PREFACE TO THE COLLECTION OF CASTS OF STATUES, BUSTS, AND BAS RELIEFS IN THE MUSEUM OF ART. THE religious thought and feeling of the inhabitants of Greece exercised a powerful effect on Sculpture. Greece may be considered the country in which the art achieved its highest perfection. The rude block of stone, the distorted trunk of a tree, the composite monsters polluted by pagan rites, claimed no reverence from a people endowed with a fancy so rich, an imagination so fertile. To adore the elements or the vivifying powers of nature in their abstract vagueness, however suited to those content with the illusory contemplation of what they were unable to define, did not satisfy the sensibility of a nation gifted with a genius so active. In the development of the exponents of their belief the Greeks lent to tradition a graceful and engaging credulity. By interweaving the fictions handed down to them from their ancestors their mythological system became extremely complicated. Heroes and Heroines, associated with different alleged manifestations of the Gods, renowned for acts of valor, for having introduced civilising arts, wise laws, or useful inventions, were raised above the rank of mere mortals to celestial honors. At an early period the Greeks gave form to the great divinities to which they ascribed the government of the universe, also to the subordinate powers believed to superintend and direct the particular affairs of mankind. These forms were at first invested with attributes, physical and intellectual, superior to those conferred on man; next with a majesty and dignity emblematical of the Divine nature; lastly, in them was embodied the perfection of human symmetry, to which was imparted an ideal grace and beauty. Exhibited in temples, halls, and public places, or enshrined in private sanctuaries, they warmed the beholder to a sense of devotion more intelligible than could have been aroused by the mysterious relics of a barbarous antiquity. Inspired by her handmaidens, Poetry and Painting, and chastened by the enlightened criticism of successive generations, who by familiarity from infancy with such sublime works had been schooled to a correct judgment, Sculpture eventually, as it were, breathed life into the marble figure, and touched into motion the complex group. The history of Greek Sculpture may be divided into three periods :— The Dædalian. That of Pericles; or, the Heroic. That of Alexander the Great. THE FIRST ranged over several centuries, from B.C. 1200 to B.C. 550. Deities and Heroes were the subjects which chiefly engaged the attention of the Sculptor. Materials used were clay, wood, stone, marble, metals of various kinds. Opening the eyes, separating the feet, liberating the arms, and extending the limbs marked the works of this age as different from those of the primitive Egyptian stiff and formal style, according to which the eyes were closed, the feet placed together, and the arms held by the sides, indicating a representation of the dead rather than of the living person. The names of some Statuaries distinguished in this era have been preserved. For what is known respecting them and the others alluded to, the reader is referred to the numerous writings upon Art, ancient and modern, collected in the Library. Amongst the Sculptors are Dædalus, the Athenian; Smilis, of Crete; Eugrammus, who, with Euchir and Diopus, followed the fortunes of Damaratus (father of Tarquin, eventually King of Rome) in his flight from Corinth to Etruria, B.C. 664, and gave a new direction to Etruscan art. Theodorus, son of Rhæcus, and brother of Telecles, to whom credit is given for the invention, B.C. 600, of casting in moulds, although as it had been practised long before by the Phoenicians, B.C. 1005,† all justly due to him may be the honor of having introduced the practice into Greece. Malas, his son Micciades, * The fig, sycamore, cedar, olive, ebony. Winck. i. 31. † 1 Kings vii. 45. |