STATUS% antique. The denomination of antique statues is applicable to all an cient statues, found either in India, Egypt, &c but is especially given, in pre ference, to the statues wrought by the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors. The works ot' the Grecians are consider ed as the most perfect examples of sculp ture. Their statues are eminently admir able for the various beauty of their forms, for characteristic expression and grace. The Grecian scat ties of men are generally naked. The Roman are clothed agree ably to the manner of the country, and are distinguished into palludatz (statue,) those of emperors with long robes over their armour ; loricats, those of soldiers with cuirasses; thoracatz, those with coats of armour ; togatz, those of magis. trates, with the toga or robe worn in of fice ; trabeatz, those of senators and au gurs; tunicatz, those clothed with a plain tunic; stolata, those of women with long trains.
The antique statues are most particu larly remarkable for their systematic re presentation of the human form. As principle most apparent in their system is that of proportions, we shall give, first, an account of their general proportions to which they chiefly adhered, and next, an accurate measurement of the various parts of the body, taken at Rome, from some of their most celebrated original statues.
" Proportions of the antique Statues." Proportion is the basis of beauty, and there can be no beauty without it ; on the contrary, proportion may exist where there is little beauty. Experience teaches us, that knowledge is distinct from taste ; and proportion, therefore, which is found ed on knowledge, may be strictly observ ed in any figure, and yet the figure have no pretensions to beauty. The ancients, considering ideal beauty as the most per fect, have frequently employed it in pre ference to the beauty of nature. It is pro bable that the Grecian as well as the Egyptian artists determined the great and small proportions by fixed rules ; that they established a positive measure for the dimensions of length, bteadth, and circumference. This supposition alone can enable us to account for the great conformity which we meet with in ancient statues. Winkelman thinks that the foot was the measure which the ancients used in all their great dimensions, and that it was by the length of it that they regulated the measure of their figures, by giving to them six times that length.
This, in fact, is the length which Vitro vine assigns, lib. 3. cap. 1. That celebrat ed architect thinks the foot is a more de terminate measure than the head or the face, the parts from which modern paint ers and sculptors often take their pro portions. This proportion of the foot to the body, which has appeared strange and incomprehensible to the learned Huetius, and has been entirely rejected by Perrault, is, however, founded upon experience. After measuring with great care a vast number of figures, Winkel man found this proportion not only in Egyptian statues, but also in those of Greece. This fact may be determined by an inspection of those statues, the feet of which are perfect; and one may be more fully convinced of it by examining some figures of the Greek divinities, in which the artists have made some parts beyond their natural dimensions. In the Apollo Belvidere, which is a little more than seven heads high, the foot is three Roman inches longer than the head. The head of the Venus de Medicis is very small, and the height of the statue is se. ven heads and a half; the foot is three inches and a half longer than the head, or precisely the sixth part of the length of the whole statue.
Other writers are of opinion, that the following rules form a principal part of the system of Grecian sculpture : the body consists of three parts, as well as the members. The three parts of the body are, the trunk, the thighs, and the legs. The inferior parts of the body are, the thighs, the legs, and the feet. The arms also consist of three parts. These three parts must bear a certain propor tion to the whole, as well as to one another. In a well-formed man, the head and body must be proportioned to the thighs, the legs, and the feet, in the same manner as the thighs are proportioned to the legs and the feet, or the arms to the hands. The face also consists of three parts, that is, three times the length of the nose ; but the head is not four times the length of the nose, as some writers have asserted. From the place where the hair begins to the crown of the head are only three-fourths of the length of the nose, or that part is to the nose as nine to twelve.