Gardner, Percy: The principles of Greek art (London, 1924)

PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART

CHAPTER I

THE GRAMMAR OF GREEK ART

Just as the poetry and prose of the Greeks is expressed in a
particular language, the words and the grammar of which must
be studied by those who would understand the literature, so
works of Greek painting and sculpture also are composed in
what may be called a particular artistic language.1 The words
of that language are the strokes of the brush and the chisel;
but these are put together in order to embody Greek ideas in
ways which are distinctive and not like those adopted by any
other people; certainly unlike those of modern art. The object
of the present work is to set forth, as simply and directly as
possible, what these ways are; to define, in fact, the principles
of Greek art, and so render more intelligible the works of paint-
ing and sculpture which have come down to us from Hellenic
antiquity.

Although the problem before us is one which can only be
solved by a close and long-continued examination of the monu-
ments of Greek art, yet it is at bottom psychological. We have
to determine the laws according to which the mind, the taste,
the hand, of the artist worked. We are speaking of a general-
ized or ideal process. It will not, of course, be supposed that
a sculptor or painter, before he set about his work, consciously
or deliberately thought out the lines on which he should pro-

1 Welcker calls it a Zeichensprache, Alte Denkmaler, III, p. xii.
B 1