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

DECLINE OE ART.

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examples of ancient design collected together
for study and imitation. However much we ac-
knowledge the necessity and usefulness of public
museums, in which examples of every description
are placed together for the instruction of the
student, we cannot but admit that the mere
possession of such collections will not produce
eminence in art.1 Constantinople in the eleventh
century is said to have possessed, though there is
some reason to doubt the accuracy of the state-
ment, the Olympian Jupiter of Phidias, the Juno
of Polycletus, the Pallas of Lindus, the Venus of
Cnidus, and the Opportunity of Lysippus; but
what did it produce? " Is it not well known,"
says Quatremere de Quincy, " that Constantinople
once possessed in the collections of the palace of
Lausus and the Gymnasium of Zeuxippus, the most
beautiful assemblage of the works of Greece ? But
did these collections ever create a Byzantine artist ?
Did not ancient Rome possess successively the

1 The very multiplicity of such works prevents their study.
The great majority of the visitors to a museum go there as to a
sight. The eye remains on each successive object only so long as the
visitor is occupied in passing by it. Men are generally too full of
business to devote more than a passing hour to a whole museum.
" Magni negotiorum officiorumque acervi abducunt omnes a con-
templatione talium, quoniam otiosorum et in magno loci silentio
apta admiratio talis est."—Plin. xxxvi. 5. Hume thought that the
importation of Greek sculpture was the cause of the non-success
of art at Rome !