Falkener, Edward: Daedalus or the causes and principles of the excellence of Greek sculpture (London, 1860)

30

ANCIENT ART.

gaudiest colours in a picture-gallery.1 It is by
education only that we are able to appreciate tlie
cliarms of beauty. Pythagoras and Anaxagoras did
not regard the sun with the same eyes. Even the
Helen of Zeuxis did not appear fair to all beholders.

': Der allein besitzt die Musen,
Der sie tragt im warmen Buseu;
Dem Vandalen sind sie Stein."

Schiller.

According as this principle is complied with, —
according as we become capable of understanding-
art, just to this extent are we likely to improve it.
It is in vain that we add galleries to our museums,
if we do not study and instruct ourselves in the
works which they contain.3 Let us devote our-
selves more and more to the examination of the
Elgin marbles, and so prove ourselves worthy of
the Phigalian, the Xanthian, the Halicarnassian,
and others which may come to us ; let us learn to

1 " The lovers of common stories and spectacles delight in fine
sounds, colours, and figures, and everything made up of these ;
but the nature of beauty itself their intellect is unable to discern
and admire."—Plato, Rep. v. 20.

2 " Let none fondly believe that the importation of Greek
and Italian works of art is an importation of Greek and Italian
genius, taste, establishments, and means of encouragement;
without transplanting and disseminating these, the gorgeous
accumulation of technic monuments is no better than a dead
capital, and, instead of a benefit, a check on living art."'—-Fuseli's
Lectures, lect. xii.