DOI Artikel:
Essay I: The provice, aim, and methos of the stuy of classical archaeology
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0033
THE STUDY OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.
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should be localised, that we should be made to perceive the
centre or vital point of this unity. This centre or vital point
will be either physical or moral: either the actual mathematical
centre, or the individual point of the greatest moral importance,
as, the head in a human organism with regard to spirit, the
chest with regard to physical strength, or the person of the
accused in a trial scene. This, of course, is a very general
statement of the principle, for the central point of interest
in a work of sculpture or painting may vary in its position
according to the special nature of the subject represented.
But sculpture and painting differ fundamentally in the way
in which they give this organic life to their representations. A
painting can represent bodies1 in their natural environment. It
represents the centre, the foreground and the background. In a
statue this is not the case. Here we have only the body itself,
the human figure, with no foreground or background of any
kind2. The unity which gives organic life to a statue must
therefore be localised within the body itself, the leading lines3
must return into the work, or else they will drive the eye
towards something which has no existence in the work, and all
unity will be lost. In the picture, on the other hand, this life-
giving unity is not to be found wholly in one or other element
alone, but lies in the relation between the several independent
parts, and is to be localised in the centre of the picture between
the foreground and background, in the unity of composition
which unites the numerous separate parts or bodies into an har-
1 For clearness' sake I shall merely allude to human figures, the only true sphere
of sculpture.
- I do not include purely decorative sculpture, in which sculpture is subservient
to another more general end.
'' In every statue we can distinguish the leading lines corresponding to the
attitude of the figure. In the statue of a Hypnos in the Louvre museum the arms are
folded above the head, and it will be easy for the reader to understand how the
lines may be said to return into the work. On the other hand, in the statue of the
Borghese Gladiator in the same museum, one arm is stretched forward and upraised,
the other lowered and stretched back; the statue, as we have it, is but half a
composition, with no unity in itself, and the lines lead us away from the central
point to the wall of the museum or some other work which happens to be near.
These leading lines correspond greatly to the irons in that important first stage of
the modelling of a statue, which is called 'putting up the irons,' round which
the soft clay to be modelled is massed.
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should be localised, that we should be made to perceive the
centre or vital point of this unity. This centre or vital point
will be either physical or moral: either the actual mathematical
centre, or the individual point of the greatest moral importance,
as, the head in a human organism with regard to spirit, the
chest with regard to physical strength, or the person of the
accused in a trial scene. This, of course, is a very general
statement of the principle, for the central point of interest
in a work of sculpture or painting may vary in its position
according to the special nature of the subject represented.
But sculpture and painting differ fundamentally in the way
in which they give this organic life to their representations. A
painting can represent bodies1 in their natural environment. It
represents the centre, the foreground and the background. In a
statue this is not the case. Here we have only the body itself,
the human figure, with no foreground or background of any
kind2. The unity which gives organic life to a statue must
therefore be localised within the body itself, the leading lines3
must return into the work, or else they will drive the eye
towards something which has no existence in the work, and all
unity will be lost. In the picture, on the other hand, this life-
giving unity is not to be found wholly in one or other element
alone, but lies in the relation between the several independent
parts, and is to be localised in the centre of the picture between
the foreground and background, in the unity of composition
which unites the numerous separate parts or bodies into an har-
1 For clearness' sake I shall merely allude to human figures, the only true sphere
of sculpture.
- I do not include purely decorative sculpture, in which sculpture is subservient
to another more general end.
'' In every statue we can distinguish the leading lines corresponding to the
attitude of the figure. In the statue of a Hypnos in the Louvre museum the arms are
folded above the head, and it will be easy for the reader to understand how the
lines may be said to return into the work. On the other hand, in the statue of the
Borghese Gladiator in the same museum, one arm is stretched forward and upraised,
the other lowered and stretched back; the statue, as we have it, is but half a
composition, with no unity in itself, and the lines lead us away from the central
point to the wall of the museum or some other work which happens to be near.
These leading lines correspond greatly to the irons in that important first stage of
the modelling of a statue, which is called 'putting up the irons,' round which
the soft clay to be modelled is massed.