SCULPTURE is the art of imitating visible form by means of solid substances, such as marble, wood, or metals. The art is one of very great antiquity, and is generally thought to have originated from idolatry, as it was found necessary to place before the people the images of their gods, to enliven the fervour of their devotion. The pyramids and obelisks of Egypt, which were probably temples, or rather altars, dedicated to the sun, were covered with hieroglyphical emblems of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles, at a period prior to that in which there is any unexceptionable evidence that mere statue-worship prevailed even in that nursery of idolatry.

But though it appears thus evident that picture-writing was the first employment of the sculptor, we are far from imagining that idolatrous worship did not contribute to carry his art to that perfection which it attained in some of the nations of antiquity. Even in the dark ages of Europe, when the other fine arts were almost extinguished, the ceremonies of the Church of Rome, and the veneration which she taught for her saints and martyrs, preserved among the Italians some vestiges of the sister arts of sculpture and painting; and therefore, as human nature is everywhere the same, it is reasonable to believe that a similar veneration for heroes and demigods would, among the ancient nations, have a similar effect. But if this be so, the presumption is, that the Chaldaeans were the first who invented the art of hewing blocks of wood and stone into the figures of men and other animals; for the Chaldaeans were unquestionably the first idolaters, and their early progress in sculpture is confirmed by the united testimonies of Berosus, Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, and Pliny, not to mention the eastern tradition that the father of Abraham was a sculptor.

Against this conclusion, however, Mr Bromley, in his History of the Fine Arts, has urged some plausible arguments. In stating these, he professes not to be original, or to derive his information from the fountain-head of antiquity. He adopts, as he tells us, the theory of a French writer, who maintains, that in the year of the world 1949, about three hundred years after the deluge, the Scythians under Brouma, a descendant of Magog the son of Japhet, extended their conquests over the greater part of Asia. According to this system, Brouma was not only the civilizer of India, and the author of the Brahminical doctrines, but also diffused the principles of the Scythian mythology over Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, and the continent of Asia.

Of these principles Mr Bromley has given us no distinct enumeration; the account which he gives of them is not to be found in one place, but must be collected from a variety of distant passages. In attempting therefore to present the substance of his scattered hints in one view, we shall not be confident that we have omitted none of them. The ox, says he, was the Scythian emblem of the generator of animal life, and hence it became the principal divinity of the Arabians. The serpent was the symbol of the source of intelligent nature. These were the common points of union in all the first religions of the earth. From Egypt the Israelites carried with them a religious veneration for the ox and the serpent. Their veneration for the ox appeared soon after they marched into the wilderness, when, in the absence of Moses, they called upon Aaron to make them gods which should go before them. The idea of having an idol to go before them, says our author, was completely Scythian; for so the Scythians acted in all their progress throughout Asia, with this difference, that their idol was a living animal. The Israelites having gained their favourite god, which was an ox, not a calf, as it is rendered in the book of Exodus, next proceeded to hold a festival, which was to be accompanied with dancing; a species of gaiety common in the festivals which were held in adoration of the emblematic urotal or ox, in that very part of Arabia, near Mount Sinai, where this event took place. It is mentioned too as a curious and important fact, that the ox which was revered in Arabia was called Adonai. Accordingly Aaron, announcing the feast to the ox or golden calf, speaks thus, To-morrow is a feast to Adonai, which is in our translation rendered to the Lord. In the time of Jeroboam we read of the golden calves set up as objects of worship at Bethel and[7:20:2] Dan. Nor was the reverence paid to the ox confined to Scythia, to Egypt, and to Asia. It extended much farther. The ancient Cimbri, as the Scythians did, carried an ox of bronze before them on all their expeditions. Mr Bromley also informs us, that as great respect was paid to the living ox among the Greeks as was offered to its symbol among other nations.

The emblem of the serpent, continues Mr Bromley, was marked yet more decidedly by the express direction of the Almighty. That animal had ever been considered as emblematical of the supreme generating power of intelligent life. And was that idea, says he, discouraged, so far as it went to be a sign or symbol of life, when God said to Moses, “Make thee a brazen serpent, and set it on a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one who is bitten, when he. looketh on it, shall live ?” In Egypt the serpent surrounded Isis and Osiris, the diadems of their princes, and the bonnets of their priests. The serpent made a distinguished figure in Grecian sculpture. The fable of Echidne, the mother of the Scythians, gave her figure terminating as a serpent to all the "founders of states in Greece; from which their earliest sculptors represented in that form the Titan princes, Cecrops, Draco, and even Ericthonius. Beside the spear of the image of Minerva, which Phidias made for the citadel of Athens, he placed a serpent, which was supposed to guard that goddess.

In Egypt, as well as in Scythia and India, the divinity was represented on the leaves of the tamara or lotus. Pan was worshipped as a god in that country, as well as over the east. Their sphinxes, and all their combined figures of animal creation, took their origin from the mother of the Scythians, who brought forth an offspring that was half a woman and half a serpent. Their pyramids and obelisks arose from the idea of flame, the first emblem of the supreme principle, introduced by the Scythians, and which even the influence of Zoroaster and the Magi could not remove.

We are told that the Bacchus of the Greeks is derived from the Brouma of the Indians; that both are represented as seated on a swan swimming over the waves, to indicate that each was the god of humid nature; not the god of wine, but the god of waters. The mitre of Bacchus was shaped like half an egg; an emblem taken from this circumstance, that at the creation the egg from which all things sprung was divided in the middle. Pan also was revered among the Scythians; and from that people were derived all the emblems by which the Greeks represented this divinity.^[1. It would be tedious to follow our author through the whole of this subject; and were we to submit to the labour of collecting and arranging his scattered materials, we should still view his system with some degree of suspicion. It is drawn, as he informs us, from the work of M. D'Ancarville, entitled Recherches sur l’Origine, l’Esprit, et les Progrès, des Arts de la Grice. ] *

To form conclusions concerning the origin of nations, the rise and progress of the arts and sciences, without the aid of historical evidence, by analogies which are sometimes accidental, and often fanciful, is a mode of reasoning which cannot readily be admitted. There may indeed, we acknowledge, be resemblances in the religion, language, manners, and customs, of different nations, so striking and so numerous, that to doubt of their being descended from the same stock would savour of scepticism. But historical theories must not be adopted rashly. We must be certain that the evidence is credible and satisfactory before we proceed to draw any conclusions from it. We must first know whether the Scythian history itself be authentic, before we make any comparison with the history of other nations. But what is called the Scythian history, every man of learning knows to be a collection of fables. Herodotus and Justin are the two ancient writers from whom we have the fullest account of that warlike nation; but these two his torians contradict each other, and both write what cannot be believed of the same people at the same period of their progress. By Strabo^[2. ’ Lib. vii. ] ’ and Herodotus^[3. Lib. iv. can. 62. ] ’ they are represented as the most savage of mortals, delighting in war and bloodshed, cutting the throats of all strangers who came among them, eating their flesh, and making cups and pots of their skulls. It is not conceivable that such savages could be sculptors; or that, even supposing their manners to have been such as Justin represents them, a people so simple and ignorant could have imposed their mythology upon the Chaidaeans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians, whom we know by the most incontrovertible evidence to have been great and polished nations so early as in the days of Abraham.

Taking for granted, therefore, that the Scythians did not impose their mythology on the eastern nations, and that the art of sculpture, as well as idolatrous worship, prevailed first among the Chaldaeans, we shall endeavour to trace the progress of this art through some other nations of antiquity, till we bring it to Greece, where it was carried to the highest perfection to which it has yet attained. We shall then follow out the art in its decline and subsequent revivals in modern times.

The first intimation that we have of the art of sculpture is in the book of Genesis, where we are informed, that when Jacob, by the divine command, had returned to Canaan, his wife Rachel carried along with her the teraphim or idols of her father. These we are assured were small, since Rachel found it so easy to conceal them from her father, notwithstanding his anxious search. We are ignorant, however, how these images were made, or of what materials they were composed. The first person mentioned as an artist of eminence is Bezaleel, who formed the cherubim which covered the mercy-seat.

1. EGYPTIAN, PHOENICIAN, AND ETRURIAN SCULPTURE.

The Egyptians practised the art of sculpture very extensively; and the mιmber and variety of their works remaining, from the most rude to the most perfect in execution, give us reason to believe we have specimens of their earliest as well as latest productions. Two circumstances appear to have obstructed the progress and advancement of the art in Egypt. First, the persons of the Egyptians were not possessed of the graces of form, elegance, or symmetry; and consequently they had no perfect standard on which to model their taste. They resembled the Chinese in the cast of their face, and in the clumsy rounding of their contours. Secondly, they were confined by their laws to the principles and practices of their ancestors, and were not permitted to introduce any innovations. Their statues were always formed in the same stiff attitude, with the arms hanging perpendicularly down the sides. So far were they from attempting any improvements, that in the time of Hadrian the art continued in the same rude state as at first; and when their slavish adulation for that emperor induced them to place amongst the objects of their worship the statue of his favourite Antinous, the same inanimate stiffness in the attitude of the body and position of the arms was observed.

Notwithstanding the attachment of the Egyptians to ancient usages, Winckelman thinks he has discovered two different styles of sculpture, which prevailed at different periods. The first of these ends with the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses; the second begins at that time, and extends beyond the reign of Alexander the Great. In the first style, the lines which form the contour are straight, and project-[7:20:3] ing a little; the position is stiff and unnatural. In sitting figures the legs are parallel, the feet squeezed together, and the arms fixed to the sides; but in the figures of women the left arm is folded across the breast; the bones and muscles are faintly discernible; the eyes are flat and looking obliquely, and the eyebrows sunk,—features which destroy entirely the beauty of the head; the cheek-bones are high, the chin small and piked; the ears are generally placed higher than in nature, and the feet are too large and flat. In short, if we are to look for any model in the statues of Egypt, it is not for the model of beauty, but of deformity. The statues of men are naked, only they have a short apron, and a few folds of drapery surrounding their waist. The vestments of women are only distinguishable by the border, which rises a little above the surface of the statue. In this age it is evident the Egyptians knew little of drapery.

Of the second style of sculpture practised amongst the Egyptians, Winckelman thinks he has found specimens in the two figures of basaltes in the Capitol, and in another figure at the Villa Albani, the head of which has been renewed. The first two of these, he remarks, bear visible traces of the former style, which appear especially in the form of the mouth and the shortness of the chin. The hands possess more elegance; and the feet are placed at a greater distance from each other than was customary in more ancient times. In the first and third figures the arms hang down close to the sides; in the second they hang more freely. Winckelman suspects that these three statues were made after the conquest of Egypt by the Greeks. They are clothed with a tunic, a robe, and a mantle. The tunic, which is puckered into many folds, descends from the neck to the ground. The robe in the first and third statues seems close to the body, and is only perceptible by some little folds. It is tied under the breast, and covered by the mantle, the two buttons of which are placed under the epaulette.

The Egyptian statues were not only formed by the chisel; they were also polished with great care. Even those on the summit of an obelisk, which could only be viewed at a distance, were finished with as much labour and care as if they had admitted a close inspection. As they are generally executed in granite or basalt, stones of a very hard texture, it is impossible not to admire the indefatigable patience of the artists. The eye was often of different materials from the rest of the statue; sometimes it was composed of a precious stone or metal. We are assured that the valuable diamond of an empress of Russia, the largest and most beautiful hitherto known, formed one of the eyes of the famous statue of Scheringham in the temple of Brahma.

Herodotus mentions two Egyptian statues, one placed before the temple of Vulcan at Memphis, the other in the city of Sais by king Amasis, each of which was seventy-five feet long. The colossal sphinx near the great pyramid rises twenty-five feet. The sitting statues of Memnon, the mother and son of Osmandue, at Thebes, are each fifty-eight feet high. To these we might add a number of similar works known by remaining fragments, or described by authors. Most of the great works of the Egyptians were executed in the reign of Sesostris, who lived in the time of Rehoboam king of Israel, a thousand years before the Christian era, which shows that the arts of Egypt and of Greece were in a progressive state of improvement at the same time.

The enormous works of Egypt have struck foreign visiters with wonder and awe, from Herodotus down to the members of the French Institute. Herodotus says “one of their buildings is equal to many of the most considerable Greek buildings taken together and M. Ripaud observes, “these works are so prodigious, they make every thing we do look little.” The Egyptians had notions of durability in their works which no other nation has succeeded in imitating: they seemed to work as if they laughed at time, war, barbarism. Quantity was every thing with them, or almost so; quality but little. They washed to please themselves and astonish posterity, and they succeeded.

The ancient authors who give the most satisfactory accounts of Egyptian antiquities are, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, Strabo, Clemens of Alexandria, Jamblicus, and Orus Apollo. Among the modern writers, we may mention Pocock, Savary, Norden, and Denon, as worthy of perusal on this subject.

The Phoenicians possessed both a character and a situation highly favourable to the cultivation of statuary. They had beautiful models in their own persons, and their industrious character qualified them to attain perfection in every art for which they had a taste. Their situation raised a spirit of commerce, and commerce induced them to cultivate the arts. Their temples shone with statues and columns of gold, and a profusion of emeralds was everywhere scattered about. All the great works of the Phoenicians have been unfortunately destroyed; but many of the Carthaginian medals are still preserved, ten of which are deposited in the cabinet of Florence. But though the Carthaginians were a colony of Phoenicians, we cannot from their works judge of the merit of their ancestors.

The Persians made no distinguished figure in the arts of design. They were indeed sensible to the charms of beauty, but they did not study to imitate them. Their dress, which consisted of long flowing robes concealing the whole person, prevented them from attending to thu beauties of form. Their religion, too, which taught them to worship the divinity in the emblem of fire, and that it was impious to represent him under a human form, seemed almost to prohibit the exercise of this art, by taking away those motives which alone could give it dignity and value; and as it was not customary among them to raise statues to great men, it was impossible that statuary could flourish in Persia.

The Etrurians, or ancient Tuscans, in the opinion of Winckelman, carried this art to some degree of perfection at an earlier period than the Greeks. It is said to have been introduced before the siege of Troy by Daedalus, who, in order to escape the resentment of Minos king of Crete, took refuge in Sicily, whence he passed into Italy, where be left many monuments of his art. Pausanias and Diodorus Siculus inform us, that some works ascribed to him were to be seen when they wrote; and that these possessed that character of majesty which afterwards distinguished the labours of Etruria.

A character strongly marked forms tl∣e chief distinction in those productions of Etruria which have descended to our times. Their style was indeed hard and overcharged; for it is not to be supposed that a people of such rude manners as the Etrurians could communicate to their works that vividness and beauty which the elegance of Grecian manners inspired. On the other hand, there are many of the Tuscan statues which bear so close a resemblance to those of Greece, that antiquaries have thought it probable that they were conveyed from that country, or Magna Graecia, into Etruria, about the time of the Roman conquest, when Italy was adorned with the spoils of Greece.

Among the monuments of Etrurian art two different styles have been observed. In the first the lines are straight, the attitude stiff, and no idea of beauty appears in the formation of the head. The contour is not well rounded, and the figure is too slender. The head is oval, the chin piked, the eyes flat, and looking asquint. These are the defects of an art in the state of infancy, which an accomplished master could never fall into, and are equally conspicuous in Gothic statues as in the productions of the ancient natives of Florence. They resemble so much the style of the Egyptians, that one is almost induced to suppose that there had once been a communication between these two[7:20:4] nations; but others think that this style was introduced by Daedalus.

Winckelman supposes that the second epoch of this art commenced in Etruria about the time at which it had reached its greatest perfection in Greece, in the age of Phidias. But this conjecture is not supported by any proofs. The joints are strongly marked, the muscles raised, and the bones distinguishable; but the whole mien is harsh. In designing the bone of the leg, and the separation of the muscles of the calf, there is an elevation and strength above life. The statues of the gods are designed with more delicacy. In forming them, the artists were anxious to show that they could exercise their power without that violent distension of the muscles which is necessary in the exertions of beings merely human; but in general their attitudes are unnatural, and the actions strained. If a statue, for instance, hold any thing with its fore-fingers, the rest are stretched out in a stiff position.

II.—GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

According to ancient history, the Greeks did not emerge from the savage state till a long time after the Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Indians, had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization. The original rude inhabitants of Greece were civilized by colonies which arrived among them, at different times, from Egypt and Phoenicia. These brought along with them the religion, the letters, and the arts of their parent countries; and if sculpture had its origin from the worship of idols, there is reason to believe that it was one of the arts which were thus imported; for that the gods of Greece were of Egyptian and Phoenician extraction is a fact incontrovertible. The original statues of the gods, however, were very rude. The earliest objects of idolatrous worship have everywhere been the heavenly bodies; and the symbols consecrated to them were generally pillars of a conical or pyramidal figure. It was not till hero-worship was ingrafted on the planetary that the sculptor thought of giving to the sacred statue any part of the human form; and it appears to have been about the era of their revolution in idolatry that the art of sculpture was introduced among the Greeks. The first representations of their gods were round stones placed upon cubes or pillars; and these stones they afterwards formed roughly, so as to give them something of the appearance of a head. Agreeable to this description was a Jupiter which Pausanias saw in Tegeum, in Arcadia. These representations were called Hermes; not that they represented Mercury, but from the word which signified a rough stone. It is the name which Homer gives to the stones which were used to fix vessels to the shore. Pausanias saw at Pheres thirty deities made of unformed blocks or cubical stones. The Lacedaemonians represented Castor and Pollux by two parallel posts; and a transverse beam was added, to express their mutual affection.

If the Greeks derived from foreign nations the rudiments of the arts, it must redound much to their honour, that in a few centuries they carried them to such wonderful perfection as entirely to eclipse the fame of their masters. It is by tracing the progress of sculpture among them that we are to study the history of this art; and we shall see its origin and successive improvements correspond with nature, which always operates slowly and gradually.

The great superiority of the Greeks in the art of sculpture may be ascribed to a variety of causes. The influence of climate over the human body is so striking, that it must have fixed the attention of every thinking man who has reflected on the subject. The violent heats of the torrid zone, and the excessive cold of the polar regions, are unfavourable to beauty. It is only in the mild climates of the temperate regions that it appears in its most attractive charms. Perhaps no country in the world enjoys a more serene air, less tainted with mist and vapours, or possesses in a higher degree that mild and genial warmth which can unfold and expand the human body into all the symmetry of muscular strength, and all the delicacies of female beauty, in greater perfection, than the happy climate of Greece; and never was there any people that had a greater taste for beauty, or were more anxious to improve it. Of the four wishes of Simonides, the second was to have a handsome figure. The love of beauty was so great among the Lace-dacraonian women, that they kept in their chambers the statues of Nereus, of Narcissus, of Hyacinthus, and of Castor and Pollux, hoping that by often contemplating them they might have beautiful children.

There was a variety of circumstances in the noble and virtuous freedom of the Grecian manners, that rendered these models of beauty peculiarly subservient to the cultivation of the fine arts. There were no tyrannical laws, as among the Egyptians, to check their progress. They had the best opportunities to study them in the public places, where the youth, who needed no other veil than that of chastity and purity of manners, performed their various exercises quite naked. They had the strongest motives to cultivate sculpture, for a statue was the highest honour which public merit could attain. It was an honour ambitiously sought, and granted only to those who had distinguished themselves in the eyes of their fellow-citizens. As the Greeks preferred natural qualities to acquired accomplishments, they decreed the first rewards to those who excelled in agility and strength of body. Statues were often raised to wrestlers. Even the most eminent men of Greece, in their youth, sought renown in gymnastic exercises. Chrysippus and Cleanthes distinguished themselves in the public games before they were known as philosophers. Plato appeared as a wrestler both at the Isthmian and Pythian games; and Pythagoras carried off the prize at Elis. The passion by which they were inspired was the ambition of having their statues erected in the most sacred place of Greece, to be seen and admired by the whole people. The number of statues erected on different occasions was immense; of course the number of artists must have been great, their emulation ardent, and their progress rapid.

As most of the statues were decreed for those who vanquished in the public games, the artists had the opportunity of seeing excellent models; for those who surpassed in running, boxing, and wrestling, must in general have been well formed, yet would exhibit different kinds of beauty.

The high estimation in which sculptors were held was very favourable to their art. Socrates declared artists to be the only wise men. An artist could be a legislator, a commander of armies, and might hope to have his statue placed beside those of Miltiades and Themistoclee, or those of the gods themselves. Besides, the honour and success of an artist did not depend on the caprice of pride or of ignorance. The productions of art were estimated and rewarded by the greatest sages in the general assembly of Greece; and the sculptor who had executed his work with ability and taste was confident of obtaining immortality.

It was the opinion of Winckelman, that liberty was highly favourable to this art; but, though liberty is absolutely necessary to the advancement of science, it may be doubted whether the fine arts owe their improvement to this cause. Sculpture flourished most in Greece when Pericles exercised the power of a king, and in the reign of Alexander when Greece was conquered. It attained no perfection in Rome until Augustus had enslaved the Romans. It revived in Italy under the patronage of the family of Medici, and in France under the despotic rule of Louis XIV. It is the love of beauty, luxury, wealth, or the patronage of a powerful individual, that promotes the progress of this art.[7:20:5] It will now be proper to give a particular account of the ideas which the Greeks entertained concerning the standard of beauty in the different parts of the human body. And with respect to the head, the profile which they chiefly admired is peculiar to dignified heauty. It consists in a line almost straight, or marked by such slight and gentle inflections as are scarcely distinguishable from a straight line. In the figures of women and young persons, the forehead and nose form a line approaching to a perpendicular.

Ancient writers, as well as artists, assure us that the Greeks reckoned a small forehead a mark of beauty, and a high forehead a deformity. From the same idea, the Circassians wore their hair hanging down over their foreheads almost to their eyebrows. To give an oval form to the countenance, it is necessary that the hair should cover the forehead, and thus make a curve about the temples, otherwise the face, which terminates in an oval form in the inferior part, will be angular in the higher part, and the proportion will be destroyed. This rounding of the forehead may be seen in all handsome persons, in all the heads of ideal beauty in ancient statues, and especially in those of youth. It has been overlooked, however, by modern statuaries. Bernini, who modelled a statue of Louis XIV. in his youth, turned back the hair from the forehead.

It is generally agreed that large eyes are beautiful; but their size is of less importance in sculpture than their form, and the manner in which they are enchased. In ideal beauty, the eyes are always sunk deeper than they are in nature, and consequently the eyebrows have a greater projection. But in large statues, placed at a certain distance, the eyes, which are of the same colour with the rest of the head, would have little effect if they were not sunk. By deepening the cavity of the eye, the statuary increases the light and shade, and thus gives the head more life and expression. The same practice is used in small statues. The eye is a characteristic feature in the heads of the different deities. In the statues of Apollo, Jupiter, and Juno, the eyes are large and round. In those of Pallas they are also large; but by lowering the eyelids, the virgin air and expression of modesty are delicately marked. Venus has small eyes, and the lower eyelid being raised a little, gives them a languishing look and enchanting sweetness. It is only necessary to see the Venus de' Medicis to be convinced that large eyes are not essential to beauty, especially if we compare her small eyes with those which resemble them in nature. The beauty of the eyebrows consists in the fineness of the hair, and in the sharpness of the bone which covers them; and masters of the art considered the joining of the eyebrows as a deformity, though it is sometimes to be met with in ancient statues.

The beauty of the mouth is peculiarly necessary to constitute a fine face. The lower lip must be fuller than the upper, in order to give an elegant rounding to the chin. The teeth seldom appear, except in laughing satyrs. In human figures the lips are generally close, and a little opened in the figures of the gods. The lips of Venus are half open. In figures of ideal beauty, the Grecian artists never interrupted the rounding of the chin by introducing a dimple; for this they considered not as a mark of beauty, and only to be admitted to distinguish individuals. The dimple indeed appears in some ancient statues, but antiquaries suspect it to be the work of a modern hand. It is suspected, also, that the dimple which is sometimes found on the cheeks of ancient statues is a modern innovation.

No part of the head was executed by the ancients with more care than the ears, though little attention has been given to them by modern artists. This character is so decisive, that if we observe in any statue that the ears are not highly finished, but only roughly marked, we may conclude with certainty that we are examining a modem production. The ancients were very attentive to copy the precise form of the ear in taking likenesses. Thus, where we meet with a head the ears of which have a very large interior opening, we know it to be the head of Marcus Aurelius.

The manner in which the ancient artists formed the hair also enables us to distinguish their works from those of the moderns. On hard and coarse stones the hair was short, and appeared as if it had been combed with a wide comb; for that kind of stone was difficult to work, and could not without immense labour be formed into curled and flowing hair. But the figures executed in marble in the most flourishing period of the art have the hair curled and flowing; at least where the head was not intended to be an exact resemblance, for then the artist conformed to his model. In the heads of women, the hair was thrown back, and tied behind in a waving manner, leaving considerable intervals; which gives the agreeable variety of light and shade, and produces the effects of the claro-oscuro. The hair of the Amazons is disposed in this manner. Apollo and Bacchus have their hair falling down their shoulders; and young persons, until they arrived at manhood, wore their hair long. The colour of the hair which was reckoned most beautiful, was fair; and this they gave without distinction to the most beautiful of their gods, Apollo and Bacchus, and likewise to their most illustrious heroes.

Although the ravages of time have preserved but few of the hands or feet of ancient statues, it is evident from what remains how anxious the Grecian artists were to give every perfection to these parts. The hands of young persons were moderately plump, with little cavities or dimples at the joints of the fingers. The fingers tapered very gently from the root to the points, like well-proportioned columns, and the joints were scarcely perceptible. The terminating joint was not bent, as it commonly appears in modern statues.

In the figures of young men the joints of the knee are faintly marked. The knee unites the leg to the thigh without making any remarkable projections or cavities. The most beautiful legs and best-turned knees, according to Winckelman, are preserved in the Apollo Saurocthones, in the Villa Borghese; in the Apollo which has a swan at its feet; and in the Bacchus of the Villa Medicis. The same able connoisseur remarks, it is rare to meet with beautiful knees in young persons, or in the elegant representations of art. As the ancients did not cover the feet as we do, they gave to them the most beautiful turning, and studied the form of them with the most scrupulous attention.

The breasts of men were large and elevated. The breasts of women did not possess much amplitude. The figures of the deities have always the breasts of a virgin, the beauty of which the ancients made to consist in a gentle elevation. So anxious were the women to resemble this standard, that they used several arts to restrain the growth of their breasts. The breasts of the nymphs and goddesses were never represented swelling, because that is peculiar to those women who suckle. The paps of Venus contract and end in a point, this being considered as an essential characteristic of perfect beauty. Some of the modems have transgressed these rules, and have fallen into great improprieties. The lower part of the body in the statues of men was formed like that of the living body after a profound sleep and good digestion. The navel was considerably sunk, especially in female statues.

As beauty never appears in equal perfection in every part of the same individual, perfect or ideal beauty can only be produced by selecting the most beautiful parts from different models; but this must be done with such judgment and care, that these detached beauties when united may form the most exact symmetry. Yet the ancients sometimes confined themselves to one individual, even in the most flourishing age. Theodorus, whom Socrates and his disciples visited, served as a model to the artists of his time.[7:20:6] Phryne also appears to have been a model to the painters and sculptors. But Socrates, in his conversation with Parrhasius, says, that when a perfect beauty was to be produced, the artists joined together the most striking beauties which could be collected from the finest figures. We know that Zeuxis, when he was going to paint Helen, united in one picture all the beauties of the most handsome women of Crotona.

The Grecian sculptors, who represented with such suc- ' cess the most perfect beauty of the human form, were not regardless of the drapery of their statues. They clothed their figures in the most proper stuff, which they wrought into that shape which was best calculated to give effect to their design.

The vestments of women in Greece generally consisted of linen cloth, or some other light stuff, and in later times of silk, and sometimes of woollen cloth. They had also garments embroidered with gold. In the works of sculpture, as well as in those of painting, one may distinguish the linen by its transparency and small united folds. The other light stuffs which were worn by the women were generally of cotton produced in the isle of Cos; and these the art of statuary was able to distinguish from the linen vestments. The cotton cloth was sometimes striped, and sometimes embellished with a profusion of flowers. Silk was also employed; but whether it was known in Greece before the time of the Roman emperors cannot easily be determined. In paintings it is distinguishable by changing its colour in different lights, to red, violet, and sky-blue. There were two sorts of purple; that which the Greeks called the colour of the sea, and Tyrian purple, which resembled lac. Woollen garments are easily known by the amplitude of their folds. Besides these, cloth of gold sometimes composed their drapery. But it was not like the modem fabric, consisting of a thread of gold or of silver spun with a thread of silk; it was composed of gold or silver alone, without any mixture.

The vestments of the Greeks, which deserve particular attention, are the tunic, the robe, and the mantle.

The tunic was that part of the dress which was next to the body. It may be seen in sleeping figures, or in those in deshabile; as in the Flora Farnese, and in the statues of the Amazons in the Capitol. The youngest of the daughters of Niobe, who throws herself at her mother’s side, is clothed only with a tunic, which was of linen, or some other light stuff, without sleeves, fixed to the shoulders by a button, so as to cover the whole breast. None but the tunics of the goddess Ceres and comedians have long straight sleeves.

The robes of women commonly consisted of two long pieces of woollen cloth, without any particular form, attached to the shoulders by a great many buttons, and sometimes by a clasp. They had straight sleeves which came down to the wrists. The young girls, as well as the women, (listened their robe to their side by a cincture, in the same way as the high priest of the Jews fastened his, and as it is still done in many parts of Greece. The cincture formed on the side a knot of ribbons sometimes resembling a rose in shape, which has been particularly remarked in the two beautiful daughters of Niobe. In the younger of these the cincture is seen passing over the shoulders and the back. Venus has two cinctures, the one passing over the shoulder, and the other surrounding the waist. The latter is called cestus by the poets.

The mantle was called peplon by the Greeks, which signifies properly the mantle of Pallas. The name was afterwards applied to the mantles of the other gods, as well as to those of men. This part of the dress was not square, as some have imagined, but of a roundish form. The ancients indeed speak in general of square mantles, but they received this shape from four tassels, which were affixed to them; two of these were visible, and two were concealed under the mantle. The mantle was brought under the right arm, and over the left shoulder; sometimes it was attached to the shoulder by two buttons, as may be seen ιr. the beautiful statue of Leucothoe at the Villa Albani.

The colour of vestments peculiar to certain statues is too curious to be omitted. To begin with the figures or the gods, the drapery of Jupiter was red, that of Neptune is supposed by Winckelman to have been sea-green. The same colour also belonged to the Nereids and the Nymphs. The mantle of Apollo was blue or violet. Bacchus was dressed in white. Martianus Capella assigns green to Cybele. Juno’s vestments were sky-blue, but she sometimes had a white veil. Pallas was robed in a flame-coloured mantle. In a painting of Herculanum, Venus is in flowing drapery of a golden-yellow. Kings were arrayed in purple, priests in white, and conquerors sometimes in sea-green.

With respect to the head, women generally wore no covering but their hair; when they wished to cover the head, they used the comer of their mantle. Sometimes we meet with veils of a fine transparent texture. Old women wore a kind of bonnet upon their head, an example of which may be seen in a statue in the Capitol, called the Prafica; but Winckelman thinks it is a statue of Hecuba.

The covering of the feet consisted of shoes or sandals. The sandals were generally an inch thick, and composed of more than one sole of cork. Those of Pallas in the Villa Albani has two soles, and other statues had no less than five.

The most authentic monuments of the ancient style are medals, containing an inscription which leads us back to very distant times. The writing is from right to left, in the Hebrew manner, a usage which was abandoned before the time of Herodotus. The statue of Agamemnon at Elis, which was made by Ornatas, has an inscription from right to left. This artist flourished fifty years before Phidias. It is in the intervening period therefore between these two artists that we are to look for the cessation of this practice, The statues formed in the ancient style were neither distinguished by beauty of shape nor by proportion, but bore a close resemblance to those of the Egyptians and Etrurians. The eyes were long and flat; the section of the mouth not horizontal; the chin was pointed; the curls of the hair were ranged in little rings, and resembled grains enclosed in a heap of raisins. What was still worse, it was impossible by inspecting the head to distinguish the sex. The characters of this ancient style were these: the designing was energetical, but harsh; it was animated, but without gracefulness; and the violence of the expression deprived the whole figure of beauty.

The grand style was brought to perfection by Phidias, Polycletus, Scopas, Alcamenes, Myron, and other illustrious artists. It is probable, from some passages of ancient writers, that in this style were preserved some characters of the ancient manner, such as the straight lines, the squares, and angles. The ancient masters, being the legislators of proportions, and thinking they had a right to distribute the measures and dimensions of the parts of the human body, have undoubtedly sacrificed some degree of the form of beauty, to a grandeur which is harsh, in comparison of the flowing contours and graceful forms of their successors.

Phidias, the great master of this art, was born at Athens in the seventy-third Olympiad, about 488 years B. c. He was the contemporary of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, and other eminent men, and was engaged by Pericles to superintend the decoration of the temple of Minerva and other public works. “His superior genius,” says Flaxman, “in addition to his knowledge of painting, which be practised previous to sculpture, gave a grandeur to his compositions, a grace to his groups, a softness to fieβh, and flow to draperies, unknown to his predecessors, the character of whose[7:20:7] figures was stiff rather than dignified; their forms either meagre or turgid; the folds of drapery parallel, poor, and resembling geometrical lines, rather than the simple but ever-varying appearances of nature.” Quintilian says of Phidias, “his Athenian Minerva, and Olympian Jupiter at Elis, possessed beauty which seemed to have added something to religion, the majesty of the work was so worthy of the divinity.” The greatest work of this chief of sculptors was the Jupiter at Elis, sixty feet in height, formed of ivory, enriched with the radiance of golden ornament and precious stones, and justly esteemed one of the seven wonders of the world.

The third style of Grecian sculpture was the graceful or beautiful. Praxiteles and Lysippus introduced this style. Being more conversant than their predecessors with the sweet, the pure, the flowing, and the beautiful lines of nature, they avoided the square forms, which the masters of the second style had too much employed. They were of opinion that the use of the art was rather to please than to astonish, and that the aim of the artists should be to raise admiration by giving delight. The artists who cultivated this style did not, however, neglect to study the sublime works of their predecessors. They knew that grace is consistent with the most dignified beauty, and that it possesses charms which must ever please; they knew also that these charms are enhanced by dignity. Grace is infused into all the movements and attitudes of their statues, and it appears in the delicate turns of the hair, and even in the adjusting of the drapery. Every sort of grace was well known to the ancients; and great as the ravages of time have been amongst the works of art, specimens are still preserved, in which can be distinguished dignified beauty, attractive beauty, and a beauty peculiar to infinite.

Praxiteles, a native of Magna Graecia, was born about 364 years b. c . He excelled in the highest graces of youth and heauty. “None,” says a judicious writer on sculpture, “ever more happily succeeded in uniting softness with force,—elegance and refinement with simplicity and purity: his grace never degenerates into the affected, nor his delicacy into the artificial. Over his compositions he has thrown an expression spiritual at once and sensual; a voluptuousness and modesty which touch the most insensible, yet startle not the most retiring.” Among the known works of this master are his Satyr, Cupid, Apollo the Lizard-killer, and Bacchus leaning on a Fawn. The famous Venus of Gnidos was also his work. This statue seems to offer the first idea of the Venus de’ Medicis, the statue which still “enchants the world,” and “fills the air around with beauty,” and which is probably the repetition of another Venus of Praxiteles.

Lysippus of Sicyon, the younger, the contemporary and rival of Praxiteles, it is believed worked only in metal. Although he is said to have executed upwards of six hundred works, not one remains. The Tarentine Jupiter, sixty feet high, was one of his great works. He excelled in the knowledge of symmetry, and many of his works were finished with the utmost delicacy and truth. He was so great a favourite with Alexander, that he alone was allowed to make casts of the prince. It gives us some idea of the high consideration in which his works were held by the Romans, that even Tiberius trembled in his palace at an insurrection of the people, occasioned by the removal from one of the public baths of a figure by Lysippus.

The works that remain to us of ancient art sufficiently attest the excellence of the Greeks in sculpture. We can only allude very briefly to some of the most celebrated of these productions. The Apollo Belvidere, believed to be the Apollo of Calamis mentioned by Pliny, has with justice been deemed one of the most admirable works of Grecian art. This statue “breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought,” as if the sculptor had left a portion of his own soul within the marble, to half-animate his glorious creation. The Dying Gladiatoris another greatly-valued work,finely designed, full of truth, and admirably executed. The Fawn of the Florence Gallery, so wonderfully restored by Michel Angelo, is an exquisite and characteristic representation. The Fighting Gladiator, and several of the statues of Venus, Diana, Mercury, and Bacchus, are expressive productions of the best days of Grecian sculpture. These precious monuments of art, the ancient groups, display the sentiment, heroism, beauty, and sublimity of Greece, existing as it were before us. The Laocoon, animated with the hopeless agony of the father and sons, is the work of Apollodorus, Athenodorus, and Agesander of Rhodes. The groups of Dirce, Hercules, and Antaeus, Atreus, Orestes, and Electra, and Ajax supporting Patroclus, are examples of fine form, character, and sentiment. The group of Niobe and her youngest daughter, by Scopas, is an exquisite specimen of art, replete with heroic beauty and exalted passion. The group of the Wrestlers is a representation of difficult but harmonious composition; and that of Cupid and Psyche shows much elegance combined with graceful proportion.

The Elgin Marbles, now the property of the British nation, belong to a period in the history of Grecian sculpture when the art had reached its highest excellence. “These marbles,” we quote from the Library of Useful Knowledge, “chiefly ornamented one edifice, dedicated to the guardian deity of Athens, raised at the time of the greatest political power of the state, when all the arts which contribute to humanize life were developing their beneficial influence. Many of the writers of Athens, whose works are the daily text-books of our schools, saw in their original perfection the mutilated marbles which we cherish and admire. The Elgin collection has presented us with the external and material forms in which the art of Phidias gave life and reality to the beautiful mythi which veiled the origin of his native city, and perpetuated in groups of matchless simplicity the ceremonies of the great national festival. The lover of beauty, and the friend of Grecian learning, will here find a living comment on what he reads; and as in the best and severest models of antiquity we always discover something new to admire, so here we find fresh beauties at every visit, and learn how infinite in variety are simplicity and truth, and how every deviation from these principles produces sameness and satiety.”

Clay was the first material employed in statuary. An instance of this may be seen in a figure of Alcamenes in bas-relief in the Villa Albani. The ancients used their fingers, and especially their nails, to render certain parts more delicate and lively; and hence arose the phrase ad unguem factus homo, an accomplished man. It was the opinion of Count Caylus, that the ancients did not use models in forming their statues. But to disprove this, it is only necessary to mention an engraving on a stone in the cabinet of Stosch, which represents Prometheus engraving the figure of a man, with a plummet in his hand to measure the proportions of his model. The ancients as well as the moderns made works in plaster; but no specimens remain except some figures in bas-relief, of which the most beautiful were found at Baiae.

The works made of ivory and silver were generally of a small size. Sometimes, however, statues of a prodigious size were formed of gold and ivory. The colossal Minerva of Phidias, which was composed of these materials, was twenty-six cubits in height.

The Greeks generally hewed their marble statues out of one block, though they afterwords worked the heads separately, and sometimes the arms. The heads of the famous group of Niobe and her Daughters have been adapted to their bodies after being separately finished. It is proved by a large figure representing a river, which is preserved in the Villa Albani, that the ancients first hewed their statues[7:20:8] roughly before they attempted to finish any part. When the statue had received its perfect figure, they next proceeded to polish it with pumice-stone, and again carefully retouched every part with the chisel. The ancients, when they employed porphyry, usually made the head and extremities of marble. It is true, that at Venice there are four figures entirely composed of porphyry; but these are the production of the Greeks of the middle age; some of their noblest works were cast in bronze. They also made statues of basalt and alabaster.

III ROMAN sculpture.

1 Ancient Italian Sculpture.

The Romans made the conquest of the world so much the passion of their hearts, that they had little enthusiasm to spare for art. They admired the works of Greece, and filled Rome with statues; but though they inherited the empire, they succeeded not to the genius of that little knot of republics. In their hands sculpture soon degenerated; it became more vulgar and more absurd every succeeding reign. As they worshipped the gods of Greece, they were content to find them ready made to their hands, and their chief works were statues of their great men, and triumphal columns and arches. Their best and most characteristic sculpture was history. The Trajan Column represents, in one continued winding relief, from the base to the summit, the actions of the emperor; and his statue stood at the top to show him as the consummation of all glory. The Romans, when they conquered Britain, adorned the temples and courts of justice with statues of divinities. These remains are executed with such deficiency of skill as countenances the conjecture, that the gods and altars, as well as the roads of the time, were executed by the soldiers.

Almost the only excellence to which the Romans could lay claim, was their collection of busts. These, from Julius to Galienus, embracing a period of three centuries, exhibit a series invaluable in the history of art, and in some instances worthy of comparison with the best works of the kind executed in the earlier ages. The busts are confined to the emperors of Rome; all others were forbid to be sculptured. The most perfect specimens cease with the reign of Augustus. Towards the close of the first century, forcible and free execution is substituted for purity of design and natural expression. A stiffness and laboured appearance marks the works of the reign of Hadrian. Some traits of good workmanship are observable in the busts of Aurelius. In the times of Severus the art had degenerated, and every subsequent reign shows a farther debasement, till all traces of excellence finally disappear.

2.— Modem Italian Sculpture.

The first revival of modern art may be reckoned from the reign of Constantine, when Christianity was established. We will not, in this sketch, dwell on the works of this period, which indeed do not afford much matter for interesting contemplation; but pass on to the time when indications - of real power and genius first appeared. The most distinguished restorer of sculpture was Donatello, born at Florence in 1383. Some of his works, both in bronze and marble, might be placed beside the best productions of ancient Greece without discredit. His alto-relievo of Two Singing Boys is a superior piece of sculpture. The bronze statue of Mercury by this master, at Florence, is equally remarkable. His marble statue of St George was greatly admired by Michel Angelo, who, after gazing at it for some time in silence, suddenly exclaimed “March !” A similar anecdote is told of this great man, who addressed these words to another work of Donatello’s, Saint Mark, “Marco, perche non mi parli ?” The basso-relievos of the life of Christ by Donatello abound in noble conceptions, but they were the works of advanced age, and were finished by his scholars.

Lorenzo Ghiberti, born in 1378, showed his great talents at the early age of twenty-three, when he commenced that splendid work, the doors of the Baptistry at Florence. These doors are three in number, all in bronze. The southern door, on the panels of which are sculptured the life of St John the Baptist, is by Andrea da Pisa. The northern and eastern doors are by Ghiberti. On the former is represented the life of our Saviour, and the latter exhibits the principal events recorded in the Old Testament. They occupied Ghiberti for forty years, and are justly considered noble specimens of art. The eastern door was regarded by Michel Angelo as worthy to be the gate of Paradise.

We come now to notice Michel Angelo, the most illustrious master of modern art, whether regarded as sculptor, painter, or architect. Born in 1474, and living to the advanced age of ninety, this celebrated man was the means of influencing by his mighty genius the efforts of art during the greater part of the sixteenth century. Whatever be the various opinions of Michel Angelo, all unite in acknowledging the wondrous power of his works in sculpture. It is only when he has overstrained the muscular energy of his subjects that fault can be found at all. In some instances we no doubt find him exaggerated, and deficient in repose. His conceptions were generally vast, almost superhuman, and in this spirit they were executed. With him expression and character were primary considerations, and he made ideal beauty and form subservient to his forcible representations. His works have a strong, marked character of their own; his thoughts are always elevated, and his figures full of dignity. He is never feeble. If not sublime, he is never insipid. The sentiment of aggrandizing his subject often prevails. His statue of Moses in S. Pietro, in Vincoli, though severely criticised, is a great work. “The true sublime,” says Forsyth, “resists all ridicule. The offended lawgiver frowns on undepressed, and awes you with inherent authority.” The recumbent statues in the monument of Julian de’ Medicis, in the Medici chapel, of Daybreak and Night, are grand and mysterious, and denote a mighty mind and hand. The pensive sitting figure of Lorenzo de’ Medicis is finely conceived; and the Madonna and Child in the same chapel has, in the opinion of Flaxman, “a sentiment of maternal affection never found in Grecian sculpture, but frequently in the works of this artist, particularly in his paintings, and that of the most tender kind.” Michel Angelo brought the principles of art to great perfection. “Anatomy,” says Flaxman, “the motion and perspective of figure, the complication, grandeur, and harmony of his grouping, with the advantages and facility of execution in painting and sculpture, besides his mathematical and mechanical attainments in architecture and building, which, together with the many and prodigious works he accomplished, demonstrate how greatly he contributed to the restoration of art.”

Giovanni di Bologna, a Frenchman by birth, was one of the most celebrated of Michel Angelo’s scholars. His Venus coming from the Bath, both standing and kneeling, are remarkable for delicacy and grace; and his Mercury is beautifully conceived and finely executed. Benvenuto Cellini obtained celebrity for his group of Perseus and Medusa. Bernini enjoyed great reputation in his day, but his Apollo and Daphne seems his only work of distinguished merit, although he has been also esteemed for the ease and nature of his portraits. His larger works were considered by Flaxman as remarkable for presuming airs, affected grace, and unmeaning flutter.

Sculpture continued to flourish in Italy during a portion of the seventeenth century, but after that it rapidly declined. An illustrious man, however, was destined to raise it[7:20:9] to a new existence. Antonio Canova, born in Possagno in 1757, though weakly in constitution, gave early indications of future excellence. His diligence in studying sculpture was unwearied, and he was distinguished among the Venetian artists by a laborious exercise of hand, a restless activity of fancy, and an enthusiastic longing for fame. The people of Venice felt the beauty of Canova’s works. He went to Rome and executed his group of Theseus and the Minotaur, which was pronounced by the first judges as “one of the most perfect works which Rome had beheld for ages.” From this fortunate hour to the end of his life, he produced a rapid succession of statues and groups, which carried his fame far and wide over the world. Before 1800 he had given to the world some of his most successful performances; the monuments of Ganganelli and Rezzonico the groups of Venus and Adonis, and of Cupid and Psyche; the Hebe, and the Sommariva Magdalene. These statues were entirely by his own hands, unassisted by workmen. When his success produced wealth, his protection of rising merit was admirable. His liberality in this respect was as boundless as his enthusiasm for the arts. He died in 1822, having executed fifty-three statues, twelve groups, and monuments, busts, and relievos amounting to the extraordinary number of 176 complete works, which are now dispersed all over Europe. Canova principally excelled in the beautiful and graceful. He never attempted to tread

Di Michel Angeol la terribil via.

Hence his favourite subjects were those of female grace or youthful beauty. Paris, Perseus, Palamedes, Psyche, Hebe, Venus, Nymphs, and Dancers, are the most popular of all his works. In some of these there is an approach to affectation and French taste, especially in the draperies; and, perhaps, in avoiding the extremes of anatomical force and muscular development, he has too much addicted himself to flowing outline and polished surface. But his taste improved with his progress in the art. He felt the superiority of simplicity over affectation, as is visibly shown in the noble productions of his riper years, his Pauline, the mother of Buonaparte, the Endymion, and the recumbent Magdalene. Although his power of conception was inferior to the illustrious artists of Greece, he nevertheless rivalled them in the vivid grace and exquisite skill of his works. Well did Byron say, in the lifetime of this great artist,

Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day.

The genius of Canova gave a new impulse to Italian sculpture. Thorwaldsen, though a Dane by birth, may be considered an Italian artist. His Triumph of Alexander, the Mercury, the Night, and Aurora, are works which have sufficiently established the claim of this great artist to the admiration of his own age, and that of posterity. Danneker, the sculptor of the Ariadne at Francfort, seems also to belong to the existing school of Italy. There are others, whom we cannot enumerate, who are also in the fair road to eminence; but singular to say, few of these are sons of that land which has so well been called

Mother of arts, as once of arms.

IV. ENGLISH SCULPTURE.

The Romans, when they withdrew their troops from Britain, left some taste for sulpture behind them, and their successors the Saxons made attempts to imitate the human form. The Normans introduced a better style of art and the return of the crusaders brought a relish for Grecian statuary into this country. In the reign of Henry III. the works of English artists were characterized by good sense and simple grace, which redeemed the imperfections of workmanship. In the chapel of Henry VII. we see monuments carved with great skill. The Protestant religion was not favourable to the art, and our sculptures, after the Reformation, were mostly by foreigners. The first English sculptor of note was Gibbons, who, about the close of the seventeenth century, executed many admirable works in wood. About the same time lived Cibber, an artist of originality and power. The far-famed figures of Raving and Melancholy, carved in stone, are his hest-known productions, and, in spite of Pope’s satirical lines on the “brainless brothers,” they stand foremost in conception and second in execution among the efforts of English sculpture. The bas-reliefs on the sides of the monument in London, and some statues at Chatsworth, are from his chisel.

Roubiliac, a Frenchman by birth, was so long resident in England that he has been adopted as a British artist. Although Flaxman has pronounced a poor opinion of Roubiliac’s works, they have nevertheless taken a lasting hold of public admiration. He was a man deeply imbued with poetic feelings, and had an unbounded enthusiasm for his profession. Some of his works are fanciful and conceited, but others again possess much elegance of action, and all are very beautifully executed. His figure of Eloquence is masterly and graceful. Canova said it was one of the noblest statues he had seen in England. The statue of Sir Isaac Newton is another of his masterpieces; Chantrey calls it “the noblest of all our English statues. There is an air of nature and a loftiness of thought about it, which no other artist has in this country, I suspect, reached. You cannot imagine any. thing grander in sentiment and the execution is every way worthy of it.” His most famous work is the monument of Mrs Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey: with some allegorical extravagance, it exhibits feeling and pathos, and the workmanship is quite marvellous.

“Banks,” says Cunningham, “was the first of our native sculptors whose aims were uniformly lofty and heroic, and who desired to bring poetry to the aid of all his compositions.” His groups and statues were, however, coldly received. His sketches, which are full of vigour and feeling, have been highly esteemed. The statue of Achilles mourning the loss of Briseis has not been excelled for fine action and noble proportions. Nollekens, like Banks, was ambitious to introduce a purer and more tasteful style of art but his great works hardly came up to expectation. His busts are however excellent, and will preserve his fame. Cunningham, from whose agreeable publication on English art we have already quoted, says, “the claims of Nollekens to distinction are threefold; bust sculpture, monumental sculpture, and poetic sculpture. He attained to eminence in all, but to lasting fame, I apprehend, only in the first, and even then the permanent meed is secured to him more from the lasting importance of some of his subjects, than from the splendour of the art with which he has invested them.” Bacon infused more English sense into sculpture than any of his predecessors, or his contemporaries Banks and Nollekens. His statue of Samuel Johnson, in St Paul’s, is an excellent work; stern, severe, full of surly thought and con scious power. Howard, also in St Paul’s, is expressive of the philanthropic and benevolent man it represents. Bacon had great skill in workmanship, and he never spared his labour. Some of his monuments are rather too much crowded with ornaments and objects of secondary interest.

The most eminent sculptor this country has yet produced, John Flaxman, was born in 1755. “The elements of his style,” said Sir Thomas Lawrence, “were founded in Grecian art—on its noblest principles—on its deeper intellectual power, and not on the mere surface of its skill. Though master of its purest lines, he was still more the sculptor of sentiment than of form; and whilst the philosopher, the statesman, and the hero, were treated by him with appropriate dignity, not even in Raphael have the gentler feelings and sorrows of human nature been treated with more touching pathos than in the various degrees and models of[7:20:10] this inestimable man. Like the greatest of modern painters, he delighted to trace, from the actions of familiar life, the lines of sentiment and passion, and, from the populous haunts and momentary peacefulness of poverty and want, to form his inestimable groups of childhood and maternal tenderness, with those nobler compositions from holy writ, as beneficent in their motive as they were novel in design.” The classical productions of Flaxman are now known far and wide, and they have given the world a high idea of the genius of England. “Michel Angelo and Flaxman,” observes an excellent critic, “are the only two sculptors who, with genius for the minute as well as the grand, have dared sometimes to be remiss, and leave sentiment to make its way without the accompanying graces of skilful labour.” His workmanship was certainly sometimes slovenly, and his draperies heavy. The monuments he executed are not his ablest works. His illustrations of Homer, Aeschylus, and Dante, are worthy of the great originals; and the engravings from these works have given Flaxman an European reputation. The mind of this great artist was essentially poetical, and his genius was, in the strictest sense of the words, original and inventive.

We must touch lightly on the living artists of this country. It is satisfactory to think that ours is not an age in which sculpture is retrograding in Britain. The splendid genius of Chantrey has nobly sustained the reputation Flaxman earned for us. His statues, now very numerous, are works of decided excellence; whilst his busts are the most admirable productions of that kind in the world. Westma-cott has also shared largely in public favour. Several of his monuments and other works are ably executed. We do not name other artists of rising fame. Their merit, if they truly possess any, will be duly appreciated, for a correct taste in works of sculpture is every day becoming more generally diffused in Britain.

V. FRENCH, SPANISH, AND GERMAN SCULPTURE.

Our sketch would be imperfect did we not allude to the sculpture of France, Spain, and Germany. In France, the art began to be practised with success about the middle of the sixteenth century. Gougon finished the famous Fountain of the Innocents in 1550. The works of Cousin evince genius; and Pilon has been admired for energy in his productions. Jacques D’Angouleme, a contemporary of Michel Angelo’s, possesses merit. Giovanni di Bologna, of whom we have previously spoken, filled his country with the principles of his master. Sculpture flourished in France during the reign of Louis XIV. Voltaire says of one of the artists of this time, Girandon, “il a égalé tout ce que l’antiquité a de plus beau.” This is great praise, and scarcely merited, although his designs are noble and his taste correct. An example of his style is well seen in his Tomb of Richelieu. Puget is also much esteemed by his countrymen. The succeeding artists of France were followers more or less of the styles of Girandon and Puget. The art may be said to be in a flourishing state at present.

A great number of names have been recorded by Spanish writers as eminent in sculpture. The greater part of them seem to have been employed in ornamenting the churches of Spain, and few are known from their works in other countries. Berruguete, one of the best artists of Spain, studied under Michel Angelo at Rome, and adorned Madrid, Saragossa, and other towns, with his works, which exhibit much of the grandeur and expression of ancient art. After him Paul de Cespedes was celebrated as a sculptor of great skill. In the eighteenth century Philip de Castro became a distinguished sculptor, and contributed greatly to spread the principles of correct taste in Spain.

Prior to the seventeenth century, Germany appears to have made little progress in sculpture. Ranchmuller pre ceded Schluter of Hamburg, who repaired to Rome, and attached himself to the manner of Michel Angelo. Messerschmidt executed many excellent pieces of sculpture in Vienna. In later times Ohnmacht, Sonnenschein, Nahl, and the two Shadofs, have distinguished themselves as artists. The Spinning Girl of the Younger Shadof is an exquisite piece of sculpture. The Germans promise to advance rapidly in sculpture, from the enthusiasm they show in acquiring the true principles of the art.

VI OF EXPRESSION, ACTION, AND PROPORTION IN SCULPTURE.

Without expression, gesture, and attitude, no figure can be beautiful, because in these the graces always reside. It was for this reason that the graces are always represented as the companions of Venus.

The expression of tranquillity was frequent in Grecian statues, because, according to Plato, that was considered as the middle state of the soul between pleasure and pain. Experience, too, shows that in general the most beautiful persons are endowed with the sweetest and most engaging manner. Without a sedate tranquillity, dignified beauty could not exist. It is in this tranquillity, therefore, that we look for the complete display of genius.

The most elevated species of tranquillity and repose was studied in the figures of the gods. The father of the gods, and even inferior divinities, are represented without emotion or resentment. It is thus that Homer paints Jupiter shaking Olympus by the motion of his hair and his eyebrows. Jupiter, however, is not always exhibited in this tranquil state. In a bas-relief belonging to Rondini he appears seated on an arm-chair with a melancholy aspect. The Apollo of the Vatican represents the god in a fit of rage against the serpent Python, which he kills at a blow. The artist, adopting the opinion of the poets, has made the nose the seat of anger, and the lips the seat of disdain.

To express the action of a hero, the Grecian sculptors delineated the countenance of a noble virtuous character repressing his groans, and allowing no expression of pain to appear. In describing the actions of a hero, the poet has much more liberty than the artist. The poet can paint them such as they were before men were taught to subdue their passions by the restraints of law or the refined customs of social life. But the artist, obliged to select the most beautiful forms, is reduced to the necessity of giving such an expression of the passions as may not shock our feelings and disgust us with his production. The truth of these remarks will be acknowledged by those who have seen two of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, one of which represents the fear of death, the other the most violent pains and sufferings. The daughters of Niobe, against whom Diana has discharged her fatal arrows, are exhibited in that state of stupefaction which we imagine must take place when the certain prospect of death deprives the soul of all sensibility. The fable presents us an image of that stupor which Aeschylus describes as seizing the daughters of Niobe when they were transformed into a rock. The other monument referred to is the image of Laocoon, which exhibits the most agonizing pain that can affect the muscles, the nerves, and the veins. The sufferings of the body and the elevation of the soul are expressed in every member with equal energy, and form the most sublime contrast imaginable. Laocoon appears to suffer with such fortitude, that, whilst his lamentable situation pierces the heart, the whole figure fills us with an ambitious desire of imitating his constancy and magnanimity in the pains and sufferings that may fall to our lot.

Philoctetes is introduced by the poets as shedding tears, uttering complaints, and rending the air with his groans and cries; but the artist exhibits him silent, and bearing his[7:20:11] pains with dignity. The Ajax of Timomachus is not drawn in the act of destroying the sheep which he took for the Grecian chiefs, but in the moments of reflection which succeeded those of frenzy. So far did the Greeks carry their love of calmness and slow movements, that they thought a quick step always announced rusticity of manners. Demosthenes reproaches Nicoulus for this very thing; and from the words he makes use of, it appears that to speak with insolence and to walk hastily were reckoned synonymous.

In the figures of women the artists have conformed to the principle observed in all the ancient tragedies, and recommended by Aristotle, never to make women show too much intrepidity or excessive cruelty. Conformably to this maxim, Clytemnestra is represented at a little distance from the fatal spot, watching the murderer, but without taking any part with him. In a painting of Timomachus representing Medea and her children, when Medea lifts up the dagger they smile in her face, and her fury is immediately melted into compassion for the innocent victims. In another representation of the same subject Medea appears hesitating and indecisive. Guided by the same maxims, the artists of most refined taste were careful to avoid all deformity, choosing rather to recede from truth than from their accustomed respect for beauty, as may be seen in several figures of Hecuba. Sometimes, however, she appears in the decrepitude of age, her face furrowed with wrinkles, and her breasts hanging down.

Illustrious men, and those invested with the offices of dignity, are represented with a noble assurance and a firm aspect. The statues of the Roman emperors resemble those of heroes, and are far removed from every species of flattery, in the gesture, in the attitude, and in the action. They never appear with haughty looks, or with the splendour of royalty; no figure is ever seen presenting any thing to them with bended knee except captives, and none addresses them with an inclination of the head. In modem works too little attention has been paid to the ancient costume. Winckelman mentions a bas-relief which was executed at Rome for the fountain of Trevi, representing an architect in the act of presenting the plan of an aqueduct to Marcus Agrippa. The modern sculptor, not content with giving a long beard to that illustrious Roman, contrary to all the ancient marble statues as well as medals which remain, exhibits the architect on his knees.

In general it was an established principle to banish all violent passions from public monuments. This will serve as a decisive mark to distinguish the true antique from supposititious works. A medal has been found exhibiting two Assyrians, a man and woman, tearing their hair; with this inscription, Assyria. et. Palaestina. ιν. potest, p. r. redac. s. c. The forgery of this medal is manifest from the word Palaestina, which is not to be found in any ancient Roman medal with a Latin inscription. Besides, the violent action of tearing the hair does not suit any symbolical figure. This extravagant style has been imitated by some of the modern artists. Their figures resemble comedians οn the ancient theatres, who, in order to suit the distant spectators, put on painted masks, employed exaggerated gestures, and far overstepped the bounds of nature. This style has been reduced into a theory in a treatise on the passions, composed by Le Brun. The designs which accompany that work exhibit the passions in the very highest degree, approaching even to frenzy. But these are calculated to vitiate the taste, especially of the young; for the ardour of youth prompts them rather to seize the extremity than the middle; and it will be difficult for that artist who has formed his taste from such impassioned models ever to acquire that noble simplicity and sedate grandeur which distinguished the works of ancient taste.

Proportion is the basis of beauty; indeed there can be no beauty without it, but proportion may exist where there is little beauty. Experience every day teaches us that knowledge is distinct from taste; and proportion, therefore, which is founded on knowledge, may be strictly observed in any figure, and yet the figure have no pretensions to beauty. The ancients considering ideal beauty as the most perfect, have frequently employed it in preference to the beauty of nature.

The body consists of three parts, as well as the members. The three parts of the body are the trunk, the thighs, and the legs. The inferior parts of the body are the thighs, the legs, and the feet. The arms also consist of three parts, and these three parts must bear a certain proportion to the whole as well as to one another. In a well-formed man the head and body must be proportioned to the thighs, the legs, and the feet, in the same manner as the thighs are proportioned to the legs and the feet, or the arms to the hands. The face also consists of three parts, that is, three times the length of the nose; but the head is not four times the length of the nose, as some writers have asserted. From the place where the hair begins to the crown of the head are only three fourths of the length of the nose, or that part is to the nose as nine to twelve.

It is probable that the Grecian as well as Egyptian artists have determined the great and small proportions by fixed rules, and established a positive measure for the dimensions of length, breadth, and circumference. This supposition alone can enable us to account for the great conformity which we meet with in ancient statues. Winckelman thinks that the foot was the measure which the ancients used in all their great dimensions, and that it was by the length of it that they regulated the measure of their figures, by giving to them six times that length. This, in fact, is the length which Vitruvius assigns (Pes vero altitudinis corporis sextoe, lib. iii. cap. 1). That celebrated antiquary thinks the foot is a more determinate measure than the head or the face, the parts from which modern painters and sculptors often take their proportions. This proportion of the foot to the body, which has appeared strange and incomprehensible to the learned Huet, and has been entirely rejected by Perrault, is however founded upon experience. After measuring with great care a vast number of figures, Winckelman found this proportion observed not only in Egyptian statues, but also in those of Greece. This fact may be determined by an inspection of those statues the feet of which are perfect. One may be fully convinced of it by examining some divine figures, in which the artists have made some parts beyond their natural dimensions. In the Apollo Belvidere, which is a little more than seven heads high, the f∞t is three Roman inches longer than the head. The head of the Venus de’ Medicis is very small, and the height of the statue is seven heads and a half; the foot is three inches and a half longer than the head, or precisely the sixth part of the length of the whole statue.

VII. PRACTICE OF SCULPTURE.

We have been thus minute in our account of the Grecian sculpture, because it is the opinion of the ablest critics that modern artists have been more or less eminent as they have studied with the greater or less attention the models left us by that ingenious people. Winckelman goes so far as to contend that the most finished works of the Grecian musters ought to be studied in preference even to the works of nature. This appears to be paradoxical; but the reason assigned for his opinion is, that the fairest lines of beauty are more easily discovered, and make a more striking and powerful impression, by their reunion in these sublime copies, than when they are scattered far and wide in the original. Allowing, therefore, the study of nature the high degree of merit it so justly claims, it must nevertheless be[7:20:12] granted that it leads to true beauty by a much more tedious, laborious, and difficult path, than the study of the antique, which presents immediately to the artist’s view the object of his researches, and combines, in a clear and strong point of light, the various rays of beauty that are dispersed throughout the wide domain of nature.

As soon as the artist has laid this excellent foundation, acquired an intimate degree of familiarity with the beauties of the Grecian statues, and formed his taste after the admirable models they exhibit, he may then proceed with advantage and assurance to the imitation of nature. The ideas he has already formed of the perfection of nature, by observing her dispersed beauties combined and collected in the compositions of the ancient artists, will enable him to acquire with facility, and to employ with advantage, the detached and partial ideas of beauty which will be exhibited to his view in a survey of nature in her actual state. When he discovers these partial beauties, he will be capable of combining them with those perfect forms of beauty with which he is already acquainted. In a word, by having always present to his mind the noble models already mentioned, he will be in some measure his own oracle, and will draw rules from his own mind.

There are, however, two ways of imitating nature. In the one a single object occupies the artist, who endeavours to represent it with precision and truth; in the other, certain lines and features are taken from a variety of objects, and combined and blended into one regular whole. All kinds of copies belong to the first kind of imitation; and productions of this kind must be executed necessarily in the Dutch manner, that is to say, with high finishing, and little or no invention. But the second kind of imitation leads directly to the investigation and discovery of true beauty, of that beauty whose idea is connate with the human mind, and is only to be found there in its highest perfection. This is the kind of imitation in which the Greeks excelled, and in which men of genius excite the young artists to excel after their example, namely, by studying nature as they did. After having studied in the productions of the Grecian masters their choice and expression of select nature, their sublime and graceful contours, their noble draperies, together with that sedate grandeur and admirable simplicity that constitute their chief merit, the curious artists will do well to attend to the manual and mechanical part of their operations, as this is absolutely necessary to the successful imitation of their excellent manner.

It is certain that the ancients almost always formed their first models in wax. To this modern artists have substituted clay, or some such composition. They prefer clay before wax in the carnations, on account of the yielding nature of the latter, and its sticking in some measure to every thing it touches. We must not, however, imagine from hence that the method of forming models of wet clay was either unknown or neglected among the Greeks. On the contrary, it was in Greece that models of this kind were invented. Their author was Dibutades of Sicyon; and it is well known that Arcesilas, the friend of Lucullus, obtained a higher degree of reputation by his clay models than by all his other productions. Indeed if clay could be made to preserve its original moisture, it would undoubtedly be the fittest substance for the models of the sculptor; but when it is placed either in the fire or left to dry imperceptibly in the air, its solid parts grow more compact, and the figure, losing thus a part of its dimensions, is necessarily reduced to a smaller volume. This diminution would be of no consequence did it equally affect the whole figure, so as to preserve its proportions entire. But this is not the case. For the smaller parts of the figure dry sooner than the larger; and thus losing more of their dimensions in the space of time than the latter do, the symmetry and proportions of the figure inevitably suffer.

This inconvenience does not take place in those models that are made in wax. It is indeed extremely difficult, in the ordinary method of working the wax, to give it that degree of smoothness that is necessary to represent the softness of the carnations or fleshy parts of the body. This inconvenience may, however, be remedied by forming the model first in clay, then moulding it in plaster, and lastly casting it in wax. And, indeed, clay is seldom used but as a mould in which to cast a figure of plaster, stucco, or wax, to serve henceforth for a model by which the measures and proportions of the statue are to be adjusted. In making waxen models, it is common to put half a pound of colophony to a pound of wax; and some add turpentine, melting the whole with oil of olives.

So much for the first or preparatory steps in this procedure. It remains to consider the manner of working the marble after the model so prepared. The method here followed by the Greeks seems to have been extremely different from that which is generally observed by modern artists. In the ancient statues we find the most striking proofs of the freedom and boldness that accompanied each stroke of the chisel, and which resulted from the artist’s being perfectly sure of the accuracy of his idea, and the precision and steadiness of his hand. The most minute parts of the figure carry these marks of assurance and freedom; no indication of timorousness or diffidence appears, nothing that can induce us to fancy that the artist had occasion to correct any of his strokes. It is difficult to find, even in the second-rate productions of the Grecian artists, any mark of a false stroke or a random touch. This firmness and precision of the Grecian chisel was certainly derived from a more determined and perfect set of rules than those which are observed in modem times.

The method generally observed by the modem sculptor is as follows. First, out of a great block of marble he saws another of the size required, which is performed with a steel saw without teeth, casting water and sand thereon from time to time; then he fashions it, by taking off what is superfluous with a steel point and a heavy hammer of soft iron; after this, bringing it near the measure required, he reduces it still nearer with another finer point; he then uses a flat cutting instrument, having notches in its edge, and a chisel to take off the scratches which the former has left; till at length, taking rasps of different degrees of fineness, he by degrees brings his work into a condition for polishing.

After this, having studied his model with all possible attention, he draws upon this model horizontal and perpendicular lines which intersect each other at right angles. He afterwards copies these lines upon his marble, as the painter makes use of such transverse lines to copy a picture, or to reduce it to a smaller size. These transverse lines or squares, drawn in an equal number upon the marble and upon the model, in a manner proportioned to their respective dimensions, exhibit accurate measures of the surfaces upon which the artist is to work; but cannot determine, with equal precision, the depths that are proportioned to these surfaces. The sculptor, indeed, may determine these depths by observing the relation they bear to his model; but as his eye is the only guide he has to follow in this estimate, he is always more or less exposed to error, or at least to doubt. He is never sure that the cavities made by his chisel are exact; a degree of uncertainty accompanies each stroke; nor can he be assured that it has carried away neither too much nor too little of his marble. It is equally difficult to determine, by such lines as have already been mentioned, the external and internal contours of the figure, or to transfer them from the model to the marble. By the internal contour is understood that which is described by the parts which approach towards the centre, and which are not marked in a striking manner.[7:20:13] It is further to be noticed, that in a complicated and laborious work, which an artist cannot execute without assistance, he is often obliged to make use of foreign hands, which have not the talents nor the dexterity that are necessary to finish his plan. A single stroke of the chisel that goes too deep is a defect not to be repaired; and such a stroke may easily happen, where the depths are so imperfectly determined. Defects of this kind are inevitable, if the sculptor, in chipping his marble, begins by forming the depths that are requisite in the figure which he designs to represent. Nothing is more liable to error than this manner of proceeding. The cautious artist ought, on the contrary, to form these depths gradually, by little and little, with the utmost circumspection and care; and the determining of them with precision ought to be considered as the last part of his work, and the finishing touches of his chisel.

The various inconveniences attending this method determined several eminent artists to look out for one that would be liable to less uncertainty, and productive of fewer errors. The French Academy of Painting at Rome devised a method of copying the ancient statues, which some sculptors have employed with success, even in the figures which they finished after models in clay or in wax. This method is as follows. The statue that is to be copied is enclosed in a frame that fits it exactly. The upper part of this frame is divided into a certain number of equal parts, and to each of these parts a thread is fixed with a piece of lead at the end of it. These threads, which hang freely, show what parts of the statue are most removed from the centre with much more perspicuity and precision than the lines which are drawn on its surface, and which pass equally over the higher and hollow parts of the block. They also give the artist a tolerable rule to measure the more striking variations of height and depth, and thus render him more bold and determined in the execution of his plan.

But even this method is not without its defects. For as it is impossible, by means of a straight line, to determine with precision the procedure of a curve, the artist has, in this method, no certain rule to guide him in his contours; and as often as the line which he is to describe deviates from the direction of plumb-line, which is his main guide, he must necessarily feel himself at a loss, and be obliged to have recourse to conjecture. It is also evident, that this method affords no certain rule to determine exactly the proportion which the various parts of the figure ought to bear to each other, considered in their mutual relation and connections. The artist, indeed, endeavours to supply this defect by intersecting the plumb-lines by horizontal ones. This resource has, nevertheless, its inconveniences, since the squares formed by transverse lines that are at a distance from the figure, although they be exactly equal, yet represent the parts of the figure as greater or smaller, according as they are more or less removed from our position or point of view. But notwithstanding these inconveniences, the method now under consideration is certainly the best that has hitherto been employed. It is surer and more practicable than any other we know, although it appears, from the remarks we have now been making, that it does not exhibit a sure and universal criterion to a sculptor who executes after a model.

To polish the statue, or make the parts of it smooth and sleek, pumice-stone and smelt are used; then tripoli; and when a still greater lustre is required, burned straw is employed.