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Costumes.-Methods of the Greeks.

plaited or channelled, so as to represent a general difference in its whole mass to the surface of the skin. Some figures of Amazons are thus treated; and in most female statues, the drapery being thin in texture, with minute folds, offers a constantly roughened surface, and insures a general opposition to the naked.

Costumes were represented more faithfully during the decline of art. It was the same in the ages of its immaturity. In Egypt the dresses were indiscriminately copied; and in the same proportion, imitation was imperfect, and taste undeveloped. The example is not without its use in other respects, for when the extreme warmth of the climate is considered, the multifarious Egyptian costumes are sufficient to prove that the civilized inhabitants of Greece and Italy were at least equally clad. The naked colossal statue of Pompey would have been as strange to the Romans, had they not been accustomed to similar works of art, as Canova's naked colossal Napoleon was to the Parisians. In the Panathenaic procession at Athens, as in all processions, the pomp of dress was the main part of the show. In the sculptured representation of this show, the elder functionaries have one loose garment becomingly thrown over the naked figure; and the Athenian cavaliers wear a still lighter mantle, which sometimes flowing from the shoulders in the breeze, shows their forms entirely undraped. The women, however, from motives which the Athenians never lost sight of, are fully but gracefully clad. With this exception, the peplon of Minerva was not more shorn of its embroidery in the marble, than the greater part of the figures were of their real costumes. It is necessary to compare the reality with the work of art, in order to be convinced that the difficulties of reconciling the style of sculpture with costume are not peculiar to modern times.

Style in sculpture.—Antique or ideal beauty.

These two circumstances the impossibility of absolute resemblance to nature in the principal object, and the extreme of such resemblance in many inanimate substances—define the style of sculpture; a style fully exemplified in the works of the ancients. On the authority of those works, it has been shown that this art, on the one hand, aims at the closest imitation of the living figure in its choicest forms; for such can best compensate for the want of colour, and enable the art to rival nature. In subordination to this, its first aim, sculpture affects the imitation of elastic and flexible substances generally. On the other hand, it is distinguished by the greater or less conventional treatment, or the entire omission of all particulars which are more literally imitable than the flesh. The instances of such conventional treatment, including alterations of costume, and omissions of various circumstances, which are observable in the sculpture of the Greeks, are perhaps the most remarkable liberties, with a view to consistency of style, which the history of art presents.

The Greeks, by selecting from a number of beautiful individuals those portions which they deemed most perfect, generalizing and reuniting them in conformity to an image in their own mind, produced that abstract ideal beauty, generally known by the term antique or ideal, a beauty and perfection of form which, though borrowed from nature in all its parts, is as a united whole superior to humanity. It is man represented according to the general laws of his species, rather than to the details, peculiarities, and imperfections of the individual. It is nature refined, exalted, and purified from her excrescences and defects. Nature," says Flaxman, “has innumerable ends to accomplish; art but one-to produce ideal perfection and beauty."

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The object of Grecian sculpture was to produce different degrees of the ideal, which approached, without passing the limits

Difference between heroes and deities.

of divine beauty and majesty. The intermediate degrees of the ideal, which approached without passing the limits of divinity, were reserved for heroes-men whom antiquity delighted to exalt to the highest dignity of our nature. The heroic character was impressed, partly by idealizing the countenance and expression, yet retaining the resemblance, partly by increasing the stature, and heightening the swelling and action of the muscles; thus producing an augmented dignity, activity, and vigour. The only difference between a hero and one of the highest deities, was, that in the latter, the projections and square parts were rounded, the nerves and veins suppressed, so as to produce the most graceful elegance of form, in unison with a celestial spirit.

To perfect this ideal beauty, it became necessary to add the graces of expression and attitude. Yet aware, on the one hand, that expression and attitude, if pushed beyond a certain limit, detract from beauty and grace; and on the other, that beauty without expression and attitude is tame, and comparatively powerless, they steered a middle course between the two extremes-adopting chastened expression, repose, and decorum, combined with natural and unaffected gestures. A decency of motion and attitude is even observable in their Bacchante and dancing figures. In a word, dignity, grace, and a certain moral grandeur pervade all their works. In accordance with this principle, they uniformly gave to the higher class of deities, particularly to Jupiter, an expression of calm and majestic meditation, indicative of a mind wrapped up in itself, an energy of intellect elevated above human emotions and passions. The same exalted beauty, mental power, and sublime composure, may be traced through the whole Saturnian family. When the passions are represented, their visible signs are not such as to derange the dignity and beauty of the expression.

Subdued expression.-Basso-relievo.-Style.

Whatever license may be permitted to the poet, the artist, more especially the sculptor, cannot carry the representation of the passions beyond a certain limit, without impairing all grace and beauty, outraging heroic dignity and decorum, and destroying the very interest and sentiment which it is intended to convey. In the Greek statuary, we observe no violent, cunning, malignant, ironical expression, no unseemly contortions of countenance. The movements and emotions are those of a man who knows how to control the fire of his passions; but allows certain flashes of them to escape, as it were, in spite of himself.

BASSO-RELIEVO.

There are three styles of relief. The highest is termed altorelievo, in which some portions of the objects are often quite detached; the figures are usually half, or more than half, in relief. In basso-relievo the figures have a very slight projection from the background. Mezzo-relievo presents a medium between the two other styles. In the highest relief, however decided the shadows may and must of necessity be, on the plane to which the figure is attached, the light on the figure itself is kept as unbroken as possible; and this can only be effected by a selection of open attitudes; that is, such an arrangement of the limbs as shall not cast shadows on the figure itself. In bassorelievo the same general effect of the figure is given, but by very different means. Shadow is here the essential and only source of meaning and effect. The outline of the whole mass should be distinctly relieved, while those that come within should be very slightly marked, that the general effect of the whole may not be destroyed by confusing shadows; still, a very important figure

Mezzo-relievo.-Appian way.-Roman relievi.

may judiciously be raised even upon another, when the prominent idea of the subject may be thus more fully developed. Mezzorelievo differs from both it has neither the limited attitudes of the first, nor the distinct outline, and suppressed, internal markings of the second; on the contrary, the outline is often less distinct than the forms within it, and hence it requires and is fitted for near inspection. Its imitation may thus be more absolute, and its execution more finished, than either of the other styles.

Mezzo-relievo of the fullest kind was fitly employed (as well as alto-relievo, when in situations not exposed to accidents) to ornament tombs and sarcophagi. These works, placed in the open air, decorated the approaches to cities, as sepulchres were always without the walls. The Appian way was the most magnificent of these streets of tombs in the neighbourhood of Rome, and must have exhibited, literally, thousands of sepulchral monuments. Though, generally, the work of Greek artists, and often interesting from being copies of better works, now lost, the haste and inattention with which such prodigious numbers were executed, tended to degrade the style of their sculpture. In these relievi, even in the better specimens, buildings and other objects are occasionally introduced behind the figures, thus approaching the spurious style of relief in which the effects of perspective are attempted to be expressed. The greater part of what are called Roman bassi-relievi are of this kind, and may be considered a middle style between the pure Greek relievo and the modern Italian. It was from antique sarcophagi, fine in execution, but with these defects in style, that Niccoli da Pisa, in the thirteenth century, first caught the spirit of ancient art. Many of the works from which he is believed to have studied are still preserved in Pisa. In imitating the simplicity of arrangement, and, in a remote degree, the purity of forms which these works exhibited,

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