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the characteristic, works it boldly out, and knows what he is doing. All the ancient sculpture has a style of its own; whether the individual work be good or bad in execution, it is founded upon a distinct and scientific distribution of parts, -upon a system which the artist has learned, and knows as if it were a multiplication-table. Modern sculpture, on the contrary, is full of accident. It is domineered over by the model. It is founded on no system and on no scientific basis. It has no absolute standard of proportion for the human form, it is governed by no law, and seeks through imitation of the individual model to supply this want. Part by part it is worked out, but without any understanding of the whole, and without any style. Imitation is its bane, because the imitation is carried out without principles and without selection, and what is seen in the model is copied and taken as absolute.

Bel. Do you say the ancients had a mathematical and scientific standard of proportion to which they always adhered? Mal. Undoubtedly. No one can carefully examine the ancient statues without being struck by that. They are all marked by the same characteristics of proportion, and even their poorest works are blocked out on a regular system.

Bel. Would not such a rule limit the sculptor exceedingly, and tend to render his work mechanical?

Mal. Certainly not, if the standard was just. Nothing would help him more than an absolute rule of mean proportion. He might vary it in any figure, if he chose, for a special effect, but in so doing he would always know how far he strayed, and would be careful not to exaggerate. Besides, small variations produce great differences; and, after all, he must be careful to keep to the real proportions of the human figure, whatever he do. Does grammar prevent us from being poets? Does the exact science of thorough-bass limit the range of music? Does not the imagination play with the utmost freedom within its bounds? Is the result of its strict rules, monotony of character among different composers? Is there any resemblance between Beethoven and Rossini? Yet they both worked within the same absolute rules of thorough bass; and if at times Beethoven chose for effect, contrary to rule, to make consecutive fifths, he vio

lated the rule consciously, while he recognized it as in ordinary cases just.

Bel. Was the rule of proportion the same through all ages of Greek art?

Mal. No. The first scientific and absolute standard of the proportion of the human figure was established by Polycleitus, who wrote the famous treatise on the canons of proportion, celebrated in antiquity, and who embodied its rules in the statue of the Doryphorus, which was called the Canon. After him Euphranor introduced a variation, by lengthening the lower limbs in proportion to the torso; and still later, Lysippus increased this variation. But all recognize the necessity of a standard of proportion for the formalization of their work. This in nowise restrained their inventive powers, or limited the range of their imagination. could it?

How

Bel. I do not see how it could. I merely asked the question, because I remember an article written upon a treatise of proportion, where the critic objected to any elaborate system or standard of proportion upon the ground that it restricted the artist's powers, left him no free play in his art, and tended to render his work mechanical.

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Mal. Nonsense. Such a critic could have had little idea about art to entertain such a notion. He must have supposed that a sculptor could do nothing better than to set a model before him, and copy as accurately as possible what he saw. But such a method as this would never result in excellence, except by chance. model should serve an artist only as a grammar or dictionary of reference, to supply gaps in his knowledge of special facts and nothing else. It would be impossible to take from one the soul of his work,— nay, even the pose of it, for the artist must use it in reference to a fixed notion of movement and expression in his own mind, and modify it to that. No model can take even the pose of the statue you are making, as you wish it to be; and some fixed notion you must have, otherwise, as the model constantly changes, not only in pose but even in parts, according to her changes of movement, his work would require constant changes to correspond, and he would never end.

Bel. Besides, no model can ever enter, I suppose, into the feeling of the artist, and assume the true movement he seeks.

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Mal. Never; and therefore it becomes necessary for the artist to have a fixed conception, and a thorough knowledge of what is just and proper to express it, taking only from the model what suits his idea, and rejecting or modifying the rest. And here the Greeks are our great masters. They sought for style, and not for minute imitation of details. The details came in subordinated intelligently to the masses, and they formalized their statues to a scientific standard of proportion. Too minute an imitation was by them considered a defect. Callimachus, for instance, on account of his exceeding devotion to detail, was nicknamed KaTaTηSiTEXvos-the over-refiner or niggler-and he was criticised by Quinctilian as "nimius in veritate. Lysippus, indeed, was celebrated for the great finish of his works (argutic operum), but in his standard of proportions he was more ideal than any of his predecessors, and he worked upon a peculiar system of his own, saying that " should be represented, not as they were but as they ought to be." Yet in his day the grand school was already on the wane, and soon began to decline into eclecticism, over-refinement, and delicacy, and to betake itself to portraiture and the making of Venuses and Cupids-just as the best style of the great Italian painters declined and became academic in the time of the Caracci. In the grand school of Phidias, the details were completely subordinated to the masses. Nature was thoroughly understood and treated with great mastery, but minute detail was avoided.

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Bel. Mr. Ruskin would seem to trace back to imitation of nature even the forms of arabesque, and has endeavored to account for the pleasing effect of certain lines and combinations by the suggestion that they are taken from natural products, as leaves and flowers, and are therefore beautiful. This seems to me to be an utterly untenable position. Forms and lines, and combinations of these, are not beautiful because they are to be found in nature, but simply because they are beautiful-that is, because there is an inborn sense of harmonious relations in the human mind to which they respond. Certain forms and certain proportions please the sense of beauty-and there is the end of it. A line does not please us because it may be found on the outline of a leaf,

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for the outline on the leaf would not please us merely because it was found in nature, but because simply it pleases us. Both please us for the same reason. combinations of harmonious and melodious tones in music are not taken from nature. They do not owe their charm to any imitation of nature's sounds, but to the inward sense of man. And the same is the case with arabesque. Certain combinations are agreeable, and others are not, whether they may be found in nature or not. It is idle to tell me I ought not to like the Greek fret, because there is no such form to be found in nature, and it is an imitation of nothing; and that I ought to like the honeysuckle pattern, because it is taken from the flower. I answer that this has nothing to do with the reason why I like or dislike either pattern. All forms in nature are not necessarily or equally beautiful, otherwise we might as well copy in arabesque one thing as another.

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Mal. It was only this morning that I read a passage from Mr. Ruskin which bears upon this very question, and which is a famous specimen of his autocratic style and his inconsequential argumentation, or rather affirmation-which he deems philosophy. Here it is: “I have repeated again and again" (how imperious !) that the ideas of beauty are instinctive, and that it is only upon consideration and in a doubtful and disputable way that they appear in their typical character." This would seem to agree with the notions you have just expressed. mark how he continues: "While I assert positively, and have no fear of being able to prove, that a curve of any kind is more beautiful than a right line, I leave it to the reader to accept or not the only reason for its agreeableness that I can at all trace

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namely, that every curve divides itself infinitely by its change of direction." Can there be a more extraordinary contradiction of sentiment than is exhibited in this passage? First, he asserts that the ideas of beauty are instinctive, and appear in a doubtful and disputable way; then that he can prove that a curve is more agreeable than a right line; and then the only proof that he can offer is a suggestion, which the reader may accept or not. can you prove anything which is doubtful and disputable by a suggestion that in itself is admitted to be questionable?

How

Bel. If the ideas of beauty are instinctive, then of course a thing is beautiful because we like it, because it is agreeable to us, because it corresponds to an instinctive sense of beauty; and this is the end of the whole matter. Besides, I deny the proposition that "a curve of any kind is more beautiful than a straight line." A half-circle drawn with the compass is no more beautiful than the line of the diameter. Nothing is more fatiguing or mechanical than an uninterrupted curve. It is the combination of various curves, now flattened so as to be almost quite straight, now swelling, balancing each other, interrupted, and related to each other and to straight lines, which is agreeable in composition and in form.

Mal. On the coast of Cornwall the wreckers have the custom, on dark and stormy nights, of tying a lantern to the neck of a bell-wether, and setting him loose on the cliffs. As he moves along, nodding his head up and down, he attracts the notice of sailors and fishermen making for shore, and, taking his wavering lantern for a lighted boat in harbor, they direct their course toward him, expecting thus to make a safe landing, and are lured and wrecked upon the rocks. I must confess I think that artists who take Mr. Ruskin as an absolute and practical guide in art will but too often find him a wandering however brilliant-light to lure them to danger, and perhaps destruction. And the worst of it is, that he is all the more dangerous as a guide because of his brilliancy.

Bel. Let us leave Mr. Ruskin and return to our text. Art, according to you, would be the medium between nature and man -the interfusion of facts with feelings and ideas and not a mere rescript or imitation of dead nature.

Mal. If art be a language, it is plainly the duty of an artist to learn its grammar and structure as thoroughly as he can. Then the question is whether he has anything to say which is original, poetic, or interesting? It is scarcely worth while to learn the language if one has nothing but trivial commonplaces to announce by means of it. Where is the use in learning to make rhymes and verses if you have no poetic and inspiring ideas to express The means employed in the various forms of art-in music, painting, sculpture, and poetry-are indeed quite different; but

the end to be attained is the same-to stir and move the heart and mind, to lift it out of commonplace, and to idealize the literal and make it subservient to some grand or beautiful conception of the imagination. In each of the arts there is as great danger of doing too much as of doing too little, or being too literal as in being too vague. In many if not in most cases, a suggestion is better than a statement. Too much literalness of imitation invariably degenerates into dulness and prose, and a hint, suggestion, or touch often does more to stimulate the mind than a careful elaboration. Every great work contains more than its statements. It has a mystery in it that stimulates the mind, and carries it beyond the mere facts into a dreamland of sentiment and feeling. In poetry especially, the poet is often tempted to say too much. The imagination is always ready to supply whatever is suggested, but refuses to be guided and taught its lesson. In a picture, also, there is one thing to be represented in especial to which all else should be subordinatedone main idea to be expressed, and to insist in giving equal value to all that is accessory is a mistake. Besides, it is not true to nature. When the eye is in the centre of the scene, then all is definite, while all else is subordinated and comparatively vague. To give to all the parts equal value and precision, is to draw off the mind from the main object upon which the attention should be fixed. The true artist shows his judgment as well as his imagination in not distracting the eye and the mind by giving the same importance of treatment or the same vividness of representation to the accidental and unnecessary as to the necessary and essential.

Bel. The same observation will apply to the theatre. The actors are obliterated by the gorgeous scenery behind them. The "Tempest" of Shakespeare, for instance, by this treatment becomes a scenic effect, and Prospero and Miranda are merely subordinate figures in a splendid landscape. With a green curtain behind them, the imagination will supply the scene, and the passions of the persons become the all in all, as they should. This is one reason why Shakespeare always produces a vastly greater effect on one who reads any of his plays than on the same person seeing it on the stage. The imagination must be very dull if we need

actual facts and properties and scenery to stimulate them. But nowadays we must have a real wreck for Ferdinand; a real, or apparently real, river for Ophelia to drown in; a real castle, battlements, and moonlight for Hamlet to meet the ghost upon; and the poet is reduced to the line of the playwright. The scene-painter gets as much applause as the author. It is like the artist in "Little Peddlington," with the actual pump and the veritable ax and cow-house. We want illusion, not reality.

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Mal. The stage has always exercised a great influence on art, as well as art has upon the stage. The Greeks had almost no scenery; their imaginations were quick that they did not need it. They did not seek for scenic effects and illusions, but were absorbed in the passions portrayed by the actors in their words and gestures. They had no asides on the stage; but all was represented, so to speak, in basso-relievo. In like manner the figures in their pictures were in a plane, and had the character of bassorelievo. They had no middle distances, no far off backgrounds, no various incidents, but only foreground figures. They were sparing in effects, and simple and almost sculptural in their arrangements, and concentrated the interest in few figures, On our stage we represent distances and narrow planes with many figures and elaborate backgrounds and scenery, and our historical pictures partake of the effects of the theatre in their groupings and arrangements. We should not be satisfied with the simple and bare effects of the Greek stage. We not only want the play, but the scenery.

Bel. All our art is different from the art of the Greeks; and certainly in one art-that of music-we have left them, so to say, nowhere. The monotony of their music would bore us to death. This is the great art of our century, which has developed a new world. I doubt if they did not surpass us in painting as much as in sculpture; but unfortunately we have none of their pictures except a few walldecorations, and not one of their wonderful statues except those which are partly decorative-so, at least, I have often heard

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decorative figures made by unknown artists, and not celebrated by any ancient writer.

But if these noble statues were only decorative, and not considered worthy of special notice, what must have been those famous ones which were the wonder of the world, and so extravagantly praised by the critics of antiquity! What must have been the Athena of Phidias, or the Olympian Zeus, which was said to have exalted and enlarged religion itself! What the magnificent works of Praxiteles, Calamis, Polycleitus, Lysippus, Scopas, Alcamenes, Myron, Agoracritus, and the rest! All these are lost; not one remains-unless, perhaps, we may except the group of Hermes and Cupid lately unearthed at Olympia, which is full of feeling, grace, and nature, and which, as it corresponds to the text of Pausanias in subject and place where it was found, may possibly be by Praxiteles. But which Praxiteles-for there were two—if either? We must be very careful to remember that Pausanias wrote centuries after Praxiteles died; and all that he can say is that a statue then stood in this place which was called a work of Praxiteles. how many pictures that are called Raphaels, and how many statues that are called Michel Angelos, do we not know that neither Raphael nor Michel Angelo ever saw? And we have only Roman copies of the great Greek works. Nay, we even do not know with certainty that even these are copies, or if so, of what they are copies. The Apollo Belvedere itself is a Roman work of about the time of Nero.

Bel. How do you know this?

Well,

Mal. First, from its workmanship. It is not in the Greek style-not carrésquared, and flat in its planes, but rounded in its forms, as the Romans worked; and second, because it is executed in Luna or Carrara marble, which fixes its date—the quarries of Carrara having been first opened about the time of Nero.

Bel. Is there, then, so great a difference between the style of workmanship among the Romans and the Greeks?

Mal. Very great. But it would take too long to explain it here; and, besides, I doubt if I should make it perfectly intelligible in words after all, though I could easily show you the difference by comparing two statues. All I can say is that the Greek work is, to use two French words which better explain what I mean than

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any English ones which I can now think of, carré and arrêté-more squared out and decisive in its statements of form. The scientific statement of form is never lost. The treatment is freer, bolder, and based on clearer knowledge and principles. The Roman work is more puffy and rounded, and the muscles are more feebly stated and smoothed away. Compare the Apollo with the Theseus of the Elgin Marbles, and you will at once see the differ

ence.

Bel. But were not all, or nearly all, the sculptors in Rome Greeks?

Mal. That is the general opinion, know; but I do not agree to it. If they were, they changed their whole style of workmanship. But I see no sufficient reason for any such supposition. Almost all the known names of sculptors in Rome are Greek in their terminations undoubtedly, but this proves nothing. Greece was the land of art and of sculpture, and at one period undoubtedly many came to Rome and practised this profession there -although it does not seem that among these there was a single one of the celebrated sculptors. But Greece could never have supplied artists enough to make the almost incredible number of statues that existed in Rome. They were, as you remember, said to equal in number the inhabitants. One man alone-Emilius Scaurus-had three thousand disposable statues to put into his temporary theatre; and how many more he had, who knows! Now the inhabitants of Rome-not of the urbs or city, but of what was called Rome (the Romans making in this respect the same distinction that is now made between London and the City)-must have been at least four millions; and it is difficult to believe that Greece alone could have furnished artists enough to make them, even if she had sent every sculptor she had to Rome.

Bel. Do you place the inhabitants of Rome at so high a figure? You surprise me. Mr. Merivale, if I remember right, only puts them at some 700,000.

Mal. Justus Lipsius, who is a far better authority on this point, has discussed the question in a very elaborate essay, and he estimates the number at four millions. After carefully examining all the data we have, all the statements of the various ancient writers who allude to it, and all the facts which seem to bear on the question,

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I am convinced that in estimating the number at four millions, I am rather understating than overstating it. It is much more probable that it was larger than that it was smaller. But if you are interested in the question, I will lend you an essay on it which I wrote years ago, and which will give you the grounds on which my estimate is founded. De Quincey also estimates the inhabitants of Rome at four millions. I will only cite one fact, and then leave this question. The Circus Maximus was constructed to hold 250,000, or, according to Victor, at a later period probably, 385,000 spectators. Taking the smaller number, then, it would be one in sixteen of all the inhabitants if there were four millions. as one half the population was composed of slaves, who must be struck out of the spectators, when the circus was built there would be accommodation then for one in eight of the total population, excluding slaves. Reducing again the number one half by striking out the women, there would be room for one in four. Again, striking out the young children and the old men and the sick and impotent, you would have accommodation for nearly the whole population. Is it possible to believe that the Romans constructed a circus to hold the entire population of Rome capable of going to it ?-for such must have been the case were there only four millions of inhabitants. But suppose there were only a million inhabitants, it is plain from the mere figures that it would never have been possible to half fill the circus. But I will say no more on this subject now, otherwise we shall spend the whole day on it, and I have already thoroughly discussed it in the paper of which I spoke. Let us now go back to the Roman sculptors. I was saying that I saw no sufficient reason for supposing the sculptors in Rome to be Greeks, although for the most part the names which have come down to us have Greek terminations. take it that it was the fashion in Rome for sculptors to assume Greek names, just as in our day singers assume Italian names, and for a similar reason. Italy is the land of song and opera; the language is the language of opera; and singers of all nations take Italian terminations to their names-just as Greece, being the land of sculpture originally, and having produced the most renowned sculptors, the Roman

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