We now draw near the close of the list of celebrated painters of Greece ; for the art had already passed its me ridian. It reached its greatest altitude in the age of Pe ricles, when Apelles flourished, and not being able to pass that point of perfection to which his powerful genius had raised it, it could not remain stationary, but, consistently with the usual tendency of human affairs, began rapidly to fall back, increasing in speed as it descended. We find the marks of languor and effeminacy where the vi gour of creative genius had shone before ; a degraded af fectation of refinement, supplanting the noble simplicity, truth, and grace, which characterized the ascending pro gress of art in Greece. Having once mastered the great difficulties of an art, and possessed ourselves of the attain ments in which real excellence consists, the restless prin ciple of our nature will not suffer our remaining satisfied with the acquirement of what is possible, we strive to re fine perfection, and seek for new charms to catch the eye ; in search of these, which assume importance as we pro ceed, the great principles of excellence are soon lost sight of, and we sink fast into all the trick and corruptions of a vitiated taste. Surprise, more than admiration, becomes the emotion sought to be excited ; invention is occupied with mechanical facilities and puerile conceits, instead of that noble exercise of genius which gained for painting so distinguished a place among the liberal arts. Lord Karnes very justly observes, that " an useful art seldom turns retrograde, because every one has an interest to pre serve it in perfection. Fine arts depend on more slender principles than those of utility ; and therefore the judg ment formed of them is more fluctuating. The variety of form that is admitted into the fine arts by such fluctua tion of judgment, excites artists to indulge their love of novelty. Restless man knows no golden mean, but will be attempting innovations without end. Such innovations do well in an art distant from perfection ; for an artist, ambitious to excel, aims always to be an original, and can not submit to be an imitator." We may mention Nicias as having had the reputation of being a good painter ; and likewise Athenion, his rival, and the philosopher Metrodorus, who attended £milius to Rome as tutor to his children, and had the credit of train ing the mind, and guiding the studies, of the great Scipio.
In Greece, the art partook more of the fixed principles of a science, than of the arbitrary exercise of an elegant accomplishment, as it has been considered in modern times ; in so far as the notion of beauty assumed more of a determined quality, grounded on stated rules, and a sort of generally received standard, and not entirely left to the ar tist's individual feeling of taste. We know of nothing in the constitution of nature which indicates any established principles of architecture, beyond the requisite solidity and fitness for the purpose intended, and admitting of a boundless range of variety in form and proportion; yet the successive efforts of skill and genius which in Greece were for ages turned to the refinement of that art, gradually narrowed the range, until it fixed itself within the limits of certain received principles of proportion and form, which constituted the nearest approach to their ideas of perfec tion, and of which any infringement was universally ad mitted to be injurious to the object aimed at. Beyond this point, the advance of human skill seemed to be interdicted ; but the aspiring genius of Greece continued, notwithstand ing, to pursue the attempt with so much energy, that the apparently insignificant problem of ascertaining the exact measure best suited to the intercolumniations of the differ ent orders of architecture, was a contest which agitated, for three hundred years, the skill of artists, and remained, notwithstanding, unsettled.
The same precision was extended to sculpture and painting, in so far as expressive of the greatest possible beauty. They classed them into the different kinds of beauty of which the human form appeared susceptible ; and that they did arrive at sonic degree of fixed and esta blished understanding on this seemingly undefinable sub ject is likely, from the perfect uniformity that is exhibited in the often repeated representations of their different de ities, where they observe one fixed and uniform type of beauty, from which they seem seldom or ever to have ad mitted of any deviation. It was not left to the imagina tion of the artist to portray any ideal excellence of his own brain ; there was an individual likeness, a combination of certain attributes, of certain perfections of form and fea tures, which constituted the particular identity of beauty, of which each god or goddess was the type or enunciation. Accordingly, to those accustomed to examine the works of Grecian sculpture, there is as little difficulty in fixing upon the deity represented, as in recognizing the portrait of a well known individual : the different forms of female beauty, for instance, in the nearest approach to perfection which the purity of their taste could suggest, or the ex cellence of art could express, are pourt•ayed in the Venus, Thetis, Juno, Pallas, and Diana, expressive of the peculiar attributes characteristic of each goddess. It required a wonderful degree of skill, and accurate observation of the effect of mind, and propensities of particular character, as enunciated by the features and form ; to manage the dis tinct expression of them, and at the same time preserve the dignity proper to the godlike nature, requiring perfect composure and tranquillity of attitude. This search after the perfection of beauty, refined and combined from every thing that appeared the most admirable in the human form ; this personification of ideal excellence, of which mankind offers but an imperfect image, became the su preme aim of every artist's genius; and has been succes sively taken up by the different schools of modern times, worshipped as the chief excellence by some, neglected by others, and even ridiculed as straining after a phantom.
If, with the Dutch, we consider the object and excel lence of painting to consist in a close matter of fact repre sentation of whatever in nature is presented to our view, whether elegant or homely; a painter has certainly no thing to do with this refinement of the ancients. But if painting is not rigidly confined to prose, but may have its poetry, it is then we get into the region of what the French denominate beau ideal, and which we find so beautifully exemplified in the exquisite remains of Grecian sculp ture. It is the refinement of human nature, to the exclu sion of all imperfections ; impressing a sort of elevation, dignity, and intellectual grandeur, which we have delight in supposing, and would willingly believe realized. This ideal beauty, and perfect state of nature, freed from the defects and blemishes which few, if any, individual exam ples of beauty want, is the true basis of the great or heroic style of painting. It is the fruit of persevering study, and acute observation of nature, united with judgment to dis criminate the most beautiful of every kind, and with capacity to free them from the dross of individual im perfections.