Fragments of these have various terms applied to them. " Busts" are heads, or heads and chests; a "torso" is a figure without head or limbs. These are perhaps fragments. Horace, however, is supposed to allude to a recognized form of such pieces of sculp ture in the words "median minervam." Statues are called "terminal" when they con sist of a head only made out, the body being represented by a square post. These were set up as boundary marks. to invoke favorite deities for the owner's prosperity, and hence the name "terminal." We now proceed to a very summary survey of the history of sculpture. We have said that ancient nations, both of profane and sacred history, were well used to sculp ture. Of these, the Egyptian and he Ninevite are best known. The Egyptian sculpture goes hack as far as 1;00, or even, in -the case of the pyramids, to 2,000 years before Christ (Gardner Wilkinson, ..ineietti Both sculptured the human form, the Egyptians with most knowledge and refinement; both were restricted by religions tra ditions from arriving at a full representation of the huntati both used mixed forms of man-headed •oulls, or man-beaded and ram-hauled lions. Usually these were colossal. The Egyptians, besides this, covered the walls of their sepulchres and temples with spir ited and amply detailed historical representations.
The next great nation of whose productior s we can judge was the Etruscan. They were of Greek origin. There is a great oriental influence or character in their work. It is also to sonic extent conventional, hut often full of sublimity, and the figure quite correct in outline. This also is illustrateikby their pottery, covered with figure designs, of which great abundance has been excavated in various parts of Italy. All these schools, including the Etruscan, are stiff and dry in execution—that is, wanting in the ease, fullness, and Inurement of the human form. They are called "archaic," mean ing by that term unformed and undeveloped, belonging to an age uninstructed in tech nical knowledge.
Beginning, with the early Egyptian times, this first period, called archaic, may be concluded with those of the 'Etruscans, and brings us down to about 600 B. c, From this time a rapid growth in the art took place; schools were formed in the a.Teat cities of Greece, bicyon, Egiva, and Corinth; and we read of Callon, Gnaws, Glaucias, and other names, culminating in Ageladas of Argos. These men sculptured on a colossal scale, and we have already alluded to the bronze for which 'the Greek cities had long been famous. These schools produced the famous works known as the Egina marbles, found iu 1812, as well as those of Selinos, in Sicily. Casts of the former may be seen in the British museum. The originals are at Munich.
The great period of sculpture began about 484, when Phidias was born. Ageledas was his master, as also of Polyelems and Myron, of whose works copies are now in the Vatican and elsewhere, made by Greek artists in the times of the Roman empire.
Of the gnat work of Phidias we will not here treat, as it is described elsewhere. Pericles did much to encourage the arts both of sculpture and painting.
For a century and a half, or for two, sculpture continued very slowly to decline. This great school ended in Praxiteles, a sculptor of consummate powers. He carried the representatiou of the human form further than Phidias and his scholars, and draper ies iu his bands lost their severer character, and clung to the rounded limbs, which they no longer concealed. His work may be seen in the casts of the Nike Apteros, or sculp
tures of the temple of uuwinged Victory, in the British and other museums. He is said to have been the first to represent the female form quite nude, and to have contributed by such sculptures to the enervation and gradual sensualizing of the art.
During the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., we have Agoracritos of Paros; Alcamenes of Athens; Scopes, the author of the famous Niobe group now at Florence; Lysippus of Sicyon, the favorite of Alexander; Chares, the author of the famous Colossus of Rhodes; Agasias, who sculptured the "Fighting Gladiator;" Glycon of the Farnese Hercules; and many others.
The homan conquest of Corinth under Mummius in the 2d c., and afterward of Athens, brought this old art to 'an end. Thenceforth Greek artists were found all uvt r the Roman empire, and the famous works of these former sculptors were reproduced by them for their new masters. The Roman sculpture, indeed, is included in this phase of Greek art—the last remarkable work that we shall notice of classic times being the famous column of Trajan, in the early part of the 2d c. A.D. This is, in fact, a tower over 100 rt. high, of white marble, entirely covered with bas-reliefs representing the Dacian wars of Trojan. We here see the expiring effort of classic art. Skillful and correct as the design is, it is, as a whole, graceless, stiff, and without beauty, compared with the old work.
Constantine, in the 4th c. of our era, carried off to Byzantium, his new seat of got, ernment, all the sculpture he could remove.
The art revived in Italy. As early as the 10th c., sculpture exhibited both design and grandeur, though wholly different from that of older times. Absolute freed( n from old conventionalities, vigor, dignity, and child-like freshness of mind, distinguishes modern sculpture down to the 15th century. The most noted names we will location here are those of Niccolo of Pisa, in the 13th c., who executed the bas-reliefs at Orvieto; after him, his son Giovanni. Andrea Pisan° made one of the bronze gates of the baptis tery of Florence. Ghiberti, the author of the more famous doors of the same baptistery, is next to be named: then Donato di Betto Bardi, or Donatello. Some of his works am in the church of Or san Michele, which the famous Orcagna, sculptor, painter, and architect, had built and decorated.
We begin the next period with Verocchio, in the 15th c., and the more famous Michael Angelo in the 16th. A host of great names followed: Cellini, Torregiano (who made the monument of Henry VII. at Westminster), Della Porta, Giovanni di Bologna, and Luca della Robbia, who also worked in enamelled terra-cotta on a large scale. These are Italian names. We may add JeanCoujon and Germain Pilon in France. In our own country, splendid medimval works are to be seen in the noble sculptures of Wells's cathedral, and of that of Lincoln, coeval with those of the Pisani. Cibber, who sculptured in England, was a Dane; Thorwaldsen, a native of Iceland; Canova, an Italian; and lastly, Flaxman, bring us down to our own days. Of the latter, the finest work is perhaps the Wellington shield, after the Homeric description of that of Achilles. See the works of Winckelmann and Kugler, and Westmacott's _Handbook-of ScuIrture.