DRAPERY in art. From the very great difficulties with which the artist has to strug gle in dealing with the arbitrary and ungraceful forms of modern dress (see COSTUME), we are often led to regard drapery as an impediment, in place of an aid and accessory, to the representation of the human form iu plastic art. The erroneous nature of such a conception will be manifest at once to those who direct their attention to the study of drapery in antique art, with a view to discovering not so much how as why it was employed by a people whose national customs admitted of their almost wholly dispens ing with it had they felt so disposed. Such a study will convice us that, when prop erly disposed, drapery tends, in many cases, to exhibit the form, to enhance the char acteristics, and to intensify the attitude, whether in action or in repose. It tells, more over, something of the circumstances in which the action takes place beyond what could possibly be told by the naked figure. The waving drapery of a hunting Diana, or an
Apollo shooting with the bow, tells us at once that the action is taking place in the open air, with the fresh breezes of the 2Egean blowing around them. On the other hand, that repose which is the peculiar characteristic of sovereignty, is indicated by the still and heavy character of the drapery which surrounds a Jupiter on Olympus, or a Clesar on his throne. The simple rule—simple in principle, though by no means always easy in practice—for the disposal of drapery, seems to be that it shall never be employed without an object; and that every fold shall, so to speak, be a logical result, either of the form of the figure, of the circumstances in which it is placed, or of some previous fold to which the latter is subordinated.