Sculpture, as it was practised by the most ancient nations, must be viewed in a very different light from that in which we consider its employment in more modern times. With a comparatively uncivilised and unlettered people sculpture and typical art were the only means of representing ideas, and it had its origin almost in the wants of mall. With later nations (even of a remote antiquity) art became in a degree a refinement; and then the various changes and improvements were adopted that now occasion the difficulty in distinguishing between original and engrafted styles.
The few notices that are scattered over the writings of the ancients are quite inconclusive as to a common origin of art ; although certain received opinions upon the subject are occasionally met with. The very late date of the oldest of these writers, compared with the undoubted antiquity of the arts of design, accounts sufficiently for the difficulties they laboured under in collecting any trustworthy evidence on such points, and for the fables, exaggerations, and con tradictions that abound in their statements. The adventures and works attributed to Ordains, for instance, are a proof of the limited know ledge that existed of the first artist whose name occurs in the annals of Greek sculpture. The inventions and improvements in various useful arts due to a series of artists, and for which a single life would be insufficient, are nevertheless all ascribed to this one individual, who, after all, bore a name that in all probability was merely a general appellation given in early times to any skilful workman or artificer. In the same manner we find the introduction into Italy of the plastic art (simple modelling) attributed by Pliny to a refugee from Corinth at so late a date as about 600 B.C. The arrival in Etruria of Demaratus may have introduced changes or improvements in the fabric and decoration of vases. The names of the artists who are said to have accompanied him, Eucheir and Eugrammus, sound like epithets indicative of skill, rather than simple names of persons. Some writers speak of images having fallen from heaven. These several instances are referred to in order to show that even where tradition had supplied scattered and undefined notices of works of art of a remote date, they had become so subject to change and misrepresentation as succeeding generations received and in their turn again recorded them, that it would be vain to place any dependence upon them for a history of the origin of art. The inquiry into the precise time, the country, the
circumstances when the first efforts in sculpture were made, must therefore be attended with almost insuperable difficulties. Not so the establishment, at a later period, of epochs marked by changes in style, and what artists call treatment.
The desire to perpetuate the memory of extraordinary events, of remarkable persons, or of their actions ; to honour heroes and bene factors even during their lives, and to hand down to future ages the fame of their exploits, has been universal, and has rendered the arts by which such an end could be attained objects of universal interest. The first works applied to this purpose were no doubt marked by the greatest simplicity. The oldest and most authentic histories speak of monuments erected to mark the scene of any remarkable incident ; and although, at the early periods referred to, these monuments were only composed of rude blocks, or mere heaps of stones, still to such a simple commencement may doubtless, in a great measure, be traced the origin of sculpture. Jacob set up a heap of stones at Bethel t mark the spot where he had had his dream or vision. (Gen. xxviii. 18.) A similar simple memorial of a pillar and a heap of stoned conunemo rated the covenant entered into between Jacob and Labium. (Gee. xxxi. 44.) A similar monument was built over the grave of Rachel. (Gen. xxxv. 20.) Joshua also set up a great stone under an oak, " to be a witness." (Josh. xxiv. 27.) As late as the time of Pausanins, about a.n. 170, certain of the Grecian divinities were worshipped under the form of rude block. or mere columns, or stones set upright (Paus. vii. 22); and even in the present day the custom exists in seine countries of setting up a heap of stones to mark the spot where any extraordinary accident, such for example as a death from violence, has occurred. These are frequent in Italy, where the passer-by usually adds another stone to the heap, at the same time repeating a prayer for tho repose of the soul of the deceased.