WEST PEDIMENT OF THE PARTHENON. 363

and his fellows in Olympia, a regard for the pictorial; but doubtless it was his
own towering Attic genius which gave the crowning to the art of this Golden
Age in Greek sculpture.

In regarding the exquisite finish of these Parthenon marbles, we may recall
the words of the great German sculptor Rietschl.6/6 " Every time I call to
mind the fact, that the backs of the Parthenon statues are as perfectly finished
as the front, I am not only filled with wonder and admiration, but deeply
touched. I realize that the master knew, that, when the statues had passed out
of his hand and workshop, no human eye could ever peer away up to see the
hidden beauties which his love and labor had created ; while to us is permitted,
after two thousand years have elapsed, more by happy chance than the neces-
sary course of history, to look upon these love-offerings of a genuine artist-
soul." The question irresistibly arises, why so much time and labor was
expended on those parts of the statues which should not be seen when once in
place. The Attic sculptors evidently worked with that lofty impulse which
created what was, that it should be good. The same spirit seems eloquently
to speak to us from the giddy heights of Gothic cathedrals, where the stone
flowers and leaves are as perfectly cut as those on a level with the eye. So
the gentle floweret of the wilderness, never to be looked upon by mortal, oft-
times has beauty as winning as that of its cherished sister of the garden. The
loving conscientiousness witnessed in the execution of these noble works of
ancient Greece is an expression of the true and beautiful in man's nature,
seeking to satisfy the lofty claims of his higher self, and manifesting its ability
so to do.

In the Parthenon marbles, the charm is not made dependent upon the choice
of the materials used. The yEginetan works, as well as those at Olympia, are in
the more brilliant and costly Parian marble, these in the cheaper Attic stone,
often defective in grain and color. Haydon, the English sculptor, said of them,
" Were these marbles lost, or had they been burned for mortar, there would
have been left a gap in art as great as there would have been in philosophy
had Newton never lived." Dannecker, the German sculptor, exclaimed, "In
these marbles all is truth, — the highest truth ! " The Italian, Canova,
when asked to restore them, replied, " It would be a wanton sacrilege were I,
or any one else, to touch these marbles with a chisel. — Every piece breathes
life with truth, and an extraordinary mastery of the art which never parades
itself."

But, while the forms rouse such enthusiasm, the united thought of the Par-
thenon marbles, expressed in treble structure, as in the tragedies of /Eschylos,
is no less sublime. Like great harmonies blending in some vast symphony,
appear in the pediments the relation of the goddess to her land, in the metopes
her battle for law and order, and, in the frieze, the honors offered by her grate-