Fairbanks, Arthur: Greek art: the basis of later European art (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1933)

GREEK ART

conception of the function of art is part of our
debt to Greece.
Finally, the principle of organic structure in
our art owes much to the Greeks. Of course
the meaning of design was not a new discovery
in Greece; it is recognized everywhere, and in
fact it has probably been better understood in
the orient than even in the west; but the use
of design to reenforce representation began
with Greece. The failure of this procedure
was the weakness of Roman art. It was
through Byzantium that this phase of the
Greek achievement was brought to Europe, to
stir the souls of men by religious painting and
sculpture in the so-called Dark Ages. But it
was only in the Renaissance that representa-
tion governed by organic design in the Greek
manner came again to its own. This practice
has remained as the basis of our art. Repre-
sentation that was true because it had the vital
organic unity of art, that made an emotional
appeal because of the design which intensified
its meaning, has been the aim of our painting
and sculpture in these later centuries. It is the
mark of Greece on our art.
It is customary for critics and historians of
European art to stress an antithesis between
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