DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0047
II
ANCIENT CRITICS ON ART
27
to his account of the procuring and smelting of the metal:
and in the same way his account of marble-sculpture, painting
.and gem-cutting is regarded by him as a completion of his
chapters on various kinds of earth, pigments and precious
stones. The result of this plan of grouping according to the
material used by the artist is curious. The sculptors who
worked in bronze are catalogued in a different place from those
who worked in marble. No doubt there were in Greece schools
in which the working of bronze predominated, such as the
school of Argos, and others, such as that of Chios, which worked
mainly in marble. But many of the Greek sculptors were
noted for work in both materials; thus Praxiteles, for example,
figures in both sections of Pliny. Other writers, such as Quin-
tilian and Cicero, sometimes furnish us with information as to
the place of sculptors in history.1
Cicero fluctuates, in a way which is very amusing, between his
desire to be regarded as a lover of art and his deep Roman con-
viction that such matters as art are scarcely worthy of the atten-
tion of a serious statesman. He collected works of Greek
sculpture; but in his letters he often avows how little he knows
of art. When in his dialogues he writes on the subject, the
superficiality of his knowledge is apparent enough. "Who
is there," he writes,2 "among those who pay attention to these
lesser matters, who does not recognize that the statues of
Canachus are too stiff to represent nature, while those of Cala-
mis, though stiff, are softer than those of Canachus ? Those
of Myron have not yet attained complete fidelity to nature,
but you would not hesitate to call them beautiful; those of
Polycleitus are yet more beautiful; and indeed in my opinion
quite perfect. The case is similar in regard to painting: there
we appreciate the forms and the drawing of Zeuxis, Polygnotus,
1 The passages of ancient writers bearing upon sculpture are collected, and
translated, in H. S. Jones, Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture. A fuller collec-
tion is Overbeck's Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Kiinste,
* Brutus, 18.
ANCIENT CRITICS ON ART
27
to his account of the procuring and smelting of the metal:
and in the same way his account of marble-sculpture, painting
.and gem-cutting is regarded by him as a completion of his
chapters on various kinds of earth, pigments and precious
stones. The result of this plan of grouping according to the
material used by the artist is curious. The sculptors who
worked in bronze are catalogued in a different place from those
who worked in marble. No doubt there were in Greece schools
in which the working of bronze predominated, such as the
school of Argos, and others, such as that of Chios, which worked
mainly in marble. But many of the Greek sculptors were
noted for work in both materials; thus Praxiteles, for example,
figures in both sections of Pliny. Other writers, such as Quin-
tilian and Cicero, sometimes furnish us with information as to
the place of sculptors in history.1
Cicero fluctuates, in a way which is very amusing, between his
desire to be regarded as a lover of art and his deep Roman con-
viction that such matters as art are scarcely worthy of the atten-
tion of a serious statesman. He collected works of Greek
sculpture; but in his letters he often avows how little he knows
of art. When in his dialogues he writes on the subject, the
superficiality of his knowledge is apparent enough. "Who
is there," he writes,2 "among those who pay attention to these
lesser matters, who does not recognize that the statues of
Canachus are too stiff to represent nature, while those of Cala-
mis, though stiff, are softer than those of Canachus ? Those
of Myron have not yet attained complete fidelity to nature,
but you would not hesitate to call them beautiful; those of
Polycleitus are yet more beautiful; and indeed in my opinion
quite perfect. The case is similar in regard to painting: there
we appreciate the forms and the drawing of Zeuxis, Polygnotus,
1 The passages of ancient writers bearing upon sculpture are collected, and
translated, in H. S. Jones, Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture. A fuller collec-
tion is Overbeck's Schriftquellen zur Geschichte der bildenden Kiinste,
* Brutus, 18.