DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0356
336
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
CHAP.
But in delicacy of aesthetic perception, of the relations of parts
to a whole, of the value of a curve, of the suitability of a musical
note, they excelled beyond compare. And in sheer intelligence,
in logical power, and a perception of the relation of means to
ends, the Greeks are found to be supreme. It was mainly
through clearness and taste that literature, philosophy, sculp-
ture, painting, rose among them to a level not merely beyond
comparison with that attained by ancient peoples, but to a
height in its own way which has scarcely been reached by
the most gifted of modern races.
I have had occasion constantly in these pages to insist on the
ideality of Greek art. Modern writers sometimes speak of
the realism of works of the school of Lysippus or of Pergamene
statues. They even speak of naturalism in connection with
such earlier works as the Pediments of Olympia. The reader
must not suppose that this realism is like that which we find
in some modern schools. To make this clear I must at some
length examine the meaning of the terms realist and idealist.1
The great and outstanding feature of Greek art, as of all
the productions of the Greek genius, is humanism. It is
the great merit of the Greeks first to have felt and expressed
the dignity and nobleness of human nature, and to have studied
in that light all the powers and faculties of man, with a view
to conforming to what is fixed and permanent in them, and to
developing in them what is capable of improvement. In litera-
ture we notice this from the first. The interest and beauty
of the Homeric poems is imperishable. They appeal to every
one who has any power of appreciation by their intense human-
ity, their love of human beauty and prowess, their touches of
pathos and of sadness. The charming tales of Herodotus never
pall upon us because they also are fragments of the epic of
1 A lucid and excellent discussion of this subject will bo found in three essays
by J. A. Symonds, Essays Speculative and Suggestive, third edition, 1907, pp. 108-
155.
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
CHAP.
But in delicacy of aesthetic perception, of the relations of parts
to a whole, of the value of a curve, of the suitability of a musical
note, they excelled beyond compare. And in sheer intelligence,
in logical power, and a perception of the relation of means to
ends, the Greeks are found to be supreme. It was mainly
through clearness and taste that literature, philosophy, sculp-
ture, painting, rose among them to a level not merely beyond
comparison with that attained by ancient peoples, but to a
height in its own way which has scarcely been reached by
the most gifted of modern races.
I have had occasion constantly in these pages to insist on the
ideality of Greek art. Modern writers sometimes speak of
the realism of works of the school of Lysippus or of Pergamene
statues. They even speak of naturalism in connection with
such earlier works as the Pediments of Olympia. The reader
must not suppose that this realism is like that which we find
in some modern schools. To make this clear I must at some
length examine the meaning of the terms realist and idealist.1
The great and outstanding feature of Greek art, as of all
the productions of the Greek genius, is humanism. It is
the great merit of the Greeks first to have felt and expressed
the dignity and nobleness of human nature, and to have studied
in that light all the powers and faculties of man, with a view
to conforming to what is fixed and permanent in them, and to
developing in them what is capable of improvement. In litera-
ture we notice this from the first. The interest and beauty
of the Homeric poems is imperishable. They appeal to every
one who has any power of appreciation by their intense human-
ity, their love of human beauty and prowess, their touches of
pathos and of sadness. The charming tales of Herodotus never
pall upon us because they also are fragments of the epic of
1 A lucid and excellent discussion of this subject will bo found in three essays
by J. A. Symonds, Essays Speculative and Suggestive, third edition, 1907, pp. 108-
155.