The works in sculpture of the Etrurians are chiefly in terra-cotta, stone, and bronze ; and the most ancient tombs have supplied some exquisitely worked ornaments in gold, as well as larger pieces of armour of the same costly material Greek Sculpture.—In the preceding pages jwe have had rather to notice its existence than to trace the progress of sculpture ; for, with very limited exceptions, its practice was under circumstances so little favourable for its improvement, that it is scarcely possible to connect it, in any way, with the refined pursuit which it afterwards became in the hands of the Greeks. In other countries it never advanced beyond certain limits ; mere representations of objects were produced seldom elevated by sentiment or feeling; and if, sometimes, the rude ness of first attempts at form was overcome, the art still remained in fetters. In Greece, on the other hand, sculpture soon rose superior to all those prejudices that would have restricted its advancement. With this gifted people it became something more than a merely mechanical pursuit. It was here that the conceptions of sublime and glowing fancies were embodied in the productions of what may truly be termed a race of poet-artists. Writers have endeavoured to account in various ways for this universally admitted superiority of the Greeks over every other nation among whom the fine arts had been practised, and usually have attributed their success to such physical causes as a fine climate, or the prevalence of beautiful forms, or to the public exercises so general in that country ; or to the kind of government in those communities in which the arts were most successfully cultivated. Valuable as some of these conditions must be allowed to be towards the perfection of art, they are by no means sufficient to account for an excellence which, even amongst the Greeks, was both extremely partial with respect to locality and extent, and limited as to its duration. Nor were those particular states in which the arts of design most flourished peculiarly favoured beyond others in the causes supposed to contri bute to that excellence. The climate of Attica, it is admitted, was unequal; and though vegetation appeared in the greatest luxuriance in some spots, in others the soil was barren and naked. With regard to beauty, too, there is no reason to believe that the people who most excelled in tho fine arts (namely, the Athenians) were distinguished beyond all other Grecians for this quality. Cicero, indeed, makes a very remarkable observation which would go far to prove that the contrary was the fact. He says, speaking of the crowd of young men whom he saw at Athens, how few there were who were really handsome. (' Dc Nat. Deor.,' lib. ii., c. 79.) And it is curious also that of all the women whose celebrity for beauty has reached us, not one appears to support in this respect the honour of Athens. Phryno was a native of Thebes, Glycera of Thespke, Aspasia was born at Miletus, and when Zeuxis, the painter, desired to procure the most beautiful models for his Aphrodite, it is said he produced his master piece from the study of seven virgins of Crotona. It is not intended to deny the existence of beautiful forms amongst the Athenians, but simply to show that it is not to this exclusive possession that their success in the imitative arts can justly be attributed. The admiration of beauty amongst the Lacedmmoniana is admitted ( Alan, ` Var. Hist.; xiv. 27 ; and Athen.; ail. 12); but the fine arts were not per mitted to be practised in Sparta. In other parts of Greece also personal beauty conferred a title to distinction ; the priests of the young Zeus at zligium in Achrea, those of the Ismenian Apollo, and the boys who walked in procession at the festivals in honour of Hermes at Tanagra, were youths to whom a prize of beauty had been awarded (Pans., vii. 24; ix. 10. 22); but no school of art arose out of this which at any period equalled, or attempted to equal, that of Athens. It is scarcely necessary to allude to the question of govern ment. The arts flourished where the most different forms existed. Corinth held a secondary rank among the cities of art, while Athens and Sicyon were in the first Indeed, if wealth, pomp, and luxury had been necessary, or alone favourable, for the success of art, it would have been exhibited among the splendid communities of Asia, and not been left to its comparatively tardy development in the small, scattered, and often disturbed states of Greece. It was not to any of these accidents, either singly or collectively, that the perfection of Greek sculpture was owing. It was the principle upon which, among that people, imitative art was founded (and upon which it was prac tised throughout all its stages), that led to its excellence. The whole secret of the superiority of the best schools of Greece was in their making nature, in her most perfect forms, their model,—the only means by which perfection in art can be attained. As soon as they
acted upon this knowledge, their sculpture became almost as divine as their great examplar.
Judging from their poetry, and from their art, whether iu their sculpture or their painting, it would seem that the Greeks had an intuitive sympathy with beauty. The artists seem to have been careful never to lose sight of this principle, by expressing any passion or feeling under forms at variance with the simple laws of beauty. All extremes of expression are studiously avoided, and they appear to have chosen only those subjects for representation which allowed them to keep within these bounds. Pliny (‘ Hiat. Nat.,' xxx. 37) mentions an artist who had an opprobrious nickname in consequence of painting low and commonplace subjects; and the Theban had a law which subjected artists to a fine if their works were Inferior in beauty to time objects which they professed to imitate. (.Elian, ' Var.,' iv. 4 ; Junius, ' Do Piet. Vet.; ii. 4 ; Leming, Laocoon; IL p. 12.) This natural sensibility to the charm of beautiful forums was encouraged and assisted by the habits of the people. The gymnasia, or schools, in which young men were trained to take part in the public games, were frequented by all classes. Statesmen, philosophers, poets, and artiste were In the habit of attending them, and were thus accustomed to see the human form in all its varieties, whether draped or naked, or in repose or in action ; and while the sculptor was filling his mind with the beauty and capabilities of the human figure, the spectator was acquiring the knowledge that enabled him to become a competent judge of imitative art. The importance attached to distinction in these games rendered the education of the young men a subject of great care. Every means were resorted to in order to increase the elegance, the strength, the suppleness, and the active powers of the body ; and the (sculptor especi. ally benefited by having constantly before him the finest forms that exact discipline and judicious training could produce. Ile was thus taught to seek the causes of the superiority of the victor in the race or the wrestling match ; and by comparing or contrasting the different properties most generally found to exist in the conquerors in the various chases, to adopt those qualities in whatever characters lie might be called upon to represent. The deep and spacious chest and broad shouldera of the brawny wrestler gave the type or distinguishing character of Heracles, and the clam in which physical strength was to be exhibited : the clean legs, small well.kuit joints, and light' proper. dons of the victor in the foot-race, furnished the character of form of the messenger of the gods ; while the union of strength and agility in the athlete, taught the sculptor how to make those combinations which eventually fesulted in what is termed ideal beauty,-the statues of gods, demigods, and heroes. Having this access to the best models, and exercising his Art ulster the eyes of critics who, from habit and observation, were as well acquainted as himself with his standard, it its not surprising that the sculptor of Greece acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost synonymous. The high purposes to which sculpture especially was applied, and the general interest that was felt in all works that were produced, account for the success with which the art was practised. The mind of the sculptor was enlarged while he reflected on the appropriation of his work and the great objects of his labours. His was not the ambition of present praise or profit. He felt, and truly felt, that his art, properly practised and rightly under stood, was capable of producing great moral effects upon those who were to contemplate them ; and consequently, in the best period of Creek art, the appeal was always made to the higher feelings rather than the mere senses. The artist did not produce his works to gratify a patron, but to improve a people; and whether they were destined to the temple, the grove, the portico, or the place in which the public games were celebrated; whether, like the Zeus of Olympus, they were intended to excite religious impressions of the majesty of the gods ; or, as in the ironer (or portrait statues) in Altis, to stimulate the energy of the youths of Greece to gain distinction in the public games—the sculptor felt, and he acquired power as he was impressed with the ennobling idea, that be was contributing to a great end. This is the principle of the success of the arts in Greece; and in the presence or absence of this recognition of the public utility of art, may be discovered the causes of its comparative success or failure in other nations and in later times.