  im- 
mediate days.  I  have,  for  instance,  seen  the  intro- 
duction of  a  dark  brownish  line  surrounding  the 
contour  of  face  and  figure,  or  of  objects  in  landscapes, 
to  heighten  the  relief  and  to  assist  in  the  indication 
of  aerial  perspective.  This  may  sometimes  be  justi- 
fiable and  add  a  desired  effect.  But  to  see,  as  I 
have  recently  seen,  a  whole  technique  as  it  were 
made  of  this  one  peculiar  experiment,  and  to  see 
nearly  all  faces  and  all  outlines  of  clouds  cumbered 
and  coarsened  by  the  introduction  of  such  a  dark 
edging,  is  an  aberration  of  pictorial  technique  and 
only  shows  the  vicious  exaggeration  of  a  tendency 
which  may  have  sprung  from  qualities  that  point 
to  a  virtue, — I  mean  courage  and  the  desire  for 
originality  in  this  extension  of  technical  possibilities. 
Thus  the  reformers  who  revolt  against  what  is 
established  and  scorn  the  idea  of  following  slavishly 
in  the  footsteps  of  their  predecessors  really  fall  into 
the  same  vice  in  a  more  acute  and  exaggerated  form. 
They  follow  slavishly,  not  the  established  rules  nor 
the  achievements  of  the  great  masters,  but  the 
momentary  peculiarities  or  eccentricities  of  one  con- 
temporary master.  The  technique  established  gene- 
rally for  real  drawing  or  modelling  is  then  forsaken. 


and  Modern  Art  27 

The  roughnesses  in  Rodin's  work  without  his  finish 
are  to  be  met  with  in  every  exhibition.  In  their 
revolt  against  classicism  artists  slavishly  follow  a 
new  method  that  has  not  been  tried  by  ages,  simply 
because  it  is  new  and  not  established.  I  would 
beg  you  to  remember  an  important  distinction ;  the 
distinction  between  fashion  and  tradition.  While 
recognising  that  the  attempt  to  widen  the  possi- 
bilities of  artistic  technique  in  new  and  untried 
directions  is  justifiable  and  even  desirable,  you  must 
remember  that  each  innovation  must  win  recognition. 
Like  the  processes  in  nature,  those  of  history,  of 
man's  work  and  achievement,  point  to  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  Each  innovation  must  prove  that  it  is 
the  fittest  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  introduced. 
If  it  is  not,  it  may  become  a  fashion,  but  soon  dies 
away.  If  it  is,  it  establishes  what  we  may  call  an 
artistic  and  technical  tradition.  You  may  endeavour 
to  produce  a  fashion  in  art  which  may  ultimately 
become  a  tradition ;  but  you  must  not  follow  a 
fashion,  though  you  may  and  ought  to  follow  a 
tradition  while  you  are  learning. 


28  Greek  Sculpture 


II.     THE  SUBJECT-MATTER  OF  ART. 

I  have  limited  my  remarks  hitherto  to  the  first 
part  of  the  subject  with  which  we  are  dealing, 
namely,  the  sculptor's  technique.  We  now  come  to 
the  second  part,  the  subject-matter,  the  conception 
of  the  artist,  the  spirit  in  which  he  approaches 
nature  and  chooses  his  subject.  Here  again  we  are 
in  a  great  crisis.  There  is  strife  everywhere,  both 
within  the  public  and  among  the  mass  of  artists, 
between  the  new  and  the  old,  between  the  adopted 
and  prevalent  conception  of  art  and  its  domain  and 
a  revolt  against  these  conceptions  on  the  part  of  a 
group  of  artists,  many  of  them,  I  may  say  most  of 
them,  sincere  and  ardent  enthusiasts  in  the  cause  of 
art.  They  revolt  against  the  restrictions  in  the 
choice  of  their  subject,  as  well  as  in  its  presentation. 
They  wish  to  widen  out  the  domain  of  art  to  com- 
prise the  whole  of  nature  and  of  life.  If  this  domain 
of  artistic  subject  and  of  its  treatment  has  been  fixed 
by  convention,  then  the  revolt  against  such  a  con- 
vention is  normal  and  natural  and  is  a  sign  of 
vitality  and  sincerity.  And  the  process  of  such  a 
struggle  is  the  normal  process  in  the  evolution  of  all 
human  effort  and  achievement.  As  an  old  Greek 
philosopher  said:  "Strife  is  the  essence  of  life"; 
and  such  strife  may  mean  advance  when  it  leads  to 
positive  results.  But  let  me  add  that,  when  it  merely 
means  the  opposition  to  what  has  been  painfully 
evolved  by  logical,  reasonable  effort  on  the  part  of 


and  Modern  Art  29 

previous  ages,  and  the  destruction  of  this  highest 
result  of  human  effort  in  the  past,  it  means  retro- 
gression from  civilisation  to  savagery,  from  cosmos 
to  chaos. 

In  the  history  of  art  this  process  of  struggle  has 
been  a  normal  process  in  all  times.  The  history  of 
Greek  art  is  the  history  of  a  succession  of  such 
struggles  towards  expansion  and  intensification  and 
purification ;  and,  taking  Greek  art  as  a  whole, 
we  have  had  throughout  the  ages  a  succession  of 
revolts  against  its  dominance,  when  its  laws  and 
standards  have  been  so  far  fixed  and  stereotyped  as 
to  have  destroyed  its  essential  spirit  into  what  is 
called  Classicism,  which  is  a  wholly  different  thing 
from  true  Hellenism.  The  history  of  Greek  art  and 
thought,  as  we  shall  see,  belies  all  the  tenets  of  the 
stereotyped  classicist.  Nevertheless  its  essential 
principles  and  its  main  achievement,  as  I  hope  to 
convince  you  in  these  two  lectures,  though  lost  sight 
of  in  the  heat  of  the  battle,  always  re-assert  them- 
selves and  ultimately  hold  their  sway  over  the 
artistic  world — as  they  always  will. 

We  can  thus  distinguish  in  the  history  of  Greek 
art  such  periods  of  struggle  ending  in  the  victory 
and  re-instatement  of  its  essential  spirit.  This  pro- 
cess we  might  call  renaissance.  We  can  distinguish 
in  all  periods  and  climes  such  re-births  of  the  es- 
sential spirit  of  Greek  art.  When  the  realists  and 
sensationalists  in  the  3rd  and  2nd  centuries  B.C.  in 
ancient  Greece  ran  riot  in  the  domain  of  sculpture, 
there  was  such  a  renaissance  in  the  classical  world 


30  Greek  Sculpture 

even  before  the  Christian  era.  You  all  know  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  from  which  event  I  have  bor- 
rowed this  word.  Remember  that  the  cry  of  the 
Renaissance  was  :  "back  to  nature,"  which  to  them 
always  meant  back  to  beauty.  This  Renaissance 
was  carried  on  to  France  and  spread  over  the  whole 
of  Europe.  It  passed  through,  we  might  say,  de- 
generated into,  the  dominant  barocco  of  the  period 
of  Louis  XIV  and  the  chinoiserie  of  Louis  XV, 
until  again  it  led  to  the  revival  under  Louis  XVI 
and  was  fixed  and  made  academic  and  lifeless  among 
the  Davidian  classicists,  against  whom  again  arose 
the  romantic  movement  in  the  early  iQth  century. 
In  England  the  Jacobean  Renaissance,  with  ad- 
mixtures from  the  art  of  France,  from  Holland,  and 
from  China,  led  through  Queen  Anne's  reign  to  the 
efflorescence  of  the  period  in  which  the  brothers 
Adam  set  a  key-note  of  decorative  principles  and 
the  great  i8th  century  painters  imbibed  much  of  the 
sense  of  classical  beauty.  In  sculpture  the  good 
work  of  Canova  and  Thorwaldsen  lost  its  spirit  in 
the  contemplation  of  late  Greek  or  Roman  types  of 
art  and  imposed  the  narrow  tyranny  of  classicism, 
until  true  Hellenism  was  brought  before  the  eyes 
of  the  world  with  the  Elgin  marbles  and  the  later 
discoveries  of  other  purely  Greek  works  in  more 
modern  times,  including  those  interesting  specimens 
of  Archaic  sculpture  which  illustrated  the  vital  pro- 
cesses of  the  art  of  the  Greeks,  until  we  come  to 
our  own  days  when  the  strife  is  raging  anew.  But 
the  victory  of  the  principles  embodied  in  the 


and  Modern  Art  31 

Renaissance,  of  Greek  naturalistic  idealism,  is  con- 
stantly manifested  before  our  eyes.  Let  me  just 
point  to  one  significant  instance  that  the  students 
could  have  witnessed  in  a  definite  locality.  In  the 
United  States  about  40  years  ago  there  began  a 
revolt  against  the  sham  of  Victorian  classicism  in 
architecture.  Great  vitality,  if  not  genius,  was 
shown  in  the  revival  there  headed  by  Richardson ; 
but  it  soon  degenerated  (owing  to  its  mere  opposi- 
tion to  the  main  principles  of  harmony  and  line  and 
form  as  established  by  the  Greeks)  to  an  eccentric 
restless  anarchistic  form  of  architecture,  in  which 
the  picturesque  was  wantonly  introduced  in  defiance 
of  essential  architectural  principles,  and  the  result 
was  again  the  return  to  pure  Hellenic  principles. 

Each  one  of  these  periods  when  you  study  them 
thoroughly  and  dispassionately,  as  true  historians 
and  critics  of  art  (who,  by  the  way,  have  their 
function  and  right  of  existence  as  well  as  the  pro- 
ducing artists,  though  essentially  differing  from  them), 
shows  evidence  of  a  vital  process  and  develop- 
ment, of  adaptation  of  new  needs  in  the  history  of 
man  and  of  human  society.  But  let  me  add,  that 
each  confirms  certain  broad  and  essential  principles 
of  art  which  must  be  adhered  to.  I  may  say  that 
these  principles  were  first  laid  down  by  the  Greeks 
and  are  illustrated  in  their  works.  The  drawing-up 
in  battle  array  of  the  opposing  forces  in  the  struggle 
of  art  in  every  domain  is  not  exceptional,  but  is  the 
normal  process  in  all  times  of  artistic  vitality.  Look 
at  the  opposing  movements  when  the  French  drama 


32  Greek  Sculpture 

of  the  1 7th  and  i8th  centuries  was  tied  down  to 
the  formalism  (let  us,  say  classicism)  of  the  gods 
appearing  with  wigs  and  red  heels.  Remember  the 
powerful  attack  which  Lessing  made  upon  this 
restriction  of  subject  and  treatment,  and  how  the 
whole  sphere  of  actual  life  was  widened  out  by  such 
writers  as  Richardson.  Remember  how  in  more 
recent  times  Balzac  and  Flaubert  and  their  followers 
wrote  long  prefaces  to  justify  the  principles  on  which 
they  produced  their  art.  Remember  the  strife  be- 
tween the  English  poets  and  the  Scotch  reviewers, 
between  the  upholders  of  Lamartine's  lyrics  and 
those  who  realised  the  power  and  courageous  vitality 
of  Victor  Hugo.  Many  of  you  will  recall  the  in- 
sistence with  which  the  admirers  of  Tennyson's 
finished  lyrical  form  opposed  the  rugged  vitality 
with  which  Browning  deals  with  life  and  thought. 
Turn  to  music  and  remember  that  almost  the  same 
words  that  were  used  by  the  opponents  of  Wagner 
against  his  conception  of  harmony  and  orchestration 
were  before  hurled  at  Beethoven  and  are  now  used 
(I  do  not  say  rightly  or  wrongly)  against  Strauss, 
De  Bussy  and  other  living  composers.  I  am  saying 
all  this  merely  to  show  you  that  such  strife  and 
struggle  is  not  exceptional  to  our  own  days,  but 
clearly  marks  the  usual  process  of  artistic  develop- 
ment. The  desire  to  expand,  to  extend  and  to 
intensify  the  practice  of  art,  as  regards  its  technique 
and  as  regards  its  choice  of  subjects,  is  natural  and  is 
right.  But  the  protagonist  must  remember  always 
to  retain  his  sincerity  and  to  keep  his  eye  fixed  on 


and  Modern  Art  33 

the  positive  goal  of  extending  and  intensifying  his 
art  and  must  not  be  conscious  of,  or  even  dwell  and 
insist  upon,  the  fact  of  its  novelty,  still  less  its  eccen- 
tricity.    Nor  must  he  be  absorbed  by  the  negative 
impulse  of  opposing  that  which  has  established  its 
right  of  existence  through  ages  of  sincere  and  de- 
finite effort ;    until,   in  endeavouring  merely  to  be 
different  from  him  whom  he  imagines  to  stand  in 
his  way,  he  loses   sight  of  the  real  positive  goal 
towards  which  he  is  struggling.     He  must  expect 
from  the  nature  of  things  to  be  unrecognised  until 
his  individual  effort  has  at  last  passed  through  the 
stage  of  a  fashion  into  a  justly  established  tradition. 
Please  remember  that  in  the  instances  I  have  just 
mentioned,  the  struggle  between  two  great  directions 
and  schools  of  art,  the   new  school   won  the  day, 
passing  through  the  stage  of  fashion  into  that  of 
tradition.     But  there  were  hundreds,  nay  thousands, 
of  individuals  and  schools  who  endeavoured  to  im- 
pose their  innovations  upon  the  body  of  art  of  whom 
you  have  never  heard  and  whose  efforts  have  flowed 
by  in  the  course  of  time  like  evanescent  ripples  in  a 
rushing  stream.      This  is  especially  the  case  with 
those  movements  that  are  essentially  negative,  simply 
opposed  to  what  is  or  what  has  been  universally  re- 
cognised, without  any  positive  justification  of  their 
own,   which  ought  to   form  the  moving  power   of 
every  effort.     What  I  object  to  in  the  work,  and 
still   more   in   the  written    and   spoken  theories  of 
many  of  the  innovators  of  our   day,   is  not  their 
positive  achievement  when  they  have  really  produced 
w.  t 


34  Greek  Sculpture 

something  that  tells  a  new  story ;  but  their  opposi- 
tion to  what  they  call  beauty.  Their  work  becomes 
often  a  puerile — or,  at  all  events,  an  exaggerated 
— protest  against  that  which  has  hitherto  been 
considered  worthy  of  artistic  effort.  In  painting  a 
head  (they  seem  to  enjoin)  choose  the  fattest  and 
coarsest  peasant  face,  without  a  harmonious  line  of 
refinement  in  it,  without  even  what  we  call  decided 
character  as  indicating  a  marked  and  individual  soul, 
avoid  all  grace  and  refinement  and  distinction,  and 
you  can  then  claim  to  give  nature.  Van  Dyck,  and 
even  Rubens  and  Rembrandt  (they  seem  to  imply), 
did  not  present  human  nature,  because  they  generally 
rendered  superior  types  of  strength  and  refinement. 
If  you  wish  to  represent  a  nude  female  figure,  choose 
a  model  with  the  thinnest  legs,  the  most  exaggerated 
hips,  the  evident  signs  of  want  or  excess,  if  not 
disease,  and  call  her  a  Venus  ;  but  by  all  means  avoid 
what,  through  countless  generations  and  through  the 
actual  laws  of  human  vision  itself,  has  been  estab- 
lished to  be  the  normal  development  of  the  body 
and  the  realisation  of  the  sense  of  proportion  and 
beauty  of  line  and  form.  If  you  wish  to  present 
attitudes  or  movements,  avoid  all  that  is  really  ex- 
pressive of  repose  or  motion,  especially  if  it  also  satis- 
fies the  sense  of  proportion  which  the  normal  human 
eye  craves  for  in  lines  and  forms  ;  do  not  choose  this 
attitude  of  men  standing  at  rest  (Pis.  LIII  and  LIV), 
as  the  Greeks  have  presented  it  with  the  convincing 
suggestion  to  the  eye  of  the  spectator  of  stability  and 
repose,  but  twist  the  one  hip  round  and  turn  the 


and  Modern  Art  35 

one  toe  in  and  the  figure  will  almost  appear  bow- 
legged!  At  all  events  you  will  have  succeeded  in 
avoiding  the  charge  of  having  satisfied  the  sense 
for  beauty  which  the  Greeks  established,  and  you 
can  then  claim  (without  a  particle  of  justice  to  your 
claim)  to  have  "  followed  nature,"  which  you  main- 
tain is  the  only  object  of  the  artist.  But  I  tell  you 
that  you  will  be  emphatically  and  absurdly  wrong  in 
attributing  to  nature  your  own  vagaries.  For  re- 
member that  if  nature  produces  the  individual,  she 
also  produces  the  type ;  in  fact  that  she  is  chiefly 
concerned  in  producing  the  type,  or  the  genus  and 
species,  in  the  whole  history  of  her  noble  struggle. 
If  nature  presents  to  you  movement,  she  does  so 
not  only  in  the  individual !  Remember  that  every 
individual  varies  in  the  manner  of  carrying  out  such 
movement.  No  two  horses,  not  to  speak  of  men, 
walk  or  move  rapidly  or  jump  alike.  Which  are 
you  to  copy,  if,  in  accordance  with  nature  whom  you 
profess  to  worship,  you  wish  by  means  of  your  art 
convincingly  to  present  us  with  the  act  of  walking 
or  of  jumping  ?  Well  I  will  tell  you  whom  you  are 
to  follow :  Nature,  who  has  established  the  type  of 
such  movement  of  walking  or  jumping  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  movement  itself,  and  the  dis- 
covery and  establishment  of  these  types,  is,  as  I  shall 
endeavour  to  show  you,  the  achievement  of  Greek 
art  of  which  you  saw  a  few  specimens  a  moment  ago. 
There  is  a  certain  right  way  to  move,  adapted  to  the 
organism  of  man  or  animal,  and  used  for  different 
purposes  of  their  lives.  This  is  the  right  way  and  it 

3—2 


36  Greek  Sculpture 

therefore  becomes  the  convincing  form  for  the  artist  to 
present,  and  the  Doryphoros  (PI.  LV)  is  one  of  many 
that  renders  one  important  and  pregnant  moment  in 
this  typical  form  of  movement.  I  may  tell  you  that 
there  is  a  typical — or  ideal  if  you  like — form  in  which 
the  horse  can  jump  and  this  you  must  endeavour  to 
render,  when  you  wish  to  convey  to  the  spectator 
who  stands  before  your  work,  the  act  of  jumping— 
unless  you  wish  to  give  a  portrait  of  one  individual 
horse  with  a  peculiar  style  of  jumping  as  a  portrait. 
But  I  find,  and  I  am  told  by  the  artist  of  the  modern 
school,  that  "  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  watch  the  in- 
dividual movements  of  one  model  and  to  try  and 
catch  it  and  render  it  truthfully  as  you  think  you  see 
it,  and  that  this  is  the  whole  domain  of  art.  But 
whatever  you  do,"  they  maintain,  "  avoid  the  typical 
renderings,  which,  worst  of  all,  lay  claim  to  beauty 
of  line  and  harmony  of  composition.  If  you  have 
merely  run  counter  to  these  accepted  traditions  of 
the  artist  in  the  past  and  to  the  natural  craving  of 
the  art-loving  people  for  the  satisfaction  of  their 
instincts  which  make  for  harmony  and  beauty,  you 
have  then  fulfilled  all  that  sincere,  free,  and  living 
art  ought  to  do." 

The  fundamental  error  of  all  these  vagaries, 
proclaimed  by  would-be  critics  and  by  the  artists 
themselves  (who  fortunately  never  in  their  good 
works  live  up  to  them),  is  caused  by,  what  I  should 
like  to  call,  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ARTISTIC  EQUIVALENCE 
IN  NATURE  AND  LIFE.  They  say  :  "  Draw  and  paint 
and  model  what  you  see,  it  makes  no  difference 


and  Modern  Art  37 

what  it  is.  On  the  contrary,  if  you  dare  to  select 
from  (or,  as  they  choose  to  put  it,  to  improve  upon) 
nature,  you  will  be  committing  the  one  great  crime 
of  art."  To  begin  with,  as  I  have  already  indicated, 
nature  herself  and  life  belie  this  principle  of  equi- 
valence. I  have  already  alluded  to  her  constant 
endeavour  to  establish  the  type  in  life  and  move- 
ment. With  persistent  intensity  she  watches  over 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Human  life  as  well,  in 
the  history  of  the  past  and  in  the  actual  fullness 
of  the  present,  is  struggling  towards  the  same  end. 
As  I  am  moved  by  it  at  this  moment,  let  me  appeal 
to  you  by  a  complex  instance  within  our  own  ex- 
perience. Last  week  we  were  all  thrilled  and 
saddened  by  the  tragic  news  of  the  loss  of  Captain 
Scott  and  his  heroic  assistants.  At  the  same 
moment  we  heard  of  the  death  of  thousands  of 
soldiers  in  the  Near  East.  Did  the  loss  of  each 
individual  life  affect  us  in  the  same  way?  It  is  not 
only  that  the  death  of  the  one  comes  nearer  to  our 
homes,  that  we  knew  of  him  and  not  of  each  one 
of  the  thousands,  sons  of  parents  and  fathers  of 
children,  who  have  died  in  the  East,  that  we  feel 
this  difference.  But  life  itself  has  established  for 
us  this  difference  between  the  life  of  a  Darwin 
and  the  one  unit  of  life  among  the  thousands  who 
leave  no  mark  upon  the  time  they  live  in.  Do  not 
misunderstand  me,  it  would  be  unjust  to  me  to 
charge  me  with  intellectual  or  artistic — forgive  the 
word — snobbery.  I  do  not  say  that  art  should  only 
present  the  life  of  the  leisured  and  prominent  people, 


38  Greek  Sculpture 

it  can  and  must  widen  out  its  spheres  in  every 
direction.  The  subjects  chosen,  for  instance,  by 
J.  F.  Millet  in  painting  (PI.  LVI)  and  by  Meunier 
(Pis.  LVI  I  and  LVI  1 1)  in  sculpture  from  the  lives 
of  peasants  and  labourers  are  of  the  noblest.  A 
novel  presenting,  by  all  the  legitimate  means  of 
that  art,  the  life  history  of  a  servant  may  be,  and 
very  often  is,  nobler  than  one  that  deals  with 
the  life  of  princes  or  heroes.  But  let  me,  by  the 
way,  warn  you  not  to  think  that  the  lives  of  the 
latter  are  not  also  part  of  that  nature  which  you 
worship,  and  that  spurning  or  opposing  the  artistic 
treatment  of  such  spheres  of  life  does  not  of  itself 
make  you  truer  to  nature.  Nor  are  you  justified  in 
making  a  school  or  a  whole  movement  rest  upon 
such  negative  limitations.  If  you  will  allow  me  to 
quote  my  own  words  published  more  than  30  years 
ago  with  regard  to  sculpture,  I  maintained  that : 
"A  marble  Angel  of  Death  bearing  heavenwards 
in  his  arms  a  dead  infant,  with  marble  tears  trickling 
down  the  cheek,  suspended  from  the  ceiling  of  a 
drawing-room  by  a  silver  rope,  has  less  artistic  soul 
than  the  statue  of  this  pugilist."  What  I  am  in- 
sisting upon  now  is  that  nature  herself  does  not 
admit  of  such  a  doctrine  of  equivalence.  But  when 
we  come  to  art,  this  doctrine  leads  us  still  more 
directly  into  the  domain  of  the  absolutely  absurd. 
Science,  though  its  direct  and  ultimate  object  is 
Truth,  towards  the  discovery  of  which  it  must  direct 
every  effort,  must  deal  with  the  facts  as  they  pre- 
sent themselves  and  must  avoid  all  personal  equation 


and  Modern  Art  39 

in  observing  them,  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  laws 
governing  the  phenomena.  In  so  far  science  much 
more  justifiably  maintains  the  doctrine  of  equivalence, 
though  a  great  deal  could  here  be  said  against  such 
an  assumption.  Yet  when  we  come  to  art  the 
adoption  of  such  a  principle  at  once  leads  us  into 
conditions  which  stultify  the  very  nature  of  artistic 
effort.  Even  so  great  an  artist  as  M.  Rodin  preaches 
that  all  the  artist  ought  to  do  is  to  see  and  to  re- 
produce faithfully  what  he  sees,  simply  to  follow 
nature,  for  she  is  always  artistic,  always  beautiful. 
As  he  proceeds  to  develop  his  views  (I  am  not 
referring  to  some  of  his  best  works]  he  begs  the 
whole  question  by  maintaining,  that  the  artist  must 
see  more,  and  more  perfectly,  than  the  ordinary 
man,  that  he  must  render  what  lies  hidden  below 
the  surface,  as  it  were  the  soul  of  the  thing,  that  he 
must  give  character  (what  the  Greeks  called  ethos]. 
In  using  such  terms  he  simply  begs  the  question ; 
for  this  is  not  simply  seeing  and  reproducing  only 
what  we  see.  The  true  artist  cannot,  and  ought 
not,  merely  to  record  what  he  sees  indiscriminately. 
If  that  were  the  object  of  art,  then  it  would,  in  the 
first  instance,  merely  have  the  function  of  recording 
the  facts  as  an  illustrated  text-book  of  science  or  a 
snap-shot  photograph  would  do  it.  Art  would  merely 
be  a  recording  machine,  a  matter  of  convenience ; 
so  that  man  should  have  presented  what  he  happens 
not  to  have  before  him  in  life  at  that  moment. 
Remember  that  then  the  actual  sight  of  the  object 
in  nature  and  life  would  always  be  preferable  to  this 


4O  Greek  Sculpture 

convenient  record  called  art.  A  murder  in  the  street, 
or  a  case  in  a  divorce  court,  would  produce  a  higher 
artistic  impression  than  the  reading  of  the  account 
of  it  in  the  daily  paper,  and  the  latter  a  more  artistic 
rendering  of  both  than  a  novel  or  a  drama  which 
gives  such  incidents  as  they  have  passed  through 
the  brain  of  a  literary  artist.  Still,  neither  the 
seeing  of  such  events  nor  the  transcription  in  the 
daily  press  constitute  a  work  of  art.  And  if  the 
justification  of  art  were  merely  the  most  truthful 
rendering  of  such  aspects  of  nature  and  of  life,  its 
whole  raison  d'etre  would  have  vanished. 

If  you  think  it  misleading  to  use  the  word  BEAUTY 
(which  is  undoubtedly  a  very  complex  term),  let  me 
then  say,  as  practically  Aristotle  did,  that  harmony 
is,  and  ever  will  remain,  the  essence  of  art,  its 
primary  impulse  and  its  ultimate  purpose.  You  may 
conceive  of  this  term  harmony  as  widely  as  you  like, 
but  you  are  bound  to  cling  to  it.  This  harmony 
primarily  means  the  satisfaction  of  man's  sense  of 
form.  Man's  senses,  let  me  remind  you,  are,  after  all, 
also  a  part  of  nature,  and  you  cannot  be  naturalistic, 
true  to  nature,  without  taking  these  into  account  as 
well.  On  purely  physiological  grounds  this  craving 
for  harmony  and  form,  essentially  inherent  in  human 
nature,  demands  satisfaction  ;  and  in  the  course  of 
time  and  in  the  evolution  of  the  human  race  people 
qualified  to  respond  to,  and  to  satisfy,  this  natural 
craving  of  the  human  mind  arose  and  became  artists. 
In  a  great  variety  of  forms  and  by  means  of  vehicles 
of  different  kinds  (tones,  words,  movements,  lines 


and  Modern  Art  41 

and  mass,  and  colour,  etc.)  they  all  endeavoured  to 
express  this  element  in  the  human  mind  and  in 
nature,  and  to  satisfy  that  fundamental  craving.  Out 
of  it  grew  the  need  for  beauty ;  and  this  fundamental 
beauty  of  tone  and  line  and  mass  and  colour  ought 
never  to  be  absent  from  a  true  work  of  art.  It  may 
at  first  only  have  led  to  the  selection  of  a  well- 
rounded  pebble  and  the  symmetrical  cutting  of  a 
cave,  or  the  construction  of  a  wattle-hut ;  to  rude 
carving  of  stone  and  modelling  of  clay  and  the  in- 
cision of  symmetrical  lines ;  but  this  harmony  must 
ever  be  present  in  a  true  work  of  art.  As  the 
horizon  of  man's  life  widened  and  his  experiences 
increased  infinitely  in  number,  and  as  power  of 
thought  outran  his  power  of  observation,  new  forms 
grew  up  in  which  this  need  for  harmony  expressed 
itself.  He  then  followed  nature  in  her  endeavour, 
to  which  I  referred  before,  to  fix  the  natural  type 
for  life  and  its  changes  in  movement,  and  the  Greeks 
came  and  did  this  for  man — though  they  did  much 
more  than  that  besides.  The  idea  of  harmony  was 
then  transferred  to  wider  and  more  complex  spheres 
suited  to  the  special  form  of  expression  which  each 
artist  chose,  and  to  epic  poetry  was  added  lyrical 
poetry  in  ancient  Greece,  and  both  were  joined  in 
the  high  achievement  of  their  immortal  dramatic 
poets  in  dealing  with  the  life  of  man,  his  joys  and 
sufferings,  of  heroes  and  of  demi-gods.  All  was 
presented  harmoniously,  convincingly,  to  force  the 
spectator  into  the  ideal  spheres  of  life,  based  upon 
nature,  replete  with  it,  presenting  it  in  its  highest 


42  Greek  Sculpture 

form.  The  sculptor  and  the  painter  equally  ex- 
tended their  art  into  wider  spheres  of  harmony 
above  and  beyond  the  mere  satisfaction  of  the 
immediate  sense  of  form  which  the  eye  alone  craves 
for.  At  times  it  was  even  essential  to  the  more 
complex  work  of  art  that  parts  of  it  should  not 
represent  the  broader,  and  more  typical,  and  healthy 
form ;  but  should  be  exaggerated  in  its  individuality, 
even  abnormal,  in  order  that  thus  it  should  har- 
monise with  a  wider  idea  into  which  the  artist 
wished  to  raise  his  presentation  of  artistic  harmony. 
But  the  whole  work  would  at  least  have  to  be  har- 
monious in  that  it  expressed  fully  and  convincingly 
what  the  artist  desired  to  convey  by  the  actual 
means  of  that  art,  in  a  manner  most  suited  to  that 
art ;  so  that  it  could  never  be  said  that  some  other 
art,  some  other  form  of  expression,  would  have  done 
this  more  adequately  and  more  harmoniously.  At 
all  events,  any  deviation  from  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  harmony  of  form  would  have  to  be  justified 
in  that  the  deviation  was  dissolved  into  the  wider 
harmony  of  another  and  higher  sphere,  to  which  all 
parts  of  the  work  were  subordinated ;  just  as  an 
occasional  dissonance,  if  not  cacophony,  in  the  course 
of  a  musical  composition  might  be  admissible,  if  it 
is  dissolved  into  a  further  harmony  which  it  ac- 
centuates as  harmony. 

Let  me  illustrate  what  I  have  just  endeavoured  to 
put  to  you  by  a  definite  instance  which  must  be  of  in- 
terest to  you  all,  because  it  has  been  pushed  forward 
in  a  recent  controversy  between  Mr  McColl  and 


and  Modern  Art  43 

Mr  Frederick  Harrison  as  bearing  upon  the  question 
of  beauty  in  art  and  the  actual  struggle  of  the  two 
artistic  camps  that  stand  opposing  one  another  in 
our  own  day.  Among  the  numerous  works  of 
M.  Rodin  there  is  a  statue  in  the  Luxembourg 
called  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  (PL  LIX).  This 
statue,  we  are  told  by  M.  Rodin,  was  inspired  by 
the  beautiful  poem  of  Villon,  in  which,  with  supreme 
pathos,  the  lyrical  poet  describes  the  old  age  of  a 
famous  courtesan,  once  in  the  height  of  beauty,  and 
now  a  shrunken  and  shrivelled  old  woman,  who  has 
nothing  left  but  the  memories  of  a  past  glory  which 
make  the  hideousness  of  her  present  decay  stand  out 
in  the  more  awful  misery  and  tragedy.  M.  Rodin 
might  justify  the  production  of  such  a  statue,  which 
he  could  not  pretend  (as  the  whole  point  is  the 
contrast  between  former  beauty  and  present  decay) 
to  be  anything  but  ugliness,  on  the  ground  of  its 
being  a  presentation  of  nature,  which  the  artist  is 
always  right  in  reproducing  faithfully  ;  and,  if  so, 
he  might  even  maintain  that  it  is  very  beautiful. 
I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  question  of  technical 
modelling.  Let  us  assume  that  it  is  perfect.  But 
I  maintain,  and  emphatically  maintain,  that  the  pro- 
duction of  such  a  statue  is  an  artistic  mistake.  On 
his  own  showing,  it  is  not  only  because  it  is  a 
copy  from  nature,  as  an  unwrapped  mummy  from  a 
mummy-case,  or  a  wax  model  representing  diseased 
states  of  the  body  in  a  medical  museum  might  be, 
that  this  work  claims  to  be  a  work  of  art — though, 
according  to  the  main  doctrine,  that  ought  to  be 


44  Greek  Sculpture 

enough ;  but  because,  as  he  admits,  he  wishes  to 
render  all  that  there  is  in  the  poem  of  Villon  in  a 
work  of  sculpture,  that  the  work  is  decidedly  a  failure. 
He  might  claim  that  he  makes  it  a  kind  of  "  pro- 
gramme sculpture."  He  must  then  present  every 
spectator  with  a  copy  of  Villon's  poem  whenever  the 
latter  stands  before  the  statue ;  and  even  then  the 
work  remains  only  the  presentation  of  a  female 
figure  deformed  in  every  detail  by  the  wear  and 
tear  of  time  and  of  a  life  ending  in  disease,  and 
nothing  more.  It  is  the  worst  form  of  "literary 
sculpture  "  of  which  we  have  had  so  much  by  artists 
who  represent  the  very  opposite  pole  of  the  modern 
realists.  Praxiteles  came  much  nearer  the  mark 
when,  apparently,  he  endeavoured  to  deal  with  a 
similar  situation  in  life ;  for  we  hear  from  Pliny  that 
spectantur  et  duo  signa  eius  (Praxitelis)  diversos 
adfectus  exprimentia,  flentis  matronae  et  meretricis 
gaudentis ;  hanc  putant  Phrynen....  In  this  case 
he  used  his  figure  of  the  weeping  old  woman 
as  a  foil  and  contrast  to  the  beauty  and  form  of 
Phryne,  whose  statue  was  placed  beside  her.  I 
will  not  dwell  upon  the  question  whether  even  this 
attempt  of  Praxiteles  was  worth  making ;  but  I  do 
maintain  that  the  very  opposite  of  man's  craving  for 
form  and  harmony  to  which  this  statue  of  M.  Rodin 
appeals,  the  definite  repulsion  which  it  arouses,  are, 
in  the  work  itself,  not  mitigated  by  its  being  sub- 
ordinated and  absorbed  by  a  higher  artistic  idea. 
He  has  succeeded  in  shocking  the  classicists,  but 
that  is  not  enough.  Villon's  poem  is  a  great  work 


and  Modern  Art  45 

of  art,  and  the  introduction  of  that  subject  by  him 
was  worthy  of  that  art  and  is  worthily  carried  out. 
The  pathos  of  the  situation  not  only  overcomes  any 
sense  of  revulsion,  but  is  even  produced  and  in- 
tensified by  his  suggestion  of  the  decay  of  human 
beauty.  The  principle  of  harmony  which  must 
always  guide  every  art  is  here  sinned  against,  be- 
cause sculpture  is  not  the  proper  vehicle  for  the 
expression  of  these  groups  of  ideas,  and,  instead  of 
there  being  harmony,  there  is  contrast  or  dissonance. 
Poetry  and  sculpture  differ  essentially ;  and  what 
can  be  best  done  in  one,  cannot  be  done  in  the 
other.  It  is  a  mistake  to  attempt  it. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me,  I  am  far  from  main- 
taining that  the  only  subject  the  sculptor  must  aim 
at  is  the  direct  presentation  of  physical  beauty.  The 
abnormal,  even  the  diseased,  may  well  be  introduced 
into  art  if  it  dissolves  itself  into  a  higher  normality, 
the  harmonious  expression  of  some  greater  idea. 
The  raising  of  Lazarus,  the  Crucifixion,  the  numerous 
pictures  and  statues  of  the  Pieta  with  the  emaciated 
body  of  the  Saviour,  the  School  of  Anatomy  by 
Rembrandt,  and  innumerable  other  works  that  I 
might  recall  to  you,  do  represent  forms  of  physical 
suffering  and  disease.  But  there  can  be  no  re- 
vulsion ;  because  they  are  subordinated  to  a  higher 
idea  which  they  help  to  realise  and  impress  and 
which  fixes  the  attention  and  fills  the  soul  of  the 
spectator. 

The  artist  cannot,  and  should  not,  put  his  hand 
into  the  great  grab-bag  of  nature  like  a  blind  child, 


46  Greek  Sculpture 

and  pull  out  for  presentation  in  his  craft  whatever 
he  finds  there. 

But  let  me  impress  upon  you  the  one  great 
rule,  especially  in  view  of  artistic  training,  to  be 
considered  by  those  who  are  still  learning,  who 
are  pupils  or  apprentices  and  not  yet  masters, 
that  you  must  learn  to  realise  and  to  reproduce 
in  your  art  the  normal  and  healthy  and  typical  in 
nature,  before  you  venture  upon  the  expression  and 
impression  of  any  individual  ideas  you  wish  to 
convey,  before  you  turn  to  the  individual,  the  ab- 
normal and  eccentric  in  the  nature  with  which  your 
art  deals.  Do  not  trouble  about  your  own  in- 
dividuality of  expression  or  your  originality.  They 
will  look  after  themselves.  If  they  are  there,  they 
cannot  be  suppressed  by  any  amount  of  study,  of 
discipline,  of  artistic  self-restraint  and  self-efface- 
ment. In  one  word,  cultivate  in  yourselves  the 
sense  of  beauty,  which  is  not  only  a  simple  and 
elementary  factor  in  the  mental  constitution  of  the 
simplest  man,  but  has  also  been  evolved  by  count- 
less ages  of  artists  who  have  impressed  it  upon  the 
consciousness  of  civilised  man.  When  you  have 
this  sense  of  beauty,  when  you  have  realised  the 
broader  types  of  nature,  its  life  and  its  movement, 
you  can  then  afford  freely  to  extend  your  vision  and 
your  artistic  practice  into  any  domain  that  your  own 
creative  soul  prompts  you  to  penetrate.  You  can 
then  be  original,  and  not  only  reproduce  truthfully 
what  you  see ;  but,  what  is  equally  important,  re- 
produce truthfully  what  you  feel.  And  this  latter 


and  Modern  Art  47 

aspect  of  truth  may  perhaps  be  the  most  important 
element  in  a  true  artist's  nature  and  function.  If  we 
wish  to  learn  how  to  write  we  must  not  be  concerned 
with  at  once  acquiring  what  is  called  character  and 
individuality  in  our  handwriting.  We  must  learn  to 
fashion  the  letters  as  they  have  been  fixed  in  their 
normality ;  and,  after  we  have  learnt  accurately  to 
fashion  them,  our  own  individual  handwriting  and 
the  character  it  expresses  will  manifest  itself  in  the 
course  of  protracted  practice.  An  actor  must  learn 
elocution,  the  proper  pronunciation  of  words  in  his 
own  language,  enunciation,  the  use  of  the  voice. 
He  and  the  dancer  must  study,  in  walk  and  gesture 
and  movement,  the  normal  forms  as  they  are  estab- 
lished ;  and  then,  in  impersonating  some  individual 
character  they  may  be  allowed  to  deviate  from  the 
standard  pronunciation,  modulate  and  modify  their 
voice,  even  into  an  eccentric  form,  adopt  a  limping 
gait,  an  awkward  gesture,  if  this  should  suit  the 
presentation  and  situation  of  the  character  they  are 
impersonating.  But  to  begin  prematurely  by  de- 
veloping the  eccentric  forms  and,  above  all,  to  claim 
more  naturalness  and  closer  proximity  to  nature 
simply  because  of  the  opposition  to  the  broad  laws 
of  nature,  as  man  and  as  artists  have  recognised 
them,  is  as  absurd  and  as  misleading  as  it  is  de- 
structive to  the  true  spirit  and  advancement  of  art. 
As  sculptors  the  school  for  these  normal  standards 
of  art  and  harmony  will  ever  remain  to  you  the  art 
of  the  ancient  Greeks.  It  is  they  who  have  estab- 
lished for  us  these  canons  of  taste. 


48  Greek  Sculpture 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable,  nay  wonderful, 
phenomena  in  man's  history  that  a  comparatively 
small  nation,  living  in  the  south-east  corner  of 
Europe  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  should 
have  established  canons  of  taste  in  art  which  govern 
our  own  taste  in  the  present  day,  after  so  long  a 
lapse  of  time  and  the  succession  of  historical  and 
ethnical  upheavals  intervening  between  the  life  of 
the  ancient  Greeks  and  the  modern  people  of 
Western  Europe.  The  reason  for  this  persistence 
in  the  influence  of  Greek  art  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact,  that  the  ancient  Greeks,  for  the  first  time  in 
man's  history,  presented  the  world  with  an  art,  the 
dominant  principle  of  which  was  the  complete  fusion 
of  naturalism  and  idealism.  Their  art  thus  presented 
nature,  which  practically  remains  the  same  in  all 
times  and  climes,  and,  at  the  same  time,  nature 
idealised — that  is,  presented  in  its  broadest  and 
most  lasting  aspects,  freed  from  individual  accidence 
of  one  place  or  one  period,  of  one  individual  or  of 
one  situation  ;  free  also  from  the  accidence  of  in- 
dividual perception  on  the  part  of  man,  and  thus 
corresponding  to  the  laws  which  govern  man's  per- 
ception and  man's  fundamental  desire  for  harmony. 
In  the  physical  world  this  ideal  attribute  of  art 
meant  the  establishment  of  the  Type ;  in  the 
spiritual  world  of  thought  and  feeling  it  led  to  what 
we  call  the  Ideal1. 

I  have  endeavoured  to  show  you,  towards  the 
beginning  of  the  first  lecture,  how  the  establishment 

1  See  Waldstein,  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  1885,  pp.  Soseq. 


and  Modern  Art  49 

of  this  type  in  the  presentation  of  man,  in  the 
rendering  of  the  human  form  true  to  nature,  and 
even  in  the  presentation  of  attitude  and  movement, 
was  influenced  by  the  changes  in  the  sculptor's 
technique,  and  led  to  the  successive  schools  which 
gradually  developed  naturalism  in  sculpture.  The 
instances  I  gave  were  chiefly  chosen  from  earlier 
phases  of  Greek  art,  which  we  call  the  Archaic 
period. 

As  you  advance  in  the  development  of  Greek 
sculpture  to  the  highest  period  in  the  age  of  Pheidias, 
through  the  wonderful  art  of  the  4th  century  B.C.  (as 
chiefly  represented  by  Scopas,  Praxiteles  and  Ly- 
sippos),  until  we  come  to  the  period  of  decline  in 
the  vigorous,  though  sensational,  art  of  the  schools 
of  Pergamon  and  Rhodes,  which  lead  over  to 
Graeco- Roman  art,  marking  the  not  inglorious  end 
of  the  Greek  artistic  spirit — you  will  realise  how 
even  in  the  comparatively  few  works  that  have  come 
down  to  us  and  illustrate  these  several  periods,  there 
are  manifestations  of  every  aspect  and  direction  of 
art  well  worthy  of  your  study.  In  their  variety, 
covering  every  aspect  of  art-production,  no  ground 
is  left  for  the  charge  of  a  cut-and-dried  academic 
classicism,  which  the  modern  iconoclast  in  art  brings 
against  this  wonderful  achievement  of  the  art  of  the 
past. 

Let  me  merely  select  a  few  typical  instances — 
I  hope  most  of  them  known  to  you — which  will 
illustrate  and  exemplify  the  qualities  of  Greek  art 
which  I  have  claimed  for  it. 


w. 


50  Greek  Sculpture 

The  well-known  reclining  figure  of  Theseus 
(I  have  ventured  to  call  him  Olympos)  (PL  LX)  from 
the  Eastern  Pediment  of  the  Parthenon  will  be  ad- 
mitted to  represent,  in  the  modelling  of  the  whole 
figure  and  in  the  smallest  portion  and  detail  of  the 
surface,  absolute  truth  to  nature.  But,  even  at  the 
risk  of  enunciating  a  paradox,  I  would  call  your 
attention  to  the  fact,  that  what  is  most  remarkable 
in  the  modelling  of  the  surface  of  this  nude  figure, 
is,  not  what  is  expressed,  but  what  has  been  omitted 
and  remains  unexpressed.  I  mean  by  this,  the 
avoidance  of  the  introduction  of  any  unnecessary 
detail  in  the  modelling  of  the  body,  which  might 
have  added  to  the  appearance  of  individual  life 
and  might  have  given  opportunities  for  consum- 
mate skill,  the  indications  of  smaller  and  less  ap- 
parent muscles,  and  more  accidental  variations  in 
the  surface  of  the  skin,  leading  to  the  presentation 
of  varying  half-tones  as  the  more  elaborate  surface 
is  affected  by  light  and  shade — all  evoking  in  the 
spectator  admiration  for  the  virtuosity  of  the  sculptor 
in  his  skill  as  a  modeller.  This  fatal  excess  of  the 
craftsmanlike  skill  of  the  artist  was  foreign  to  the 
great  sculptor  who  fashioned  this  figure.  He  avoided 
the  introduction  of  un-essential  detail.  He  spurned 
the  effect  of  half-tones,  which  would  have  interfered 
with  his  broader  masses  and  lines ;  the  obtrusion  of 
individualism  in  the  rendering  of  the  human  figure 
which  would  have  detracted  from  the  broad  and 
typical  effect  in  the  rendering  of  normal  nature  as 
she  has  manifested  herself  in  the  production  of  the 


and  Modern  Art  51 

healthy  human  body.  So  too  in  the  attitude  and 
general  composition  of  this  statue  the  sculptor  has 
shown  convincingly  movement  in  repose,  the  natural 
reclining  of  the  figure  in  ease  and  relaxation  on  the 
rock  that  is  covered  with  the  skin,  a  perfect  ex- 
pression of  such  an  attitude  in  life  and  nature.  And 
yet,  with  the  suggestion  of  the  life  inherent  in  the 
body  that  is  thus  in  repose,  there  is  a  further 
suggestion  of  the  potential,  more  manifest,  move- 
ment if  the  figure  were  to  exchange  this  attitude  of 
rest  for  one  of  energetic  activity  when  the  youth 
rose  in  his  strength  and  stepped  forward.  What 
we  feel  in  the  contemplation  of  this  presentment  of 
man  is  that  it  becomes  a  Type  of  human  health, 
strength  and  vigour  worthy  to  be  thus  chained 
down  for  centuries  by  transference  into  monumental 
marble.  Yet,  while  thus  responding  to  all  that  art 
can  demand  from  the  artist  in  his  convincing  pre- 
sentation of  nature,  attitude  and  movement,  the 
artist  has,  at  the  same  time,  satisfied  the  equally 
just  claims  of  the  human  senses  and  the  human 
mind  for  harmony  and  beauty.  The  curved  out- 
lines of  the  general  composition,  composed  within 
the  ellipsis  from  the  crossing  of  the  ankles  to  the 
top  of  the  head,  and  back  again  with  wavy  curves 
within  it  rising  over  the  knee,  descending  again 
to  the  middle,  and  again  rising  up  by  chest  and 
shoulder  to  the  head,  and  so  in  every  portion  of 
the  figure  have  their  rhythmical  effect — perhaps 
unconscious  to  him  who  observes  it — upon  the  eye 
of  the  spectator,  and  produce  vibrations  through 

4—2 


52  Greek  Sculpture 

his  senses  into  his  whole  sentient  nature,  corre- 
sponding to  the  lyrical  harmony  in  melodious  verses 
and  the  measured  interweaving  of  a  world  of  beauti- 
ful tones  in  a  composition  of  fine  musical  symphony. 
The  same  can  be  said  of  the  three  female  figures 
from  the  same  Pediment,  commonly  known  as  the 
Fates,  and  which  I  have  ventured  to  call  Hestia, 
Gaia  and  Thalassa  (PI.  LXI).  In  these  the  gamut 
of  plastic  expression  has  been  widened  out  in  that, 
to  the  possibilities  of  varied  line  and  surface,  texture 
and  tone,  in  the  modelling  of  the  nude,  have  been 
added  the  wonderful  possibilities  that  lie  in  the 
rendering  of  drapery.  The  indication  of  its  varied 
texture,  from  the  thicker  felt-like  material  on  which 
the  reclining  figure  is  resting,  through  the  firm,  yet 
pliant,  material  of  the  upper  garment,  to  the  rippling 
pliancy  of  the  thin  upper  garment  which  covers, 
without  hiding,  the  beautiful  forms  over  which  it 
ripples  like  crystalline  waves  over  a  lucent  stream- 
bed — this  indication  of  texture  has  enabled  the  artist 
to  present  us  with  a  world  of  varying  masses  and 
lines,  redolent  with  natural  form,  and  suggestive  of 
natural  movement  in  every  particle  of  their  flowing 
curves,  which  bring  us  face  to  face  with  nature  har- 
monised and  beautified,  and  thus  satisfy  at  once  our 
craving  for  truth  and  our  longing  for  consummate 
beauty. 

Greek  sculpture,  however,  does  not  only  present 
you  with  this  highest  and  most  solemn  form  of  its 
artistic  spirit,  as  manifested  in  the  age  of  Phei- 
dias ;  it  will  strike  you  in  every  aspect  of  man's 


and  Modern  Art  53 

experiences,  aspirations  and  even  moods.  Thus  in 
the  art  of  the  4th  century  B.C.  with  the  work  of  a 
Scopas,  the  more  individualistic,  the  more  moving 
and  passionate  side  in  the  sculptor's  presentation  of 
human  life  are  expressed. 

We  know,  from  the  subjects  of  his  famous  statues 
recorded  by  ancient  writers,  such  as  the  raving 
Menad,  that  his  works  were  replete  with  life,  move- 
ment and  passion.  You  will  see  how,  in  the  so-called 
Niobide  Chiaramonti  (PI.  LXII),  this  problem  of  the 
forward  movement  of  a  draped  female  figure  is  ex- 
pressed convincingly  with  truth  to  nature,  not  only 
in  the  composition  of  the  body,  but  especially  in  the 
swish  and  movement  of  the  drapery,  as  it  is  affected 
by  the  forward  rush  of  the  figure  against  the  wind. 
No  modelling  of  drapery  could  surpass  this  indica- 
tion of  its  texture  as  affected  by,  and  as  expressive 
of,  such  movement.  The  same  applies  to  this  one 
figure  of  the  Charioteer  (PI.  LXII  I)  from  the  long 
series  of  reliefs  decorating  the  Mausoleum  of  Hali- 
carnassos  which  I  have  long  since  endeavoured  to 
identify  with  that  master  or  his  school.  More  com- 
plex rhythms  and  cross-rhythms  in  the  composition 
of  the  body  and  of  the  drapery  are  manifested  in  a 
torso  from  Dresden  (PI.  LXIV)  which  can  also  be 
ascribed  to  Scopasian  art.  The  famous  Victory  of 
Samothrace  in  the  Louvre  (PI.  LXV)  movement 
marks  a  still  further  development  of  movement  in 
the  complex  attitude  and  in  folding  of  drapery, 
probably  the  work  of  a  later  artist  of  the  Scopa- 
sian School.  When  we  come  to  the  treatment  of 


54  Greek  Sculpture 

expression  in  the  face,  the  two  extant  heads  from 
the  pediments  of  the  Temple  of  Athene  at  Tegea 
(PI.  LXVI)  show,  in  the  upward  turn  and  sideward 
twist,  in  the  modelling  of  the  deep-set  eyes  and  the 
upward  look,  the  indication  of  passion,  which  is  both 
life-like  and  still  harmonious  and  beautiful.  You 
will  note  the  same  characteristic  treatment,  especi- 
ally of  the  region  of  the  eye,  in  the  relief  of  the 
Charioteer  from  Halicarnassos. 

Another  aspect  in  the  expression  of  greater  in- 
dividualism is  manifested  in  the  development  of 
Greek  sculpture  by  Praxiteles,  to  the  characteristics 
of  whose  art  I  have  already  drawn  your  attention  in 
the  previous  lecture.  Feeling  and  pathos,  which 
ancient  writers  especially  attribute  to  Scopas  and 
Praxiteles,  assumes  a  different  form  in  the  art  of 
Praxiteles  from  what  we  have  just  noted  in  Scopas. 
For  in  Praxiteles  it  is  less  the  manifest  and  violent 
feelings  but  rather  the  more  delicate  and  dreamy 
moods  that  are  with  preference  represented.  Attic 
grace,  both  in  composition  and  in  the  delicate  model- 
ling of  the  surface,  are  his  chief  characteristics ;  the 
gentle  and  more  languid  curves  of  the  body,  as 
shown  by  the  Hermes  from  Olympia  carrying  the 
infant  Dionysos  (PL  LXVI  I),  by  his  various  statues 
of  Aphrodite  and  of  Eros,  the  youthful  god  of  love, 
will  illustrate  this.  If,  as  is  most  probable,  he  intro- 
duced for  all  ages  the  type  of  female  beauty  in  the 
nude  figure,  the  type  of  Aphrodite  affecting  most  of 
the  subsequent  renderings  of  Venus  which  are  known 
to  you  all,  I  might  bring  to  your  notice  now  a  small 


and  Modern  Art  55 

bronze  statue  recently  acquired  by  the  Antiquarium 
of  Munich  (PI.  LXVIII),  which,  though  influenced 
by  him,  on  the  other  hand,  shows  reminiscences  in 
the  head  of  the  earlier  art  of  the  5th  century  B.C.  l 

In  Lysippos,  the  famous  sculptor  of  the  age 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  whose  portraits  of  the 
victorious  Macedonian  were  especially  famous  in 
antiquity,  individualism  makes  a  still  further  stride 
forward.  The  athlete  statues,  for  instance,  that  were 
formerly  treated  in  a  broader  and  more  typical 
manner,  become  more  individualised,  as  is  seen  in 
this  marble  copy  of  a  bronze  original  of  the 
athlete  Agias  discovered  by  the  French  at  Delphi 
(PI.  LXIX);  which,  when  compared  with  the 
marble  copy  of  a  famous,  more  typical,  rendering 
of  athletic  life  in  the  so-called  Apoxyomenos 
(PI.  LXX)  of  the  same  sculptor,  show  the  varying 
attitude  of  his  mind  when  dealing  with  either  the 
more  ideal,  or  the  more  naturalistic,  aspect  of 
athlete  statues.  As  a  type  of  Greek  portraiture 
in  this  period,  with  its  broader  self-restraint  which 
checks  the  tendency  towards  accurate  naturalism 
in  portraiture,  I  would  select  this  portrait  statue  of 
the  famous  Attic  orator,  Demosthenes  (PI.  LXX  I). 
Yet,  I  will  at  once  anticipate  and  show  how,  in  the 


1  Dr  Sieveking,  in  an  able  article  (Munchener  Jahrbtuh  der  Bildenden 
Kunst,  1910,  I  Halbband),  assigns  this  bronze,  which  is  25  ctm.  in  height,  to 
the  school  of  Polycleitos  in  the  5th  century  B.C.,  and  considers  it  probable  that 
it  represents  a  maiden  as  a  votive  offering  to  Aphrodite.  He  makes  out  a  very 
strong  case  for  his  identification,  but,  for  reasons  which  will  only  become  clear 
when  I  have  published  my  book  on  Alcamenes,  I  venture  to  assign  the  figure 
to  that  master  or  his  school. 


56  Greek  Sculpture 

Graeco- Roman  period,  the  ancient  sculptors  could, 
if  they  chose,  respond  to  the  impulse  of  still  more 
vivid  individualisation  in  portraiture,  by  bringing 
before  you  the  two  bronze  busts  from  Herculaneum 
—the  one  the  so-called  Seneca  (PI.  LXXII),  the 
other  the  so-called  Scipio  (PI.  LXXII  I).  Following 
the  schools  of  Lysippos,  the  great  schools  of  Asia 
Minor,  of  Pergamon  and  Rhodes,  will  show  you 
still  further  individualism  and  naturalism,  which 
gradually  degenerated  into  realism  and  sensation- 
alism, and  a  certain  want  of  restraint  in  the  bold 
and  vigorous  decorative  effects,  which,  with  supreme 
skill  of  modelling,  the  sculptors  of  this  period  de- 
lighted in  rendering.  This  will  be  illustrated  to  you 
in  such  works  as  the  famous  Laokoon  (PI.  LXXIV), 
the  frieze  from  the  altar  of  Pergamon  (PI.  LXXV) 
and  the  colossal  marble  group  of  the  Toro  Farnese 
at  Naples  (PI.  LXXVI).  They  all  tell  complex  and 
complicated  stories,  replete  with  dramatic  incident 
and  sensation,  which  bring  us  to  the  limit  of  capacity 
of  sculpture  and  remind  us  that  such  subjects  are 
more  adequately  dealt  with  in  the  more  dramatic 
arts. 

Even  in  the  rendering  of  the  minor  aspects  and 
incidents  of  daily  life  in  what  is  called  genre,  Greek 
sculpture  will  furnish  you  with  remarkable  specimens. 
I  will  merely  select  two  instances,  the  one  earlier,  the 
other  later— the  Boy  with  the  Goose  (PI.  LXXVI  I), 
and  a  small  statuette  (PL  LXXVI  1 1),  a  life-like 
portrait  of  a  person  whose  bodily  vigour  is  wasting 
away.  The  Greeks  could  deal  with  such  subjects ; 


and  Modern  Art  57 

but  I  would  have  you  note  the  fact  that  this  last 
instance  of  realism  which  I  bring  before  you,  pre- 
sents the  subject  in  a  statuette  not  over  three  inches 
high,  and  that  such  presentation  in  art  stands  on  a 
different  level  and  is  governed  by  different  laws 
from  the  larger  aspects  of  the  monumental  art  of 
sculpture. 

I  have  chosen  these  few  isolated  instances  in  a 
rapid  survey  of  Greek  sculpture  to  show  you  the 
universality  of  that  art ;  to  prove  to  you  that  what 
has  been  called  classicism  in  no  way  covers  the  life 
and  spirit  of  the  sculpture  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
that  their  true  spirit  will  ever  be  worthy  of  study 
and  worthy  of  assimilation  into  the  artistic  nature  of 
the  modern  sculptor.  I  do  not  want  you  to  copy,  or 
even  to  adapt,  these  works  of  Greek  art  when  once 
you  are  prepared  to  produce  original  works  of  your 
own.  You  must  not  favour  the  weak  classicism  of 
a  Canova  or  a  Thorwaldsen.  When  you  have  be- 
come masters,  express  your  own  age  and  be  true  to 
your  own  nature  and  what  it  prompts  you  to  express. 
But  fill  yourselves  with  the  spirit  which  moved  the 
Greek  sculptors  of  old  then,  as  it  moves  the  true 
artist  now.  Above  all,  as  artists,  develop  in  your- 
selves the  Sense  of  Beauty,  and  remember,  that  art 
without  beauty  is  at  best  a  counterfeit  and  inaccurate 
science. 


58  Greek  Sculpture 

APPENDIX. 

GREEK  SCULPTURE  AND  MODERN  ART. 

[Reprinted  from  a  Leading  Article  in  The  Times,  Feb.  24,  1913.] 

Sir  Charles  Waldstein,  lecturing  last  week  on 
the  Achievement  of  Greek  Sculpture  in  its  Relation 
to  Modern  Art,  said  that  Greek  sculpture  had 
established  for  ever  the  normal  standards  of  art  and 
harmony.  This  saying  by  itself  is  so  vague  that 
any  one  can  agree  or  disagree  with  it  as  he  chooses ; 
but  the  lecturer  made  his  meaning  more  clear  by 
other  remarks.  What  he  objected  to,  he  said,  in 
the  work,  and  still  more  in  the  theories,  of  many 
present-day  innovators  was  not  their  positive  achieve- 
ment but  their  opposition  to  what  they  called  beauty ; 
and  by  beauty  he  evidently  meant  the  beauty  of 
persons  or  objects  represented.  For  he  complained 
that  they  avoided  by  all  means  the  normal  develop- 
ment of  the  body  and  beauty  in  line  and  form  ;  and 
he  gave  as  an  instance  "  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere"  of 
M.  Rodin,  which,  he  said  roundly,  was  an  artistic 
mistake.  Therefore,  when  he  speaks  of  the  normal 
standard  of  art  and  harmony  established  by  the 
Greeks,  he  is  thinking  rather  of  their  choice  of 
models  than  of  their  methods  of  treatment.  And 
he  would  have  modern  artists  follow  them  in  their 
choice  and  confine  themselves  to  the  representation 


and  Modern  Art  59 

of  the  beautiful,  or  at  least  the  normal  and  the 
healthy,  in  human  beings.  Now  on  this  point  he 
may  be  right  or  wrong ;  but  he  is  certainly  wrong  if 
he  supposes  that  there  is  any  novelty  in  the  rejection 
of  Greek  standards.  Northern  art,  whether  sculpture 
or  painting,  has  always  rejected  them.  Medieval 
sculptors  and  artists  such  as  the  Van  Eycks,  Diirer, 
and  Rembrandt,  have  always  been  strangely  in- 
different to  the  beauty  of  the  human  form.  It  is 
true  that  most  of  them  were  entirely  unacquainted 
with  Greek  or  even  Graeco- Roman  art ;  but  their 
indifference  cannot  be  attributed  merely  to  ignorance 
of  that  art.  In  other  respects  they  attained  to 
excellence  without  the  help  of  the  Greeks ;  and  it 
would  not  have  needed  Greek  example  to  make 
them  represent  beautiful  people  if  they  had  wished 
to  do  so.  Indeed,  the  great  Donatello,  an  Italian 
acquainted  with  classical  art,  shows  almost  as  much 
indifference  to  these  normal  standards  of  art  and 
harmony  as  M.  Rodin  himself. 

And  yet  we  feel  that  Donatello  and  M.  Rodin, 
and  even  the  medieval  sculptors,  are  much  nearer  in 
spirit  to  the  Greeks  of  the  prime  than  artists  like 
Canova,  who  have  tried  to  imitate  the  Greeks  in 
their  choice  of  models.  In  fact,  the  more  we  study 
the  arts  of  painting  and  sculpture,  the  more  we  find 
that  their  beauty  consists,  not  in  the  representation 
of  beautiful  people  or  things,  but,  as  Michelangelo 
said,  in  a  kind  of  music  of  their  own  which  has  a 
beauty  independent  of  the  ugliness  or  beauty  of  what 
is  represented,  and  of  which  we  can  only  become 


60  Greek  Sculpture 

aware  when  we  no  longer  demand  that  art  shall 
remind  us  of  beautiful  things.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  Greeks  were  wrong,  or  that  any  modern 
artist  is  wrong,  in  representing  people  or  objects 
beautiful  in  themselves.  The  choice  of  what  he  shall 
represent  is  a  matter  for  the  artist  himself,  but  the 
beauty  of  a  work  of  art  does  not  depend,  any  more 
than  the  beauty  of  a  flower,  upon  its  power  of 
reminding  us  of  other  beautiful  things.  It  is,  like 
the  beauty  of  music,  independent  of  all  reminders 
whether  of  beauty  or  ugliness  ;  and  if  we  cannot 
enjoy  a  statue  by  Donatello  or  Rodin,  or  a  picture 
by  Rembrandt,  because  they  happen  to  remind  us  of 
people  whom  we  consider  ugly,  then  these  works  of 
art  fail  with  us,  not  through  their  own  fault,  but 
because  we  have  set  up  obstacles  to  our  own  enjoy- 
ment of  them.  This  may  seem  an  extreme  doctrine, 
but  it  is  borne  out  by  experience.  For  when  once 
we  get  used  to  the  reminders  of  ugliness  which  we 
find  in  the  works  of  Donatello  or  Rembrandt  or 
M.  Rodin,  our  enjoyment  of  those  works  is  not 
affected  by  them.  Then  our  minds  are  open  to 
their  music,  and  we  enjoy  that  without  caring  whether 
it  issues  from  the  representation  of  ugly  or  beautiful 
things. 

One  may  ask  why  an  artist  should  choose  to 
represent  ugly  rather  than  beautiful  people ;  but  that 
is  a  question  which  even  he  himself  would  probably 
fail  to  answer.  At  any  rate  we  have  no  right  to 
accuse  him,  whether  he  is  Rembrandt  or  a  youth  of 
the  present  day,  of  a  perverse  love  of  ugliness.  We 


and  Modern  Art  61 

have  no  right,  merely  because  we  do  not  like  his 
work,  to  impute  low  motives  to  him  at  all.  It  is 
probable  that  many  eager  young  artists  avoid  the 
representation  of  obviously  beautiful  things  from  an 
ascetic  timidity.  They  see  so  much  work  which  is 
popular  because  it  reminds  people  of  what  they 
consider  beautiful  in  reality ;  and  they  are  determined 
not  to  court  that  kind  of  popularity.  The  imitative 
representation  of  what  is  beautiful  always  results  in 
prettiness,  which  is  to  beauty  what  sanctimonious- 
ness is  to  virtue.  It  is  the  result  of  an  effort  to 
produce  an  effect  without  a  cause.  The  finest  art  of 
the  Greeks,  when  it  represented  beautiful  people, 
was  quite  free  from  prettiness  ;  and  we  may  be  sure 
that  they  did  not  represent  beautiful  people  with  the 
object  of  pleasing  their  public  any  more  than  Rem- 
brandt represented  ugly  people  with  the  object  of 
shocking  his  public.  Sir  Charles  Waldstein  says 
that  "  the  abnormal,  even  the  diseased,  may  be 
introduced  into  art  if  it  dissolves  itself  into  the 
harmonious  expression  of  some  greater  idea,"  and 
he  gives  as  instances  subjects  like  the  Raising  of 
Lazarus  and  the  Crucifixion.  But  who  is  to  decide 
that  an  artist  has  no  great  idea  in  his  art  merely 
because  he  does  not  give  it  a  familiar  title  ?  So  far 
as  we  can  talk  of  ideas  in  art  at  all,  they  are  quite 
independent  of  titles,  and  an  artist  does  not  need 
the  justification  of  a  familiar  subject  if  he  wishes  to 
represent  something  that  is  not  beautiful  in  itself. 
We  are  not  shocked  by  the  horror  of  the  Crucifixion 
in  art  because  it  is  a  familiar  subject ;  and  the 


62  Greek  Sculpture 

difference  caused  by  the  familiarity  of  the  subject 
lies  in  us,  not  in  the  artist  or  the  work  of  art.  That 
is  a  fact  which  we  should  always  remember  when  we 
are  inclined  to  be  shocked  by  what  seems  to  us  the 
novel  ugliness  of  a  work  of  art.  It  may  be  merely 
that  we  are  unprepared  for  the  effect  which  it  is 
designed  to  produce,  that  the  shock  is  transitory, 
and  that  after  we  have  recovered  from  it  we  shall 
see  in  the  work  that  music,  that  independent  abstract 
beauty,  which  is  common  to  all  true  works  of  art, 
however  ugly  in  their  subject  matter,  and  which  is 
lacking  in  all  false  ones,  however  eagerly  they  may 
try  to  remind  us  of  beautiful  things. 


ROYAL  ACADEMY  LECTURE  ON  SCULPTURE. 

[Answer  to  The  Times  Article  in  a  Letter  to  The  Builder,  Feb.  24,  1913.] 

SIR, — I  believe,  Sir,  that  those  who  were  present 
at  my  two  lectures  at  the  Royal  Academy  will  bear 
me  out  when  I  say  that  most  of  the  views  opposed 
to  my  own  contained  in  your  interesting  leading 
article  to-day  were  emphatically  supported  in  my 
lectures,  even  the  warning  against  following  the 
example  of  Canova  and  his  school.  I  warned  my 
hearers,  as  I  did  in  the  same  place  many  years 
before,  against  confusing  "  classicism  "  with  the  living 
naturalistic  art  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  against  the 
mere  copying  of  definite  models  and  the  limitation  of 
the  sculptor's  art  to  what  you,  Sir,  and  others  call 


and  Modern  Art  63 

mere  "  prettiness."  I  even  avoided,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, the  use  of  the  term  "beauty,"  as  being  com- 
plex and  misleading,  and  generally  substituted  the 
term  "harmony"  for  it.  Important  as  the  establish- 
ment of  formal  harmony  of  line,  mass,  and  colour  is, 
and  will  always  remain,  in  the  graphic  and  plastic 
arts  (as  harmony  of  sound  and  versification  will 
always  remain  an  important  part  of  lyrical  poetry, 
though  not  its  only  aim),  there  are  much  wider 
spheres  of  harmony  into  which  these  arts  have  in 
the  past  extended  and  will  do  so  in  the  future.  But 
this  harmony  also  includes  the  harmony  between  the 
artistic  vehicle  and  the  subject  chosen  for  presenta- 
tion ;  a  subject  fitted  to  one  art  might  not  be  suited 
to  another.  It  is  on  this  ground  that  I  maintain 
that  "  La  Vieille  Heaulmiere"  by  Rodin  is  an  artistic 
mistake.  Villon's  poem  is  a  beautiful  work  of  art 
and  conveys  the  artistic  idea  adequately,  even  with 
tragic  impressiveness ;  but  the  bronze  statue  is 
merely  the  representation  of  a  repulsive  subject. 
To  convey  the  idea  of  the  poet  by  means  of  the 
statue,  each  spectator  would  have  to  be  presented 
with  a  copy  of  the  poem  while  standing  before  the 
work,  and  even  then  it  would  not  convey  adequately 
the  stirring  tragedy.  I  maintained  that  in  the 
representations  of  the  Pieta,  the  Raising  of  Lazarus, 
the  School  of  Anatomy  by  Rembrandt,  and  number- 
less other  works  of  the  same  category,  the  diseased 
body,  or  the  corpse,  was  subordinated  to  a  wider 
artistic  idea  and  therefore  lost  the  undoubted 
elements  of  repulsion  which  every  normal  man  feels, 


64  Greek  Sculpture 

and  naturally  feels,  and  that  this  repulsion  was  not 
an  element  directly  to  be  aimed  at  in  art.  When 
you  object  to  my  thesis  by  saying,  "  But  who  is  to 
decide  that  an  artist  has  no  great  idea  in  his  art 
merely  because  he  does  not  give  it  a  familiar  title  ? 
So  far  as  we  can  talk  of  ideas  in  art  at  all,  they  are 
quite  independent  of  titles — " — my  answer  is  that 
the  works  of  art  I  have  mentioned  need  no  title. 
The  figures  surrounding  the  corpse,  the  clear  action 
and  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  whole  composition  tell 
the  whole  story  completely.  The  corpse  forms  an 
essential  part  of  the  story,  but  it  is  subordinated  to 
it  to  such  a  degree  that  what  would  form  elements 
of  repulsion  in  actual  life  are  raised  by  the  purely 
artistic  quality  of  the  work  of  the  great  composition 
into  a  wider  sphere  which  clearly  belongs  to  the 
domain  of  art,  not  requiring  the  introduction  of  any 
extraneous  supports.  M.  Rodin's  work  requires  not 
only  a  title,  but  even  the  reading  of  a  poem  convey- 
ing a  very  complicated  situation. 

In  my  lectures  I  chiefly  opposed  what  I  should 
like  to  call  "  The  Doctrine  of  Artistic  Equivalence 
in  Nature  and  Life."  We  are  constantly  told  that 
Nature  is  always  beautiful.  This  I  should  like  to 
answer  by  a  question:  Which  Nature?  If  Nature 
presents  us  with  the  individual,  she  has  also  estab- 
lished the  "type,"  and  she  is  constantly  enacting 
the  drama,  perhaps  the  tragedy,  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  This  applies  not  only  to  things  and 
beings  in  nature,  but  also  to  movements  and  situa- 
tions. The  actual  rendering  of  an  individual 


and  Modern  Art  65 

movement  by  an  individual  model,  however  true  it 
may  be,  fails  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  movement 
itself,  as  no  man  or  no  horse  moves  or  jumps  in  the 
same  way.  If  the  artist  is  to  choose  anything  and 
everything  in  nature  and  life  for  presentation  in  his 
work,  art  is  merely  a  recording  machine  or  a  make- 
shift for  reminding  us  of  what  we  cannot  conveniently 
see  before  us,  and  even  then  actual  observation  will 
beat  art  every  time,  and  there  really  is  no  use  for 
her.  You  need  not  fear,  Sir,  that  I  shall  give  you 
the  whole  of  my  lectures  on  these  very  subtle  and 
difficult  questions.  But  you  wrong  me  when  you 
imply  that  I  wish  to  limit  the  choice  of  the  artist's 
subjects  to  objects  of  "prettiness,"  or  to  what  is 
patently  and  glaringly  called  beautiful,  noble,  or 
virtuous  in  life.  I  told  my  hearers  that  there  might 
be  more  artistic  soul  in  the  presentation  of  a  pugilist 
than  in  the  statue  of  the  Angel  of  Death  with  marble 
tears  carrying  a  dead  infant  in  her  arms.  I  even 
venture  to  maintain  that  a  novel  which  deals  artisti- 
cally with  the  life  of  a  servant  may  be  nobler  and  of 
higher  art  than  one  which  records  the  life  of  kings 
and  princes.  But  I  warned  them  against  making 
a  whole  school  of  servant  novels  and  turning  their 
back  on  more  interesting  spheres  of  life  which,  to 
say  the  least,  are  also  part  of  nature  and  general  life. 
I  especially  warned  them,  and  I  wish  to  repeat  it 
now,  against  turning  their  backs  on  the  study  and 
the  presentation  of  what  is  normal  in  nature  and  in 
life,  though  art  need  not  be  restricted  to  such  definite 
presentations.  And  when  you  say,  Sir,  "It  is 
w.  c 


66  Greek  Sculpture 

probable  that  many  eager  young  artists  avoid  the 
reproduction  of  obviously  beautiful  things  from  an 
ascetic  timidity,"  I  should  like  to  answer:  fa  explique 
mats  fa  n  excuse  pas.  At  all  events,  for  students 
(and,  remember,  I  was  addressing  them)  it  is  impor- 
tant to  remind  them  that  the  study  of  physiology 
must  precede  the  study  of  pathology,  especially  in 
art ;  that  they  must  learn  to  draw  and  model  accu- 
rately ;  that  they  must  learn  through  Nature  what 
she  has  established  in  the  normal  realisation  of  life 
and  movement ;  and  that  in  all  these  respects  the 
spirit  of  Greek  art  and  the  principles  which  it 
embodies  in  its  sculpture  (much  wider  than  the 
mere  idea  of  "  prettiness  ")  will  be  their  best  guide 
during  a  certain  phase  of  their  studies.  In  learning 
to  write  we  must  first  endeavour  to  fashion  the 
letters  as  they  have  been  established  (and  are  there- 
fore legible),  and  in  doing  this  in  the  course  of  time 
our  individual  character  in  handwriting  will  naturally 
develop  itself.  The  actor  and  the  dancer  must  learn 
proper  elocution,  enunciation,  the  use  of  the  voice, 
gesture,  and  movement  in  their  most  normal  forms, 
and  then  they  can,  as  occasion  arises,  vary  this 
accent,  even  mispronounce  words,  and  give  awkward 
gestures  and  movements  to  suit  the  character  they 
are  impersonating.  So  in  modelling,  however  wide 
you  may  make  the  sphere  of  subjects  for  artistic 
presentation,  beauty,  direct  and  immediate,  will 
always  form  an  integral  element,  and  the  student 
will  do  well  to  fill  his  soul  with  it,  in  order  that  he 
may  at  times  turn  his  back  upon  formal  beauty  to 


and  Modern  Art  67 

realise  in  his  work  a  higher  spiritual  aspect  of  the 
harmony  of  things.  You  have  quoted  music  from  the 
lips  of  Michelangelo.  You  could  not  have  chosen 
a  better  instance  for  the  fundamental  principles 
of  all  arts.  However  much  music  may  become 
imitative  of  definite  life  and  occasionally  even  intro- 
duce dissonance,  as  an  art  it  will  always  rest  on  the 
harmony  of  tones.  Looking  as  far  ahead  into  the 
future  as  you  like,  I  doubt  whether  it  will  ever 
develop  into  that  form  where  it  strives  to  render 
truthfully  the  noises  of  Piccadilly  in  the  height  of 
the  season.  If  it  does,  the  gramophone  will  be  a 
better  vehicle  for  doing  this  than  the  elaborate  com- 
position of  the  greatest  futurist  composer,  seconded 
by  a  futurist  orchestra,  with  elaborate  instruments 
that  convey  every  possible  sound  in  the  growing 
cacophony  of  modern  life. 

CHARLES  WALDSTEIN. 

P.S. — At  my  first  lecture  I  exhibited  a  number 
of  illustrations  of  remarkable  statues  by  M.  Rodin, 
for  whose  best  work  I  have  the  most  intense  admira- 
tion. While  dwelling  on  their  great  qualities  I 
warned  young  students  against  merely  imitating  him 
when  he  left  the  marble  unfinished,  which,  in  his 
case,  nearly  always  had  a  deep  artistic  significance 
and  justification. 


INDEX 


Aeginetan  school  6 

,,          temple   6 
Agias   55 
Alcamenes   55 
Aphrodite,  at  Boston  Museum    14 

,,  Cnidian    12,  13 

,,          from  Acropolis    it 

,,  ,,     Chios    14 

„          Pet  worth    14 
Apollo,  carrying  bull   5 
,,        of  Tenea   3,  4 
Apoxyomenos   55 
Aristotle   40 

Artemis,  from  Delos   3,  4 
Athene,  Lemnian   7 

,,        Temple  of,  at  Tegea   54 

Balzac,  Honore  de   32 
Beethoven,  Ludwig  van   32 
Benevento   7 
Boston  Museum    14 
Boxer,  Olympian   8 
Boy  with  the  Goose   56 
Browning,  Robert   32 

Canova,  Antonio   30,  57,  59,  62 
Centaurs   9,   1 1 
Centocelli,  Eros  of   13 
Cerigo,  bronze  from   8 
Charioteer,  from  Delphi   6 

,,  ,,      Mausoleum   53,  54 

Chios,  Aphrodite  from    14 
Cnidos,  Aphrodite  of   12 

De  Bussy,  Claude   32 
Delos,  Artemis  from   3,  4 
Delphi,  Athlete  from   55 

,,        Charioteer  from   6 
Demosthenes,  portrait  of  55 
Diadumenos   7 
Donatello   59,  60 
Doryphoros   7,  36 


Dresden,  head  from    14 
„          torso  from  53 
DUr«r,  Albrecht   59 

Eros   54 
,,      of  Centocelli    13 

Farnese,  Toro   56 

Fates,  from  Parthenon  Pediment  52 
Flaubert,  Gustave   32 
Frieze,  from  Parthenon    10,  25 
,,        „      Pergamon    14,  56 

Gaia,  from  Parthenon  Pediment   52 

Halicarnassos,  Mausoleum  of  53,  54 
Harrison,  Frederick   43 
Hera,  from  Samos   3,  4 
Herculaneum   5,  7,  8,  56 
Hermes,  of  Praxiteles  12,  54 
Hestia,  from  Parthenon  Pediment  52 

Kaufmann  head    12 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  de   32 
Laokoon    14,  56 

Lapiths,  from  Parthenon  Metopes  ri 
Lapith  woman,  from  Olympia  10 
Lazarus,  Raising  of  45,  61,  63 
Lemnos,  Athene  of  7 
Lessing,  Gotthold   32 
Louvre  Museum   7,  15,  53 
Luxembourg  Museum    18,   19,  43 
Lysippos  8,  13,  14,  49,  55,  56 

Martres  Tolosane   12 
Mausoleum   53 
McColl,  D.  S.   42 
Medici,  Tomb  of  the   15 
Menad,  of  Scopas   53 
Metopes,  from  Parthenon    10 
Meunier,  Constantin   38 


70 


Index 


Michelangelo   15,  59,  67 

Millet,  J.  F.  38 

Munich,  Antiquarium  of  55 

Naples  Museum   7,  8,  56 
Niobide  Chiaramonti  53 
Niirenberg  toys  4 

Olympia,  Boxer  from   8 

„          Hermes  of  Praxiteles  at  12, 

54 

„          Temple  of  Zeus  at   9,   10, 
ii 

Parthenon  Frieze   10,  25 
„         Metopes   10 
,,         Pediments   50,  52 

Pediments,  from  Olympia  9,  10 
,,  ,,      Parthenon   50,  52 

Pergamenean  Frieze   14,  56 

Pergamene  school    14,  49,  56 

Petworth,  head  of  Aphrodite  at    14 

Pheidias   7,  25,  49,  52 

Phryne,  of  Praxiteles  44 

Pieta,  the  45,  63 

Polycleitos   7,  20,  55 

Praxiteles  n,  12,  13,  14,  44,  49,  54 

Rembrandt,  H.  v.  R.  34,  45,  59,  60, 

61,  63 
Renaissance,  Italian   30 

,,  Jacobean   30 

Rhodian  school   14,  49,  56 
Richardson,  H.  H.   31,  32 
Rodin,  Auguste  13,   14,  i$foll.,  27, 
39,  43,  44,  58,  59,  60,  63,  64,  67 
Rodin's 
Balzac   1 7 
Danaide   19,  21,  22 


Rodin's 
La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  43,  44,  58, 

63 

Le  Baiser   18 
Le  Penseur   18 
Octave  Mirbeau    16 
Puvis  de  Chavannes   17 
Tite  de  femme   18 
The  Iron  Age   19 
Rubens,  Peter  Paul   34 

Samos,  Hera  from   3,  4 
Samothrace,  Victory  of  53 
Scipio,  bust  of  56 
Scopas    n,   13,  49,  53,  54 
Seneca,  bust  of  56 
Strauss,  Richard   32 

Tegea,  Temple  of  Athene  at   54 
Tenea,  Apollo  of  3,  4 
Tennyson,  Alfred  Lord   32 
Thalassa,  from  Parthenon  Pediment 

5* 

Theseus,  from  Parthenon  Pediment  50 
Thorwaldsen,  Bertel   30,  57 
Toro  Farnese   56 

Van  Dyck,  Sir  Anthony   34 
Van  Eycks,  the   59 
Victor  Hugo   32 
Victory  of  Samothrace   53 
Villon,  Fran£ois  43,  44,  63 

Wagner,  Richard   32 

Xoana   3 

Zeus,  Temple  of,  at  Olympia  9,   10 


Cambridge :   Printed  at  the  University  Press 


PLATES 


Plate  I 


Artemis  from  Delos,  Athens 
(See  p.  3) 


Plate  II 


Hera  of  Samos,  Louvre 
(See  p.  3) 


Plate  111 


Apollo  of  Tenea,  Munich 
(Sec  f.  3) 


Plate  IV 


Archaic  figure  from  the  Acropolis  of  Athens 

(Sec  p.  5) 


Plate   V 


Similar  statue  from  the  Acropolis 

(See  p.   5) 


Plate   VI 


Back  view  of  statue  from  the  Acropolis 
(See  p.  5) 


Plate   VII 


Archaic  Apollo  from  the  Acropolis 

(See  p.  5) 


Plate   VIII 


Female  figure  from  the  Acropolis 

(Sec  p.   5) 


Plate  IX 


Bronze  head  from  Herculaneum,   Naples 

(See  p.  5) 


bd 
1C 


Plate  XI 


Head  of  bronze  charioteer  from  Delphi 

{Sec  />.  6) 


Hate 


Bronze  head  of  Polycleitan  Doryphoros  from  Herculaneum,  Naples 

(See  /.  7) 


Plate  XIII 


The  Polycleitan  Diadumenos,  Dresden 
(Sec  f.   7) 


Plate  XIV 


Head  of  the  so-called  Lemnian  Athene,  Bologna 

(See  p.  7) 


Plate  XV 


Bronze  head  from  Benevento  in  the  Louvre 

(Sec  p.  7) 


Plate  XVI 


Bronze  statue  from  Cerigo,  Athens 

(See  p.  8) 


Plate  XVII 


Bronze  head  from  Herculaneum,  Naples 

(See  p.  8) 


Plate  XVIH 


Bronze  head  of  boxer,  Olympia 

(See  p.  8) 


Plate  XIX 


Centaur  in  the  Capitoline  Museum,  Rome 
(See  p.  9) 


Plate  XX I 


&  +  • 


Head  from  Eastern  Pediment,  Olympia 

(See  p.   10) 


W 

•a" 

8> 


\ 


. 


Plate  XXIV 


Heads  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Parthenon 

(See  f.    10) 


Plate  XXV 


Head  from  the  Metopes  of 
the  Parthenon 


Heads  from  the  Frieze  of  the 
Parthenon 

(See  p.   10) 


Plate  XXVI 


Heads  from  the  Metopes  of  the  Parthenon,  British  Museum 

(See  p.   10) 


Plate  XXVII 


Scopasian  head  from  Acropolis,  Athens 
(See  p.   1 1 ) 


Plate  XXVIII 


Head  of  Cnidian  Aphrodite,  Vatican,  Rome 

(See  p.   12) 


Plate  XXIX 


The  Kaufmann  Aphrodite,   Berlin 
(See  p.   12) 


Plate  XXX 


Head  of  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles,  Olympia 

(See  p.   12) 


Plate  XXXI 


Head  of  Eros  of  Centocelli,  Vatican 
(S(e  p.  13) 


Plate  XXXII 


Marble  head  in  Dresden 

(See  p.   14) 


Plate  XXX III 


The  Petworth  Aphrodite 
(S«  p.  M) 


Plate  XXXVI 


Head  of  Giant  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Altar  at  Pergamon,  Berlin 

(Seep.   14) 


rial,-  xxx\rn 


Head  of  Giant  from  the  Frieze  of  the  Altar  at  Pergamon,  Berlin 

(Seep.    14) 


Plate  XXX  Till 


Head  of  Laokoon,  Vatican,   Rome 
(See  p.  14) 


Plate  A'A'AVA' 


Marble  head  in  the  Louvre  Museum 
(See  p.    .5) 


rlate  XL 


Tomb  of  the  Medici  by  Michelangelo,  Florence 
(See  p.  15) 


Plate  XLI 


Tomb  of  the  Medici  by  Michelangelo,   Florence 

(See  p.   15) 


Plate  XLII 


Portrait  of  Octave  Mirbeau  by  Rodin 
(See  p.  1 6) 


Plate  XLIII 


Portrait  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  by  Rodin 

(See  p.   1 7) 


Plate  XLIV 


Portrait  of  Balzac  by  Rodin 

(See  p.   17) 


Plate  XLV 


Portrait  of  a  lady  by  Rodin 
(See  p.   1 8) 


Plate  XL  VI 


Le  Baiser  by  Rodin 

(Seep.    1 8) 


Plate  XLVII 


Le  Penseur  by  Rodin 
(See  p.   1 8) 


Plate  XLV1I1 


Le  Penseur  by  Rodin 

(Atv/».    1 8) 


Plate  XL  IX 


The  Iron  Age  by  Rodin 
(Seep.    19) 


Plate  /,// 


Attic  Sepulchral  Slab  (Hegeso  Proxeno),   Athens 
(See  p.  2?) 


Plate  /,/// 


Choiseul-Gouffier  statue  of  an  athlete,  British  Museum 
(See  p.  34) 


Plate  LIV 


Standing  Figure,  Westmacott  Youth,  British  Museum 
(See  p.  34) 


Plate  LV 


Doryphoros  of  Polycleitos 
(Seep.  36) 


Plate  I.V11 


A  Miner  by  Meunier 
(See  p.  38) 


Plate  I.I' HI 


A  Docker  by  Meunier 

(Sec  p.  38) 


Plate  I.1X 


La  Vieille  Heaulmiere  by  Rodin,  in  the  Luxembourg  Museum,  Paris 

(Sec  p.  43) 


o 

c 
u 

I 

•3  ^ 

u    o 
CU    ir- 

c  <, 


Plate  LXII 


Niobide  Chiaramonti 

(See  p.  53) 


Plate  LXIfl 


Charioteer  from  a  Frieze  of  the  Mausoleum  of  Halicarnassos 

(Av  P-   53) 


Plate  f.XIV 


Dresden  Statue,  possibly  reproduction  of  a  Scopasian  type 
(See  p.  53) 


Plate  LXV 


Victory  of  Samothrace  in  the  Louvre  Museum 
(.See  p.  53) 


Plate  LXVI 


Two  heads  from  the  Tegean  Pediment  by  Scopas 

(See  p.  54) 


Plate  LXVI1 


Hermes  carrying  the  infant  Dionysos,  Olympia 
(See  p.  54) 


Plate  LXVIII 


Statuette  of  Aphrodite  or  a  maiden,  Antiquarium,  Munich 

(See  p.  5=;) 


Plate  f.X/X 


Marble  copy  of  the  bronze  statue  of  the  athlete  Agias  by 
Lysippos  from  Delphi 

(Sec  p.   55) 


Plate  I.  XX 


Apoxyomenos,  marble  copy  of  bronze  typical  athlete  statue 
by  Lysippos 

(See  p.  .55) 


Plate  I. XXI 


Portrait  of  Demosthenes 
(See  p.  ?5) 


Plate  i.xxrr 


So-called  Seneca.     Bronze  from  Herculaneum,  Naples 
(See  p.  56) 


Plate  LXXIIl 


So-called  Scipio.     Bronze  from  Herculaneum,  Naples 
(Seep.  56) 


riate  A.V.V/F 


Laokoon,  Vatican,  Rome 

(See  p.  56) 


Plate  LXXV 


Frieze  from  the  Altar  of  Pergamon 

(See  p.   56) 


Plate  LXXl'I 


Toro  Farnese,  Naples 
(See  p.   ;6) 


Plate  LXXTIf 


Boy  with  the  Goose.     Greek  genre  sculpture 
(See  f.   56) 


Plate  LXXVIII 


Man  wasting  away.     Bronze  statuette 
(See  p.  56) 


Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias  (Camb.  Univ.  Press,  1885). 
The  Work  of  John  Ruskin  (Methuen  &  Co.,  1894). 

The  Study  of  Art  in  Universities  (Osgood,   Mcllvaine 
&  Co.,  1896). 

The  Argive  Heraeum  (Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston, 
U.S.A.,  1902). 

Art    in    the    Nineteenth    Century   (Camb.    Univ.    Press, 

1903)- 

Herculaneum :    Past,    Present    and    Future — with    L. 
Shoobridge  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1908). 

The  Balance  of  Emotion  and  Intellect  (C.  Kegan  Paul 
&  Co.,  1878,  and  Harper  &  Brothers,  1878). 

The  Expansion  of  Western  Ideals  and  the  World's 
Peace  (John  Lane,  1899). 

The   Jewish  Question  and   the  Mission  of  the  Jews 

(Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York,  1894  :  2nd  edition,  Gay  &  Bird, 
1899). 

Three  Conversation  Stories  (Grant  Richards,  1897-1900). 
What  may  we  read  ?  (Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  1911). 


SELECTION  FROM  THE  GENERAL  CATALOGUE 

OF  BOOKS  PUBLISHED  BY 
THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias.  By  Sir  CHARLES  WALDSTEIN, 
Litt.D.,  Phil.D.  Royal  8vo.  With  numerous  illustrations  and  16  plates. 
Buckram.  305. 

CONTENTS: — I,  The  Province,  Aim  and  Methods  of  the  Study  of 
Classical  Archaeology. — II,  The  Spirit  of  the  Art  of  Pheidias,  in  Its 
Relation  to  His  Age,  Life  and  Character. — III,  The  Metopes  of  the 
Parthenon  and  the  Lapith  Head  in  the  Louvre. — IV,  The  Western 
Pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  and  the  Venice  Fragment. — V,  The  Eastern 
Pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  and  Thalassa  and  Gaia. — VI,  The  Athene 
from  the  Parthenon  Frieze  and  the  Louvre  Plaque. — VII,  The  Central 
Slab  of  the  Parthenon  Frieze  and  the  Copenhagen  Plaque. — VIII,  The 
Athene  Parthenos,  and  Gold  and  Ivory  Statues. — IX,  The  School  of 
Pheidias  and  the  Attic  Sepulchral  Reliefs. 

APPENDIX.  Reprinted  Papers  on  Greek  Art.  I,  Pythagoras  of 
Rhegion  and  the  Early  Athlete  Statues. — II,  Praxiteles  and  the  Hermes 
with  the  Infant  Dionysos. — III,  The  Influence  of  Athletic  Games  upon 
Greek  Art.— IV,  The  Eastern  Pediment  of  the  Temple  of  Zeus  at 
Olympia  and  the  Western  Pediment  of  the  Parthenon. 

"Essays  on  the  Art  of  Pheidias  form  an  extremely  valuable  and  im- 
portant piece  of  work.... Taking  it  for  the  illustrations  alone  it  is  an 
exceedingly  fascinating  book."  Times 

Scythians  and  Greeks.  A  Survey  of  Ancient  History  and 
Archaeology  on  the  North  Coast  of  the  Euxine  from  the  Danube  to  the 
Caucasus.  By  ELLIS  H.  MINNS,  M.A.  With  9  maps  and  plans,  9  coin 
plates,  and  355  illustrations  in  the  text.  Royal  410.  635  net. 

"In  this  monumental  volume  Mr  Minns  publishes  the  results  of  his 
vast  learning  and  research — Mr  Minns 's  book  is,  in  itself,  a  library  on 
Greek  Scythia.  The  author's  knowledge  of  Russian,  and  his  intimacy 
with  the  sites  he  describes,  bring  him  constantly  nearer  to  his  sources  than 
most  writers  can  hope  to  penetrate.  For  all  these  reasons  we  commend 
his  work  both  to  the  learned  world  and  to  educated  men  of  the  world." 

Athenaum 

Catalogue  of  the  Acropolis  Museum.     By  GUY  DICKINS, 

M.A.    Volume  I.     Archaic  Sculpture.     Crown  8vo.     ics  6d  net. 

"  A  scholarly  piece  of  work  which  should  be  invaluable  to  students. 
The  introduction  contains  some  careful  notes  on  such  points  as  material 
and  technique,  subjects  and  meaning,  and  costume.  There  are  illustrations 
in  the  text  of  the  various  exhibits,  critical  descriptions,  and  full  references 
to  authorities  concerning  them."  Athenaum 


A  Catalogue  of  the  Greek  Vases  in  the  Fitzwilliam 
Museum,  Cambridge.  By  ERNEST  ARTHUR  GARDNER,  M.A. 
Royal  8vo.  With  41  plates.  55  net. 

"  A  very  scholarly  piece  of  work — The  vases  are  figured  in  excellent 
process  illustrations,  and  are  carefully  described,  while  Mr  Gardner  prefixes 
a  brief  account  of  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  collection,  and  of  the 
chief  features  of  the  different  schools  of  Greek  vase-painting. ...The  student 
will  find  this  preface,  as  well  as  the  catalogue,  invaluable."  Times 

Greek  and  Roman  Methods  of  Painting.    Some  comments 

on  the  statements  made  by  Pliny  and  Vitruvius  about  Wall  and  Panel 
painting.  By  A.  P.  LAURIE,  M.A.,  D.Sc.  Crown  8vo.  as  6d  net. 

"  Dr  Laurie's  book  should  be  valuable  alike  to  archaeologists  and 
painters — In  method  the  essay  is  cautious  and  admirable." 

Journal  of  Hellenic  Stttdies 

The  Types  of  Greek  Coins.  An  Archaeological  Essay.  By 
PERCY  GARDNER,  Litt.D.,  F.S.A.  With  16  autotype  plates.  Impl.  410. 
Cloth  extra,  £i  us  6d;  Roxburgh  (Morocco  back),  £1  is. 

"  Professor  Gardner's  book  is  written  with  such  lucidity  and  in  a 
manner  so  straightforward  that  it  may  well  win  converts,  and  it  may 
be  distinctly  recommended — Students  of  Thucydides  and  Herodotus 
cannot  afford  to  neglect  Professor  Gardner's  introduction  to  Hellenic 
numismatics."  Saturday  Review 

An  Account  of  Medieval  Figure -Sculpture  in  England. 

With  855  photographs.  By  EDWARD  S.  PRIOR,  M.A.,  F.S.A.,  and 
ARTHUR  GARDNER,  M.A.,  F.S.A.  Demy  410.  £3  35  od  net. 

"Taken  as  a  whole  the  book  deserves  that  prodigally  misused  epithet 
of  epoch-making — If  it  were  nothing  more,  and  it  is  a  great  deal  more, 
Medieval  Figure- Sculpture  in  England  would  be  an  unrivalled  picture- 
book.  Merely  turning  over  the  pages  at  hazard,  the  reader  lights  on  fresh 
and  delightful  things.  ...Neither  amateur  nor  student  could  wish  for  better 
guidance  than  that  which  Professor  Prior  and  Mr  Gardner  have  provided." 

Times 

Byzantine     and    Romanesque    Architecture.      By    Sir 

THOMAS  JACKSON,  Bart.,  R.A.,  Hon.  D.C.L.  Oxford,  Hon.  LL.D. 
Cambridge.  In  two  volumes.  With  165  plates  and  148  illustrations  in 
the  text.  Crown  4to.  £1  2s  od  net. 

"By  his  simple,  lucid  style  and  the  wide  range  of  his  subjects... 
Sir  T.  G.  Jackson  has  provided  a  large  and  most  valuable  contribution  to 
the  history  of  architecture,  which  we  can  hardly  imagine  is  likely  to  be 
displaced  by  anything  else.  The  whole  format  of  the  volumes  is  excellent, 
the  size  and  shape  of  them,  the  beautiful  type,  and  the  excellent  illus- 
trations." British  Architect 

A  Companion  to  Greek  Studies.  Edited  by  LEONARD 
WHIBLEY,  M.A.  Second  edition.  With  141  illustrations,  five  maps 
and  four  indexes.  Demy  8vo.  i8s  net. 

Collected   Studies    in   Greek   and   Latin    Scholarship. 

By  A.  W.  VERRALL,  Litt.D.  Edited  by  M.  A.  BAYFIELD  and  J.  D.  DUFF. 
Demy  8vo.  IDS  6d  net. 


Cambridge  University  Press 

Fetter  Lane,  London     C.  F.  Clay,  Manager 


Walston,  (Sir)  Charles 
7445        Greek  sculpture  and 

modern  art 
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