DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5596#0060
30
ANCIENT ART.
particular age ;1 for it is the admiration of true
genius which fires ones own intellect, and excites
to noble deeds.3 This last hypothesis seems nearly
allied to the truth, for it is not by any forced
application to one art that we may hope to succeed,
but by a general enthusiasm for and application to
all. The Lacedasinonians, though devoting them-
selves exclusively to war, did not for this reason
produce such able commanders as the Athenians.
One more opinion remains to be cited, which is
that of Seneca and Sidonius, who affirm that the
decline of art is owing to the decay of nature;
an opinion which we of the nineteenth century
may not be willing to admit.3 No doubt each
1 This reason has been often adduced, but the cause has not
been sufficiently explained.
2 Contemporary with Pericles and Phidias, lived _53schylus,
Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, Thucydides, Lysias and
Isocrates, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato and Xenophon.
3 All these causes are rejected by M. de Montabert, who devotes
a dozen consecutive chapters, 27—38, to deny the influence on
art, of religion, manners, Olympic games, beautiful models, love
of beauty in the abstract, liberty, peace, riches, co-flourishing of
other arts, climate, physical organization, or philosophy. But
though, as we have seen, it is easy to prove that none of these
individually was the cause of the excellency of Greek art, it would
be still more easy to show that each may have contributed. The
cause which M. de Montabert assigns is a correct teaching, an
opinion which is also held by Barry. But experience has long
shown that academical teaching, however true, is not sufficient of
itself to form an artist. Besides, on this principle, when once art
has arrived at its zenith, it ought never to degenerate. But even
ANCIENT ART.
particular age ;1 for it is the admiration of true
genius which fires ones own intellect, and excites
to noble deeds.3 This last hypothesis seems nearly
allied to the truth, for it is not by any forced
application to one art that we may hope to succeed,
but by a general enthusiasm for and application to
all. The Lacedasinonians, though devoting them-
selves exclusively to war, did not for this reason
produce such able commanders as the Athenians.
One more opinion remains to be cited, which is
that of Seneca and Sidonius, who affirm that the
decline of art is owing to the decay of nature;
an opinion which we of the nineteenth century
may not be willing to admit.3 No doubt each
1 This reason has been often adduced, but the cause has not
been sufficiently explained.
2 Contemporary with Pericles and Phidias, lived _53schylus,
Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, Thucydides, Lysias and
Isocrates, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato and Xenophon.
3 All these causes are rejected by M. de Montabert, who devotes
a dozen consecutive chapters, 27—38, to deny the influence on
art, of religion, manners, Olympic games, beautiful models, love
of beauty in the abstract, liberty, peace, riches, co-flourishing of
other arts, climate, physical organization, or philosophy. But
though, as we have seen, it is easy to prove that none of these
individually was the cause of the excellency of Greek art, it would
be still more easy to show that each may have contributed. The
cause which M. de Montabert assigns is a correct teaching, an
opinion which is also held by Barry. But experience has long
shown that academical teaching, however true, is not sufficient of
itself to form an artist. Besides, on this principle, when once art
has arrived at its zenith, it ought never to degenerate. But even