DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0080
6o
The Festival
PART I
hero against Trojan or Giant or Centaur. The general in-
terest is embodied in the single personage, who thereupon
becomes not a mere unit, but a bearer of the fortunes of
his people, the representative of a class, or in a single word,
a Type.
§ 39. The Types peopling the Hellenic world.
After the clear conception of the Hellenic world as a
whole and its ideal representation in the forms just described,
come the clear conception and the perfect plastic delinea-
tion of the various typical personages who peopled that world.
This is not the place to attempt any enumeration of these
typical personages, who meet us again and again in the
great friezes and sculptured groups. The significant fact is
that such enumeration should seem even possible. It must
be admitted that in the earlier as well as in the later phases
of Hellenic art there is a freedom in the choice of subjects
that was not exercised by the sculptor during the culmin-
ating period. If we take only this central period of perfect
maturity, extending from the time of Pericles to that of the
immediate successors of Alexander, it would be possible to
draw up a fairly complete list of all the themes and all the
personages with which the artist cared to busy himself. It
is well understood that the Greeks possessed a strong vein
of aristocratic exclusiveness, and only deigned to give their
attention to certain phases of human life. Man, as man,
they would not recognise, but only man in special aspects
and relations which brought him within the charmed Hel-
lenic circle. Man as public servant of the state, as warrior,
as trained athlete, as votary of intellectual culture, they
would recognise and portray, but no room was found in
the circle for man as mechanic or as servant, for such
persons were not in the true sense citizens, and could not
enter into the life of Hellas.
The Festival
PART I
hero against Trojan or Giant or Centaur. The general in-
terest is embodied in the single personage, who thereupon
becomes not a mere unit, but a bearer of the fortunes of
his people, the representative of a class, or in a single word,
a Type.
§ 39. The Types peopling the Hellenic world.
After the clear conception of the Hellenic world as a
whole and its ideal representation in the forms just described,
come the clear conception and the perfect plastic delinea-
tion of the various typical personages who peopled that world.
This is not the place to attempt any enumeration of these
typical personages, who meet us again and again in the
great friezes and sculptured groups. The significant fact is
that such enumeration should seem even possible. It must
be admitted that in the earlier as well as in the later phases
of Hellenic art there is a freedom in the choice of subjects
that was not exercised by the sculptor during the culmin-
ating period. If we take only this central period of perfect
maturity, extending from the time of Pericles to that of the
immediate successors of Alexander, it would be possible to
draw up a fairly complete list of all the themes and all the
personages with which the artist cared to busy himself. It
is well understood that the Greeks possessed a strong vein
of aristocratic exclusiveness, and only deigned to give their
attention to certain phases of human life. Man, as man,
they would not recognise, but only man in special aspects
and relations which brought him within the charmed Hel-
lenic circle. Man as public servant of the state, as warrior,
as trained athlete, as votary of intellectual culture, they
would recognise and portray, but no room was found in
the circle for man as mechanic or as servant, for such
persons were not in the true sense citizens, and could not
enter into the life of Hellas.