Preface
In 1905 I published a little work called A Grammar of Greek Art , intended to set forth the leading principles to be traced in the surviving monuments of ancient Hellas, architecture, sculpture, and painting. The present book is an enlargement of the Grammar. Chapters I-XII, XVIII, XXI have been mostly rewritten, IV and XI being quite new. The other chapters have been revised and corrected. Twenty -five new illustrations are added, and the bulk of the book increased by about a third. The title is altered from Grammar to Principles , as I found that the former title was misunderstood.
At present, as every one knows, Greek studies and the Greek element in education are falling back, and there is a danger of the immense value of the legacy of Hellas to the modern world being underrated. Against this tendency I am anxious to contend, side by side with my friends the lovers of Greek literature, and indeed with all humanists in every country.
The illustrations in the text are of a varied character. Each of them was chosen, not for its own sake, but to illustrate some principle. I have had to borrow from many sources ; in every case in which it seemed necessary to ask for permission to copy, such permission was readily and kindly granted. My sister, Miss Alice Gardner, has kindly supplied the index.
PERCY GARDNER.
Oxford,
September, 1913.
CHAPTER I The Grammar of Greek Art
Greek art a special language : it has an accidence and a syntax or philosophy, 1. The subject not a search into origins, but into character and development, 3. These specifically Greek, whether derived from Minoan or Oriental elements, 4. Parallel to Greek literature, 6. Sources of our knowledge ; ancient writers, inscriptions, and especially extant monuments, 8. Greek original statues and copies, 10. Scarcity of paintings, 11. Coins and gems, ll.
Chapter II
Socrates as reported in Memorabilia : interviews with Parrhasius and Cleiton, 13. Views of Plato, 16. Aristotle on plastic art, 17. Phrases in Aristotle’s Poetics , symmetry, rhythm, ethos, pathos, 20. Later writers, Pasi teles, 26 ; Varro, Pliny, Cicero, 27 ; Pausanias, 28 ; Lucian, 30.
Chapter III
Influence of country and race, 33. Purpose of the temple, 35. Question of proportions, 38. Entasis, 39. Rationality of plan, 40. Decoration confined to otiose parts, 41. Its simplicity, 44. False departures in decoration, 44. Colouring, 47. Rhetorical tendency, 48. Satisfaction to religious needs, 49.
CHAPTER IV The House and the Tomb
Secular buildings, 51. Walls and theatres, 52. Dwelling houses, 53. The tomb : similarity to temple, 53. Finds at Mycenae, 56. Sepulchral sculpture, 57. Spartan class, 57. North Greek horseviii
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man class, 59. Archaic tombs at Athens, 60. Growing splendour in fifth and fourth centuries, 62. Demetrius Phalereus, 62. The stele and the temple-tomb, 63. Family groups, 65. The oil flask and the water pot, 67. Painted scenes, 68. Comparison with literature, 69 ; and with modern cemeteries, 70.
CHAPTER Y
Only decorative elements borrowed by Greeks, 72. Causes of excellence of Greek art, 74; athletic habits, 75; the accumulation of beauty, 79 ; synthesis of beauties, 80. Value of appreciation of beauty, 80.
Chapter VI
Relation of religions to art, 83. Various strains in^Greek religion, 84. Naturalist origins of religion, 86. Cooperation of the artists, 86. Relation of deities to cities, 87. National elements,
88. Formation of artistic pantheon, 89. Symbolic contrasted with anthropomorphic art, 90. Incorporation of attributes in type, 92.
Who made the types of deities ? 95. Heroes in art, 95.
Chapter VII
Did painting precede sculpture ? 98. Search into origins and search into character, 98. Lange’s principle of frontality in early art, 99. Two-plane scheme of representation, 102. Basis of law of frontality, 104. Humanist and subjective character of art, 107. Mistakes through not recognizing this, 108.
CHAPTER VIII Sculpture : Material, Space and Colouring ..... 110
Relations to material, 110. Sculpture in wood, 110. Sculpture in bronze, 111. Sculpture in marble, 113. Decorative and substantive art, 114. The temple, 117. The pediment, 118. The metope, 124. The frieze, 125. Isocephalism, 129. Colouring of sculpture, 130.
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Chapter IX Page
It was man that especially interested the Greeks, 134. Improvements in technique, 135. Line of attainment, 138. Rendering of head, 138. Great change in the third century : study of anatomy, 143.
Chapter X
Is the dress of sculpture that actually worn ? 147. Adherence to nature, 148. Ionic dress, 149. Doric dress, 152. Complication of later dress, 158. Artistic use of dress, 160. Dress becomes drapery, 164.
Chapter XI
Immense number of Greek portraits, 165. Difficulty of the subject, 166. Comparison with Plutarch’s Lives , 168. Archaic age,
169. Fifth century portraits, 170. Ideal element, 171. Fourth century idealism, 175. Portraits of women, 177. Change in third century, 178.
Chapter XII
Scantiness of materials : frescoes and vases, 181. Pliny on painting, 182. Painting in the later sixth century, 184. Period of Polygnotus, 186. His perspective, 187. His method of allusion,
- 188. Relations of vase-painting to frescoes, 191. Colours of Polygnotus, 203. Later masters, 203. Existing remains, 204. Painting precedes sculpture, 209.
Chapter XIII
Minoan age, 211. Geometric style, 212. Early black-figured,
213. Later black-figured, 214. Red-figured, 215. White-ground vases, 217. Red-figured, late, 218. Forms, 218.
Chapter XIV
Vases as wholes, 221. Conditions of space, 222. The horror vacui , 223. Lowy’s rules in archaic drawing, 225. Balance and
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symmetry, 226. Relation of designs to forms of vases, 228. Balance in schemes, 231. Relation of designs on a vase one to another, 232. Perspective, 235.
Chapter XV
Use of fixed schemes, 239. Parallel to Homeric phrases, 242. Names added in schemes, 243. Embodiment of myths in art, 245. Chorus scheme, 248. Messenger scheme, 249. History of the representations of the mission of Triptolemus, 251. Contamination,
255. Locality, 258. Continuous narration, 259. Representations of daily life, 261.
CHAPTER XYI
Contrast with modern illustration, 263. Art and myth run parallel, 265. Influence of Homer on myth, 266. Influence of literature on choice of subject, 258 ; on variation of story, 269 ; on special treatment, 269. Homeric subjects : the abduction of Briseis, 271 ; the combat of Diomedes and Aeneas, 275 ; the horses of Rhesus, 276; Odysseus and the Cyclops, 279; the Sirens, 281. Dionysus and the Pirates, 283.
CHAPTER XYII
Literature and Painting continued : Lyric and Dramatic
Poetry 284
Lyric poetry and art, 284. Tragedy : subjects, 286 ; manner of treatment, 286. No direct influence of the stage, 288. Yases of lower Italy and the Euripidean stage, 290. Wall-paintings of Pompeii, 293. Roman sarcophagi, 295.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Art-history of a Myth : the Judgment of Paris . . . 297
Early period : literature of the myth, 298. Early vases, 298.
Vases of the great painters, 300. Period after b.c. 450 : literature,
302. Vase-paintings, 304. Italian vases, 307. Pompeian paintings, 308. Independent course taken by art, 309.
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CHAPTER XIX
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Representations of actual events in art, 310. Ideal representation of history : the Parthenon, 313. Dedications at Delphi, 320. Yase-pain tings, 321.
CHAPTER XX
Historic character of coins, 324. Methods of connecting coins with history, 327. Coins of fixed date, 328. The psychology of coins, 331. Reproduction of works of sculpture, 333.
CHAPTER XXI
Naturalism and Idealism in Greek Art ...... 335
Senses and intellect in Greek art, 335. Realism and idealism,
336. The Ionian spirit, 337. Humanism in Attic art, 337. Painting and sculpture not merely mimetic, 339. The study of nature,
340. Human interpretation, 341. Impressionism, 342. Greek art both humanist and ideal, 343. Social idealism, 345. Hay don on the sculpture of the Parthenon, 347.
INDEX 349 i
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
NUMBER PAGE
1. Plan of the Parthenon 36
Dorpfeld in Athen. Mittheil , 1881, pi. XII.
2. Lines of basis of Parthenon 40
E. A. Gardner, Ancient Athens , p. 270.
3. Anatomy of the Parthenon 42
Br. Mus. Cat. Sculpture , pi. IV.
4. Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns ...... 46
a. Temple at Selinus. b. Erechtheum. c. Lysicrates monument.
5. Spartan hero and wife 58
P. Gardner, Sculptured Tombs of Hellas , pi. II.
6. Horseman relief : British Museum . ...... 59
Ibid. p. 96.
7. Beclining hero, with worshipper (Athens) 60
Erom a cast.
8. Tombstone : Tynnias seated (Athens) 64
P. Gardner, Sculptured Tombs , pi. III.
9. Tombstone : family group (Athens) 65
Ibid. pi. XXIII.
10. Water-vessel on tombstone (Athens) 67
Ibid. pi. IV.
11. Artemis: relief from Olympia 90
From a cast.
12. Artemis : coin of Ephesus 91
Erom a cast.
13. Artemis of Versailles . 93
14. Apollo and Artemis : vase at Berlin ...... 96
Wiener Vorlegebl ., 1888, pi. VIII.
15. Unfinished statue : Athens 101
Journ. Hell. Stud., XI., p. 130.
16. Horse : Vase at Boulogne 102
Lowy, Naturwiedergabe, p. 44.
17. Metope of Selinus ......... 103
18. Nike of Delos, restored 104
19. Discobolus of Myron, restored 105
Munich reconstruction, xiii
LIST or ILLUSTRATIONS
NUMBER PAGE
20. Female figure, Olympia 112
From a cast.
21. Figure from Polledrara : British Museum 112
22. Kylix at Berlin * 113
Gerhard, Coupes Grecques et Etrusques , XII.
23. Bronze reliefs : Ashmolean Museum 116
24 a. Restoration of E. Pediment, Olympia 120
Treu, Jahrbuch des arch. Inst., 1888.
24 b. Restoration of W. Pediment, Olympia 120
Treu, Jahrbuch , 1888.
25. Diagram of pediment 121
26. Corners of E. Pediment, Parthenon 123
27. Two metopes, Olympia ......... 126
Restorations by G. Treu.
28. From the Mausoleum frieze 128
29. Argive Diadumenus : British Museum 136
30. Attic Diadumenus : British Museum 137
31. Head of Doryphorus : Naples . . . 139
32. Head of Hermes of Praxiteles 140
33. Diagrams of male and female eye 141
Cecil Smith in Cat. Vases , III., 4.
34. Stele from Lamprika, Athens 145
35. Female figure by Antenor : Athens 151
Restored by Studniczka, Jahrbuch des arch. Inst., II., 141.
36. Diagram of the Doric chiton 153
Gardner and Jevons, Manual of Greek Antiquities, p. 53.
37. Bronze girl from Herculaneum 154
38. Diagram of himation ......... 156
Gardner and Jevons, Manual, p. 55.
39. Male figure wearing himation : amphora 157
Ashmolean Museum, Cat., fig. 25.
40. Dress of girls : Attic krater 158
Furtwangler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei , pi. 17 .
41. Aphrodite of Fr^jus : Louvre 162
42. Athena of Myron : Frankfort 162
43. Head and hand holding discus : Athens 169
44. Portrait of Pericles : British Museum ,170
45. Head of Euripides 173
46. Head of Antisthenes : Vatican 174
47. Alexander as a youth : Munich 176
48. Demosthenes : Vatican ........ 179
49. Negro, from a vase, Ashmolean Museum 184
50. Warrior on a tablet from Athens 185
Epliemeris, 1887, pi. VI.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv
NUMBER PAGE
51 a. The Argonauts : Vase from Orvieto 190
Journ. Hell. Stud ., X., p. 118.
51 b. The Niobids : Yase from Orvieto . 191
Ibid.
52. Theseus and Poseidon : Yase at Bologna 195
Journ. Hell. Stud., XVIII., p. 277.
53. Odysseus shooting the Suitors : Yase from Corneto . . . 197
Mon. dell. Inst., IX., 53.
54 a. Menelaus and Helen : Attic vase 199
Lowy, Wiener Studien, 1912, p. 284.
54 5. Menelaus and Helen : Metopes of Parthenon .... 200
Ibid.
55. Attic worthies : Yase from Corneto 201
56. Ivory tablet from the Crimea 204
57. Battle of Issus : Pompeian Mosaic 208
58. Geometric vase in Ashmolean Museum 212
59. Archaic pyxis : British Museum 213
60. White lekythos from Athens : Ashmolean Museum . . . 217
61. Forms of Greek vases 219
62. Attic kylix : Ashmolean Museum 219
63. Amphora : Ashmolean Museum 220
64. Plate from Rhodes 223
Musee Napoleon III, pi. III.
65. Spartan Yase 224
Arch. Zeitung, 1882; pi. XII., 2.
66. Kylix by Hiero : Berlin 225
67. Bellerophon : Melian terra-cotta 228
Millingen, Anc. lined. Mon., II., pi. 3.
68. Nolan Amphora : Ashmolean Museum 229
69. Attic lekythos : Ashmolean Museum 229
70. Youth standing : Amphora. Ashmolean Museum . . . 230
71. Female figure : Kylix. Ashmolean Museum 231
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
NVMBER PAGE
72. Satyr: Kylix in British Museum 231
Catalogue III., pi. VI.
73. Two figures : Kylix. British Museum 232
Catalogue III., pi. VI.
74. Amphora in Ashmolean Museum 232
75. Amphora at Munich 233
Lau, Die griech. Vasen., pi. XXIV.
76. Amphora in Ashmoleaii Museum . . . . . . 233
77. Eos and Tithonus : Vase in Ashmolean Museum .... 234
Journ. Hell. Stud., XIII., p. 137.
78. Seizure of Thetis : Vase in the British Museum .... 236
From Rhodes. From a drawing.
79. Herakles and lion : Vase in the British Museum .... 240
Catalogue II., p. 13.
80. Herakles and Triton. British Museum 241
81. Herakles with boar. British Museum 242
82. Theseus and the Minotaur : Vase in the Ashmolean Museum . 243
83. Achilles arming : plate at Athens 247
Heydemarm, Griech. Vasenb., pi. VI.
84 a. Seizure of Thetis : Kylix by Hiero 248
84 b. Reverse of the same vase 249
85. Triptolemus : Vase in Vatican 251
Overbeck, Kunstmytli., pi. XV., 6.
86. Triptolemus : Vase by Hiero 252
Ibid., fig. 22 a.
87. Triptolemus : red-figured vase . 253
Ibid., fig. 31.
88. Triptolemus : Vase of Tarentum 254
Ibid., pi. XVI., 13.
89. Sleep and death : Vase of Euphronius 256
Klein, Euphronios, p. 272.
90. Oedipus and Sphinx : Kylix 257
Hart wig, Meisterschalen , pi. 73.
91. Sunrise: Vase in British Museum • 260
Catalogue III., p. 284.
92. Abduction of Briseis : Vase of Hiero 270
Mon. d. Inst., VI., 19.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii
NUMBER PAGE
93. Abduction of Briseis : Vase in British Museum .... 274
Hartwig, Meisterschalen , pi. 41.
94. Combat of Diomedes and Aeneas : Vase in British Museum . 275
Journal of Philology , XII., p. 215.
95. The horses of Rhesus : Vase at Berlin ...... 277
Gerhard, Coupes de Berlin , pi. K.
96. The horses of Rhesus 278
Wiener Vorlegebl., C., 3.
97. Odysseus and the Cyclops : Attic Yase 280
Gazette Archeol ., 1887, pi. I.
98. Odysseus and the Sirens : Yase in British Museum . . . 282
Mon. d. Inst ., I., 8.
99. Orestes at Delphi: Yase at St. Petersburg 291
Comptes rendus , 1863, pi. YI.
100. Orestes in Tauris : Yase of Ruvo 294
Mon. d. Inst., VIII., 22.
101. Judgment of Paris : Archaic vase 299
Journ. Hell. Stud., pi. LXX.
102. Judgment of Paris : Yase of Hiero . . . . . .301
103. Judgment of Paris : Deities in ohariots 302
Dumont, Vases Peints, pi. X.
104. Judgment of Paris: Yase at Berlin 303
Catalogue, 2536.
105. Judgment of Paris : Goddesses preparing 305
Mon. d. Inst., IV., 18.
106. Judgment of Paris : order broken up 306
Coll. Sabouroff, pi. 61.
107. Sarcophagus from Sidon 312
Hamdy and Reinach, Necropole royale a Sidon, pi. 25.
108. The Persians : Yase of Tarentum • 322
Mon. d. Inst., IX., 51.
109. Damareteion coin 329
110. Dion coin 329
111. Coin of Samos 330
112. Coin of Ephesus 330
Chapter I
Just as the poetry and prose of the Greeks is expressed in a particular language, the words and the grammar of which must be studied by those who would understand the literature, so works of Greek painting and sculpture also are composed in what may be called a particular artistic language.1 The words of that language are the strokes of the brush and the chisel; but these are put together in order to embody Greek ideas in ways which are distinctive and not like those adopted by any other people ; certainly unlike those of modern art. The object of the present work is to set forth, as simply and directly as possible, what these ways are ; to define, in fact, the principles of Greek art, and so render more intelligible the works of painting and sculpture which have come down to us from Hellenic antiquity.
Although the problem before us is one which can only be solved by a close and long-continued examination of the monuments of Greek art, yet it is at bottom psychological. We have to determine the laws according to which the mind, the taste, the hand, of the artist worked. We are speaking of a generalized or ideal process. It will not, of course, be supposed that a sculptor or painter, before he set about his work, consciously or deliberately thought out the lines on which he should pro-
1 Welcker calls it a Zeichensprache, Alte Derikmaler , III, p. xii.
B 1
CHAP.
ceed. He went by the traditions of the craft, the customs of a school. But his unconscious process can be brought out in regular and methodical form ; and this is what I propose to do. In precisely the same way those who have never learned grammar may speak their own language grammatically enough. Unconsciously they follow laws of usage which have been laid down by the practice of generations. The grammarian can discover and set forth those laws, the statement of which, though less necessary to those who speak their mother tongue, • is quite indispensable to those who have to learn the language as one foreign to them.
To the accidence of a language we may compare the simple laws of relation to material, of relation to space, of balance and proportion, which are manifested in the work of a Greek artist. To the syntax of a language we may compare the relation of scene to scene, of picture to myth and to literature, of sculpture and coin to history. And art as a whole we may place beside the poetry and philosophy of Greece as a parallel manifestation of the genius of the race, in some directions an even clearer and more illuminating manifestation.
We start from the purpose of the Greek artist to produce a statue, or to paint a scene of Greek mythology. Whence this purpose came, we cannot always see. It may have come, at the lowest, from a commercial demand, or from desire to exercise talent, or from a wish to honour the gods. This purpose works from within outward, and meets with controlling conditions, according to which its outward working is directed, conditions partly belonging to the materials employed, partly to the artistic customs and traditions of the age, partly to the personality of the artist himself, and partly to the city or the race to which he belongs.
In its higher branches grammar touches psychology, and I shall have to speak of the psychology and the philosophy of art. Certainly I do not wish to limit myself to such formal
I and superficial rules as make up the bulk of our grammars. In fact, some parts of the present work may be said to lie between a psychology and a grammar. The reason of this is not far- to seek ; and I must briefly set it forth.
If the creations of the Greek painter and sculptor had come down to us in full abundance and in their original beauty, the philosophy and the grammar of the subject would have lain apart, the first being primarily illustrated from those great works of art which fully embody the Greek character, the second from simple and commonplace efforts of the artists. But what we possess is but a remnant of the ancient splendour. In the case of architecture and sculpture, enough remains to show us what the Greeks could do : in the case of painting we have only work of a comparatively poor or hasty character. It is therefore natural in dealing with sculpture to proceed in a more philosophical way, and in dealing with painting, to proceed on the humbler lines of grammar. Perhaps by following this course I have somewhat injured the unity of this work; but it does not appear that much would have been gained if I had divided it in two. The reader must always remember that in criticising sculpture we are at a higher level than in criticising vase-painting, and he must not expect the impossible.
The study of an evolution among surrounding and limiting conditions is the complement, and in many ways the opposite, to that search for origins which in our Darwinian age attracts so much intelligence. Numberless investigators are now occupied in tracing all the ways of civilization to their origins, or at least to the earliest form of them which can be discovered. This search is, of course, of the greatest value, quite essential to all scientific history, and throwing rays of light over some of the darkest fields. Without reaching the origin of a custom in art, in religion, in institutions, we can never be sure that we have rightly apprehended it. But at the same time it
CHAP.
is necessary to guard oneself against a prevalent delusion, the fancy that when the origin of any phase of human life is discovered, that phase is explained and understood. It is a great thing to reach the railway station from which one sets out on a journey, but starting from that station one may go many ways and travel with various purposes. What is really most important and interesting in the civilization of a race is not the foundations, which are probably very much like those whence other races make their start, but what the race adds of its own, the way in which the national ideas are embodied. What is most interesting in the English character is that in which they differ from other peoples. That which is really important in Jewish or in Greek religion is not the mere myth which belongs to all peoples at a certain stage of civilization, nor the primitive beliefs in ghosts and agricultural superstitions, but what the Jews and the Greeks respectively add to the common stock of religion, as they emerge into a higher civilization.
In the case of Greek art also we may say that it is interesting in proportion as it is really Greek. Of late years there has been carried on an unwearied search into the products of prehistoric Greece, the civilization of the peoples now called Minoan and Mycenaean. The Homeric enthusiasm of Schliemann first led to the discovery at Ilium, Mycenae and Tiryns of walls, palaces and graves, belonging to the peoples who lived in Greece long before Greece emerges into the light of history. To the patience and the science of two admirable archaeologists, Dr. Dorpfeld and Sir Arthur Evans, we owe both a vast extension of the field of prehistoric exploration, and a reasoned classification of the remains discovered under periods. We have acquired a surprising amount of knowledge as to the habits, the architecture, the religion and the art of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean in the second and even the third thousand years before the Christian era. It has become a
I custom to place at the beginning of works dealing with Greek history and archaeology an account of the discoveries of Schliemann, Evans and others. And an attempt is often made to show Greek civilization as a continuous development from the neolithic age to the Roman period. While I am as grateful as any one to the great explorers already mentioned, I cannot altogether accept the corollaries from their discoveries often put forward. Sir A. Evans has recently definitely stated his opinion that the people of the Minoan and Mycenaean ages were not of Greek stock.1 In truth, between the age of the palaces of Cnossus and Mycenae and the childhood of Greek culture, there intervened a long period of barbarism, after the rude Greek tribes had poured in from the north and overturned the cities of the wealthy Minoan rulers. It is but in the eighth century b.c., that we begin to discern the elements of a new civilization emerging. And as it emerges, we see more and more clearly that it is of a character strikingly different from that which had perished three hundred years earlier. I would not, of course, deny that something of the skill of hand and eye which had been trained in the Mycenaean workshops may have survived ; for the old race was not exterminated, but only subjugated. But the elements out of which Greek art arose were taken rather from the Phoenicians and the peoples of Western Asia than from the Mycenaeans. This I have always maintained ; and it has been recently enforced with great learning and energy by Dr. Poulsen.2 In any case the Greeks never borrowed from other peoples anything but decorative forms and simple principles of technique. The principles of their art were all their own. And those principles are in complete contrast with those of Minoan and Mycenaean art, an art which was very skilful in the use of decorative forms, and
1 Journ. Hell. Stud. 1912, p. 278. This view is confirmed by anthropological evidence derived from the forms of skulls.
2 Poulsen, Fruhgriechische Kunst und Orient. Compare Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History , 1892, p. 126.
CHAP.
is sometimes full of a pleasing naturalism, especially in the rendering of some animal forms, but is wholly without those higher qualities of which in later pages I shall have to speak as distinguishing the art of Greece alike from that of ancient and that of modern peoples.
One must not, however, exaggerate. It is the cities of Greece Proper in which one finds the vogue of that intensely Greek spirit of which Greek art is the outcome. In the earliest pottery of Ionia there is less rigidity and love of balance, more of naturalism and freedom of design, than in the pottery of Corinth or Athens or Chalcis. If we kneiv more about the still earlier painting of Ionia, we might perhaps- find in it a certain amount of Mycenaean survival. Possibly future excavations on the coast of Asia Minor may have surprises in store for us. But if we compare, as a whole, the art of Cnossus and Mycenae with that of Hellas, the resemblances are so slight and the contrast so great as to indicate an utterly different national tendency. The Greeks are in many things our spiritual ancestors; the Mvcenaeans scarcely lie in the direct line of our spiritual ancestry. Compare the parallel case of literature. The investigation of the forms of letters in the earliest alphabets has its value, and the primitive inscriptions cut in terra-cotta and on stone by the early peoples of Asia Minor and the Aegean are not without importance; but the interest of such things pales beside that of the great literature which has inspired so much of modern history and poetry and philosophy. Greek art has not, in northern Europe, had the same vogue as Greek literature ; yet at some periods, and in some lines of civilization, it has been of untold value, throwing into the shade mere questions of origin.
It is unnecessary that I should try to emphasize the value of Greek literature. The value of Greek art is less generally recognized. Of course to English people ancient literature must always be of far greater interest and value than ancient
I art, for the simple reason that they are a literary nation, but not an artistic nation. Yet we have our artists, and are not unaffected by the growing importance of art in the modern world. It is because of our neglect and misunderstanding of ancient art, among other causes, that our artists are, as a rule, so poorly trained, and have to go to Paris and Rome to learn their business. General education has also suffered from the same cause. We have been one-sided. Every one who has studied both the literature and the art of Greece must have discovered that the principles of both are exactly alike, that the Greek drama and the Greek temple, for example, are constructed on parallel lines, and equally embody the aesthetic ideas of the race. These general remarks will, it is hoped, receive constant enforcement and illustration in the course of the following pages.
It is of course possible to schematize too much, to lay down in too dogmatic a fashion in what way the Greek spirit acts under certain conditions. Those conditions vary from period to period and from school to school. It is only a full and careful consecutive study of the history of ancient art which can give one the right to generalize. But generalization, though difficult, is possible ; and the student who is bewildered with the number of the schools and artists in Greece, who, after toiling for months and years at certain classes of statues or vases, loses sight of the relation of those classes to the main stem of Greek life, may find it useful and profitable to turn from the material side of ancient monuments to their formal side, to look on them not merely as productions of a certain time and place, made in a certain material, but as a visible embodiment of mental processes, as the result of the outward working of the Greek spirit on the world around.
A more exact exposition of the way in which the Greek genius worked in the sphere of art will be better placed at the end than at the beginning of the present work. It would be useless to
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expect the student to furnish his mind with principles apart from the examples in which the principles are embodied. Nor is it desirable that he should accept those principles except after a convincing study of the phenomena.
In the present place it will be more satisfactory to give some account of the sources whence our knowledge of Greek art is derived. The testimony of ancient writers I reserve for treatment in the next chapter. That testimony, however, would avail us little in the absence of the monuments themselves.
A valuable source of information i$ to be found in Greek inscriptions. It was the custom of the Greeks to record upon marble slabs, not only their laws, treaties, and other important documents of State, but also lists of the treasures preserved in the temples, the financial accounts of the sculptural decorations of their buildings, and the like. And from the middle of the sixth century onwards artists inscribed their names upon the bases of statues, which were dedicated in public places.1 Such inscriptions not only enable us to identify the productions of known artists ; but by the forms of the letters we can judge within narrow limits of the dates when they were executed, while the find-spots inform us where each artist worked.
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