Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

GEOGRAPHICAL ELEMENT IN SCULPTURE. 177

This was a time when strength without arrogance, modesty and submission,
combined with noble pride, prevailed among the people. The faith in the gods
of their fathers was deep and sincere, inspiring to acts of devotion. Many are
the stories related which testify to a high tone of life and morals at this time ;
of sons who made great sacrifices for their mothers; of mothers who offered
their sons for the welfare of the country; the climax of this devotion being
reached in the heroism exhibited during the Persian war.

In art, there was corresponding life. Literary records, as well as inscrip-
tions, teach us that on the islands Chios, Samos, Naxos, Crete, and Paros, and
along the coasts of Asia Minor, the earliest historical Greek sculptors were
active, some of whom wandered to the mainland of Greece, there to practise
their calling, and, in one case at least, to gather together a large band of
scholars. Many of their works were executed for the very ancient shrines
of Ephesos, Samos, Delos, Delphi, and Olympia, where they were seen by
the ancients ; and, among the large number of monuments preserved, isolated
cases may be traced to these old sculptors. The artistic character of these
extant works varies greatly with the time of their execution and the place of
their discovery. Consequently both the chronological and the geographical
sides of the varied scenes they present must be considered, in order to catch
subtle and shifting peculiarities. If we look through the glass offered us by
time, we find that sculptures, which, as we know from their inscriptions, —
those sure gauges of age, — are the creations of the early part of the sixth
century, vary greatly from those of the latter part. Main- monuments have,
however, no inscriptions ; and consequently variations in the style alone are
left to aid us in giving them their place in the great stream of history. But
greater crudity of style is not always a sure indication of age : since some
monuments executed at a late day, as we know, are as crude as those of an
earlier day ; instance Dermys and Kitylos, from Bceotia. Consequently great
precautions are necessary in dating monuments which have no inscriptions.
Local influences, arising from geographical site and race peculiarities, giving
a varied coloring to the creations of different parts of the ancient world,
claim a large share of our attention. While there is no doubt that artists
moved about, and that men from very different parts executed works for the
great central shrines now found together in what to us is perplexing confu-
sion, still there is reason to believe, that, as a whole, there were great local
peculiarities in the works of each section of the country. Thus, for instance,
the Ionians, that race artistically so gifted, who were spread along the Asia-
Minor coast, and occupied the islands and northern parts of Greece and At-
tica itself, seem in these different parts to have worked differently; and it is
one of the glorious tasks of modern archaeology, to trace out the affinities, and
discover the varying shades of coloring, in the monuments found on such dif-
ferent sites. By so doing, little by little our picture of those old days gains