DOI article:
Essay I: The provice, aim, and methos of the stuy of classical archaeology
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0058
38
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[I-
individual and even of the school, especially in Greek Art, is, as a matter of fact, and
as experience shows, so great, that it approaches very closely to physical laws in the
mind of one who brings natural ability and much honest labour to its recognition.
And furthermore the arbitrariness in the formative arts as compared with literature,
music, &c, is powerfully counteracted by the necessary introduction of the physical
material of artistic expression, and of the means of affecting this material, both
(material, tools, and their application) being subject to physical laws, and both
counteracting and checking any attempt towards absolutely arbitrary volition on the
part of man. Whatever be the causes, the fact remains, that the works of Michelangelo
have characteristics which distinguish them even from the Barocco school, that modern
Gothic differs from ancient Gothic, modern Pre-Raphaelites from their ancient proto-
types, a French boot and glove from an English boot and glove, and a walking-stick
made fifty years ago from one made in our days—and that this individuality of
characteristics comes out most distinctly in the works of Greek Art. A dealer in
leather-ware who at all knows his goods can immediately distinguish between those
manufactured in England, in France, in Germany, or in Austria ; a connoisseur of lace
can immediately tell whether the same species of point-lace is made in France or in
Bohemia. Nay, if we but analyse and compare what we see in passing from Paris to
London in eight hours, this recognisable difference in the appearance of works of
human craft corresponding to the distinct individuality of their makers will be mani-
fest. Consider the aspects of the streets, the dress of the people, the style of the
houses, the lamp-posts, the policemen's uniform, the caps of the porters at the station,
the leather peaks of these caps, the soles of the boots in each country, all so expressive
of the national differences of the peoples ; and among those of the same nation again,
the difference between the various classes, the city banker and the village school-
master, the military man in undress and the labourer; and among the same class
the outward differences of individuals, how the one arranges the same tie and the
other dents in the same soft hat—and then consider that all this is in a time of
manufacture by machinery and with the minutest partition of labour, and the new
appliances for manufacture immediately open to all markets, in a time when national
differences are dying away and the feeling of humanity is a real motive power, in a
time in which the limits of space are shaken off by railroad and telegraph, in a time
of equalisation of culture and the stereotyping of character. Now let us turn to the
antiquity of Greece, and consider the following three facts: (i) That in the works of
Art the form, the appearance, is the very aim, use, and essence of the thing; (2) That
the Greeks were of most marked individuality, and that the local and temporal
distinctions were most decided and fixed, so that, for instance, the characteristics which
the Peloponnesians and Athenians give of themselves in the speeches at Sparta recorded
in the first book of Thucydides show them to be in many ways diametrically opposed
(characteristics which apply entirely to the works of early Spartan and early Pelopon-
nesian art that are extant) ; (3) that their art was one of the most specific modes of
expression. If we bear in mind these three facts, we cannot fail to conclude that the
numerous extant works will be without difficulty capable of being classified and
recognised in their distinctive features, if only we bestow a fraction of the attention
and interest upon the things themselves which the modern lace-dealer bestows upon
his goods—only in a conscious and systematic way, differing from him in that the
interest is entirely centred in the knowledge itself, without any ultimate regard to
profit or to the immediate utilising of this knowledge, without any ultimate regard
to whatever is foreign to scientific apprehension.
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[I-
individual and even of the school, especially in Greek Art, is, as a matter of fact, and
as experience shows, so great, that it approaches very closely to physical laws in the
mind of one who brings natural ability and much honest labour to its recognition.
And furthermore the arbitrariness in the formative arts as compared with literature,
music, &c, is powerfully counteracted by the necessary introduction of the physical
material of artistic expression, and of the means of affecting this material, both
(material, tools, and their application) being subject to physical laws, and both
counteracting and checking any attempt towards absolutely arbitrary volition on the
part of man. Whatever be the causes, the fact remains, that the works of Michelangelo
have characteristics which distinguish them even from the Barocco school, that modern
Gothic differs from ancient Gothic, modern Pre-Raphaelites from their ancient proto-
types, a French boot and glove from an English boot and glove, and a walking-stick
made fifty years ago from one made in our days—and that this individuality of
characteristics comes out most distinctly in the works of Greek Art. A dealer in
leather-ware who at all knows his goods can immediately distinguish between those
manufactured in England, in France, in Germany, or in Austria ; a connoisseur of lace
can immediately tell whether the same species of point-lace is made in France or in
Bohemia. Nay, if we but analyse and compare what we see in passing from Paris to
London in eight hours, this recognisable difference in the appearance of works of
human craft corresponding to the distinct individuality of their makers will be mani-
fest. Consider the aspects of the streets, the dress of the people, the style of the
houses, the lamp-posts, the policemen's uniform, the caps of the porters at the station,
the leather peaks of these caps, the soles of the boots in each country, all so expressive
of the national differences of the peoples ; and among those of the same nation again,
the difference between the various classes, the city banker and the village school-
master, the military man in undress and the labourer; and among the same class
the outward differences of individuals, how the one arranges the same tie and the
other dents in the same soft hat—and then consider that all this is in a time of
manufacture by machinery and with the minutest partition of labour, and the new
appliances for manufacture immediately open to all markets, in a time when national
differences are dying away and the feeling of humanity is a real motive power, in a
time in which the limits of space are shaken off by railroad and telegraph, in a time
of equalisation of culture and the stereotyping of character. Now let us turn to the
antiquity of Greece, and consider the following three facts: (i) That in the works of
Art the form, the appearance, is the very aim, use, and essence of the thing; (2) That
the Greeks were of most marked individuality, and that the local and temporal
distinctions were most decided and fixed, so that, for instance, the characteristics which
the Peloponnesians and Athenians give of themselves in the speeches at Sparta recorded
in the first book of Thucydides show them to be in many ways diametrically opposed
(characteristics which apply entirely to the works of early Spartan and early Pelopon-
nesian art that are extant) ; (3) that their art was one of the most specific modes of
expression. If we bear in mind these three facts, we cannot fail to conclude that the
numerous extant works will be without difficulty capable of being classified and
recognised in their distinctive features, if only we bestow a fraction of the attention
and interest upon the things themselves which the modern lace-dealer bestows upon
his goods—only in a conscious and systematic way, differing from him in that the
interest is entirely centred in the knowledge itself, without any ultimate regard to
profit or to the immediate utilising of this knowledge, without any ultimate regard
to whatever is foreign to scientific apprehension.