The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-08
Greek Art Refore PerioIes.

Historic dePA Gree AUant Pericles:-
IN. Beule combines the learning of the
antlquary with the eloquenoe OF the rhetori-
clan. The materials at his command are full
His treatment has the recommendation of
being strictly logical, yet highly imaginative.
HIS literary style is marked by the rapid dash
and the proverbial brilliance of the French
and thus, as in Madame de Sta6l's rhapsodies
upon Rome, history reads in the pages of this
volume like romance, and antiquarian dis
sertations glow with the color of a picture.
M. Beule has worked hard under rare advan-
tages; he has been a sojourner under the
shadow of the Acropolis in Athens; the Greek
temples which he describes he has seen.
L'AcTopoie d. Ahenes published under the
auspices Of the Minister of Public Instrue-
tiop," is among the fruits Of those original
researches in Greece which, conducted under
the auspices of the French Government,
helped the writer to celebrity. M. Beule,
"Sec1etaire Perpetuel de l. l'Acad6miedes Beaux
Arts, President de PAcademie des Inscrip-
tions ct Bellies -lettres," and one of the writers
in LIE Journal des SGvans may be- traced
through some half-dozen volumes which treat
Of divers themes in the classic, middle age,
and modern arts, till lastly We come upon the
volume before us, which certainly is calou-
lated to sustain if not TO augment the writer's
wellearned reputation.
M. Beul6 naturally commences by an in
quiry into the origin of Greek art. He
believes, in common with the best authorities,
that il took its historic rise in the East, and
yet, though thus in its first rudiments bor
r0wed, he holds that it was essentially self
originated. European art at any rate, COM
mences with the Greeks. The monuments Of
India and China are fantastic the palaces Of
Assyria vast and astounding, the temples and
tombs of Egypt grandly immobile in its the
ocracy. These national arts, as the civiliza-
tions whence they sprang, became dead letters
and desolate tracks of grand sterility. The
Greeks seized upon what they found among
other nations to be most artistic and endurin
And thus, in creating or periecting the u Deric
and Ionic orders, they set their seal of beauty
upon the common patrimony of antiquity.
Yet perhaps 1t will never be possible to solve
completely the phenomenon of perfection
which Greek art presents:-"Ni la question
. de race, nj la question de climat, nj la raison
politique, ne peuvent expliquer par huel
divin privilege les Grecs ont eu Get esprit de
olarte," etc. "Les grands peuples," adds NJ.
Beule, me s'expliquent pas plus que, les
grands hommes."
Architecture is the mother and instructress
of the arts, she comes first in order of time,
she inspires and she Directs This is the uni
versal law which presides over all great
epochs. Hence in Greece, where all the pro-
ducts of the human mind have observed a
natural and local sequence in development,
architecture as the parent art gives birth, and
affords shelter and sustenance, to her younger
scions, sculpture and painting. Thus each art
came upon the scene in its appointed century.
By the age of Pisistratus architecture had
well nigh attained perfection; in the age of
Perioles sculpture advanced to take station
by her side; but not till the reign Of Alexan-
der did painting, the latest born and long
under tutelage to the Doric and Ionic orders,
assert an Independent life. Yet construction
was nothing higher than q mechanical process
while it provided merely for the necessities of
the body; it became an art only when it minis
tered to the desires of the mind. And just in
proportion as the arts are removed from services
to bodily necessities, into the region of ideas
and of the Imagination, do they cease to be
purely naturalistic or initiative. Sculpture
and painting are usually accounted initiative
arts; but architecture, like music, is less
initiative than creative; and each seem essen
TALLY to rest in numeric ratios and geometric
proportions. Such ratios and proportions at
all events lie apparently at the basis of Greek
architecture, and of it's associated arts OF
sculpture, bas relief, and mural painting. 1t
is this subsection to law which makes Greek
art unchangeably true and beautiful: it is
growth permitted only within the limits oi
law, which secures to Greek art progression
unbroken by lswless overthrow. Absolute
stract as to be without accident, a beauty 80
ideal as to be without blemish, Truth abso-
lutte implies breadth, simplicity, repose
accordingly, in Greek art resides such repose
that even in motion there is rest, such Sc
renity that not even passion is permitted tC
mar supreme beauty. Yet we must not for
get that the sculpture galleries of Europe, in
Guiding the British Museum, the Vatican, the
Museums of Naples, Munich, etc., prove thai
Greek art was many sided, and that the
architects and sculptors Of Athens
thing and everything, and actually die
what pleased them best. Thus of painting |
was said there existed three styles--that Dio
nysius painted men as they were, that Pausol
painted them worse than they were, and tina
Polygnotus painted them better than the,
were. The first would correspond to a natur
alistic, the second to comic or satirical, tn
third TO an ideal manner, and it Ia certain tina
all three are to be found in Greek plastic an
fctile art. In the Museo Gregoriano of tn
Vatican we recall vases with comic incident
painted thereon. In the British Museum W
have within more immediate reach the mar
bles of the ParthenOn, as the most perfect OK
amples Of the union of a naturalism which wa
noble with an idealism which was vigorous
Within the limits OF our observation, Gree
art tends to infinite variety, yet preserve
aSssolute unity.
Greek art maintained happy mean an
enjoyed q wholesome modera"opj TRADITION
preserved it in an obedience without serVlity
and made liberty safe in protection agains
license. M. Beule seeks to consolidate tradl
tion into law-the lSw Of a sure and stead
fast progression, The Greeks "toOk posses
sion Of ali the pstrimony of the past and pre-
fited by the experience OF the generations
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