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

12

PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART

CHAP. I

cotheca of Athens, and the Hall of the Cnidians at Delphi, we
haw no trace, not even copies of the designs. We have to
judge of Greek painting mainly from mosaics and the designs of
vases, together with the vulgarized and debased wall-paintings
of Rome and Pompeii.

On the other hand, the vases, coins, and cut gems of Greece
remain to us often in their original state; and it is quite main-
tainable that these small and comparatively insignificant works
give us a higher notion of Greek artistic taste and achievement
than larger monuments.

It is all the more wonderful, considering how scanty and
how much defaced is the wreckage from the argosy of Greek
art which has come to land after the catastrophe, that we can
still find the productions of Greek artists to be, within the limits
which they set themselves, unmatched, and in fact unapproach-
able. This is a wonderful testimony to the unique sense of
beauty, and the unequalled fine taste which belonged to the
people, and marks them out for all time as not less superior
in these respects to other peoples than the Jews have been
superior to other ancient peoples in the religious sense, the
Chinese in the production of pottery, or the Gothic architects
of France and England in the erection of great churches.