REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Accessions 
 
 I 
 
 Shelf 
 
 *s 
 
ELEMENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 ART CRITICISM 
 
 COMPRISING A TREATISE ON 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF MAN'S NATURE 
 
 AS ADDRESSED BY ART 
 
 TOGETHER WITH A HISTORIC 8URVET OF 
 
 THE METHODS OF ART EXECUTION 
 
 IN THE DEPARTMENTS OP 
 
 DRAWING, SCULPTURE, ARCHITECTURE, PAINTING, LAND- 
 SCAPE GARDENING, AND THE DECORATIVE ARTS. 
 
 DESIGNED AS 
 
 A Text Book for Schools and Colleges, 
 
 AND AS 
 
 A HAND-BOOK FOB AMATEURS AND AETISTS. 
 
 ABRIDGED EDITION. 
 
 BY G. W. SAMSON, D.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF COLUB**N~-C0I*fitfU WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 
 G. W. SAMSON, D.D., 
 Ii the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Columbia 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE following treatise on Art Criticism, an abridged edi- 
 tion of the larger work published one year ago, is specially- 
 designed to meet a demand whose existence has now been 
 called forth. The aim of both is to awaken, to foster and to 
 aid the growing aspiration of American students and ama- 
 teurs in art. 
 
 The Introduction to the larger work indicates the lack in 
 American education which creates this demand, the methods 
 by which teachers in other lands and ages have supplied this 
 common aesthetic need, and the nature and ground of the 
 author's attempt. 
 
 The conviction is general that a compendious elementary 
 treatise on the principles of design and the methods of execu- 
 tion in the fine arts is a special desideratum in American 
 literature. The general education of American youth, male 
 and female, the aspiration of men in every pursuit to fit 
 themselves for cultured society, the growing fondness for 
 foreign travel, have awakened a desire for compendious 
 information as to the great world of art. The limited time 
 given to general education, and the brief leisure of business 
 men, have created in the United States a demand for text- 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 books in science rudimentary in principle and elementary in 
 illustration; while in Europe, alike in England, Germany 
 and France, there has been a corresponding call for con- 
 densed descriptive hand-books adapted to the traveling com- 
 munity. To supply both these needs, akin to each other as 
 they are, has been the author's aim. 
 
 The larger work presents the comprehensive statement of 
 principles and the compendious abstract of history essential 
 to the teacher and artist; while it adds citations from author- 
 ities ancient and modern for the purpose of confirmation and 
 illustration. The abridged edition omits no important prin- 
 ciple and passes by no important field of history; but it 
 leaves to the teacher, with the aid of the fuller work and his 
 own collateral study, to fill up the outline. 
 
 To the abridged edition a few pages of outline illustrations, 
 especially in architecture, are added for pupils. Teachers 
 will naturally provide themselves with large drawings taken 
 from numerous works at command. The thorough student 
 can now obtain also stereoscopic views of every important 
 work in sculpture and architecture, and photograph copies 
 of the gems of every European gallery of paintings . which, 
 with suitable magnifying lenses, will introduce hii> to the 
 subjects of almost every section in the treatise not offered 
 to the public. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 MAN'S NATURE AND RELATIONS TO THE WORLD AS AFFECTED BY 
 
 ART. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN AS DESIGNED TO BE ADDRESSED BT ARY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Section First. The world without us as made for the enjoyment and the employ- 
 ment of art sensibility 22 
 
 Section Second. The nature within us to which art appeals 23 
 
 Section Third. The bodily organs through which art addresses the human mind..... 23 
 Section Fourth. The methods by which artists make their addresses to human sen- 
 sibilities 26 
 
 Section Fifth. The classification of the fine arts in accordance with their modea of 
 Appeal* .......... ... ... ... ... ... ...... ......... ...... ... ... ............ ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...... ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 THE LOWER SENSES INDIRECTLY CONTRIBUTING TO THE IMPRESSIONS MADI BT ART. 
 
 Section First. The general relation of the lower senses to the appeals of art 29 
 
 Section Second. The impressions of the sense of smell in its relation to art. 31 
 
 Section Third. The impressions of the sense of taste in its relation to art 33 
 
 Section Fourth. The impressions of the sense of touch, and its relation to art... .... 34 
 
 Section Fifth. The impressions of muscular tension in their relation to art- ~ 37 
 
 Section Sixth. The impressions of nervous stimulation in their relation to art. 41 
 
 /- 
 
 CHAPTER III. A 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE HIGHER SENSE OF HEARING AS ADDRESSED BT ART. 
 
 Section First. Melody; the nature of sounds called musical, and the modes in 
 
 which by the voice and bj instruments they are produced 44 
 
 1* 5 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 Section Second. Symphony; the consonance of musical sounds, the laws of accord 
 developed by Pythagoras, and the concert of differing voices in producing ac- 
 cordant tones. .... 40 
 
 Section Third. Harmony; the three scales of musical tones on which it is founded; 
 the delicate shades of tone and the tempering of musical instruments by which 
 its highest effects are secured 61 
 
 Section Fourth, Musical Composition ; the impressions on the sensibilities sought by 
 music ; the modes of writing music ; the major and minor chords and their 
 aesthetic effects; the keys and ruling notes in musical composition 53 
 
 Section Fifth. Musical Expression ; the adaptation of musical strains to the expres- 
 sion of poetic composition, and the classes of sentiment to whose expression 
 music is adequate 56 
 
 Section Sixth. Musical Modulation; the general relation of music to pitch and ca- 
 dence of voice; and its special relation to the enunciation of dramatic composi- 
 tion in histrionic art and of didactic composition in oratory. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THS SENSE OF SIGHT, THE HIGHEST OF THE SENSES, AS ADDRESSED BT ART. 
 
 Section First. Form; its principles and their concurrence as the groundwork of art. 61 
 
 Section Second. Color ; its elements, and their co-operation as the accessories of art. 65 
 
 Section Third. Fixed Relation; the association of objects presented as at rest 68 
 
 Section Fourth. Changing Relation ; the disposition of objects represented as in 
 
 motion 70 
 
 Section Fifth. Physical Coincidence ; the law of harmonious proportion between 
 
 tones pleasing to the ear and forms and colors agreeable to the eye 71 
 
 Section Sixth. Moral Correspondence; the harmony between objects presented and 
 
 ideas represented in art 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TH FACULTIES OF THE HUMAN MIND AS AFFECTED BT ART. 
 
 Section First. Beauty in the Abstract ; or the nature of our idea of the beautiful.... 77 
 Section Second. Taste ; or the power of the mind which gives origin to the idea of 
 
 the beautiful 79 
 
 Section Third. Beauty in the Concrete; or the elements in objects which give the 
 
 impression of beauty 81 
 
 Section Fourth. ^Esthetic Judgment ; the process of the mind by which we decide 
 
 that an object is beautiful S6 
 
 Section Fifth. Comparative Taste ; the varied development of the idea of beauty 
 
 among men ; its probable absence in beings inferior, and its possible perfection 
 
 in beings superior to man... ......................................* 8T 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE CLASSES OF IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED ON MAN Bf WORKS OF ART. 
 
 Section Fir A. Classification of Mental Sensibilities: and designation of impressions 
 properly aesthetic, or capable of being addressed by art 89 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Section Second. Tim Beautiful proper and Ideas allied , as the delicate, the exquisite, 
 the fair, the brilliant, the graceful, the pretty; in which beauty of substance, 
 form, color, lustre, motion and expression severally predominate 91 
 
 flection Third. The Grand; beauty united to massivenesa; and the associated ideas, 
 the noble, the elegant, the superb, the magnificent, the sublime, the majestic; 
 in which the elements of substance, form, color, lustre, motion and moral dig- 
 nity are severally predominant 9? 
 
 Section Fourth. The Novel, the surprise at newness auxiliary to the emotion of 
 beauty; and the Picturesque, an effect from grouping allied to grandeur. 9i 
 
 Secfim Fifth. The Comic, Grotesque and Tragic; emotions awakened by distorted 
 forms and incongruous relations, allied to beauty and grandeur either in animal 
 or human expression 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND OF DEGREES OF CULTURE IN MODIFYING 
 THE IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED RT ART. 
 
 Section First. The influence of national character and social customs on the sensi- 
 ble impressions produced by art 109 
 
 Section Second. The general influence of advancing civilization on critical appreci- 
 ation of art, 102 
 
 Section Third. The special influence of forms of political organization on the patron- 
 age of art...... 108 
 
 Section Fourth. The special influence of intellectual progress in science and litera- 
 ture on the style of art 104 
 
 Section Fifth. The special influence of moral refinement on the accessories of art... 104 
 
 Section Sixth. The special influence of religious culture on the subjects of art.. 106 
 
 Section Seventh. The nature of art-study, and the sources whence its lessons are to 
 be drawn ~ 108 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 DRAWING; THE REPRESENTING OP FORMS ON A PLANE SURFACE. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FLAHfE DRAWING J THE REPRESENTING OF FORMS AS LOCATED IN A SINGLE PLANK. 
 
 Section First. Lines as the elements of drawing. 113 
 
 Section Second. Proportion, in tin outline of plane drawings Ill 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 Section Third. Elementary Shading; the representing of the third dimension in 
 
 plane drawing 118 
 
 flection Fourth. Chiaroscuro ; the gradation of light and shade. 117 
 
 Section Fifth. The applications of plane drawing 118 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PERSPECTIVE DRAWING; THE REPRESENTING op FORMS LOCATED IN PLANES MORE OR LESS 
 
 union. 
 
 Section First. The nature of perspective, and of foreshortening. 119 
 
 Section Second. The practical execution of drawing in perspective ; and ai tificial 
 
 methods of illustrating its principles 121 
 
 Section Third. The lines and points to be first fixed in perspective drawing 122 
 
 Section Fourth. Principles of descriptive geometry and projection entering into per- 
 spective drawing 125 
 
 Section Fifth. The principles of trigonometry and of optics as they relate to per- 
 spective drawing ........................................................... ......... 127 
 
 Section Sixth. The perspective of shadows. 128 
 
 Section Seventh. Aerial perspective, and its relation to chiaroscuro 130 
 
 Section Eighth. Curvilinear perspective; and the relation which the actual curve 
 
 of perspective lines in nature has to their representation in drawing. 131 
 
 Section Ninth. Binocular vision, in its relation to perspective 134 
 
 Section Tenth. The history of drawing in perspective 136 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ENGRAVING; THE TRANSFER OF DRAWINGS TO ENGRAVED PLATES FOR THE MULTIPLYING o 
 
 COPIES. 
 
 Section First. The nature and history of engraving...- 137 
 
 Section Second. Xylography; or engraving on wood 138 
 
 Section Third. Chalcography; or engraving ori copper 139 
 
 Section Fourth. Etching; engraving on copper by acid reaction 141 
 
 Section Fifth. Siderography ; engraving on st'-el 142 
 
 Section Sixth. Lithography ; or engraving on stone 142 
 
 Section Seventh. Printing of engravings ; the wear and renewal of plates ; proof im- 
 pressions and their graduated value. 143 
 
 Station Eighth. Renewal of plates ; electrotyping, or the multiplying of engraved 
 copper-plates.. ............................................... 144 
 
 Section Ninth. The place of engraving among the fine arts ~45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHY; OR DRAWING BY LIGHT. 
 
 Section First. The coloring influence of light, which led to the art of photography.. 145 
 Bectiun Second. The Daguerreotype; and the early applications of photography . ... 140 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Section Third. The ambrotype; and printing of multiplied engraving! bj pho- 
 
 tot^niphy ................................................................................ 14-7 
 
 Section Fourth, The chemical action which takes place in photographing 149 
 
 Section Fifth. The claim of photography as a fine art 160 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DESIGN IN DRAWING. 
 
 Section First. Conception ; or the originating of the idea to be embodied In drawing. 152 
 
 Section Second. Invention; or the elaborating of conceptions 152 
 
 Section Third. Composition; or the grouping of details when invented. 154 
 
 Stclian Fourth. Expression; or the giving of reality and life to composition.. 156 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 SCULPTURE J THE EXECUTING OP FORMS IN ALL THEIR DIMENSIONS. 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RELATING TO THE EXECUTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF WORKS OF 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 Section First. Technical terms expressive of different methods of executing and of 
 classifying works of sculpture... ..*. 15T 
 
 Section Second. The material of sculpture 159 
 
 Section Tfiird. The objects of design; as specially adapted to the art of sculpture.... 160 
 
 Section Fourth. Proportion as securing symmetry in works of sculpture. 163 
 
 Section Fifth. Position as related to balance in sculpture 164 
 
 Section Sixth. Perspective as affected by distance and ang*'ar elevation in works of 
 
 sculpture 165 
 
 Section Seventh. Anatomy as it relates to action and expression in sculpture. 167 
 
 Section Eighth. Practical execution of sculpture 169 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE; ILLUSTRATED IN THE EGYPTIAN. 
 
 Section First. Classes of Egyptian sculpture and methods of Egyptian sculptors...... 171 
 
 Section Second. The anatomical skill displayed in Egyptian sculpture- 172 
 
 Section Third. The moral tone characterizing Egyptian sculpture. 173 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGl 
 
 Section Fourth. The history of Egyptian sculpture; its rude native originals; its 
 ennoblement by superior artists from Asia; its refinement from Grecian influ- 
 ence; and its decline under the Roman sway 174 
 
 Section Fifth. The sculpture of Eastern Asia ; the descending scale of primitive 
 sculpture; including that of India, China, Polynesia and Central and Southern 
 America 175 
 
 Section Sixth. The sculpture of Western Asia, the ascending scale of primitive tculp- 
 ture; including the Arabian, Hebrew, Assyrian and Persian lib 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CLASSIC SCULPTURE EMBODIED IN THE GRECIAN. 
 
 Section First. General characteristics of Grecian sculpture. 178 
 
 Section Second. The bold style of Grecian sculpture; beginning with Daedalus 179 
 
 Section Third. The Athletic Style, matured by Ageladas; statues of victors in feats 
 of strength; illustrated by the Boxer and Quoit-thrower 180 
 
 Section Fourth. The Grand Style ennobled by Phidias; majestic ideal of hero-wor- 
 ship in the age of Greek culture; illustrated in the Minerva and Jove of Phidias. 181 
 
 Section Fifth. The Graceful Style; perfected by Praxiteles; ideals of physical 
 beauty illustrated in the Venus de Medici, of intellectual grace in the Apollo 
 Belvidere, and of composite symmetry in the Amazon and Hermaphrodite 182 
 
 Section Sixth. The Historical Style, dignified by Lysippus; sculptured likenesses of 
 living men with ideal accessories; illustrated in busts and the statues of Alex- 
 ander 184 
 
 Section Seventh. The Impassioned Style ; introduced by Scopas, and culminating in 
 Agesander; statues embodying ideas of physical agony and of mental anguish: 
 illustrated in the Laocoon and the Niobe 185 
 
 Section Eighth. The Colossal Style ; culminating under Chares ; the effort to make 
 
 gigantic massiveness truly artistic; illustrated in the Colossus of Rhodes 186 
 
 Section Ninth. Roman sculpture ; linked with the Grecian, in the early perfected 
 Etruscan, in the collections captured in Greece, and in the Grecian taste cha- 
 racterizing Roman sculptors 187 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MODERN SCULPTURE; PLASTIC ART AS AFFECTED BY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Section First. The Transition Period from ancient to modern sculpture; illustrated 
 
 specially in the change of subjects for art introduced by Christianity 188 
 
 Sfction Second. The chaste, though rude style of sculpture, prevalent in the early 
 
 ages of Christianity 189 
 
 Section Third. The artificial style and illegitimate use of sculpture characterizing 
 
 the mediaeval ages of the Christian Church 190 
 
 Section Fourth. The majestic grandeur to which sculpture arose at the revival of 
 
 science, of letters, of art, and of religion in the fifteenth century 191 
 
 Section Fifth. The embodiment of Christian sentiment in forms of classic grace, 
 
 cnaracterizing modern sculpture in Southern Europe- 192 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 MM 
 
 Button Sixth. The union of simplicity in design, natural beauty of form, and liveli- 
 ness of expression distinguishing sculpture in Northern Europe. 194 
 
 Section Seventh. The scope of subject and vigor of conception seen In the early 
 growth of English and American sculpture 1M 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 ARCHITECTURE; OR THE COMBINING OP FORMS, WITH THE UNITED 
 
 ENDS OF UTILITY AND BEAUTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ORIGIN OP ARCHITECTURE AS AN ART; AND THE PRINCIPLES CONTROLLING ITS FORMS. 
 
 Section First. Circumstances determining the structure of private dwellings 1W 
 
 Section Second. The demands of man's social nature giving origin to architecture as 
 
 an art 201 
 
 Section Third. Principles originating and giving form to columnar architecture 203 
 
 Section Fourth. Local circumstances, and national peculiarities of aesthetic culture 
 
 and moral convictions, giving origin to leading styles in architecture 204 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EGYPTIAN, THB TYPB OP ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE; IN WHICH MASSIVEITESS IS THE AM. 
 
 Section First. The uses of Egyptian structures called temples ; giving character to 
 their forms of architecture 205 
 
 Section &>cond General arrangement, three orders of columns and cornice of the 
 
 Egyi tian temple 20<l 
 
 Section Third. The structure of Egyptian tombs, the facade of rock-hewn temples 
 and the Labyrinth 208 
 
 Section Fourth. The obelisk and pyramid as types of the massive in the architecture 
 of Egypt 208 
 
 Section Fifth. The history of Egyptian architecture; the permanent type, massive 
 in material and permanent in its rude and sombre cast; its simple massive 
 originals; its Asiatic gorgeousness ; its Grecian refinement; and its Roman 
 grandeur 209 
 
 Section Sixth. The architecture of India, Eastern Asia and Western America ; the 
 declining phase ot the massive style 211 
 
 Section Seventh. The architecture of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Assyria and Persepolis; 
 the advancing phase of the massive style 213 
 
i 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE ; CHARACTERIZED BT MATHEMATICAL EXACTNESS IN FORMS AND DELI- 
 CATE GRACE IN ADORNMENT. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 Section First. The influence of face of country and material in giving character to 
 Grecian architecture 214 
 
 Section Second. The permanence and completeness of Grecian columnar architec- 
 ture 214 
 
 Section Third. The arrangement of columns, with their intercolumniations, on 
 which tho designation of styles in Grecian architecture is founded 216 
 
 Section Fourth. The several parts of the Greek temple, conspiring to give grace to 
 Grecian architecture 217 
 
 Section Fifth. The Parthenon as the embodiment of Grecian genius in architecture. 222 
 
 Section Sixth. History of Grecian architecture till its decline 224 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 *U>MAN ARCHITECTURE; CHARACTERIZED BY STATELINESS IN DIMENSIONS AND PROFUSE ELE- 
 GANCE IN ORNAMENTATION. 
 
 Section First. The introduction of curved lines in groundplot and elevation, giving 
 breadth and stateliness to Roman architecture 226 
 
 Section Second. Modifications of the Greek columnar orders; giving increased pro- 
 fusion of elegant ornamentation to Roman edifices 22T 
 
 Section Tliird. Varied classes of buildings and modes of structure required by the 
 circumstances, character and habits of the Roman people 229 
 
 Section Fourth. History of Roman architecture; the curvilinear Etruscan under 
 the kings; the rectangular and columnar Grecian under the Republic and earlier 
 emperors ; and the adaptation of both these under the Christian emperors, to 
 new religious uses 230 
 
 Section Fifth. Influence of the Roman civil domination on the styles of architec- 
 ture in the Roman provinces 231 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SACRED ARCHITECTURE, AS CONTROLLED BT THE SPIRITUAL WORSHIP AND THE PRACTICAL 
 CHARITY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 
 
 Section First. The Romanesque style of church architecture; founded on that 'of 
 the Roman basilica. 233 
 
 Section Second. The Byzantine style of church architecture; having the Greek 
 cross for its groundplot, and the Roman dome for its elevation 234 
 
 Section Third. The Gothic style of church architecture; characterized by steepness 
 of roof with bracing buttresses, and by pointed spires and windows for orna- 
 ment 236 
 
 Section Fourth. The Saracenic, or style of Mohammedan sacred architecture; hav- 
 ing tho Hebrew groundplot and the Byzantine elevation 239 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 MM 
 
 Section Fifth. The revived Grecian style in sacred Christian architecture; having 
 
 the Latin cross as its groundplot, the Byzantine dome as its elevation and the 
 
 pure Grecian orders in its columnar decorations 240 
 
 Section Sixth. The modifications of form and style in church edifices suggested in the 
 progress of Christianity. .... 242 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ECULAB ARCHITECTURE AS INFLUENCED BY THE SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL, THE CIVIL AJTO 
 DOMESTIC WANTS INDUCED BY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Section First. Castellated styles; as a model for palatial residences.. 244 
 
 Section Second. Capitoline styles for state-houses and halls of legislation 247 
 
 Section Third. Conventual, including college, hptel, hospital and prison styles; -It-- 
 signed as congregated homes for the education of youth, the accommodation of 
 
 travelers, the care of the infirm and the restraint of the vicious 248 
 
 Section Fourth. Villa and cottage styles designed an private residences, suburban 
 retreats and country residences. . 260 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 PAINTING; THE ADDING OP COLOR TO FORM. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 tWt ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF COLOM. 
 
 Section First. The simple or elementary colors 253 
 
 Section Second. The artificial or compound colors 253 
 
 Section Tftird. Complementary and contrasted colors 265 
 
 Section Fourth. The distinction between hues and tints ; and the nature and laws 
 of tone and of harmony in coloring 256 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES AS TO THE EMPLOY OF COLORS IN PAmTTOO. 
 
 Section First. The colors of objects in nature to be copied in painting. 259 
 
 Section Second. The relation of color to form ; and the demands of anatomy and 
 
 general symmetry in painting 260 
 
 2 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 KMB 
 
 Section Third.- -The relation of color to light and shade, and the execution of chia- 
 roscuro in painting. 261 
 
 Section Fourth. The relation of color to perspective ; and aerial effects in painting.. 262 
 
 Section Fifth The relation of color to human sensibilities; and the address of 
 varied emotions by painting 263 
 
 Section Sixth. The relation of color to design, and its special applications in 
 
 painting. 264 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 fcVTERIALS AND SPECIAL METHODS OP USING THEM IN COLORING; AND CONSEQUENT CLASSIFI- 
 CATION OP AGES, STYLES AND SCHOOLS IN PAINTING. 
 
 Seridm First. Pigments; or materials used as colors 266 
 
 Section Second. Vehicles and varnishes; or materials used for spreading colors and 
 
 giving them clearness, brilliance and durability 268 
 
 Section Third. Grounds; or surfaces on which paintings are executed 271 
 
 Section Fourth. Subjects of painting; the objects in nature and themes in thought 
 
 or history susceptible of being represented by the painter 273 
 
 Section Fifth. The uses of painting ; the ends sought by painters, and the classes 
 
 of works designed for different effects 274, 
 
 Section Sixth. Styles of painting ; the methods of coloring characterizing different 
 
 ages and nations, and originating different schools among painters 270 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ASIATIC PAINTING; RUDIMENTARY COLORING DEVOID OP TRUE ART IN FORM AND SHADING. 
 
 Section First. The rudimentary stages in the early history of painting 278 
 
 Section Second. Egyptian painting; the type of simple coloring, without perspective, 
 
 shading or propriety of hues 279 
 
 Section Third. The painting of Eastern Asia; the declining phase of rudimentary 
 
 coloring 280 
 
 Section Fourth. The painting of Western Asia; the advancing phase of rudimentary 
 
 coloring... .............*...... 28^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GRECIAN PAINTING; NATURAL COLOR UNITED TO IDEAL FORM. 
 
 Section First. The formative period of Grecian painting, during the ages of the 
 
 Greek lyric and epic 283 
 
 Section Second. The advancing development of Grecian painting under Aglaopho 
 
 and Damophilus in the age of the Greek drama 284 
 
 Section Third. The recognition of painting as a sister art under Micon and Polyg- 
 
 notus in the age of perfected sculpture and architecture 286 
 
 Section Fourth. The first received schools of Grecian painting, under Apollodorus 
 
 and Eupompus, in the age of Greek philosophy 287 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 PAOl 
 
 Section Fifth, The perfecting of Grecian painting under Zeuiis and Parrhasius in 
 
 the age of Grecian oratory 288 
 
 Section Sixth. The culminating era of Grecian painting under ita greatest masters, 
 Apelles and Protogenes, in the age of the political unity of Greece under Alex- 
 ander the Great 291 
 
 faction Seventh. The declining period of Grecian painting in the decline of Greek 
 political supremacy and of Greek culture 296 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROMAN AND MKDLEVAL PAINTING; CHARACTERIZED BY ARTIFICIAL COLOR A3 AN ADJUNCT 
 AND ORNAMENT OF ARCHITECTURAL FORM8. 
 
 Section First. Collection of Greek paintings and employ of Greek painters at Rome. 298 
 
 Section Second. Native Roman painters and their productions 298 
 
 Section Third. Roman taste in painting characterizing early Christian art 299 
 
 Section Fourth. The Byzantine style of painting; rigid in outline and excessive in 
 
 coloring; permanently established in the Eastern Church 302 
 
 flection Fifth. The Romanesque, or rude native style of painting long predominant 
 
 in Northern Italy 303 
 
 CHAPTER VLI. 
 
 THE RISE OF MODERN PAINTING IN SOUTHERN EUROPE, INCLUDING ITALT AND SPAIN; PRE- 
 EMINENTLY RELIGIOUS IN ITS THEMES, CLASSIC IN FORMS, AND SPECIALLY CHARACTERIZED 
 BY PERFECTION OF LIGHTS IN COLORING. 
 
 Section First. The early reaction of the love of nature and of genius in art against 
 
 formalism and dogmatism in Northern Italy 306 
 
 Section Second. The natural style established under Giotto and the rise of distinct 
 schools under its influence 306 
 
 Ser'ion Third. The Tuscan schools ; the dramatic of Florence and the contemplative 
 of Siena 308 
 
 Section Fourth. The school of Padua distinguished by classic forms; the directly 
 associated school of Verona and Ferrara, and the indirectly connected schools 
 of Milan, Bologna, Modena and Parma 310 
 
 Section Fifth. The school of Venice ; devoted to the attainment of richness and 
 brilliance of coloring 311 
 
 Section Sixth. The Umbrian school of Central, and the Neapolitan of Southern 
 
 Italy; formal in style and mystic in religious spirit 312 
 
 Section Seventh. The age of the three great masters, Lionardo da Vinci, Michel 
 Angelo and Raphael Sanzio 314 
 
 Section Eighth. The schools of Northern Italy as influenced by Lionardo, and of 
 Central and Southern Italy by M. Augelo and Raphael 318 
 
 fkction Ninth. The Spanish schools; formal and mystic in style; historically asso- 
 ciated with the school of Southern and Central Italy; culminating in Velasquez 
 and Murillo of Seville 821 
 
 Section Tenth. The Eclectic school of Bologna, imitative though select; established 
 by the Carracci, adorned by Domenichino and Guido, closing with Carlo Dolce. 321 
 
16 CONTENTS. 
 
 Action Eleventh. The reactionary natural school preceding the decline of Italian 
 art; originating with Caravaggio, and adorned by Salvator Rosa. 
 
 CHAPTER Till. 
 
 HE ADVANCE OF MODERN PAINTING IN CENTRAL EUROPE ; INCLUDING GERMANY, THE NETHER. 
 1AND8, HOLLAND AND FRANCE; EMINENTLY SECULAR IN SUBJECTS, NATURAL IN STYLE AND 
 CHARACTERIZED BY PERFECTION OF SHADES IN COLORING. 
 
 Section First. The rudimentary history of painting in Germany to the sixteenth 
 century.......................... 331 
 
 Section Second. The establishment of the native German school under Albrecht 
 Durer and Hans Holbein 331 
 
 Section Third. Tim revival at the close of the eighteenth century of the ideal his- 
 toric by Cornelius ; of the formal and mystic style by Overbeck ; and of the 
 natural style by the Dusseldorf school 333 
 
 Section Fourth. The establishment of the Flemish school by H. and J. Van Eyck; 
 
 characterized by life-like naturalness and labored coloring 334 
 
 Section Fifth. The culminating era of the Flemish school under Rubens; dis- 
 tinguished by boldness of invention and richness of coloring 335 
 
 Section Sixth. The Dutch schools ; the exaggerated natural style originating with 
 Rembrandt; the low life or" genre" with the Breughels ; and the pastoral land- 
 scape favorite with the Dutch masters 337 
 
 Section Seventh. The early history of the native French school; its modification un- 
 der Giotto and Lionardo; the classic style of Poussin and the landscape of 
 Claude, in the seventeenth century 338 
 
 Section Eighth. The operatic style of Le Brun under Louis XIV. : the fete style of 
 Watteau under Louis XV. ; the temporary reaction of the natural style of J. 
 Vernet, Greuze and others ; the gross tragic style of David during the Revolu- 
 tion ; and the restoration of the natural style under De la Roche and H. Vernet. 340 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HE LATE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN PAINTING IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA; COMPREHENSIVE 
 IN SUBJECT AND AIM, AS WELL AS IN THB NATIONALITY OF ITS ARTISTS; NATIVE IN CO* 
 CEPTION, BUT CULTURED IN STYLE. 
 
 Section First. The early English taste in painting as developed first by Italian and 
 later by Flemish artists. 343 
 
 Section Second. The early native English masters, beginning, with Hogarth ; the 
 first English schools originating with Sir J. Reynolds in portrait and Gains- 
 borough in landscape.... 844 
 
 Station Third. The English schools, masters, and critics in painting in the nine- 
 teenth century 846 
 
 Section Fourth. The history of American painting prior to the war of American In- 
 dependence; vtith its chief masters, West and Copley 348 
 
CONTENTS. 17 
 
 St:ti<m Fifth. The American painters of the half century succeeding the era of Na- 
 tional Independence.- 349 
 
 Section Sixth. The characteristics of American nationality and Christianity, as de- 
 veloped in a comprehensive type and elevated style of native art in painting..... 358 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 LANDSCAPE-GARDENING ; THE GROUPING OP NATURAL OBJECTS TO 
 SECURE ARTISTIC EFFECTS OF FORM, COLOR, RELATION AUD 
 MOTION. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE EFFECTS TO BE SOUGHT IN LANDSCAPFHURDENIXa. 
 
 Section First. The general end of order and symmetry, coinciding with utility, in 
 landscape-gardening 354 
 
 Section Second. The general aim of grandeur in extent and picturesquenesa in 
 grouping, conspiring with elegance in forms and richness in color. 367 
 
 Section TJiird. The special effects of association ; as the novel or venerable, the na- 
 tive or foreign, the enlivening or depressing 358 
 
 Station Fourth. The special effects of motion, apparent or real ; in undulation of 
 soil, in running water, in waving forms and susceptibilities of trees, and in ani- 
 mate creatures.... .................................................*............................. 359 
 
 Section Fifth. The rare resort to fictitious effects ; as the imitative, the deceptive, 
 
 the grotesque....*.. .....................................................................* 360 
 
 Section Sixth. Studies in science and art relating to landscape-gardening, and requi- 
 site to the master in this art ... 360 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MATERIALS BT WHICH THE EFFECTS OF LANDSCAPE-GARDENING ARE SECURED. 
 
 Section First. The structure of the surface of the ground to be adorned ; as the con- 
 trolling natural feature in landscape-gardening 362 
 
 Section Second. The style of buildings to be erected; as the leading artificial feature 
 in landscape-gardening. 363 
 
 &ction Tfiird. The bounding limits of grounds ; fences sunken or raised, ditched or 
 terraced ; palings of wood or of iron ; walls of brick or of stone ; and hedges of 
 shrubbery 864 
 
18 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOH 
 
 Section Fourth. The walks and drives; dependent as to direction and curvature 
 upon inequalities and obstructions of grounds, and on the position of the princi- 
 pal buildings. 864 
 
 Section Fifth. The conduct of water, dependent on slope of grounds; and its em- 
 ploy in fountains, rills and pools 366 
 
 Section Sixth. The location of tilled lands and useful plants; as vegetable-gardens, 
 fruit-orchards, wheat-fields, grass and pasture-lands 366 
 
 Section Seventh. The grouping of ornamental plants and trees; the adjusting of 
 flower borders and shrubbery; and the arrangement of groves, avenues and 
 clumps of trees, according to class, form, color and mobility 366 
 
 Section Eighth. Artificial accessories; as sculptured forms; rustic seats, arbors and 
 grottoes for rest; and swings, vehicles and boats for motion 368 
 
 Section Ninth. Animal accessories; smaller and larger quadrupeds, wild and do- 
 mestic; birds free or caged ; fish and reptiles 369 
 
 Section Tenth. Climate and seasons, bleak and sunny exposures, as influencing 
 choice of plants and style of buildings. 369 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANCIENT AND ASIATIC STYLES OF LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 Section First The primitive "Garden of Eden;" as the perfection of nature and 
 art 371 
 
 {Section Second. Egyptian and Assyrian gardens ; controlled in their features by the 
 sameness of surface and richness of soil belonging to level river bottoms. 872 
 
 Section Third. Syrian and Persian gardens; illustrated specially at Jerusalem and 
 Persepolis; allowing the variety of features belonging to a rocky hill country... 373 
 
 Section Fourth. Ancient Grecian and Roman gardens ; characterized by geometric 
 
 exactness of outline and elegance of forms in adornment 374 
 
 Section Fifth. Gardens of the Middle Ages ; Christian and Mohammedan ; Roman 
 in arrangement, and Asiatic in adornment 377 
 
 Section Sixth. Modern Chinese gardens ; characterized by fondness for the diminu- 
 tive in dimensions and the grotesque in forms. 378 
 
 Section Seventh. Modern Turkish gardens; distinguished by luxuriance in natural 
 adornment and voluptuousness in artificial accessories 379 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MODERN EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 Section First. Italian landscape-gardening ; villa and palace gardens, as influenced 
 by climate, surface of country, and by fondness for ancient forms and architect- 
 ural accessories 381 
 
 Section Second. French landscape-gardening; metropolitan, suburban and chateau 
 gardens ; modified from the Italian by a naturally wooded country, and by na- 
 tive taste for lively forms and colors 381 
 
 Section Third. Dutch landscape-gardening; controlled by lowland scenery; charac- 
 terized by straight lines in roads and canals, in field-bounds, bank-terraces and 
 shaded avenues 384 
 
CONTENTS. 19 
 
 MM 
 
 Section Fourth,-- English landscape-gardening; characterized specially by lawns, 
 parks and animal collections; in style the early Unman, modified by the 
 ancient Dutch, and then superseded by three successive native schools, the bald 
 of Kent, the picturesque of Price and the gardenesque of Repton 384 
 
 Section Fifth. American landscape-gardening ; affording a field for unlimited va- 
 riety, and requiring a native though chastened taste 887 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 THE DECORATIVE ARTS; ARTIFICIAL ACCESSORIES AND ORNAMENTS 
 OF OBJECTS IN NATURE AND OF WORKS IN ART. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 IH TOLD OF DECORATIVE ART; COEXTENSIVE WITH HUMAN WANTS; AND VARIED ACCORDING 
 TO MATERIAL EMPLOYED AND TASTE EXERCISED. 
 
 Section Firs'. Dress and ornaments ; their classes, material and modes of elabora- 
 tion 389 
 
 Section Second. Implements of business, and house utensils, furniture and wall 
 decorations; their uses, material and varying forms and styles 391 
 
 Section Third. Traveling equipage; trappings of animals and styles of vehicles 392 
 
 Section Fourth. Book illustrations and picture borders ; their design and the princi- 
 ple of their adaptation 393 
 
 Section Fifth. Insignia of personal rank and of nationality, with their symbolic 
 character and elaborate adaptation ; defensive armor and offensive weapons 394 
 
 Section Sixth. Religious vessels and symbols ; festal decorations and funereal monu- 
 ments and tablets 395 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ASIATIC DECORATIVE ART J RUDIMENTARY IN STYLE, DEFECTIVE IN FORM, EXCESSIVE UC ORHA 
 MENT, BUT ELABORATE IN FINISH. 
 
 Section First. The Indian as the permanent source, and the Egyptian as the ancient 
 storehouse, of Asiatic decorative art 396 
 
 Section Second. Chinese and Japanese as the degenerating stage, and Polynesian 
 and American as the degraded decline of Asiatic decorative art 397 
 
 Si -lion Third. Hebrew decorative art; the central and hallowed type of the Asiatic 
 sty],, 397 
 
20 CONTENTS. 
 
 Section Fourth. Arabian, Phoenician, Syrian and Assyrian decorative art; the first 
 stage of advance in the Asiatic style 898 
 
 Section Fifth. Persian and Greek colonial decorative art; the most advanced 
 Asiatic, and the connecting link to the Grecian type 890 
 
 CHAPTER TIL 
 
 EUROPEAN DECORATIVE ART; CONTROLLED BY THE ALTERNATING PROGRESS AND DECLINE 0V 
 SCIENCE AND ART, 07 SOCIAL, INTELLECTUAL, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 Section First. Grecian and Roman decorative art ; the one exact in form and chaste 
 
 in finish; the other elaborate in detail and profuse in ornament 399 
 
 Section Second. Early Christian decorative art; marked especially by symbols of 
 religious ideas peculiar to the new faith 400 
 
 Section Third. Mediaeval decorative art, ecclesiastic and secular; artificial in de- 
 sign and limitless in invention 401 
 
 Section Fourth. Modern changes in material and handicraft; modifying the style 
 and deteriorating the finish of ornamental work 403 
 
 Section Fifth. Modern methods of locomotion and engines of war; varying the 
 form and adornment of vehicles and of vessels, and revolutionizing the styles of 
 armor and weapons. 403 
 
 Section Sixth. Modern views of popular equality; simplifying official insignia and 
 multiplying illustrative methods of imparting knowledge. 404 
 
 Section Seventh. Modern refinements in metaphysical and theological science ; origi- 
 nating new devices to represent spiritual truth and future spiritual life 406 
 
ART CRITICISM 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 MAN'S NATURE AND RELATIONS TO THE WORLD AS 
 AFFECTED BY ART. 
 
 ART addresses the mind through some one of the bodily or- 
 gans. Its appeals, unlike mere corporeal impressions, affect the 
 mind as well as the body with pleasurable emotions ; while too, 
 inlike purely intellectual or spiritual impressions, such as the 
 delight of Newton in mathematical calculations and the rapture 
 of Descartes in metaphysical inquiries, they are always accom- 
 panied by and are produced through a sensation on the bodily 
 organs. 
 
 The eye is the chief organ through which art addresses men ; 
 yet the other organs of sense, especially the ear, have their own 
 classes of art to appeal to them ; while it is the combination and 
 co-operation of all these that give the highest delight possible. 
 When, for instance, in a ride through a beautiful country in 
 spring, the fanning of the warm breeze is a soothing luxury to the 
 touch, the exhilaration of gentle motion gives a delightful play to 
 every muscle, the fragrance of the flowers refreshes the sense of 
 smell, the flavor of the first ripe fruits feasts the palate, the sing- 
 ing of the birds makes melody for the ear, and the ever-varied 
 forms and hues of hill and vale, mountain and meadow, leaf and 
 flower, msect and bird, beasts and passing human beings, give a 
 never-ending variety in their address to the eye, we are satisfied, 
 that while all our senses were given for our pleasure, the organ of 
 
 21 
 
22 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 vision is the one to which the broader field has been assigned. 
 These suggestions hint the appropriate order to be followed, and 
 the proportionate consideration to be given in treating of the 
 powers in us to which art makes its appeal. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN AS DESIGNED TO 
 BE ADDRESSED BY ART. 
 
 THERE is in us by creation an admiration of art. By implant- 
 ing this capacity the "Father of Spirits" has declared his design 
 that it should be cultured as a source of happiness and a means of 
 virtue. There is also created within us a fondness for the imitation 
 of art. By endowing us with this faculty our Creator intimates 
 that it should be exercised as a power for promoting the happiness 
 and virtue of others. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE WORLD WITHOUT us AS MADE FOR THE ENJOYMENT 
 
 AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF ART SENSIBILITY. 
 
 When God made man in his own image, and he was perfect in 
 all his powers, we read that he made every tree first ' ' pleasant to 
 the eyes," then "good for food." The eye saw the beauty of the 
 fruit before the palate tasted its sweets ; the intellect was addressed 
 more than the mere bodily sense ; the delights of the mind were 
 made both to precede and to exceed those of the flesh. The love 
 of art, and the power it exerts to promote man's happiness and 
 welfare, was the first made to bless and govern us. The infant 
 is stilled as readily by a pretty toy, or by the nurse's song, as it 
 is by the luxury of its mother's milk. This is the first element 
 entering into our love of art and our impulse to make it our study. 
 
 We read again that man was placed in Eden, where every tree 
 was already "pleasant to the eye," "to dress and to keep it." 
 There were additional forms of beauty and grandeur that man was 
 made to conceive and execute, which, even amid the Creator's per- 
 fect works, might be studied and put into shape. In all Adam's 
 posterity the love of doing and of making is a natural impulse. 
 
MAN MADE FOR ART. 23 
 
 The child loves to draw and to make letters before he cares to learn 
 their names and their connections in words. The first impulse of 
 even the maturest mind on taking up any volume is to examine the 
 artistic illustrations ; for the artist speaks quicker to the eye than 
 the pages of the author can speak to the mind. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE NATURE WITHIN us TO WHICH ART APPEALS. 
 
 Philosophers have divided the elementary principles entering 
 into our impressions of things and beings into three distinct classes: 
 " The True, the Beautiful, and the Good." To this analysis ethi- 
 cal philosophy adds "the Right." The love of the true, the 
 beautiful, the good, and the right, with the aspiration to attain 
 them as a personal possession, forms the ideal of a complete man. 
 Truth speaks to the intellect, beauty to the sensibilities, goodness 
 to the instincts, and righteousness to the conscience of man. 
 
 Under the idea of the beautiful is included an extended class of 
 emotions ; as the admiration of the delicate and the graceful, of the 
 melodious and the harmonious, of the grand and the sublime. 
 These emotions, when produced by objects appealing either to the 
 eye or to the ear, or to the conception of the mind, make up what 
 is properly termed " the love of art ;" and the objects of perception 
 and conception, which man has created in order to awaken these 
 emotions, come under the designation of "The Fine Arts." 
 
 The fine arts, as distinguished from the useful arts, are those 
 that appeal to the love of beauty in distinction from the love of 
 utility. Art is properly human skill in constructing. When the 
 end sought and the result secured in the employ of human skill is 
 an article for man's use, without regard to its beauty, that skill in 
 constructing belongs to the class of useful arts. When the end 
 sought and the result secured by this skill is an object that awakens 
 pleasurable emotions, without reference to the idea of utility, that 
 work of skill belongs to the fine arts. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE BODILY ORGANS THROUGH WHICH ART ADDRESSES 
 THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Man has five organs of sense, smell and taste ; touch, to which 
 some add the muscular sense ; and hearing and sight. These the 
 practical and discriminating Grecian philosopher Aristotle grouped 
 in two classes ; those which receive impressions from objects by im- 
 
24 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 mediate bodily contact with them, as taste, touch, and the muscu- 
 lar impressions associated with touch ; and those which receive 
 knowledge of objects at a distance, as sight, hearing and smell. 
 
 Regarding the pleasures attending their exercise, the senses are 
 appropriately arranged in three classes; first, smell and taste; 
 second, touch and muscular pressure ; third, hearing and sight. 
 
 To the first of these, smell and taste, belong the grosser and purely 
 material pleasures. It is only by a direct meeting and mingling of 
 the material bodies not belonging to our organism with the organa 
 that taste can address us; while smell is made chiefly to be a ser- 
 vant to taste. Yet even these lower senses become dignified when 
 made associates of the higher impressions of art. 
 
 Next to these lower and material pleasures come those of touch, 
 including the whole range of muscular and nervous sensation com- 
 mon to the entire bodily frame ; which, as Hobbes suggested, may 
 be called physical. The delight of the fanning breeze and of the 
 laving bath, the gambols of the lamb and of the child, the luxury 
 of action and toil in every stage and department of human life, 
 minister indirectly to the mind's pleasant as well as successful 
 employ. 
 
 The directly intellectual impressions and pleasures are those de- 
 rived from the eye and the ear. In smell, taste and touch, as Lord 
 Kames suggests, we are conscious of contact with the object pro- 
 ducing the impression ; hence we naturally refer the pleasures de- 
 rived from these sensations to the organs themselves ; and therefore 
 we properly as well as naturally regard these pleasures as corporeal. 
 In pleasures derived through the eye and ear, however, we do not 
 at all think of the eye and the ear as the seat of the sensation ex- 
 perienced ; we refer the delights of sight and hearing immediately 
 to the mind itself. Hence Kames ranked these as intermediate 
 between purely intellectual and corporeal impressions and pleasures. 
 
 It is important to note that the ancient Greek writers on art laid 
 great stress on the media which, as they supposed, intervene 
 first between the external object and the higher organs of sense, 
 and second between those bodily organs and the mind dwelling 
 within. Impressions are made, they imagined, on the eye, the 
 ear, and also on the organs of smell, through subtle fluids, air and 
 ether, whose vibrations extend from the objects to the organs ; and 
 one of the nice distinctions between the theories of Plate <uid Aria 
 
METHODS OF APPEAL, IN ART. 25 
 
 totle as to the source of human knowledge was the question 
 whether, as Plato averred, these vibrations originated in the organ, 
 or, as Aristotle argued, they proceeded from the object. The same 
 ancient writers believed that a yet more subtle fluid intervenes be- 
 tween the organ and the spirit; an agent intermediate between 
 matter and spirit. This agent Plato regarded as the medium 
 through which higher intelligence inspires the poet and artist. 
 Modern science finds important truth in these ancient theories, 
 and art learns much from antiquity while mindful of thei?- 
 
 SECT. 4. THE METHODS BY WHICH ARTISTS MAKE THEIR AD- 
 DRESSES TO HUMAN SENSIBILITIES. 
 
 The power of art to sway men may be traced in every age and 
 clime. Its exuberant early aspiring is seen in the Assyrian tower 
 which was to reach heaven with its top, and in Egyptian statues 
 cut out of mountains and Egyptian pyramids reared as new 
 mountains in their place. It is observed in its humbler form in 
 the nicely-carved articles of ebony and ivory brought now from the 
 centre of Africa, in the coral and shell ornaments of the simple 
 islanders of Polynesia, and in the hideously-adorned pipes and 
 tomahawks of the rude natives of America. 
 
 The Greeks spoke of the origin of art and of its power over their 
 ancestors under the legend of Orpheus, who charmed the forest 
 trees and wild beasts with the music of his lyre. The idea cloaked 
 under this imagery is the power of mental culture, beginning with 
 the attractive instruction that comes through the fine arts, to in- 
 fluence men for good. In that early era all arts were united in 
 one ; but afterward philosophers began to classify the arts. The 
 Muses, the spirits presiding over art, were divided first into three : 
 Melete, Thought ; Mneme, Memory ; and Acede, Expression. At 
 a later day, when the analysis of art, and of the sensibilities to 
 which it appeals, became more elaborate, nine subdivisions of the 
 third, Aoede, were made. Their names and symbols were these : 
 Clio, History, pictured with an open scroll in her hand ; Melpomene, 
 Tragedy, veiled, leaning on a pillar, and holding in her left hand a 
 tragic mask ; Thalia, Comedy, holding in one hand a comic mask, 
 in the other an augur's wand ; Euterpe, Music, holding two flutes; 
 Terpsichore, the Dance, in a dancing attitude, playing upon a seven- 
 stringed lyre ; Erato, Amatory Poetry, holding a nine-stringed 
 3 B 
 
26 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 lyre ; Calliope, Epic Poetry, with a roll of parchment in one hand, 
 and a straight trumpet sometimes in the other ; Urania, Astronomy, 
 holding a globe in her left hand and a pointing rod in her right ; 
 Polyhymnia, Histrionic Art or Eloquence, with the forefinger of 
 her right hand on her lips or a scroll in her hand. 
 
 At a very early day the Muses were inaugurated as chief teachers 
 in the schools of Greece. Pythagoras, about B. C. 500, learned 
 in Egyptian methods of instruction, introduced music into his 
 school ; that term including the whole range of philosophic and 
 artistic studies. As a figure of the harmony of the universe, he 
 taught the " music of the spheres;" that the heavenly bodies in 
 their steady sweep through space produce, as on an ^Colian harp, a 
 beautiful and sublime harmony. Nearly one hundred years before 
 Plato, Eumolpus of Sicyon, near Corinth, introduced into the 
 common schools of Greece instruction both in the principles and the 
 execution of art ; so that all tlie boys thus trained could not only 
 appreciate and justly criticise the works of their artists, but could 
 even themselves execute works of plastic art. Athens was not 
 long in copying such a suggestion. Plato speaks of education in 
 his time as " first for the body gymnastic, then for the soul musi- 
 cal. 11 Pericles and cultured men generally, as Plutarch mentions, 
 were trained to the highest degree of skill in art. 
 
 The influence of this training in chastening the sensibilities and 
 moulding the character was most powerful and most happy. The 
 religion of the Greek was love of art ; their deities were embodi- 
 ments of art ideas ; and the common property of the state, the res 
 publica, consisted of collections of art in temples and statutes, to 
 whose increasing fund the Athenian people willingly devoted half 
 their time and labor, while their own private houses were of the 
 plainest style. Art education raised the Greek people to the high- 
 est rank in intellectual advancement and in moral refinement. Most 
 of all, it begat in them that exalted religious yearning which made 
 them the first people to appreciate and embrace the truth and 
 beauty taught and exemplified in the Christian system. 
 
 The early Romans cultivated the arts because of their moral in- 
 fluence. Sterner, however, than the Greeks in their maxims and 
 habits of external morality, they rejected some branches of Gre- 
 cian art. The Romans in their better days made a wide distinction 
 between the nine Muses. "Melpomene" and "Thalia," the 
 
CLASSES OF THE FINE ARTS. 27 
 
 Drama, both tragic and comic, they rejected as cultivating a ficti 
 tious and unpractical virtue; and "Terpsichore," the Dance, they 
 utterly expelled as an open enemy to healthful physical develop- 
 ment and as a secret foe to moral purity. When, however, the 
 Republic, with its sages and moralists was gone, and the first days 
 of the Empire, with its bright lights of literature, had set in twi- 
 light, and when Roman artists became even more licentious than 
 Roman historians and poets, then the choice relics of ancient and 
 true Grecian art were buried beneath the ashes of Vesuvius in 
 Southern Italy and by the ravages of the Goths in Northern Italy, 
 until a people breathing the spirit of a purer faith exhumed the 
 hidden treasures and made them models for modern artists. 
 
 Since the days of the Romans the love of art has lingered in the 
 south of Europe, especially in Italy. At times the spirit of error 
 and of evil has triumphed over man's better impulses so much as 
 to corrupt even art itself. Such, however, is the inherent and 
 native power of art to purify man's desires that its permanent per- 
 version is impossible. As their name indicates, the fine arts are 
 and must be agencies for human refinement. In Italy they still 
 exert a chief moulding influence. The French as a people have 
 received a new intellectual and moral impulse amid the galleries of 
 art gathered by Napoleon. In England the growing power of art 
 to refine her rising people may be traced ; while in the American 
 republic, specially requiring this influence as a social bond and as a 
 moral refiner, the importance of art study is just beginning to bo 
 realized. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE FINE ARTS IN ACCORDANCE 
 WITH THEIR MODES OF APPEAL. 
 
 As we have seen, art makes its appeal to the human mind for 
 good through all the avenues of sensation, but chiefly through the 
 two organs highest in their nature and mission, the ear and the 
 eye. 
 
 Cousin remarks that "all classification presupposes a principle" 
 on which classes are arranged, "which principle serves as a com- 
 mon measure." In the fine arts, he says, " this common measure 
 is nothing else than expression ;" a word which he compares with 
 the Greek * ' logos. " " Expression, ' ' he adds, ' ' being the supreme 
 and, the art which most approaches this is the first of all arts." 
 
28 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 He makes sculpture and music the extremes ; the former the least, 
 the latter the most expressive, of the arts proper. Painting ho 
 ranks as intermediate, being the art ' ' nearly as precise as sculp- 
 ture, and nearly as touching as music." Poetry he regards the 
 highest of all, though not strictly a fine art proper. 
 
 The fine arts which address human emotions through the ear are, 
 in their elementary forms, music, eloquence and poetry. Music 
 proper addresses the ear with pleasant sounds disconnected from 
 sentiment ; eloquence, in sounds that may be indifferent or agree- 
 able, addresses the reason by sentiment alone ; poetry appeals to 
 our emotional nature by the combined influence of the sentiment it 
 embodies, and of the grace of its diction and the melody of its 
 rhythm. Each of these has its own divisions and subdivisions, as 
 well as its combinations with one or more of its own or oi different 
 classes. Music is melody when one voice alone is heard or one 
 part alone is performed ; and it is harmony when different but con- 
 cordant parts unite. Instrumental music is simple music, and 
 vocal music is music and poetry combined. So eloquence and 
 pcstry have their classifications and combinations. The histrionic 
 art is eloquence combined with acting and scenery. The opera, 
 again, is music added to the histrionic art. 
 
 Music seems to have been developed earlier than the arts which 
 address the eye. Jubal, ' ' the father of all such as handle the 
 harp and organ," lived before Tubal-Cain, the " instructor of every 
 artificer in brass and iron ;" as also Orpheus, the leader in Grecian 
 musical art, preceded Daedalus, the father of Grecian sculpture. 
 In rank, too, the arts addressed to the ear are superior. Poetry, 
 associated with music, is made the chief of the fine arts by Plato 
 in ancient, and by Cousin in modern times. Socrates, as Plato 
 relates, in early life heard a voice which said to him, "Socrates, 
 cultivate the Muses ;" a mandate which in his youth he sought to 
 obey as a sculptor, in his mature manhood as a philosopher, and 
 in the last hours of his life as a poet. Cousin says, ' ' The art par 
 excellence, that which surpasses all others, since it is incomparably 
 the most expressive, is poetry." 
 
 The fine arts addressing emotions through the eye are more 
 numerous. Drawing is the first and simplest, and has its classes 
 of outline and shaded, plane and perspective ; to which are to bo 
 added engraving in its varied branches and photographing. Sculp- 
 
CONSPIRING OF THE SENSES IN AUT APPEALS. 29 
 
 ture presents single figures or composite designs as decorations of 
 aichitectural structures; and its finished works are reliefs or com 
 plete statuary. Painting has its subdivisions according to material, 
 as pastelle, water and oil colors; according to subject, as animal, 
 portrait and landscape painting ; and according to design, as minia- 
 ture and life-size, scenic and finished. Architecture is the mould- 
 ing and grouping of forms of plastic art, as ornaments of structures 
 called forth by the useful arts. Landscape Gardening is the union 
 of the architect's with the painter's arts, the arranging of varied 
 forms of nature into one vast whole, and the shading and harmon- 
 izing of the tints of nature as the painter arranges and blends them 
 on his canvas. The Decorative Arts embrace fragmentary details 
 associated with all the fine arts. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LOWER SENSES INDIRECTLY CONTRIBUTING TO THE IMPRES- 
 SIONS MADE BY ART. 
 
 THE general division of the senses into five, and the recognition 
 of the distinct sources of knowledge and of pleasure furnished by 
 each of these senses, may be observed in the opinions of men at 
 every stage of philosophic advancement, among all nations and in 
 all ages. There has, moreover, been a virtual division of one of 
 these five, touch, into two orders of impressions, indicating a 
 recognition of six distinct sources of knowledge arising from impres- 
 sions on the body. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE GENERAL RELATION OF THE LOWER SENSES TO TDK 
 APPEALS OF ART. 
 
 The Egyptian artists, while addressing the eye by the massive- 
 ness of their architecture and sculpture and by the gorgeousness 
 of their painting, sought to heighten their impression by adding an 
 appeal to the lower senses. The walls of their tombs, made to be 
 the home of departed spirits still united to sentient bodies, covered 
 with scenes of all forms of sensual delight, are witnesses that the 
 true artist must be master of the whole range of human sensibili- 
 3 * 
 
3C ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ties, and must make his work appeal to the lower as well as the 
 higher of the human senses. 
 
 There is a general relation between the different senses in their 
 laws of producing pleasure. Cicero, illustrating the charm of a 
 voice well modulated in the orator, says : ' ' How much more lively 
 in beauty and variety of colors are many parts in new than in old 
 pictures ! which nevertheless, although they arrest us at first sight, 
 do not delight us for any length of time, while we are permanently 
 attracted by the very uncouthness and old-fashioned look which 
 belong to ancient paintings ! How much softer and more delicate 
 in song the minor key and falsetto tones than the sharp and shrill 
 notes ; against which not only critics, but the multitude itself, ex- 
 claim if they are oft repeated ! The same may be seen in the other 
 senses ; that we are not so long pleased with ointments prepared 
 with the strongest and most pungent odor as with those of a me- 
 dium character, and that what seems to smell of wax is more praised 
 than that which smells of saffron ; that in touch itself there is a 
 limit both as regards lightness and softness. Yes, even the taste, 
 which is the sense most voluptuary, and the one which is moved 
 more than the other senses are -by sweetness, how quickly it spurns 
 and spits out that which is excessively sweet !" The poet Young, 
 though a stern moralist, teaches that all the senses should be grati- 
 fied, since "Our senses as our reason are divine." The laws con- 
 trolling the pleasures of the lower and higher senses are thus paral- 
 lel because they are a family together ; and the power of the fine 
 arts over human sensibilities can never be appreciated, as Burke 
 intimates, unless this relation be observed. 
 
 In considering each of the senses in its relation to art, the gene- 
 ral distinction between the useful and the fine arts must be kept in 
 mind ; that the former are designed to secure utility, the latter to 
 promote pleasure. The pleasures of taste and smell, designed chiefly 
 for utility, when combined with the higher pleasures, are always 
 subsidiary; and when their sole gratification is sought, it is a mark 
 of the degradation, not of the elevation, of the mind. It is only 
 when these pleasures are associated with those higher in rank that 
 they become dignified, and then they may even aspire f o be courtly 
 refinements. 
 
ADDRESS IN ART TO THE SENSE OF SMELL. 31 
 
 SECT. 2. THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE SENSE OF SMELL IN ITS RELA- 
 TION TO ART. 
 
 The sense of smell seems to be restricted to the higher orders of 
 the animate creation: while as a power for cultivated delight it be- 
 longs only to man. Its office is twofold. As a source of simple 
 pain when affected by nauseous effluvia its office is manifestly that 
 of utility. In the peculiar delight given by the odors of flowers, 
 when the honeysuckle and the orange blossom load the air with 
 fragrance, we must regard this sense as mainly, if not wholly, de- 
 signed to minister to pleasure. 
 
 The classes of sensibilities which pleasant odors address are, as 
 in the higher arts, mainly three. They minister to social luxury 
 and refinement ; they arouse religious incitement and devotion ; and 
 they serve as tributes of affection and as counter-reliefs amid the 
 struggle of attachment which clings to, and the disgust which puts 
 away, the corrupting form once loved. When Mary poured over 
 the head of Jesus the 4k box of precious ointment of spikenard," 
 and even "anointed his feet" with it till "the house was filled 
 with the odor of the ointment," it was the natural expression of 
 the conviction that agreeable odors minister to social refinement. 
 When God directed for the service of his sanctuary "spices for 
 anointing oil and for sweet incense," we are assured that the agree- 
 able impression produced by pleasant odors may aid in bringing 
 man's spirit into a fit temper for devotional service. Yet again, 
 when not only women, moved by the impulse of feeling, but sena- 
 tors in their wisdom, "brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes," 
 and " wound the spices in the linen cloths about the body of Jesus,' 
 we have a confirmation of the fact that we are made as rational 
 beings to be addressed for the highest spiritual ends through the 
 lowest of the bodily senses. 
 
 The appeal to this sense is distinct though associated ; for the 
 rose is admired more than the peony, the dahlia or the camellia, 
 which have equal beauty, but no fragrance. Even the " lily of the 
 valley" mentioned by Hebrew poets loses to our imagination half 
 its loveliness when the rules of strict biblical interpretation compel 
 as to renounce the idea of the fragrant delight of our childhood, 
 and oblige us to think of it as a gem of the sod equally fair indeed, 
 but without spicy odor. 
 
32 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 As a study in art the power of this humblei sense has called 
 forth genius to a remarkable degree. Among Egyptians and He- 
 brews, Persians and Arabians, Indians and Chinese, the "art of 
 the apothecary" has been celebrated by such men as Moses and 
 Solomon as a worthy one ; while among Greeks and Romans and 
 nations of modern Europe, just in proportion to the general ad- 
 vancement and culture of a people has always been the dignity 
 given to this same art. 
 
 Probably, however, this appeal is best made not by the artifically 
 extracted and concentrated essences of natural odors ; but, according 
 to the suggestion of Cicero, in the moderate and unconcentrated 
 perfume of flowers. So far as the sense of smell is concerned, art 
 must rather employ than copy nature to produce its impression. 
 The poet has struck the chord that vibrates in universal human 
 nature in the call, "Bring flowers;" "flowers" for the joyous, and 
 "flowers" for the sad; "flowers for the bridal wreath," and 
 "flowers for the early dead." At the ancient Egyptian feast ser- 
 vants held flowers to the nostrils of the guests ; in Turkish cities 
 the corpse of the dead is borne through the streets uncoffined, but 
 loaded with flowers ; the simplest shrine of the Madonna at an 
 Italian cross-road is festooned with flowers ; and modern advance- 
 ment in refinement has found no method of improving the simple 
 custom suggested alike by refined philosophy and by rustic intui- 
 tion. The artist in still-life will ever study fragrant flowers as a 
 mode of appeal. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE SENSE OF TASTE IN ITS RELA< 
 TION TO ART. 
 
 The sense of taste in man, as that of smell, performs a double 
 mission, the first office being that of utility. The craving of hun- 
 ger is opposed to, rather than identical with, the pleasure of the 
 palate, since we reject unsubstantial delicacies, however tempting 
 at other times, and choose the simplest beverage, water, and the 
 plainest aliment, bread, till hunger and thirst are sated. The plea- 
 sures of taste proper seem to begin, rather than to end, when hun- 
 ger is sated. 
 
 It is doubtful whether taste in its stricter signification is applica- 
 ble to any creature but man. As the necessities of the lower ani- 
 mals are only corporeal, and not spiritual, we can see no end to ba 
 
THE BANQUET AS AN AUXILIARY TO ART. 3--i. 
 
 accomplished by the gift of a source of gratification designed for 
 an intellectual and a moral being. Certainly the Creator has given 
 them no capacity to culture the higher gift like man. They do not 
 go over the sea to seek new luxuries, nor have they any scientific 
 cooks, or convivial banquets, with viands studiously compounded, 
 for an increased appeal to the sense of taste. Taste, in its higher 
 signification, belongs to the attributes of man, as designed for a 
 higher than corporeal delight, and indirectly at least it is an art 
 sens bility. 
 
 The ends sought by an appeal to this sense are the same three 
 already alluded to ; individual gratification, social culture and relig- 
 ious refinement. That is in any age or land a happy home when, 
 skill and industry spread every day a tastefully prepared though 
 frugal meal ; as that household is always a cheerful one among 
 whom a fondness for flowers or music reigns. From the days of 
 Job birth-day feasts have been scenes of pleasure, filling up the 
 whole year with bright anticipations and pleasant recollections. As 
 a social bond, from the days of simple shepherd-princes no substi- 
 tute has been found for the banquet as a power to heal old grudges 
 and bring to a point pending negotiations either of personal or of 
 national importance. As a religious obligation, the Divine Being 
 enjoined on His ancient people the attendance of every man at the 
 three annual feasts. The Great Teacher himself also set the exam- 
 ple of attending not only on established public feasts, but also of 
 partaking private banquets ; while, too, the chief expounder of his 
 system taught Greek and Roman Christians that they should still 
 attend upon the national and religious festivals of their fellow- 
 countrymen. 
 
 The dignity to which this sense may be made to rise is seen in 
 the fact that its culture has been most advanced by men most de- 
 voted to philosophy, to literature, to oratoiy, and to the pursuits 
 nearest allied to true art. Socrates and Plato, though so different 
 in temperament, were drawn out in highest discourse at the ban- 
 quet-table : and Aristotle, whose genius embraced the whole range 
 of science and philosophy in his day, cultivated his taste to the 
 nicest delicacy in judging of the flavor of a fish. Around the hon- 
 ored board of Maecenas gathered in the Augustan age not onlv 
 poets and artists, but also sages and orators of the greatest name ; 
 and even Cicero was never happier when retired for his pbilosophi 
 
 B* 
 
31 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 cal studies than amid the dinner-table disputations which have 
 made the name "Tusculanum" for ever famous. Not only such 
 men as Garrick, Curran and Sheridan, but also the scholarly John- 
 son and Burke, gathered their inspiration amid the tempered con- 
 vivialities of the club-room supper. No one can doubt that there 
 has been often an excess in the resort to the pleasures of the 
 palate, and that this excess has tended to render its voluptuousness 
 a means of degrading instead of refining man's nature. The abuse 
 of the banquet, however, like the adulteration of coin, is a conce?- 
 si >n to the real value of that which it counterfeits. 
 
 The close association of this sense with the intellectual has in 
 part, perhaps, led to its employ as the expressive designation of that 
 power by which the mind forms a judgment of beauty in art. The 
 word " taste," borrowed from the corporeal sense allied so strongly 
 to art, has been the almost universally chosen figure of speech by 
 which to designate that power of the mind which judges of the 
 beautiful. The artist should study the manifestation of this cor- 
 poreal sense, that he may in his works appeal to it in itself, and 
 more especially that he may appreciate its high relationship to that 
 purely intellectual nature in man which he must strive to address 
 in his works. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE SENSE OF TOUCH, AND ITS 
 
 RELATION TO ART. 
 
 Dr. Reid begins his chapter upon "Touch" thus: "The senses 
 which we have hitherto considered are very simple and uniform ; 
 each of .them exhibiting only one kind of sensation, and thereby 
 indicating only one quality of bodies. By the ear we perceive 
 sound, and nothing else ; by the palate, tastes ; and by the nose, 
 odors. These qualities are all likewise of one order, being all second- 
 ary qualities ; whereas, by touch we perceive not one quality only, 
 but many, and those of very different kinds. The chief of them 
 are heat and cold, hardness and softness, roughness and smooth- 
 ness, figure, solidity, motion and extension." 
 
 The complex character of this general sense suggests a classifi- 
 cation of effects very different, as well as of their causes distinct in 
 the human organism ; the germ of which Sir Win. Hamilton has 
 traced back to Aristotle and his predecessor Democritus. This 
 analysis is founded upon the manifest distinction bet ween the rnero 
 
TOUCH MINISTERING TO ART SENSIBILITY. 3e 
 
 tactual impression made upon the skin by heat and by contact with 
 external bodies, and that entirely distinct impression produced by 
 pressure upon and tension of the muscles. The nature and extent 
 of this analysis become more apparent when this sense called 
 "touch," with its multiform elements, is viewed in its relation 
 to art. 
 
 There are most manifestly three classes of agreeable sensations 
 made upon the human organism, aside from the local senses of 
 taste and smell, of hearing and sight. The first of these is the 
 pleasing impression made upon the surface, on the skin, by gentle 
 heat or the slight stroke of a soft body, solid, liquid, or gaseous, as 
 of smooth fur, of lukewarm water or of a spring zephyr; and these 
 are the pleasures of touch proper. The second is the agreeable 
 sensation of pressure more or less gentle on the muscles, as in em- 
 bracing, and of action in them as called forth by the gambols of 
 animals and children and by gymnastics and the dance in youth ; 
 and these are the pleasures of what may be called muscular tension, 
 or, for brevity's sake, simply "tension." The third is the exhil- 
 arating excitement arising from any stimulus acting upon the nerves, 
 and thence upon the brain ; the seat of this impression being neither 
 the superficial skin nor the muscles underlying the skin, but the 
 nervous fibres imbedded within the muscular system, centring in 
 tl e brain ; its producing cause being either a- material stimulant 
 acting through the digestive organs, or mental excitement operat- 
 ing through the brain on the nervous system: while its distinctive 
 character may be perhaps appropriately designated by the term 
 "nervous stimulation," or simply "stimulation." It is the first 
 of these three classes of pleasurable sensations, the sense of touch 
 proper, whose relation to art is in this section to be considered. 
 
 The sense of touch, Aristotle argues, is the discriminating test 
 by which plants and animals are separated one from the other ; its 
 most perfect development being found in man. While superior 
 to any animal in the power of touch as a source of utility, man is 
 not only superior to, but distinct from, animals in the pleasures de- 
 rived from this sense. 
 
 Touch proper is but a surface impression, whether ministering 
 to utility or pleasure. Its impressions are of two classes; the 
 pleasant impressions of temperature, and those arising from gentle 
 for tact of a material agent, gaseous, liquid or solid, upon the sur- 
 
36 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 face of the body. The soft brushing or " kissing" of the zephyr, 
 the gentle fanning of the light breeze, or, as Dr. Franklin said, 
 the rude yet exhilarating friction of the sweeping gale, is one of 
 the luxuries of life. Of the same nature is the luxury of the 
 water-bath, the laving of the wash, the dripping of the shower, 
 the coursing past or cutting through of the river current in swim- 
 ming. So, too, in the soft or smooth rubbing of the sponge or towel, 
 of the brush or comb and of the hand, the pleasure of this sense ia 
 more or less exquisite. 
 
 The exquisiteness of the pleasure which may be derived from 
 this sense when that of any other is denied is the true indication of 
 its value. Children deprived of sight alone, show this in their in- 
 clination to feel any soft substance, such as velvet or fur, glass or 
 ivory ; while to those destitute of both sight and hearing, this only 
 source of gratification left, mediate as it is between the highest and 
 the lowest senses, appears to be a never-exhausted source of varied 
 delight. The blind deaf-mutes will sit or stand for hours holding a 
 piece of fur, rubbing it with apparent ecstasy over every portion of 
 the body that they can lay bare ; the Creator having opened to them 
 a universe of delight in a field never entered by those absorbed in 
 the pleasures of the other senses. Were the emotions awakened 
 by the fine arts limited to the impressions of sight and sound, then 
 this most intelligent class, deprived of the two higher senses, could 
 have no art sensibility. 
 
 The relation of " touch" proper to art is perhaps the least inti- 
 mate and important of any of the lower senses ; though that of it 
 attendant sense, the muscular, is the closest and broadest. The 
 true artist, however, like the poet who studies nature, will often 
 appeal to this form of delight. Lightness of touch, and its exqui 
 site effect on marble or canvas, ^as well as on the viol string or tha 
 organ key, will be constantly suggesting to the painter, the sculptor 
 the musician, the relation, by analogy at least, which the sense of 
 touch has to his art. Most of all the gentle impulses of the sou. 
 that fall pleasantly on kindred spirits, of which those of the zephyr, 
 the stream, the hand are the types, must always be present to con- 
 trol the mind and the heart of the artist in conceiving as well as in 
 executing his works ; and if he has studied thoroughly the theory 
 if the sense of touch and of its pleasure, the chastening influence 
 of a right mental bent early received will prove a habit in his 
 
MUSCULAR ACTION DISCIPLINED BY ARV. oT 
 
 art that will give the charm of a subdued tone to everything ha 
 touches. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE IMPRESSIONS OF MUSCULAR TENSION IN THEIR RELA- 
 TION TO ART. 
 
 Tlw seat of the sense of tension is in the muscles underlying the 
 skin. The track of the impressions made upon this sense is not, 
 therefore, as in touch, superficial upon the extremities of the 
 nervous fibres, whose minute arid delicate terminations in the skin 
 are so peculiarly sensitive ; but it is a dull pressure felt on the body 
 of the nerves imbedded in the mass of the muscles. These impres- 
 sions arise from two classes of muscular action ; the pressure of an 
 external object from without, and the tension of self-action from 
 within. 
 
 The knowledge obtained through muscular tension is of two 
 kinds; knowledge of qualities of material objects communicated to 
 the mind by the pressure of those objects on our muscular and bony 
 framework ; and knowledge of the position, actual and relative, of 
 different portions of our bodies by their angular separation, their 
 gravity and other muscular impressions. The blind man learns the 
 form of a body by clasping it; he ascertains its composition as hard 
 or soft by pressing upon it, and he judges of its weight by lifting it. 
 From the amount of pressure exercised by the will on the muscles 
 which move the eye, the tongue, the shoulders, the elbow, the thigh, 
 or the knee, we know so perfectly how to adjust the direction and 
 amount of their angular motion that not only the skill of the engi- 
 neer, of the pianist, and of the gymnast, but the ordinary powers 
 of a child in directing his eye and his hand and of preserving hig 
 balance, are a wonder to us. As Sir Wm. Hamilton has shown 
 from the treatises of Aristotle, Galen, and a line of acute thinkers 
 succeeding them, this source of knowledge has ever been recognized 
 in metaphysical analysis; Aristotle designating it "motion;" the 
 Germans, following him, "the muscular sense ;" while Hamilton 
 unites both designations in the characteristic expressions "loco- 
 motive energy" and "muscular tension," 
 
 The pleasures derived from muscular impressions are of two 
 classes. The first of these is that produced by pressure from with- 
 out. It is seen in the manifest enjoyment of the infant, who has 
 as yet attained no power of muscular self-action, when it coos with 
 4 
 
38 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 satisfaction at the scrubbing of the bath and crows with delight at 
 the fondling hug of its nurse. The pleasure of the kiss and the 
 embrace in youth and mature years, dignified in Asiatic more than 
 in European custom as the natural accompaniment of the joy of 
 meeting and the sorrow of parting, the pressure of the hand, of 
 Ihe lip, and of the breast is a pure and noble gratification. 
 
 The second class of agreeable muscular impressions is that re- 
 sulting from the tension of the muscles in the exercise which forms 
 their healthful play; a development of delight in the child somewhat 
 later than that just mentioned. Goldsmith pictures this in the 
 gambols of "The playful children just let loose from school;" 
 Cowper graphically sketches it in the gleesome race of "the bound 
 ing fawn," the frisking gallop of" the wanton horse," and in the 
 romp and " dance" of " the very kine that gambol at high noon." 
 
 In youth, sports of the turf, such as cricket and the foot-ball, 
 racing and leaping, wrestling and boxing, are a more studied and 
 less unmeaning employ of this same delight. With this class of 
 Bports, at first rude, art allied itself more and more until a system 
 of artificial exercises became in vogue, which among the Greeks 
 took the name of gymnastics; the " education for the body" com- 
 mended by Plato. The fascination of this class of sports led to an 
 excess and abuse. Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander, carefully 
 noticed their effects thus: "Those accustomed to gymnastic exer- 
 cises bear the cold with more difficulty than those not conversant 
 with them. " " The same habit is not advantageous to both health 
 and strength. ' ' The practical Romans also observed what Diodorus 
 in the Augustan age records of the Egyptian educators : ' ' They 
 think that by the exercise of daily wrestling youth improve in their 
 strength but for a little time, and that with a great deal of hazard, 
 while they gain no advantage at all as to the health of their bodies- 
 This, however, as an abuse from over-straining, is no more an ob- 
 jection to the enjoyment rightly employed than over-eating is an 
 objection to eating at all. 
 
 Among these last-mentioned exercises the dance finds place; to 
 whose excess and abuse a double objection exists. Among the 
 Hebrews it was a natural diversion for "children" and " virgins" 
 to "dance;" and the wisest of men declares "There is a time U 
 dance." As expressing patriotic exultation, Jephthah's daughter 
 "came out to meet him with timbrels and dances;" and after 
 
THE GRACES OF MUSCULAR ACTION. ,39 
 
 David's victory "the women went forth singing and dancing with 
 tabrets." AH an hallowed act of devotion, the prophetess Miriam, 
 and the women with her, worshiped "with timbrels and with 
 dances ;" and David made dancing a religious act. 
 
 Among the Greeks in their early days the dance "held an ele- 
 vated position. One of the nine Muses was its presiding genius. 
 Homer speaks of the dances of the illustrious suitors for the hand 
 of Penelope as a manly accomplishment; and represents even sairc 
 Ulysses as an admirer of the skill of dancers. Xenophon mentions 
 Socrates as present at a dance ; and Plato argues in his ' ' Laws' 
 that the dance should be among the Greeks, as it was among the 
 Egyptians, founded on religious ideas. The Greek dances proper, 
 introduced by Theseus, were very simple in their movement and 
 expression. A different view was taken by the best Greeks when 
 the frantic war-dance of the Corybantes superseded the hardy train- 
 ing of their warriors ; when, too, the Bacchanalian dance became 
 but a representation of a drunken debauch ; and when again the 
 licentious dance of the Httarae was practised by harlots. From 
 this time Aristotle among the Greeks, and Diodorus and Cicero 
 among the Romans, objected to the dance, first, because it induced 
 physical weakness from the over-exertion to which its exciting in- 
 fluence tended ; second, and especially, because of the lascivious 
 associations of which it was regarded the direct expression. Dur- 
 ing the better times of the Roman republic it was deemed disgrace- 
 ful for grave men or even ingenuous youth to engage in any form 
 of the dance. Julius Caesar introduced the Pyrrhic or war-dance 
 from Asia Minor into the games of the Roman theatre ; after which 
 the tendency was so rapidly downward that Nero degraded the 
 imperial purple by dancing publicly on the stage. The uncovered 
 walls of private houses in Pompeii now reveal to what an extent 
 not only the manly war-dance, but the licentious waltz of the cour- 
 tesan, had been carried. The Great Teacher appearing near this 
 crisis to call back Greeks and Romans to the true as well as the 
 good in every relation, seems to have himself made, and to have 
 inspired his apostles to make, a just discrimination between the sin* 
 pie home expression of delight at a son's return and the depraved 
 dance of the adulterous woman's daughter. 
 
 The chase, again, in rude and polished ages, has been an ex- 
 hilarating pleasure of muscular acticn, associated with the higher 
 
40 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 delight in successful skill. The poets have ascribed to it an en 
 nobling and refining influence. Moses quotes a couplet dating back 
 to a period long before his day, extolling " Niinrod, mighty in 
 limiting before the Lord." The (! reeks and Unmans installed 
 Diana as the special patron of the chase ; and their poets made it 
 one of the marks of a hero that he excelled in this art. William 
 Somerville, in his poem, "The Chase," traces the history of hunt- 
 ing from Nimrod, mentions its introduction into England by 
 William the Conqueror, and shows its influence in refining the 
 before rude manners of the British nobility. 
 
 To this class of pleasures must probably be attributed, to some 
 extent, the fascinating charm of war itself. The measured tread 
 of files of men in marching, with all the studied evolutions of the 
 military drill, are directly pleasures of muscular action; and the 
 hold upon the human mind which military exercises gain, the 
 tenacity of their power even in old age upon the veteran soldier, 
 are witness to the fascination attending this delight. Partisan 
 Avar fare, the scout, the raid, the ambush, and even the dashing 
 charge of the pitched battle and the sloAV approach of the regular 
 siege, are but the hunt and the chase of a higher order of beings. 
 The conflict taxes to the intcnscst energy the exercise of the mind 
 indeed; but the exhilarating play of the muscular frame is the 
 coveted pleasure that outweighs the pain of wounds and even of 
 mutilation. 
 
 As already intimated, the association of art with the pleasures 
 of muscular action was so apparent to the ancient Greeks that one 
 of the Muses, Terpsichore, was appointed to preside as its head. 
 Among modern critics "beauty of motion," as treated by Lord 
 K ames, Sir Win. Hamilton, and others, should find place here. 
 The study of attitudes and of every variety of muscular cifort, re- 
 presented in such sculptured forms as the Dancing Fawns, the 
 Boxer, the Wrestler, the Huntsman, the Warrior, and Hercules 
 in his varied labors, all have their origin in this impulse of human 
 nature; while in this too dwells the fascination coming from the 
 painter's grouping of children playing, of men and women toiling, 
 of men and beasts bounding in the chase, of horse and Coot men 
 struggling in bloody conflict, and even of angels soaring in clouds 
 or ether. 
 
STIMULUS AND ART ENTHUSIASM. 41 
 
 SECT. 6. THE IMPRESSIONS OF NERVOUS STIMULATION IN THEIR 
 RELATION TO ART. 
 
 Beneath the skin and within the muscles, acting in part as their 
 ministers, lie the two classes of nerves ; the one called afferent or 
 nerves of sensation, terminating in the skin, the other called effer- 
 ent or nerves of motion, having their attachments to the muscular 
 fibres. In addition to the two kinds of impressions on these, dis- 
 tinguished as those of touch and of muscular tension, there is an- 
 other class of impressions quite distinct in both nature and source 
 from the two previously considered. 
 
 The impression distinctively called nervous is a feverish flutter 
 of the whole nervous organism, the brain included, which no one 
 thinks of referring to an action upon them through either one of 
 the bodily senses, and which it would be absurd to call the impres- 
 sions of smell, taste, touch, tension, sight or hearing. They are 
 produced in part by external stimulants introduced into the body 
 in a solid, liquid or gaseous form, such as tobacco, opium, tea, 
 coffee, alcohol, ether, exhilarating gas, or some other kindred 
 agent which acts upon the nervous system. They more generally 
 originate from a cause within, familiarly known as self-excitement, 
 whose abuse is characterized as " working one's self into a frenzy;" 
 a state of mind exemplified in devotees of every religious system, 
 in public speakers of every class and country, and even in the wild 
 enthusiasm of a whole people lost in the whirl of a show or carni- 
 val. Animals below man seein destitute of this nervous excita- 
 bility. They have no inward power of mind to act as an exciting 
 cause, and they shun narcotic plants such as tobacco and the poppy, 
 as well as the alcoholic stimulus of fermenting fruits. It is man, 
 the intellectual being alone, whose intelligence prompts him to 
 resort to nervous stimulation as a source of pleasure. 
 
 The pleasurable sensation of nervous stimulation becomes a re- 
 sistless spell over the youth or the man who gives himself up to its 
 indulgence. The child soon discriminates between the momentary 
 gratification of the palate coming from the sweetened draught and 
 the intoxicating sensation that follows from it ; and very soon he 
 prefers the latter separate from the former. Very soon, too, even 
 the nauseous taste of tobacco ceases to be disagreeable, because of 
 the exciting influence produced by it. When, too, the almost 
 
 4 * 
 
42 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 delirium of nervous excitement arising from hilarious society where 
 wit and humor kindle and sparkle, when the first fresh glow of 
 personal success in speaking under the complete possession of body 
 and soul which absorption by one's subject of discourse produces, 
 when the entrancing thrill of imaginative composition in prose or 
 verse, or even the reading of poetry or romance, history or the 
 drama, philosophy or science, comes to be tasted, when either of 
 the se forms of nervous stimulation arising from the ecstatic play of 
 one's mental faculties is first experienced, a new world of surpass- 
 ing delight breaks on the young student. It is a source of pleasing 
 exhilaration to which mature manhood fondly resorts, and which 
 even in old age still holds its devotee spell-bound. 
 
 The resort to this source of pleasure is seen in the earliest and 
 latest history of mankind. Noah "planted a vineyard," and 
 *' drank of the wine thereof" until " he was drunken ;" arid among 
 all nations, rude or refined, the use of fermented liquors and the 
 smoking of some narcotic have been found. In sacred history we 
 are told that God " giveth wine to make glad the heart of man ;" 
 and even that Jesus, the perfect man, " drank of the fruit of the 
 vine." In every age, too, men have sought this same excitement 
 coming from the mind's own imaginative employ. Both true and 
 false prophets like Samuel and Saul, as well as bards and seers like 
 Chalcas, orators and poets in every age and land, have spoken and 
 written under a nervous stimulus which has seemed to be the 
 working of a supernatural power. 
 
 As with the other pleasures of sense, the end sought through 
 nervous stimulus has been threefold. As an individual gratification, 
 and to gain the ear and take possession of the mind and heart of 
 men for good or evil, public speakers have sought to attain this 
 power of self-excitement. The wonderful energy of the double 
 stimulus of the wine cup and of imaginative enthusiasm in the 
 speaker, who sways at will the throng of even stolid men, has been 
 a theme of admiration and an attainment most coveted in all ages 
 of man's history. As a means of religious determination, the 
 power of self-excitement peculiar to great leaders like John Knox, 
 Martin Luther and George Whitefield has been, though peculiarly 
 liable to abuse, a mighty instrument for good, akin as it is to that 
 fervor of the great apostle, whom many philosophic hearers re 
 garded " beside himself " and "mad." 
 
SELF-EXCITEMENT A POWER IN ART. 43 
 
 It is a perversion of this source of pleasure and of power when 
 the means is made but an end, and the mere ecstasy of nervous 
 excitement is sought for its own sake or for any inferior end, 
 Noah and the sons of Aaron are set forth as a warning by the 
 Jewish lawgiver in the command, "Do not drink wine nor strong 
 drink when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, that ye 
 may teach the children of Israel." Elijah and John, the greatest 
 of preachers, abstained entirely from artificial stimulants ; while 
 Timothy, the select model of a Christian pastor, was so abstemious 
 that only an apostle's express direction could persuade him to use 
 a stimulant even as a medicinal restorative. 
 
 It is an excess of the same worthy stimulus when the genuine 
 equable excitement flowing from the fervor awakened by a great 
 theme degenerates into a mere rant, the offspring of a forced, 
 strained and unnerving excitement; a fault in many American 
 speakers, both political and religious, often noticed by English and 
 French critics. The wearing and deranging self-excitement wit- 
 nessed in the phenomena called clairvoyance, spirit-rapj tings and 
 the like, is a careless experimenting with the most delicate of all 
 the parts of our organism, made to be in its healthful excitement 
 the source of a genial and ennobling delight. 
 
 This abuse, however, is no argument against the proper use of 
 any power for good or of any source of pleasure which our Creator 
 has implanted within us. The ecstasy of nervous stimulus, as felt 
 by an orator like Demosthenes declaiming on the sea-shore thrilled 
 by the tones of his own voice, or by a poet like Schiller writing all 
 night when the inspiration was on him with a wet towel about his 
 head to cool his fevered brain, or even by a mathematician like 
 Sir Isaac Newton toiling for weeks to reach his result, and, when 
 so near as to be sure of its nature, completely unmanned by nerv- 
 ous excitement and obliged to transfer his work for completion to 
 another hand, this is a source of superior pleasure which always 
 has controlled and always will sway the truest genius. 
 
 The artist, above all men, needs this delight, so inexpressibly 
 fascinating, to cheer, to prompt, to sustain him in his long years 
 of unrequited toil ; years most drear were it not for this constant 
 and exquisite delight. If Coleridge had occasion to say, "Poetry 
 has been to nie its own exceeding great reward," much more may 
 the sculptor or painter utter it of his art. More than this, the 
 
44 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 artist must be able to infuse this same, his own fervor of spirit, 
 into the beholder, otherwise he carves and paints in vain. As the 
 speaker in prose or verse that carries away his audience with him 
 has learned the almost magnetic power of an imparted nervous 
 stimulus, so the artist who succeeds must learn to possess it at his 
 work, since it will then be readily imparted to those who comf 
 within the sphere of his influence as beholders. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE HIGHER SENSE OF HEARING AS 
 ADDRESSED BY ART. 
 
 THE arts which address the ear belong rather to the sphere of 
 rhetorical than of art criticism, For two reasons, however, the 
 analysis of the laws of musical sounds, one department of thesr 
 arts, may be made to occupy a brief space in a treatise on art criti- 
 cism. The departments of poetry, oratory and the histrionic arts 
 from the days of Aristotle have been abundantly treated in works 
 on rhetorical criticism. The special field of music and musical 
 sounds, like that of the other fine arts proper, as painting and 
 sculpture, has been mainly the subject of professional teaching ; 
 partly from the fact that its teachers instruct by the voice instead 
 of the pen, and address only practical pupils, who do not need 
 written treatises ; partly also from the necessary technicality of all 
 professional study which makes its text-books unsuited to the gene- 
 ial student. Hence a brief cursory view of this field of art is 
 essential for the general student. 
 
 SECT. 1. MELODY; THE NATURE OF SOUNDS CALLED MUSICAL, AND 
 THE MODES IN WHICH BY THE VOICE AND BY INSTRUMENTS THEY 
 ARE PRODUCED. 
 
 Sound, as the ancients before Aristotle understood, is caused by 
 vibrations in the air ; the jar produced by a blow on a wall causing 
 the wall to vibrate, which vibrations are communicated to the air 
 and through the air to the ear ; the human voice producing vibra- 
 tions in the air, first within and then without the lungs, which in 
 
MUSICAL SOUNDS AND INSTRUMENTS. 45 
 
 a similar manner are transmitted to the ear. Sounds called musi- 
 cal are caused by vibrations of the air so rapid and regular that they 
 produce a continued and agreeable impression on the ear. 
 
 A wheel made to revolve with increasing rapidity comes at a cer- 
 tain velocity to give forth a low musical tone, which tone takes a 
 higher pitch as the speed increases. All musical tones are charac- 
 terized by a clear and smooth ring when prolonged ; and as distin- 
 guished from each other they are classified, first, according to 
 length, as long and short ; second, according to pitch, as high arid 
 low ; and third, according to force, as loud and soft. 
 
 The human voice is the natural first instrument for producing 
 musical sounds. A child very soon catches the idea of their nature ; 
 pad instinctively gives his vocal organs the conformation to produce 
 them. In sounding the seven distinct notes of the scale called 
 "natural," both the increased size and length of the vocal organs 
 in mature life make the natural notes deeper than in the child's 
 voice ; while to produce the next succeeding seven higher notes, or 
 the octaves in the scale, the air-passage is narrowed and the 
 breath is forced through it with greater velocity. 
 
 The transition from the voice to wind instruments was simple 
 and natural. At first, seven pipes of the same size, but of different 
 lengths, were bound together, side by side, so that the lips could 
 pass readily from one to the other : a form represented on the 
 monuments of ancient Egypt, and used now by the Sandwich 
 Islanders. Afterward a single reed or pipe, with holes cut at the 
 proportionate lengths, was found to give the same alternation of 
 seven notes ; while a double force of voice was seen to produce the 
 octaves. The next transition seems to have been to leaten instru- 
 ments : elastic substances, as a hide drawn over a hoop, or a cir- 
 cular plate of metal, the drum and cymbals, giving tones in accord 
 with those of the pipes. Next stringed instruments were added ; 
 a readily vibrating cord tightly stretched giving the same smooth, 
 dear, ringing sounds produced by the pipe and drum. From the 
 days of Jubal and Job, rude in Egypt but finished in Greece, the 
 three kinds of musical instruments already mentioned have been 
 found ; indicating that they originated in a principle "in the nature 
 of things' ' instinctively suggested to man, upon which, in no stage 
 of advancement, can he make any material advance. 
 
 The word melody, in the ancient Greek, expressed the general 
 
46 AET CRITICISM. 
 
 effect of musical sounds. As a technical term of art, it refers to 
 an arrangement of a single musical strain for a single voice or in- 
 strument. All musical performances, of children and rude tribes, 
 naturally take this character ; and the earlier and simplest popular 
 songs, seldom committed to a written form, are pure melodies, 
 having only one strain, in which all classes of voices join. 
 
 SECT. 2. SYMPHONY; THE CONSONANCE OF MUSICAL SOUNDS, THE 
 LAWS OF ACCORD DEVELOPED BY PYTHAGORAS, AND THE CON- 
 CERT OF DIFFERING VOICES IN PRODUCING ACCORDANT TONES. 
 
 In music, as in other arts, practice precedes theory ; and even in 
 its advanced stages the ablest performer may be unaware of the 
 science which underlies his art. In very early times, however, the 
 ablest minds began to investigate the philosophic principles of this 
 everywhere-admired art. 
 
 Pythagoras having studied music as an art in Egypt, and having 
 introduced it into his school at Crotona, in Eastern Italy, set him- 
 self to the effort to reach the laws of nature on which its subduing 
 and moulding power is to be explained. His mind was led to the 
 scientific principle of the musical scale by this incident. Going 
 into a smith's shop one day, he noticed that as several smiths were 
 striking the same piece of iron with hammers of different sizes, all 
 the sounds were harmonious except one. Reflecting upon the cause 
 of this difference, he could refer it to nothing but the different sizes 
 of the hammers. Having weighed the hammers on returning 
 home, he suspended by cords of equal length and size pieces of 
 iron having the same proportionate weights as the hammers of the 
 smiths. On striking these cords, he observed that they gave forth 
 notes corresponding to the ring of the iron. The discovery led 
 him to the cause of the distinctions in musical sounds produced by 
 musical instruments; and thence he obtained a law of proportions 
 in the size of musical strings and pipes, which enabled the Greeks 
 greatly to improve musical science. 
 
 The rapidity of vibrations in cords depends upon length, size or 
 weight, and tension. The number of vibrations in a given period 
 is inversely as the length of the cord, inversely as the square root 
 of its weight, and directly as the square root of its tension. Hence 
 in a guitar, harp or violin, one-half the length of any string vibrates 
 twice while the whole vibrates once ; in two strings of the sam< 
 
LAW OF VIBRATIONS IN MUSICAL CORDS. 4rf 
 
 length, one must be one-fourth the weight of the other in order to 
 vibrate twice as rapidly ; and the same string must have four 
 pounds of tension put upon it in order to vibrate twice as quick 
 as when stretched by the tension of one pound. 1 
 
 When two cords vibrate with the same rapidity the waves of 
 air vibrating with them strike together on the ear, producing " uni- 
 son;" called by the Greeks "homophony," or the same voice. 
 When again the proportions between the vibrations are such that 
 the slower vibrations chime in with, instead of breaking against the 
 quicker vibrations, an effect is produced pleasant to the ear, called 
 by the Greeks "symphony," but in modern times "accord." 
 Vibrations of disproportionate numbers clash with each other, and 
 thus produce the unpleasant impression called "discord." 
 
 The division of the cord as it vibrates into two, three, four and 
 other proportionate parts or nodes is natural, not arbitrary. Tims, 
 if a long tightly-stretched cord be placed in the crack of a window, 
 forming what is popularly called an JEoYism harp, it will be ob- 
 served that according to the strength of the air-current it is vibrat- 
 ing first as a whole ; then in two equal parts, each half giving forth 
 the octave above the note first heard ; and then again if the wind 
 strengthens sufficiently it is vibrating in three separate parts, each 
 giving the fifth of the second octave. The cause of this division is 
 thus illustrated. If a long cord be fastened at one end, while the 
 other is made to vibrate up and down, at first slowly, then nioro 
 rapidly, its capacity to move as a whole will be soon reached ; when 
 its oscillations will break first into two, then into three, then into 
 more equal nodes. So if a pebble be thrown into a smooth lake, 
 the first circling ripple necessarily creates by its oscillation a second, 
 and that a third, of the same size as the first, be that larger 01 
 smaller. 
 
 The main principles, indeed, in the science and art of music 
 
 i Formula. If T = time of one vibration, L = length of cord in 
 inches, W = weight of one inch, t = tension in pounds, g = force of 
 gravity, or 386 inches the distance a body falls in one second of 
 
 time, and N = number of vibrations in a second, then T == L -=-' 
 
 Vgt 
 
8 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 were recognized by early Grecian philosophers and artists to such 
 an extent, that the very terms used in musical science, as the Ro- 
 man Vitruvius confessed of the Latin tongue, are borrowed from 
 the mother-tongue of the arts. The word tone from U fetno,""t0 
 stretch : and the division of the natural musical scale into two parts 
 called " tetrachords, " recalls the fact that the Greeks constructed 
 their first rude lyres with four " chords," or strings, so adjusted as 
 to size, length, or tension, that when struck successively their tones 
 were those of the human voice in rising through the first half of 
 the natural scale. This result they found to be secured by making 
 a difference of what they called a whole tone, or stretch, between 
 the first and second and the second and third cords, and between 
 the third and the fourth cords half a tone or stretch. 
 
 With this practical science, already attained, Pythagoras pro- 
 ceeded by experiment to ascertain the proportions in cords giving 
 out musical tones. Taking two strings of equal size, length and 
 tension, dividing one by a rest in the middle and sounding the whole 
 of the undivided cord and the half of the divided one together, the 
 note called the octave was obtained, and the chord which the Greeks 
 called " diapason," because it was necessary to go through all the 
 notes of the scale to reach it. Again removing the rest so as to cut 
 off one- third, and sounding the two-thirds of the divided together 
 with the whole of the undivided cord, they obtained the fifth 
 note and the chord which they styled u diapente," because it 
 was necessary to go through five notes to reach it. Yet again, 
 placing the rest so as to cut off one-fourth of the string, and sound- 
 ing together the whole and the three-fourths, they obtained the 
 fourth note, and the chord which they named " diatesseron, " be- 
 cause it was necessary to go through four notes to reach it. Two 
 notes were thus reached following each other in the order of the 
 natural scale, and one tone apart. Here, too, by striking two-thirds 
 and three-fourths of the string at the same time the first discord 
 was encountered. 
 
 The ratio of three-fourths to two-thirds of the cord, which pro- 
 duced the alternation of a natural tone and the discord, was ob- 
 served to be as eight to nine. This latter difference in sound wa 
 called a " tone ;" and the ratio of the length of strings, which gave 
 this first distinction of tone, they made the proportion for the 
 division of the others among the seven tones not yet fixed, namely, 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN NAMES OF NOTES. 4fc 
 
 the second and third, the sixth and seventh. Dividing off, then, 
 one-ninth of the whole string by a rest, the eight-ninths gave the 
 first whole tone, and the second note in the scale ; while eight- 
 ninths of that eight-ninths gave the third note. The ratio between 
 the length giving the third note now reached, and that giving the 
 fourth before fixed, was only as about fifteen to sixteen, 1 or about 
 one-half of the ratio proposed as the measure of a whole tone. 
 Taking eight-ninths of the two-thirds, another whole tone and the 
 gixth note was obtained ; while again eight-ninths of the remainder 
 of the string gave another whole tone and the seventh note. The 
 remaining portion of the string, compared with the one-half which 
 gave the octave, was only a half ratio, about fifteen to sixteen, 
 giving the second halftone in the scale. 
 
 The first note of the scale or do was called by the Greeks liypate, 
 the low ; the second, parlujpate, next the low ; the third, luchnos, 
 light or guide ; the fourth, mese. or middle ; the fifth, paramese, 
 or next the middle; the sixth, trite, or third from the highest; 
 the seventh, p<irancte, or next the highest; and the eighth, /<//>, 
 or highest. The modern Indian musicians designate the seven 
 notes by the Sanscrit words sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, it/; their 
 origin showing their antiquity. The modern names are attributed 
 to Guido, a monk of Arczzo, in Italy ; an eminent musician, who 
 liyed about A. D. 1022 and who derived the first six from the 
 Latin hymn to St. John the Baptist ; 
 
 " Ut queant laxis J/i'ra gestorum, Solve polluti 
 
 Jfesonare fibris, .Famuli tilorum, Lab'n reatum." 
 
 The seventh syllable si was afterward added by Le Maire, a French 
 musician. In modern times the notes of the scale have been indi- 
 cated by the first seven letters of the alphabet. 
 
 The notes thus obtained by vibrations of the longer portion of 
 the divided string are all included in the natural scale, whose chords 
 were called simple chords. Of the shorter portions the one-third 
 gives the fifth of the second octave ; and the chord called by the 
 
 1 The ratio was between f of f of the string which gave mi and f of 
 the string which gave fa. The fractions reduced are f f f and f f f ; or 
 about as 16 to 15. 
 
 5 C 
 
50 AKT CRITICISM. 
 
 Greeks " diapason-diapente," now callel the twelfth, one of the 
 sweetest of all chords. The fourth of the chord gives the octave of 
 the second scale, and the chord called by the Greeks u bisdiapason," 
 now named the fifteenth. These five, three simple and two com- 
 posite, all included within two octaves, were the principal chords as 
 developed by the Greeks. 
 
 Modern improvements have introduced three or four octaves into 
 (he range of musical instruments. The proportion of strings which 
 give the first octave are 1 f f f f f TS I- ] n 
 each successive octave the proportionate lengths required are re- 
 spectively one- half those in the previous octave. The number of 
 vibrations in each cord in a given time is found by inverting the 
 same fractions. The proportionate number of vibrations in the 
 first octave will be 1 f f f f f V 5 2. If reduced 
 to a common denominator, the numerators of these fractions will be 
 24 : 27 : 30 : 32 : 36 : 40 : 45 : 48 ; in which there are three seta 
 of proportions. The ratios between the 1st and 2d, 4th and 5th, 
 6th and 7th, are as 8 to 9 ; those between the 2d and 3d, and the 
 5th and 6th, are as 9 to 10 ; and those between the 3d and 4th, and 
 the 7th and 8th, are as 15 to 16. It should be carefully observed, 
 therefore, that of the five intervals called whole tones in the scale, 
 three are of a larger ratio than the other two ; while the intervals 
 called halftones are not precisely the halves of those marking the 
 whole tones. 
 
 The Greek word " symphony" refers immediately to the conso- 
 nance of associated voices of different tone singing the same melody. 
 Even savages, however, notice the change of voice in youth, and 
 the different pitch of male and female voices ; and in their simple 
 melodies the male voice after change sings the same common strain 
 a fifth below. Besides this first variation yet a third, a fifth below 
 the ordinary male voice, is heard from men of deeper-toned voices; 
 a fact noticed among the native tribes of Africa, and also among 
 the negroes of the American continent. In the earliest stage of 
 improvement the study of symphonies, or accords, leads to the inde- 
 pendent strains which make up the different parts in music. First, 
 male voices, differing more than female, are trained according to 
 their pitch to sing strains different, though in accord ; then female 
 voices, including those of boys of half growth, are separated into 
 two classes. The Brahmins of India have three parts in their 
 
HARMONY AND METHODS OF SECURING IT. 51 
 
 music; which were studied by Pythagoras, and are mentioned by 
 Plato in his beautiful figure picturing the triple virtues of a good 
 magistrate, " he shouM attune them like the three musical chords, 
 bass, tenor and treble." To those three ancient divisions, " bass" 
 01 low, "tenor" or medium, "and "treble," that is, triple or high 
 part, modern refinement has added subdivisions of each; "so- 
 prano" or high, "mezzo-soprano" or midhigh in female voices, 
 "alto" a high tenor in medium male voices, and "barytone," 
 or deep-toned, in lower male voices. In the practical business 
 of teaching music, it is found that while the voice may sound 
 with ease notes both higher and lower, the range of tones to be 
 specially cultured by those singing different parts is as follows : for 
 the soprano or treble from B below to A above the staff; for the 
 alto or second treble from G below to B or C ; for the tenor from 
 E to G ; for the bass from F below to D above ; and for the bary- 
 tone from F below to F above. 
 
 SECT. 3. HARMONY; THE THREE SCALES OF MUSICAL TONES ON 
 WHICH IT is FOUNDED; THE DELICATE SHADES OF TONE AND 
 
 THE TEMPERING OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS BY WHICH ITS HIGH- 
 EST EFFECTS ARE SECURED. 
 
 In the "natural scale" which men by nature, without culture, 
 employ, the half tones occur between the third and fourth, the 
 seventh and eighth notes of the octave. This was called "dia- 
 tonic" by the Greeks, because the voice or instrument passes in it 
 through all the natural divisions of tones. 
 
 The suggestion was a natural one that half tones might be 
 introduced between all the whole tones. For, if the rest were 
 made to slide gradually along from the whole to the half length, 
 the cord, vibrating meanwhile, would give forth an unbroken suc- 
 cession of varied tones. The stereotyped, unprogressive spirit of 
 the Asiatic race in art is strikingly illustrated in this, that while 
 the Chinese had, centuries before Christ, both the natural scale 
 and a division of it into twelve half tones, yet they have never 
 secured the higher effects of music. The superior Brahminic race 
 in India and the Persian in China have been from the earliest 
 ages masters in higher musical performances. The perfection of 
 the division in musical tones attained by the Greeks, realized what 
 they designated by the wo *d " harmony." 
 
52 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The introduction of half tones between each of the five whole tones 
 made twelve instead of seven different notes to the octave, thus 
 giving greater variety in the same compass. A slight contracting 
 of the vocal organs sharpening a note gave half a tone higher hi 
 pitch, called a sharp ; and a slight relaxing of the organs gave a 
 note half a tone lower, called a flat. Thus a new scale was formed, 
 which, because of the overlapping of its tones like colors in paint- 
 ing, producing an adorned style of music, the Greeks called the 
 "chromatic scale," from "c/iroma," color. 
 
 In constructing the chromatic scale of sharps and flats by trans- 
 position, the fixed law of the movement of the human voice in 
 tones and half tones becomes more apparent. Taking three octaves 
 of the natural scale, one above and the other below that of the ordi- 
 nary pitch, and making G, the fifth note, the first note of a new 
 scale, the two whole tones and a half tone from G to C give the 
 same succession as from C to F. From E to F, however, where 
 the new scale demands a whole tone, there is but a half tone ; and 
 hence F must be raised in pitch or sharpened a half tone. Thus 
 one new note is secured. Making the fifth of this second scale, or 
 D, the first of a third scale we find between D, F sharp and G, the 
 two tones and a half tone required in the third scale ; but, to ob- 
 tain three whole tones succeeding. C must be made sharp ; which 
 secures one more new note. In a third transposition beginning 
 with A, G must be sharpened ; in a fourth transposition beginning 
 with E, D must be sharpened ; a process by which all the possible 
 divisions of tones are exhausted. 
 
 Taking now the second, instead of the first of the notes, by which 
 khe Greeks fixed the interval of a tone, namely, the fourth instead 
 of the fifth of the scale, the transposition by flats gives another set 
 of scales. Making the fourth note, or F, the first of a new scale, 
 B must be flattened, introducing a half tone where there was a 
 whole tone in the natural scale. Beginning again with the fourth 
 of this new scale, or B already flattened, E must also be flattened ; 
 beginning with E flattened A must be flattened ; and beginning, 
 finally, with A flattened D must be flattened ; the process here ex- 
 hausting itself, as in the scale of sharps. 
 
 The construction of the "chromatic scale" led the Greeks 
 naturally to the ' k enharmonic scale ; ' ' the practical application of 
 *vhose principles belongs to the highest order of musical compos* 
 
MUSICAL COMPOSITION AND ITS METHODS. 53 
 
 tion. As the intervals fixed as whole tones are not uniform, the 
 ratio of some being 8 : 9 and of others 9 : 10, the semitones, brought 
 in by transposition of the scale between whole tones having these 
 differing ratios, must be also of different ratios. Dividing all these 
 varied intervals by the least common measure, and calling the sub- 
 divisions " commas" or segments, the Greeks found that nine com- 
 mas are the measure of the larger intervals and eight of the smaller 
 intervals forming whole tones ; while the measure of the diatonic 
 or natural half tone was five commas, and that of the chromatic 
 semitone either three or four commas. In the enharmonic scale 
 two chromatic half-tones and a quarter of a half-tone, sometimes 
 called a " vibration," were made the interval given to a tone. 
 
 In employing the chromatic and enharmonic scales, the human 
 voice can readily strike the nice shades of variation in half and 
 quarter tones. The violinist by a slide of the finger, and the 
 flutist by a slight turn of his lip, accomplish the same. Modern 
 art, however, has embodied all stringed instruments in the piano 
 and all wind instruments in the organ ; which are called keyed in- 
 struments. In the piano the length of the string, and in the organ 
 the angle of the wind's pressure and the size of the orifice, are fixed 
 in the mechanism ; and no fingering can vary them. To secure in 
 keyed instruments the nice distinctions of quarter-tones is there- 
 fore impossible ; and the resort is to what is called " tempering." 
 For example, the 6th note of the natural scale may be fixed not 
 precisely at an interval of 8 to 9, nor of 9 to 10 from the 5th, but 
 intermediate between them ; so that the fraction, reducing both to 
 a common denominator, shall not be f or yf , nor x% or i*, but 
 iff- 
 
 SECT. 4. MUSICAL COMPOSITION; THE IMPRESSIONS ON THE SENSI* 
 
 BILITIES SOUGHT BY MUSIC; THE MODES OF WRITING MUSIC J 
 THE MAJOR AND MINOR CHORDS AND THEIR ESTHETIC EFFECTS; 
 THE KEYS AND RULING NOTES IN MUSICAL COMPOSITION. 
 
 When the mere unconnected hum of the child at its play be- 
 comes a connected strain, the subject of musical composition re- 
 quires consideration. This relates direct] y to the musical strain 
 alone ; the words connected with the strain belonging to the subject 
 of musical expression. The ends of musical composition, as of 
 other arts, are the promoting of individual gratification, incitement 
 5 * 
 
54 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 to worthy public deeds, and the awakening of religious enthusiasm. 
 The dance is made artistic and pleasurable chiefly from the musi- 
 cal accompaniment. The march of armed men would be a toil in- 
 tolerable but for the nerving impulse of martial music ; and every 
 form of religious worship, Asiatic idol adoration, Grecian philo- 
 sophic idealism, alike with the most formal and most spiritual de- 
 votion of Jewish and Christian assemblies, would be soulless with- 
 out the aid of both instrumental and vocal music. 
 
 In order to meet the ends thus sought, music must take a com- 
 posite form. Even the child's lay of the nursery, and the rude 
 song of most savage people, are so perfectly conformed to law that 
 scientific travelers have been able to put them into the form of a 
 written composition. The early Greeks understood the art of 
 written musical composition, though their methods of notation 
 are lost. In the modern writing of music five parallel lines, with 
 four intervening spaces, called the " staff," furnish a scale upon 
 which the notes indicating the pitch and succession of tones are 
 inscribed. The four ordinary parts are usually written on four, 
 though sometimes on two separate staffs. The place of the first 
 note of each part is indicated by a character called a clef or key ; 
 of which there are usually three. The first called the G " clef," 
 or key, has G on the second line from the bottom arranged for the 
 treble or highest part. The second or C clef has C on the first line 
 for the soprano, on the second line for the mezzo-soprano, on the 
 third line for the alto, and on the fourth line for the tenor. The 
 third called the F clef has F on the third line for the barytone, and 
 on the fourth line for the bass. 
 
 In the practical business of musical composition the principles 
 of " accord" and of " harmony" are brought into requisition. To 
 become master of these demands a comprehensiveness of study, an 
 acuteness of critical skill, and a grasp of genius equal to that re- 
 quisite in the higher fields of plastic art ; Haydn and Mozart being 
 the Lionardo and Angelo of musical composition ; and Beethoven 
 the Raphael. The "common chord" consists of three notes 
 Bounded together, and is called "perfect" when the first, third, 
 and fifth are thus united. Chords are called "close" when the 
 three notes in accord are within the compass of a single octave ; of 
 which there may be three, the chords of the first, third, and fifth, 
 of the third, fifth, and octave, and of the first, the fifth, and the 
 
MUSICAL CHORDS AND THEIR SUCCESSION. bb 
 
 octave. Chords are called "dispersed" when the three notes in 
 accord are not all in the same octave ; of which there may be also 
 three, the chord of the first and fifth with the third of the octave 
 above : of the third and octave with the fifth in an octave above : 
 and the fifth in the octave below with the third and octave in the> 
 fundamental scale. In all cades a proper chord includes three 
 notes; the leading note of which is called the fundamental. A* 
 the same chords are found in each of the scales in music, natural 
 and chromatic, any one of the notes from first to seventh may 
 be selected as the fundamental note. 
 
 The class of chords which furnish the sweetest harmonies aro 
 the " major and minor chords;" the character of these chords bo- 
 ing dependent on the intervals between the notes by which they 
 are formed. Thus the interval between do and mi is two whole 
 tones, and is called a "major third;" while that between re and 
 fa is but one tone and a half-tone, and is called a " minor third." 
 In each common chord, made up of the first, third and fifth, there 
 will necessarily be one major and one minor interval ; and the 
 designation of chords as "major" or " minor 1 ' is derived from the 
 lower of the two intervals. As the minor chords are sounded, the 
 ear recognizes a slight clashing of the vibrations, occasioning a 
 partial dissonance, whose effect is to soften the sharp ring of per- 
 fectly chiming vibrations, and thus give a subdued tone to the 
 strain in which they predominate. Minor chords therefore are 
 adapted to produce pathos, while the major chords are more 
 elevating and grand. 
 
 The human voice does not naturally pass from one chord to an- 
 other of extremely different character ; but there are rules in nature 
 for the succession of notes and chords which men without art have 
 adopted. The principal laws of that succession of chords which 
 constitutes harmony are the following. Fi>'$t, any chord may be 
 followed by another chord having the fifth of the preceding as its 
 fundamental, which is called the dominant or "leading" chord. 
 Second, any common chord may be succeeded by one whose 
 fundamental is a fourth above or a fifth below that of the preced- 
 ing chord: and this is called the "relative-major" orsulj-doiniiHti/t 
 chord. Third, any common chord may be followed by a chord 
 having the sixth of the preceding chord as its fundamental note ; 
 lind this is called the "relative-minor" chord. Certain intermedi- 
 
66 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ate tonca as passing notes may be interposed between the chorda 
 mentioned ; and some of the finest effects are produced by the in- 
 troduction in one of the three parts of the chord of a short disso- 
 nant, leading the way to the principal note which is in consonance. 
 The tonic, or kej 7 note, is the chief sound on which a melody is 
 constructed ; the note which is repeated oftenest in the progress 
 of the song, and with which it ends. The dominant, or ruling 
 note, the fifth above the key note, whenever repeated before the 
 key note, indicates that a fall of the voice or cadence closing a strain 
 is to follow : and it is always heard in the final cadence in the bass. 
 The sub-dominant, the fifth below the key note, requires that the 
 key note follow it in some cadences. The mediant is the middle 
 note between the tonic and dominant, and the sul-mediant is the 
 middle note between the t >nic and sub-dominant. These notes 
 are specially to be observed in music of major and minor keys con- 
 structed upon the chromatic and enharmonic scales. So manifestly 
 is music, like human language, founded on law, that in the songs of 
 the rudest tribes in ancient and modern times these principles are 
 observed. In the early Grecian and the yet earlier Indian art a 
 similar designation of the tonic, mediant and dominant notes in 
 their musical compositions has been found. 
 
 SECT. 5. MUSICAL, EXPRESSION; THE ADAPTATION OF MUSICAL 
 STRAINS TO THE EXPRESSION OF POETIC COMPOSITION, AND THE 
 
 CLASSES OF SENTIMENT TO WHOSE EXPRESSION MUSIC IS ADE- 
 QUATE. 
 
 Music, like the other fine arts, never assumes its high character, 
 so as to be esteemed noble, unless it is made the vehicle of im- 
 portant sentiment and the awakener of practical emotion. When 
 language is thus made to keep company with song, it is observed 
 that, as there are notes long and short and tones high and low in 
 music, so there are long and short syllables in words and a rising 
 and falling of the voice in the utterance of sentences. The rudest 
 r,ong requires alternation of sentences of similar length, and the 
 rise and fall of voice in successive portions of each strain ; both 
 parallelism and cadence being the first elements of poetry. In- 
 creased refinement in verse demanded again that clauses, words 
 and syllables should be arranged into feet of fixed measure, so that 
 in the union of musical strains with poetry the two should keep 
 
ELEMENTS OF POETRY AS SET TO MUSIC. 57 
 
 step with each other ; and thus rhythm was introduced as an ele- 
 ment of poetic expression. Still again, as in strains of music of 
 fixed length the key note is the natural terminator of the cadences, 
 so song soon came to add rhyme to rhythm, or the recurrence at 
 fixed intervals of syllables similar in sound. Hebrew poetry, both 
 in structure and in its chanting, illustrates the parallelism and 
 cadence which are the first essentials of words adapted to musical 
 expression. Greek and Latin poetry excel in perfection of rhythm; 
 every syllable in each successive foot being as nicely adjusted to its 
 associates as are the parts in the human body. Modern European 
 verse again excels in the attribute of rhyme. The modern Italian, 
 the language at once of music and poetry, is so constructed, its five 
 vowel sounds being always pure and unvarying and its syllables 
 consisting almost without exception of a single consonant and 
 vowel, that one can hardly help speaking in both rhythm and 
 rhyme : a characteristic which makes the business of the Italian 
 '' iinprovisatore' a very easy task. 
 
 The [subject of expression in music naturally suggests two points 
 for consideration ; the character of the poetic feet employed to 
 express different emotions of the mind ; and the style of music as 
 to key, range of pitch and stress of voice in harmony with different 
 emotions represented. In each of these the Greek led the way to 
 the true science of this art ; while modern German composers have 
 in this latter respect reached a perfection which the ancients never 
 attained. 
 
 The Greeks had no less than twenty-eight feet, simple and com- 
 pound, made up by different arrangements of long and short sylla- 
 bles in combinations of two, three, or four members each. Tha 
 adaptation of these classes of feet to different sentiments is often 
 indicated in their names, as in the four feet of two syllables ; the 
 " spondee" or votive, two long, used in the solemnly-slow, prayer- 
 like dirges accompanying offerings presented to the gods; the 
 "pyrrhic" or warWcc, two short, breaking forth amid the furious 
 darting of the war dance and song ; the " trochee," or running, a 
 long and a short, falling on the ear like a horse's gallop, and trip- 
 ping in sportive roundelay; and the "iambic" or sportive, the 
 flippant trolling upon the tongue of satirical song, intensified in the 
 choliambus or halting iambic. The nice gradation of proportion 
 entering into the movement of syllables., called in general long and 
 
 C* 
 
68 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 short, though of varied proportion in length, is indicated in suol 
 names as "dactyl" and "anapaest;" the former like the fingers, 
 having its three parts sesquialteral, each one and a half of its suc- 
 cessors, while the "anapaest," or rebounding, was the reverse 01 
 counterpart of the dactyl, a short, medium, and long syllable. 
 
 In Hebrew poetry there was an evident adaptation between the 
 poetic and musical strains made to accompany each other ; as is 
 manifest in the exultant Song of Moses and in the lyrics of David, 
 Ethan and Asaph, now sweet and plaintive, and now thrilling and 
 majestic. Among the Greeks the triumphs of heroes took the 
 stately tramp of the heroic or epic metre, made up in Greek and 
 Latin verse of spondees and dactyls ; the hymn of reverential ado- 
 ration to the gods assumed the slow and solemn movement called 
 spondaic ; the endearments of love could find no expression but in 
 the lively trochaic or graceful iambic; and the fierce and furious 
 war song ran instinctively into the jerking pyrrhic. The epic, 
 lyric and pyrrhic styles in poetry were thus directly associated with 
 expression in music ; while the tragic muse again sought a combi- 
 nation of the more elevated styles ; mingling the stately heroic, the 
 solemn dirge, and in the chorus the lightest and gayest of metre in 
 verse and of accompaniment in music; the germ of the combina- 
 tions of modern times having found expression in the critical writ- 
 ings of the Grecian sages Plato, Plutarch and Ptolemy. 
 
 There is no art whose adaptations to the production of moral 
 influence has been so studied and guarded as has that of music. 
 The Chinese moral teacher, Confucius, wrote: " Wouldst thou 
 know if a people be well governed ; if their manners be good or 
 bad. Examine the music they perform 1" In his Model Republic 
 Plato dwells on the necessity for governmental control over the 
 music of the common people ; discussing in detail the nature and 
 special influence of the iambic, trochaic, dactylic and spondaic 
 measures, as also the laws which should regulate music. 
 
 Lord Kames, in common with many able critics, has argued that 
 music cannot be made expressive of sentiment inspiring dread ; 
 since in its very nature it is designed to please and soothe. With- 
 out doubt both hymns and songs denunciatory in sentiment and 
 severe in expression are opposed to the true idea alike 01 art and 
 of religion. The attempts, however, of great musical composers to 
 produce the impression of grandeur and of awe in their sublimes! 
 
MODULATION IN ORATORY AND MUSIC. 5b 
 
 oratorios, may be parallel to the appeal of the dying gladiator 
 and the Laocobu in sculpture. As in nature the ear is addre.-.-cd 
 by sounds that awe, by the rolling thunder, the howl of the gale at 
 sea, and the crash of dashing air, water, and earth, so to a certain 
 extent music may be made to imitate these and kindred sounds, 
 arid thus art produce the impression of nature. 
 
 SECT. 6 MUSICAL MODULATION; THE GENERAL RELATION OF 
 MUSIC TO PITCH AND CADENCE OF VOICE; AND ITS SPECIAL KK- 
 LATION TO THE ENUNCIATION OF DRAMATIC COMPOSITION IN 
 HISTRIONIC ART AND OF DIDACTIC COMPOSITION IN ORATORY. 
 
 In music as in oratory the subjects of expression and modula- 
 tion are closely associated. The change of sentiment in a poetic 
 composition set to music demands often a change of the musii-al 
 key to secure a more perfect adaptation of one to the other. 
 Modulation is properly the passing of the voice from one key to 
 another. Associated as it is with expression, modulation has an 
 important relation to all the musical scales ; but especially to those 
 called the "minor scales." In the scales thus far considered, 
 called " major scales," the half-tones have come between three and 
 four and between seven and eight. In the minor scales, however, 
 the half-tones in ascending the scale are made to come between the 
 second and third, and the seventh and eighth ; and in descending 
 between the sixth arid fifth, and the third and second. As the 
 minor chords have a peculiar sweetness and gentleness of tone, so 
 strains written in minor keys have a subdued and plaintive succes- 
 sion of sounds in themselves charming to the ear, when the voice 
 in passing from strain to strain is skillfully modulated. 
 
 With the subject of modulation is associated that of "dynamics;" 
 or varying energy and force of voice. When common conversation 
 becomes animated, when at different distances or for different pur- 
 poses men address each other, a correspondent tone is assumed. 
 We soon distinguish the tone of a master or captain giving com- 
 nand. When a public speaker is addressing a large audience in 
 order to please by the ease and smoothness of the tones of his 
 voice as well as to instruct and move by the sentiment uttered, a 
 tone and pitch are required which shall be distinctly audible to the 
 most distant while it is not disagreeable to those near. As his 
 mind warms with the progress of thought, as new classes of con- 
 
60 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ceptions arise and sudden emotions awake and break forth, fresh 
 and changing modulations of voice are of course demanded. The 
 universal resort of uncultured speakers to musical or ringing tones, 
 as those in which transitions of the voice are most easily made, 
 shows that there is a natural origin for what is popularly called 
 "sing-song." What was thus naturally introduced became aa 
 art; for in a speaker of genuine genius that becomes a wondrous 
 power which in one without animation is a humdrum and lullaby. 
 This musical modulation fallen into by rude orators in uncultivated 
 nations, as also by the first uneducated and earnest heralds of every 
 new religious reformation, is continued as a religious practice 
 revered for its sanctity even where the highest literary culture pre- 
 vails. It is, however, an art founded on true science when men 
 like Demosthenes have trained the modulations of their voice to 
 the accompanying notes of the flute; a practice commended by 
 Cicero in his treatises upon oratory. 
 
 This association of music with oratory was most marked in the 
 chorus or interlude of the drama as constructed by ^Eschylus, 
 Sophocles and Euripides. The vocation of the chorus or choir, 
 chanting between the acts of the drama accompanied by instru- 
 mental music the history which connected and illustrated the 
 scenes preceding and succeeding, took naturally the designation, 
 "histrionic art." 
 
 It was a natural suggestion of later times that music joined with 
 the histrionic art only in the interlude by the Greeks should be 
 united with speaking and acting throughout the whole play. When 
 the musical accompaniment was set to the words of a drama, and 
 the recitation was an unexcited chant much like a dramatic reading 
 without special acting on the part of the performers, it took the 
 appropriate name of an " oratorio ;" because it was a quiet address 
 like that of a suppliant in prayer to his God, or of a preacher ad- 
 dressing his auditory. When there were added in the oratorio the 
 accompaniments of stage representation, scenery, dresses, and the 
 gestures and action of the stage, the performance took the name 
 of "opera;" the opera being as the name implies the gathered 
 treasures of all arts addressing the ear, and their skillful union 
 into one complete whole. 
 
ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY IN FORM. 6J 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SENSE OF SIGHT, THE HIGHEST OP THE SENSES, AS 
 ADDRESSED BY ART. 
 
 THE eye is the special organ by which art addresses the mind. 
 The range of the pleasures of the ear is limited ; for the music that 
 falls with such mellowness at a slight remove from its source is 
 soon lost by increasing distance. On the other hand, the stretch 
 of viiiion is into regions without bound. Again, the variety in 
 objects of beauty occupying but a small space around, seems per- 
 fectly limitless ; while there are, in comparison, but few varieties 
 in the natural tones, even of music, that address the ear. Most 
 of all, while the addresses of sound are essentially one in kind, 
 there are several separate sources of delight in objects of sight, 
 such as form, color, relation, which make their own distinct and 
 peculiar appeal to our aesthetic nature. A classification of the ele- 
 ments of visual impressions pleasant to the mind is essential in 
 the criticism of works of art. 
 
 SECT. 1. FORM; ITS PRINCIPLES AND THEIR CONCURRENCE AS THE 
 GROUNDWORK OF ART. 
 
 In forms which delight us varied characteristics are to be ob- 
 served. Some are minutely apprehended by the eye near at hand, 
 as the parts of flowers and the features of the human countenance; 
 others are but dimly comprehended in the distance, as the sweep 
 of towering mountains, the swell of the ocean in the horizon and 
 the blue arch of the sky. Some are of fixed form, as plants and 
 animals, the sun and separate stars; others are of figure unfixed, 
 as rocks and star-clusters ; while others still are of undefined and 
 indefinable outline, as waves and clouds. Of fixed forms again 
 there are mineral, vegetable, animal, and human ; the first having 
 only regularity of structure, the second adding also life, the third 
 self-motion, and the fourth intelligence, to give to them their 
 special attraction. 
 
 The outline of all forms is composed of lines straight or curved. 
 The lines of crystallization, of a beam of light, of upward growth in 
 plants, and of motion in falling bodies are straight lines. In plants 
 6 
 
62 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 and animals there is a union of curved with straight lines ; the trunk 
 of every tree and the limb of every animal having its length in 
 straight lines and its circumference in curved lines. Straight lines 
 meet at angles forming broken lines or polygons ; and curves may 
 be regular, as circular, elliptical, parabolic and spiral ; or irregular, 
 as waving, serpentine and convoluted. 
 
 An outline is but a combination of lines enclosing a space. Form 
 is conceived as possessed of three dimensions ; though but two are 
 apparent to the eye. Figure is properly the conception of the 
 dasigning mind as distinct from the embodied object; while form is 
 the actually executed object of which figure was the conception. 
 We speak, therefore, of figures in rhetoric, but of forms in art. 
 The word figure is also applied to representations or modifications 
 by art of natural objects ; as when we speak of mathematical figures, 
 or of the figure of a man or woman whose form is modified by 
 dress. Form, therefore, is the generic term expressing the ele- 
 mcnts*of extension in objects of sight giving pleasant impressions 
 to the eye. 
 
 Several distinct elements of forms in nature furnish each its re- 
 spective delight. The mind seems to observe these in the follow- 
 ing order. 
 
 First : Outline in substance. Substance alone may arrest atten- 
 tion and give pleasure ; as when we gaze in admiration on the 
 green sea or blue sky, on the black thunder-cloud or the rosy dawn. 
 When, however, the eye traces the outline of a billow, a cloud, a 
 horizon line, or a rock, however indistinct, indefinite and fragment- 
 ary the form, the mere outline in substance gives us pleasure. 
 
 Second: Unity in Multiplicity. The mind, has an oppressive 
 sense of discomfort when confused objects are passing before it, 
 and it can give no unity to their forms. Dim glimpses through 
 the fog of an occasional headland along the coast give uneasiness 
 to the mind ; but a thrill of delight is felt when the mist is lifted 
 and the multiplied forms along the shore are taken in as a whole. 
 Crowds of people without order thronging the streets have little 
 attraction ; but columns of men in military uniform arrest the gaze. 
 
 Third: Regularity in Complexity. Lines made by one rule, a& 
 circles or parabolas, are called regular. Figures made up of straight 
 lines of either uniform parts, as squares or hexagons, or ofuni- 
 for mill recurring parts, as rectangles, ire regular figures. The 
 
ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY IN FORM. 63 
 
 Qve regular bodies, the cube bounded by six squares, the dodeca- 
 hedron by twelve equal rhombs, and the pyramid, octohedron and 
 eikosihedron respectively by four, eight and twenty equilateral 
 triangles, were regarded by Plato as the forms of the ultimate ele- 
 ments making up the great " Cosmos" or " Universe of Beauty." 
 The four regular curves formed by cutting sections through a cone, 
 the circle, the ellipse, the parabola, and hyperbola, were known to 
 the early Greeks, and the admirable law of their formation was 
 calculated : their beautiful sweep entered as an element into Pytha- 
 goras' conception of the harmony of 'the universe ; and Galileo and 
 Sir Isaac Newton saw in them a principle of truth and beauty 
 which led them to the secret of the mechanism of the universe. 
 
 Fourth : Simplicity in Variety. The principle of simplicity re- 
 jects every adjunct which disguises the form of the simple object 
 to which it is attached. The head-dress in fashion a century ago 
 is hideous to modern eyes; but the simple central parting of the 
 hair in front, its straight combing to the form of the head, and its 
 collection in a plain knot behind, won the admiration of the Greek 
 artist as a perfect ideal, and drew forth the encomiums of Roman 
 poets, because of its inherent beauty. There is a grandeur in the 
 majestic dome of St. Peter's at Rome ; there is sublimity in the 
 sky-piercing pinnacles of the Gothic cathedral at Strasburg ; but the 
 inimitable simplicity of the plain Grecian gable won from Cicero 
 the comment " that it was worthy to be the model for temples in 
 heaven." That adjustment of drapery or dress which makes the 
 form seem to round out in all its own loveliness as through a trans- 
 parent veil, is one of the chief charms of beauty in form. 
 
 Fifth : Order in the collocation of parts. Order relates not like 
 the preceding principles to an object as a whole ; but it expresses 
 the relation which parts considered as making up a whole have to 
 each other. Order, as to furniture in a room, requires that each 
 piece be in a place peculiarly its own ; in a company of men it may 
 depend on age, or size, or likeness of pursuits. In the grouping of a 
 picture or of a landscape order relates to the collocation of parts 
 which make the whole conspire to one effect. 
 
 Sixth : Proportion in dimensions. Proportion is not the rela- 
 tion of parts' to a whole, but of parts not of the same class to each 
 other. Thus the three portions of the human finger are propor- 
 tional ; the ratio of each to its successor as to length being sesqui- 
 
64 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 altcral, or that of one to one and a half. The arms considered 
 with relation to each other are uniform ; but, when regarded as of 
 different classes, the arms and legs are proportionate in length. Tht 
 parts of a building are well proportioned when any two parts of the 
 structure seem to be in keeping as to their dimensions. The columns 
 of a portico compared with each other are uniform ; but when the 
 foot, shaft, and capital are compared with each other, or the whole 
 column with the entablature above, they are said to be well or ill 
 proportioned. 
 
 Seventh : Symmetry in the connection of parts. The literal mean- 
 ing, of the Greek word " summetron" is, an inter-measure; and 
 implies that one part of a whole is taken as a standard of common 
 measurement for all the other parts. While order relates to the 
 collocation of parts in the whole, and proportion to the respective 
 dimensions of each part in its relation to each other part, symmetry 
 relates to the graduation in measurement of all the parts connected 
 in a whole to the dimensions of one taken as the standard. When 
 we say of two limbs of a statue that they are in proportion, we 
 think of them mainly in but one dimension. We could not say 
 that two limbs were in symmetry ; we must take in the entire figure, 
 if we use at all that specific word, and say " the whole body is sym- 
 metrical ;" and in so saying, we should regard rotundity, the thick- 
 ness and plumpness of muscle, as well as length of bony framework, 
 and also the interlockings and blendings of each limb. The idea 
 of symmetry led the Greek artist to the simplest of common mea- 
 sures, the nail, finger, foot, cubit, pace, fathom, in studying the 
 proportions of the child, the youth, the maiden, the matron and 
 of the mature man ; by following which they made their works true 
 ideals, the models for all future time. 
 
 Eighth : Congruity in the adaptation of parts. Congruity re- 
 lates to physical adaptation, propriety to moral appropriateness. 
 Congruity requires that all the parts of an object have an office, 
 and that in size and position they be adapted to that office. It is 
 an incongruity in Egyptian sculpture that a flaring head-dress 
 should be cut in solid stone whose weight is enough to cause the 
 wearer to sink under the burden ; and that in Roman art a Mercury 
 should have miniature wings projecting from his ankles and head, 
 which could serve no purpose because they could have no musi/ulai 
 attachments. Congruity requires that in taking a portrait the po- 
 
ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY IN COLOR. 65 
 
 ture, dress, insignia of an office or implements of a trade should be 
 in keeping with the character of the subject represented. 
 
 Ancient and modern writers as Plato and Aristotle, Kames and 
 Alison, discuss at length the elements of beauty thus considered. 
 To commit them to memory in the order of nature is of practical 
 utility in the criticism of art. 
 
 SECT. 2. COLOR; ITS ELEMENTS, AND THEIR CO-OPERATION AS TUB 
 ACCESSORIES OF ART. 
 
 In color as in form there is a natural order in which the elements 
 which pleasurably impress the mind present themselves to our 
 thought. When an object breaks first on our view, we seek to 
 trace its outline ; we consider whether it be one, and if one whether 
 it be simple ; if made up of parts, we notice their order, then their 
 proportion as to each other, and then the symmetry of the whole ; 
 and finally we judge of the congruity or fitness of all the parts, so 
 far as their form is concerned, to accomplish some design. In the 
 observation of color as pleasantly affecting the mind, the order of 
 thought may perhaps be resolved into the following. 
 
 First: Determinateness of line. When we gaze by day into the 
 heavens and see nothing but the light azure produced by the direct 
 sunlight, or at night study the dark blue black of the faintest dif- 
 fused light still present even at midnight, simple color has its 
 pleasing charm. In the rich gold and purple of evening twilight, 
 which has no background to make it stand out, and no form from 
 which it is reflected, it is the determinateness of the varying yet 
 positive hue which, like outline in substance, is the source of plea- 
 sure to the eye. 
 
 Second: Purity of Colors in themselves considered. When color 
 so far develops itself as to take a perceptible hue, the eye and the 
 mind of the savage or cultured man desire that, whatever be the 
 color of an object, it be clear, unmixed and unspotted. It demands, 
 first, that it show nothing but its own hue ; second, that it be not 
 muddied with the tinge of foreign hues ; and third, that it be not 
 soiled by scattered spots and irregular lines of another color. The 
 savage is as much dissatisfied with a dull or a faded color, or by a 
 stain on his mantle, as is the most fastidious belle in polished 
 society. When increased culture leads to a preference for the 
 graver lines, the artist calls the pure clear tint resulting from the 
 
66 AET CRITICISM. 
 
 admixture of colors in their regular proportions "lively" hues; 
 while disproportionate mixtures he designates as "dirty" colors. 
 Whatever be the hue which taste selects, it demands purity in color 
 as it does unity in form. 
 
 Third: Evenness of body. Viewed alone, color must be pure in 
 order to please. Color, however, is an attribute of substance ; its 
 richness depends on the substances it adorns ; and evenness of color 
 is a feature akin to regularity of form. A grove with foliage alike 
 green and lively, a house whose paint is either all fresh or all 
 sobered by age, are types in common observation of what the eye 
 demands in higher art. 
 
 Fourth: Distinct ivejiess in Character. As simplicity in form so 
 distinctivenoss in color impresses, because it brings out the special 
 character of the object painted. The sky is recognized as clear, or 
 cold, or sunlit, when its hue is blue, or gray, or rosy ; the sea is 
 known to be calm, or ruffled, or raging, according as it mirrors the 
 varied colors of objects above it, or reflects its own green from its 
 thin and half transparent wave crests, or absorbs all light at the 
 black base of its swollen billows and transmits all light from the 
 white transparence of their attenuated tops. Among the varied 
 flowers and fruits and leaves that cover the earth as a carpet, and 
 even throughout all the varieties of beasts and birds and of human 
 beings, fur and hair, and even flesh tint, has, in each class, if not in 
 each individual, its own peculiar characteristic. Art must catch 
 these precise hues or fail in its aim. 
 
 Fifth: Accordance in juxtaposition. As notes sounded together 
 and as lines taken in at the same angle of vision, so colors viewed 
 in immediate juxtaposition must have due proportion in order to 
 produce accord. A house painted red, glowing amid the shade of 
 the country, does violence to an instinctively recognized law of ac- 
 cord in colors. On the other hand, nothing can excel the charm 
 of the rainbow, in whose arch the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, 
 indigo and violet succeed each other in an order that is pleasing, not 
 simply because it is common or natural, but because we are made 
 for it, and it for us. 
 
 Sixth: Ilarmoniousness as a icTiole in the association of coJors. 
 Though two notes struck together make discord, the same twc 
 struck separately but successively may produce harmony. So two 
 lines or colors which, meeting the eye together, produce a disagree- 
 
BLENDING AND PROPRIETY OF HUES. 67 
 
 able impression of jarring on the vision, may, when distributed at 
 fit intervals, and of proportionate breadths, give harmony to the 
 \vhole. In the rainbow it is not simply the order in which the 
 colors succeed each other, but their grouping as a whole, the pro- 
 portionate breadth, the adjusted place, the graduated vividness of 
 each which produce the pleasant impression. In the varied hues 
 of flowers, not overloading but simply studding the background of 
 green, and in the distribution upon the light flesh color of the 
 human face, of the ruby of the lips, of the ivory white of eyeballs 
 and teeth, and of the dark lines of eyebrows and eyelash, there is 
 just that amount of contrast which gives greatest completeness to 
 the whole. 
 
 Seventh: Blending in conjunction. As modulation of voice 
 in music is the easy transition by which tones melt and flow into 
 one another, and as symmetry in form is the similar tapering and 
 mortising and dovetailing of parts into the one statue, so blending 
 in colors is the imperceptibly varying shade, the nicely graduated 
 scale of modified admixture by which one color flows into and 
 loses its own hue in that of its fellow. No possible line of distinct 
 demarcation can be traced between the distinct colors of the rain- 
 bow ; no flower has any point of separation between the white foot 
 and the crimson or purple tip of its petal ; no single hair on an 
 animal, or feather upon a bird, has at any part of its length a sud- 
 den transition in the varying shade, that, from its root outward, 
 grows darker to its tip. When the artist in his effort at copj'ing 
 nature imitates her perfect work in this respect, every eye is con- 
 scious that the imperceptible blending of hues and shades into each 
 other is one of the elements of the pleasure derived from beholding 
 color. 
 
 Eighth: Appropriateness to the sulject. As in music expressiou 
 gives soul to harmony, and in form congruity makes tilings to b- 
 real, not made up, so appropriateness of color gives its subject tho 
 chief attribute of living beings, which is life itself. This principle 
 even in sculpture and architecture controls the selection of color in 
 the material used ; and in landscape-gardening it guides as to the 
 amount and character of foliage introduced. In painting it seeks 
 the power of giving to each object its own specific tinge, so that the 
 eye without thought sees the thing itself through the deception of 
 iccurate coloring. In decorative art it decides between the claims 
 
68 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of material and subject; demanding, for instance, that an iron 
 cemetery gate representing a lamb under a willow shall all be 
 bronze or black, and not allowing that the tree be colored green 
 and the lamb white. 
 
 The classification here suggested may intimate to the student of 
 art the value of analysis in his own impressions as to color. 
 
 SECT. 3. FIXED RELATION ; THE ASSOCIATION OP OBJECTS PRE- 
 SENTED AS AT REST. 
 
 The impressions of beauty produced by form and color relate to 
 a single object. The statue, however, with its exquisite form must 
 stand on something resting upon the earth ; the water lily with its 
 attractive color floats on a liquid bed ; the fleecy cloud flits and 
 rocks in an airy cradle ; and even the moon, rolling so far off, is 
 held in its place by some power. In considering the beauty of any 
 conceivable object its relations will force themselves into thought 
 and give character to our aesthetic impressions. 
 
 When the relations of an object begin to come into review the 
 mind resolves them into natural classes. Considered as at rest, 
 objects have certain fixed relations ; and regarded as acted upon by 
 forces within or without, physical or spiritual in their nature, the 
 same objects have changing relations ; which relations, fixed or 
 changing, enter as elements into our estimate of beauty. The 
 principal relations, so far as art is concerned, of objects considered 
 as at rest are comprehended under the ideas of place, time, quantity, 
 and number; while those of objects regarded as changing are mo- 
 tion, life, action and emotion. 
 
 The idea of space suggests that of place ; for when two objects 
 are considered, each has its position in relation to the other. Next 
 arises the idea of balance. When a single object is dimly seen in 
 the mist, we look for the foot on which it rests ; as the ancient 
 Arabian inquired after the ' ' balancing of the clouds. " As no beauty 
 of form can overcome our unpleasant nervousness when a noble man 
 or fair woman is seen in a position exposing them to a fall, so a 
 building, a statue, or even a figure painted upon canvas produce? 
 an unpleasant impression, destructive of the idea of beauty, when 
 it seems insecure because unbalanced ; of which the leaning tower 
 of Pisa is an illustration. 
 
 As balance in one object, so relative 2~)osi.tion in two or move ob- 
 
PLACE, QUANTITY AND NUMB KB IN ART. 69 
 
 jects is to be observed. In painting the law of perspective makes 
 the central figure foremost and prominent, because nearer the be- 
 holder. The Greeks in ranging a group of statuary in the pedi- 
 ment of a temple, placed the central figure under the roof-peak on 
 a throne ; while the remaining figures, as the diminishing height 
 allowed, were rej resented, first standing, then seated, and finally 
 reclining. This law led Hogarth to contend that all groups in both 
 sculpture and painting should be pyramidal in shape ; the central 
 figure having the larger proportions, especially in historical com- 
 position. 
 
 Next to the relation of place comes that of quantity. As propor- 
 tion and symmetry should be regarded in a single object, so there is 
 a due comparison in the size of objects grouped as a whole. The 
 interior of St. Peter's, like Niagara, seems at first dwarfed because 
 every part is alike colossal ; but when each feature is separately 
 comprehended the stupendous whole assumes its just grandeur, be- 
 cause of the due proportion in each part On the other hand, 
 when Phidias made his colossal statue of Minerva hold her spear 
 in one hand and a statue of Victory in the other, it was true art to 
 swell the spear shaft till it seemed a beam, and to dwarf the statue 
 to the natural proportions of about six feet in stature. In an his- 
 torical painting the central figure may occupy too much space, as 
 in some of Rubens', or too little as in Trumbull's ; while again the 
 effort to give breadth to two distinct and distant scenes in one 
 group may mar the effect of even such a masterpiece as Raphael's 
 Transfiguration. 
 
 Last among fixed relations is that of number. In art, as in nature, 
 a small range limits the view ; and when the number of objects 
 contemplated becomes indefinite and without limit, the emotion of 
 beauty is lost in confusion of mind. The ancient observers clus- 
 tered the stars in groups of "seven," "eleven" and "twelve." 
 The scene of all others on earth most tragic, the crucifixion, may 
 have too many figures introduced, as in that of Titian, who was 
 seeking the effects of color ; or it may have too few, as in master- 
 pieces of Florentine artists who were striving after the higher effect 
 of form. 
 
 The relations of objects as fixed, or at rest, have been observed 
 by writers of every age. Aristotle asks, "Why the bodies of de- 
 formed men look larger proportionally than those that have syin- 
 
70 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 metry :" and his reply is, " That S3 T mmetrical forms are naturally 
 viewed as one, while the limbs of the deformed man seem parts of 
 different bodies, and hence appear to occupy more space." Lord 
 Kames mentions a like effect in the divisions of a flower garden, or 
 of fields in a level country. 
 
 SECT. 4. CHANGING RELATION ; THE DISPOSITION OF OBJECTS 
 REPRESENTED AS IN MOTION. 
 
 There is motion in inanimate objects, or those without lih ; the 
 rain falling, the rivers flowing, the tides rolling, the clouds flying, 
 the mountain rocks tumbling, and the volcano heaving ; while be- 
 yond the earth, moons, planets, and starry suns, all seem coursing 
 in their circles through the heavens. It is because " all things are 
 full of labor" that poets and artists have believed that all things 
 are "beautiful in their time." 
 
 Motion in unorganized matter is produced from without. The 
 plant builds itself up ; animals have the power of physical locomo- 
 tion ; while man, gifted with intellect, sensibility and will, has self- 
 action both of body and of mind. 
 
 Motion is produced by power; which is either physical or moral; 
 and the idea of power leads to that of cause. Causation implies in- 
 telligent purpose ; which always must originate with a personal 
 being. The subject of changing relation, therefore, in its bearing 
 upon art leads to the different classes of motion and emotion which 
 may be represented, to the methods of art by which they may be 
 presented to the eye, and to the study of design by which works of 
 art are adapted to awaken any desired impression. 
 
 Change, produced by motion, suggests the idea of time; embrac- 
 ing considerations relating to day and night, to summer and winter, 
 to ages of man's life and of the world's history. If the time chosen 
 by a painter be noon, he must give appropriate length and direction 
 to his shadows ; and if it be winter the deciduous trees must be bare 
 and the pines clothed with foliage. If the scene be the visit of 
 Eastern Magi to the babe Jesus, the stable must not be of modern 
 carpentry and the costumes mediaeval. 
 
 Motion, which in nature is real, can only be represented in art; 
 except in landscape gardening. Mere motion in any solid Vody 
 gives delight; the infant being pleased with a stick shaken before 
 it, the boy with the skipping of a stone or the bounding of a ball, 
 
MOTION REPRESENTED IN ART. 71 
 
 and mature men with the whirl of machinery, the rush of a railway 
 train, the coursing of a vessel at sea, or even with the lazy drag of 
 a cart or a plough. The delight we take in such movements \a 
 proportioned to the regularity of their speed, and to their line of 
 direction whether straight or curved. 
 
 In the motion of & fluid the perfect ease with which the particles 
 move upon each other, as well as the gentle curving of its lines of 
 movement, gives delight. The swift rush of the mountain torrent, 
 the gentle meandering of a river in low lands, the glistening spheres 
 of falling rain, the parabolic curves of the fountain-jet and water- 
 fall present a beauty of motion which solid bodies cannot equal. 
 Even the air moving in columns, the ever-changing forms of clouds 
 flying and of trees waving before the breeze, have an inspiring 
 charm. 
 
 The representation by the artist of any form of motion awakens 
 delight, as trees bending or smoke wreathing before the wind. 
 The picturing of the attitudes of motion in animate beings has a yet 
 higher charm. Indeed a mere implement of motion, suggestive of 
 the idea, a boat-oar lying on a sandy beach as truly as a bear in a 
 forest, a sheep on a lawn, or Adam surrounded by groups of ani- 
 mals as he is naming them, by its implying a more studied design 
 and holding the position of superiority among subordinates, becomes 
 a centre of attraction. In Grecian sculpture, the representation 
 of corporeal action is the very perfection of art ; as is seen in the 
 visible shrinking of modesty in the Venus de Medici, and in the 
 advancing attitude and strain of limb in the Apollo Belvidere hurl- 
 ing his arrow. The great success of the German painters, as com- 
 pared with those of Southern Europe, is the amount of motion, of 
 life, of changing relation, they crowd upon their canvas. 
 
 SECT. 5. PHYSICAL COINCIDENCE ; THE LAW OF HARMONIOUS PRO- 
 PORTION BETWEEN TONES PLEASING TO THE EAR AND FORMS 
 AND COLORS AGREEABLE TO THE EYE. 
 
 Though in some respects speculative, the study of physical coin- 
 cidence between the impressions made by sight and sound has com- 
 mended itself to the ablest minds of every age ; many of whom 
 have believed that the laws of beauty like those of truth may be so 
 reached that the artist may attain to a science in the former as in 
 
<2 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the latter field. Philosophers as well as poets have believed in an 
 age of human advancement of which it might be said : 
 
 " There thou shalt learn the secret power 
 Of harmony in tones, and numbers hit 
 By voice or hand." 
 
 Ancient philosophy suggested, and modern science has established, 
 that the impressions of sight coming from form and color are pro- 
 duced by vibratory waves in ether ; as sound is the result of similar 
 waves in the air. Common taste among men has recognized that 
 the proportions of a door or window are pleasing when the length 
 is to the breadth as two to one, or as three to two ; while if they be 
 as nine to eight it is specially displeasing. Since these are the 
 same proportions which in the length of vibrating cords produce 
 accordant or discordant impressions, it is natural to infer that the 
 vibrating waves in ether, coming from lines that subtend different 
 angles of vision having different breadths, may harmonize or clash 
 like air-waves with one another. Again, the investigations of Sir 
 David Brewster and others have established that the waves of light 
 producing different color impressions are of different breadths. 
 When in a crack made by a blow upon ice the narrowest part of the 
 aperture is black, while bands of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, 
 orange and red succeed each other till the white transparence ap- 
 pears, it is a natural inference that the waves of ether producing 
 these colors are of the breadth of the aperture from whose space 
 these special colors are reflected. These waves producing colors 
 pleasing in juxtaposition are found to be of a breadth kindred in 
 their proportions to air-waves pleasantly affecting the ear. There is 
 then a coincidence between the impressions of sight and sound. 
 
 Pythagoras, who discovered the law of inter-measurement in 
 the length of cords producing harmonious sounds, believed he 
 had reached a similar measure for harmonious proportions of 
 length and breadth in objects addressing the eye ; and hence he 
 named the highest note of the scale neate after the moon, the body 
 bound to the centre by the shortest cord, and the lowest note he 
 called hypate, after Saturn, as the planet bound to the centre by the 
 longest cord. Plato in his Republic says that " as the eyes seem 
 to be fitted for the harmonious proportions of the celestial orbits, 
 BO the ears seem to be fitted for the harmony of musical intervals : 
 
HARMONY BETWEEN TJTE EAR AND EYE. 73 
 
 and these seem to be sister sciences ; as the Pythagoreans indeed 
 affirm, and we must accord with them." Aristotle, when speak- 
 ing of colors produced by admixture, says : " These may subsist in 
 the same manner as musical symphonies ; for, like musical sym- 
 phonies, colors which correspond most nearly to their proportionate 
 numbers are those which appear to be the most delightful colors." 
 " It is for want of this skillfully adjusted proportion that, as there 
 are but few delightful symphonies, so there are but few delightful 
 colors." 
 
 In modern times Galileo revived this idea. Fond from child- 
 I.ood of music and drawing, a remark of his father that " drawing 
 and music had their principles in the relations of numbers as taught 
 in the mathematics," gave a new bent to all his life's labor. Sir 
 Isaac Newton had his attention turned to this analogy ; and wrote, 
 11 1 am inclined to believe some general laws of the Creator pre- 
 vailed with respect to the agreeable or unpleasing affections of all 
 our senses ; at least the suggestion does not derogate from the 
 wisdom or power of God, and seems highly consonant to the sim- 
 plicity of the microcosm in general." 
 
 Taking up the principles of these great philosophers, Hay, an 
 English artist, has drawn out an elaborate system of harmonies in 
 form ; while Unger, a German critic, has applied them to color. 
 Mr. Hay's first position is, u That the eye is influenced in its esti- 
 mation of spaces by a simplicity of proportion similar to that which 
 guides the ear in its appreciation of sounds." His second position 
 is, " That the eye is guided in its estimate of dimensions by direc- 
 tion rather than distance, by angular rather than linear propor- 
 tion ; just as the ear is guided by number rather than magnitude 
 of sounds." The substance of his theory therefore is, "That a 
 figure is pleasing to the eye in the same degree as its fundamental 
 angles bear to each other the same proportions that the vibrations 
 bear to one another in the common chords of music." The con- 
 clusion at which he thus arrives is stated in the following empha- 
 sized sentence : " Thus the eye is capable of appreciating the exact 
 subdivision of space just as the ear is capable of appreciating the 
 exact subdivision of intervals of time ; so that the division of space 
 into an exact number of equal parts will aesthetically affect the 
 mind through the medium of the eye, in the same way that the 
 of the time of vibrations in music into an exact number 
 1 D 
 
74 AKT CRITICISM. 
 
 of equal parts aesthetically affects the mind through the medium 
 of the ear." Following out these principles, Hay has with most 
 elaborate comparison and collation of numerous measurements of 
 the human frame, drawn up scales of established angles of har- 
 mony ; showing also their analogy to those ruling in musical har 
 mony. In like manner, linger of Gbttingen, tracing through the 
 exhaustive deductions of Frauenhofer as to the breadth of waves 
 in ether producing the impressions of the different colors, has 
 drawn out a similar scale of harmonious proportions; showing also 
 a kindred analogy to the proportions giving the sweetest of musi- 
 cal harmonies. 
 
 From these historical facts Winckelmann, the eminent German 
 art-critic, argues ; "It is probable that the Grecian, like the Egypt- 
 ian artists had rules by which not only the greater but the smaller 
 proportions of the body were accurately determined ; and that tho 
 length, breadth, and circumference of parts suitable to each age 
 and station were laid down with precision and taught in the writ- 
 ings of those artists who treated of symmetry." It is an interest- 
 ing confirmation of this view that while the two arts representative 
 of these two departments, drawing and music, are naturally ad- 
 mired by the same class of minds, when the one cannot be enjoyed 
 the other takes its place. Deaf-mutes have as instinctive a fond 
 ness for drawing as the blind have for music ; a hint of great im- 
 portance in the education of the former. 
 
 SECT. 6. MORAL CORRESPONDENCE ; THE HARMONY BETWEEN 
 OBJECTS PRESENTED AND IDEAS REPRESENTED IN ART. 
 
 Lord Kames states an important distinction between the ideas 
 of congruity and propriety. Congruity relates to fitness and appro- 
 priateness of one material object to another. Thus when the 
 naked African chief, donning the cast-off military coat of an Eng- 
 lish officer given to him, struts like a peacock in this single 
 article of dress, we speak of the incongruity between the scarlet 
 coat and the naked form of the black savage ; but in speaking of 
 the nudity of the savage we should use the word impropriety. 
 
 While the Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, 
 dwelt with delight on the physical coincidences which made art a 
 power to please, they urged that as its higher aim. art be made to 
 correspond to true convictions of moral propriety, because of its 
 
MORAL PROPRIETY IN ART. 75 
 
 power for good or evil on youth and men of mature age. The Ro- 
 man critics, as Cicero the Eclectic, Cato and Seneca the Stoics, 
 and even Horace and Juvenal who leaned to Epicurean notions, 
 discussed especially the moral bearings of art, urging the demand 
 of propriety more than of congruity in works of art. Horace, in 
 his u Ars Poetica," makes a question of congruity in the Egyptian 
 pphynx a key to his criticisms relating to the moral proprieties 
 belonging to compositions in literature and art. As might be 
 anticipated, the allusions to art which fill the Old and New Testa- 
 ment Scriptures relate to its moral proprieties as a power for good. 
 The applications of this principle of moral correspondence in art 
 are varied and numerous. Moral propriety demands truth in 
 position ; requiring ease and security in the attitude of men repre- 
 sented as swaying to and fro under excited feeling ; an attainment 
 of gradual growth in the early stages of the revival of art in Italy. 
 Moral propriety requires truth in respect to time ; censuring an- 
 achronisms ; a principle which the secluded lives, and especially the 
 reverence for ecclesiastical precedents common to Italian artists of 
 the best age, has led them to overlook in the dress, attendants and 
 other accessories introduced into their representations of the life 
 of Christ. Both congruity and propriety, not to mention other 
 moral convictions, are opposed to that mutilation and transporta- 
 tion of works of ancient art which cause those exquisitely wrought 
 gems to be viewed out of their proper position ; a fact sensibly im- 
 pressed upon the visitor to the detached and fragmentary specimens 
 of bas-reliefs wrested from the cornices of Egyptian and Grecian 
 temples, and gathered in the London and Paris collections of art; 
 a principle which is still more deeply felt when the traveler's eye 
 rests on the voids in the original structures, lonely and voiceless on 
 their native soil, from whose walls have been cut and pried out 
 the select portions of those masterpieces of ancient art. Congruity 
 and propriety, too, are the essential elements of separate excel- 
 lences, such as that of grace, in works of art. While, for instance, 
 there is the rarest grace in a weary Hercules leaning on his club, 
 in an exhausted dancing girl resting on her seat, and in a panting 
 warrior reclining at full length on the ground, nothing could be 
 more tLe opposite of true grace than the attitude of a belle or 
 courtier lounging in ill-disguised ennui. 
 
76 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FACULTIES OF THE HUMAN MIND AS AFFECTED BY ART. 
 
 IN all human impressions two things are to be regarded ; the 
 mind on which the impression is made and the object without the 
 mind which makes the impression. The external object and the 
 senses through which it is perceived having been first considered, 
 it is natural to bend back the mind's thought upon itself and to 
 analyze its impressions as well as the thinking power which expe- 
 riences these impressions. 
 
 Without this consideration of the power itself which he employe, 
 the practical artist may use with a large share of success his mental 
 faculties in designing and executing works of art. Without it, 
 however, the student of art, not himself a practical artist, can 
 gain no consistent knowledge ; while moreover the artist himself 
 may add indefinitely to the skill with which he can wield his powers, 
 when, like the master in the mechanic arts he can from knowledge 
 of its nature, mould and adapt the instrument with which he works. 
 This Plato, ignorant of the practice but master of the theory of art, 
 intimated in the inquiry, " Indeed then do those men seem to you 
 to differ from blind men who in reality are destitute of theoretic 
 knowledge ; who, neither have in their own souls a distinct ideal, 
 nor like painters looking above themselves to the true ideal, always 
 referring their own conceptions to it and contemplating it with the 
 greatest accuracy possible, are enabled, in this department as in 
 those others, to establish just rules of the beautiful, as of the right 
 and of the good?" 
 
 In this consideration these natural divisions will be observed. 
 The general impression produced on the human mind by works of 
 art is entitled "Beauty;" and the power of the mind both to 
 appreciate and to create objects of beauty is styled "Taste." 
 Each of these, the impression and the power, may be considered 
 separate from its object, or in the abstract ; and each in connection 
 with its object, or in the concrete ; while the comparative strength 
 both of the power and of its impression in different beings and 
 classes of men is naturally a concluding inquiry. 
 
THE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 77 
 
 SECT. 1. BEAUTY IN THE ABSTRACT; OR THE NATURE OF OUR 
 IDEA OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 As to the essential nature of our idea of the Beautiful there has 
 been far greater unanimity than would be apparent to one failing 
 to discriminate between beauty in the abstract and beauty in the 
 concrete. Even upon the latter point of consideration, opinions 
 discordant at first view assume a degree of harmony when princi- 
 ples maintained by differing theorists are put into tbeir legitimate 
 connections. 
 
 The distinction between the four elementary principles of human 
 apprehension, the true, the beautiful, the good, the right, has been 
 recognized by leading philosophers in all ages and of the most 
 opposite schools. It may be illustrated by a simple example. If 
 any one beholding an apple on a mantel should say, " That is a true 
 apple," he would be understood as referring to the essence or sub- 
 stance of the apple ; as the juicy pulp constituting the real fruit, 
 in opposition to a fictitious representation of it in wax or marble. 
 If he should say, "That is a beautiful apple," he would be sup- 
 posed to refer to the form and color as conveying a pleasant im- 
 pression ; an idea, entirely aside from any consideration as to the 
 material of which it is composed. If again he should say "That 
 is a good apple," he would as manifestly refer to the adaptation 
 of the real or fictitious fruit ; the one as a true apple to afford by ite 
 substance gratification to the palate and health to the digestive 
 organs, and the other to give pleasure as beautiful by its form and 
 color addressing the eye, and through it the mind. If he should 
 say, yet again, "That is a right apple, " every hearer would feel 
 lhat violence was done to the common meaning of language. The 
 principle of right does not respect the essence of the apple as true, 
 its form as beautiful, nor its adaptation as good; it can onlj be 
 ascribed to an emotion, desire, or act which a human being may 
 exercise in reference to the apple as possessing either of these 
 qualities. This general distinction of these four elementary con- 
 ceptions is of universal application; as when of a mental or moral 
 quality or exercise, we say, "That was a true, a beautiful, a good 
 act." 
 
 The questions, "What is beauty " "Why is a thing beauti- 
 ful?" Socrates argued are irrational. Abstract terms cannot be 
 
 " 
 
 TJN: ;,y\ 
 
78 AET CRITICISM. 
 
 defined to a mind that has not already the idea which they ex- 
 press. If it be asked, "What is truth, beauty, goodness and 
 right?" it can only be stated; truth is that which in the essence of 
 a thing corresponds with the convictions of our understanding ; 
 beauty is that which in the qualities of an object affords pleasure 
 to our sensibilities ; goodness is that in the relation of one thing to 
 another, which secures the welfare or promotes the interest of the 
 latter ; and right is that in the act of an intelligent being which 
 corresponds with our conviction of the responsibility of one moral 
 being to another. If these attempts at definition seem inadequate, 
 it must be remembered that there is the same difficulty in defining 
 by simpler language any abstract term ; as the word white or round, 
 equality or justice. 
 
 Thus Plato, after mentioning that right, goodness, honor, magni- 
 tude, strength, health, "are all abstract things," adds: "We 
 speak of things as equal, or unequal. We not only see one stick 
 as equal to another stick, and one stone as equal to another stone, 
 but, besides, we think of equality in itself, as separate and real. 
 Now where do we acquire this knowledge ? Not from the sticks 
 or stones ; for these are strictly equal. Equality is not the same as 
 equal things. But yet from seeing equal things we think of 
 equality." 
 
 When asked why I believe that an object which I see exists, 
 that two lines cannot enclose space, that every effect has an ade- 
 quate cause, and why I regard certain lines and tints beautiful, I 
 can only say that I am so made that I cannot but so regard them. 
 As to the essential nature of beauty in the abstract, the thought of 
 mankind has been remarkably coincident. Lucan, the Roman 
 poet, says: "The idea of beauty is the same among nations in 
 their decline and in their infancy." Augustine, the Christian 
 philosopher, says: "If we both see that to be true which you say 
 is true, and both see that to be true which / say is true, where, I 
 ask, do we see it? Neither do I see it in you, nor you in me ; but 
 both in that which is above our minds, in the unchangeable verity 
 itself." The reasoning of modern writers, such as Locke, Kames, 
 Reid, Burke, Alison and others in England, of Kant in Germany, 
 and of Cousin in France, might be quoted at length substantially 
 to the same point. Thus Ruskin remarks, "Why some forms 
 and colors are beautiful is as unknown as why sugar is sweet, and 
 
TASTE AS A FACULTY OF THE MIND. 79 
 
 wormwood is bitter. ' ' Alluding then to the fact that our Creator 
 has made men with a common impression of beauty, he adds, "We 
 may, indeed, perceive as far as we are acquainted with His nature, 
 that we have been so constructed as, when in a healthy and culti- 
 vated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things are 
 illustrative of that nature ; but we do not receive pleasure from 
 them because they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and nece.- 
 sarily ; as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose." 
 
 SECT. 2. TASTE; on THE POWER OF THE MIND WHICH GIVES 
 
 ORIGIN TO THE IDEA OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 The four conceptions of the true, the beautiful, the good and the 
 right are naturally referred 'to distinct powers of the mind. The 
 power by which man recognizes abstract truth has in all agef 
 been expressed by a word corresponding to the English term rea- 
 son ; while the faculty which discerns right has as uniformly been 
 called by the name conscience. The good, or adaptation in things, 
 may be referred to that power which in animals and man has, 
 as distinct from reason, been called " instinct." 
 
 To the power by which the mind apprehends the second of these 
 ideas, the beautiful, modern, popular language, as well as modern 
 philosophy, has consecrated the word " Taste." It is a designation 
 borrowed from the quickest and most controlling though most corpo- 
 real of the human senses. The ancient Asiatic patriarch employed it 
 to express the instinctive power of the mind in discerning both the 
 right and the true; asking at one time, "Is there iniquity in my 
 tongue? Cannot my taste discern perverse things?" and again in- 
 quiring, " Doth not the ear try words, even as the mouth tastes its 
 meat ?' ' In the Greek and Latin tongues a similar tropical significa- 
 tion was given to the word by such writers as Sophocles and Pindar, 
 Cicero and Quinctilian; Sophocles speaking of " testing a truth by 
 the tongue ;" Pindar of " tasting the sweets of song;" Cicero of " the 
 taste for literary studies," and Quinctilian of the rhetorical "taste of 
 the city." From those ancient tongues the same word used in the 
 same figurative signification has passed to their modern successors, 
 as the Italian and the French. About the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, Reid, the Scotch metaphysician, followed by Kames, 
 Burke and Alison, fixed the use of the English word "Taste" to 
 designate the power by which the mind recognizes beauty; while 
 
80 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Kant, the German philosopher, brought into use the more classic 
 name aesthetic sense or judgment. 
 
 As to the office of this power of the mind, Plato in his Republic 
 reasons : " As to the beautiful and the good in existing objects, we 
 eay, indeed, that they are seen by the eye and are not objects of 
 intellectual perception ; but we also say that the ideas themselves 
 of beauty and goodness are perceived by the intellect and are not 
 seen by the eye." Of the two theories discussed in modern times 
 Alison gives the following statement: "The first class is that 
 which resolves the emotion of taste into an original law of our 
 nature : which supposes a sense or senses, by which the qualities 
 of beauty and sublimity are perceived and felt as their appropriate 
 objects ; and concludes therefore that the genuine object of the arts 
 of taste is to discover and to imitate those qualities in every subject 
 which the prescription of nature has thus made essentially either 
 beautiful or sublime. To this first class of hypotheses belong almost 
 all the theories of music, of architecture and of sculpture ; the 
 theory of Mr. Hogarth, of the Abbe Winckelmann, and perhaps, 
 in its last result, also the theory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is the 
 species of hypothesis which is naturally resorted to by all artists 
 and amateurs; by those whose habits of thought lead them to attend 
 more to the causes of their emotions than to the nature of the emo- 
 tions themselves. The second class of hypotheses arises from the 
 opposite view of the subject. It is that which resists the idea of 
 any new or peculiar sense distinct from the common principles of 
 our nature ; which supposes some one known and common affec- 
 tion of mind to be the foundation of all the emotions we receive 
 from the objects of taste, and which resolves, therefore, all the 
 various phenomena into some more general law of our intellectual 
 or moral constitution. Of this kind are the hypothesis of M. 
 Diderot, who attributes all our emotions of this kind to the percep- 
 tion of relation ; of Mr. Hume, who resolves them into our sense 
 of utility ; and of the venerable St. Austin, who, with nobler views, 
 a thousand years ago resolved them into the pleasure which belongs 
 to the perception of order and design. It is the species of hypo- 
 thesis most natural to retired and philosophic minds ; to those 
 whose habits have led them to attend more to the nature of the 
 emotions they felt than to the causes which produced them." 
 
 As to the nature of taste as an intuitive power nf the mind re- 
 
81 
 
 cognizing beauty, Reid says, "The sense of beauty is an agreeable 
 feeling or emotion accompanied with an opinion or judgment of 
 some excellence in the object which is fitted by nature to produce 
 that feeling." Blair says, "Taste is ultimately founded on an in- 
 ternal sense of beauty, which is natural to men." Burke's state- 
 ment is, " I mean by the word taste no more than the faculty or 
 those faculties of the mind which are affected with, or which form 
 a judgment of, the works of imagination and the elegant arts." 
 Ruskin, after arguing that taste is a power of the mind, distinct 
 from judgment which decides as to truth and that power unnamed 
 which recognizes fitness, says of this power, " It is the instinctive 
 and instant preferring of one material object to another without 
 any obvious reason except that it is proper to human nature in its 
 perfection to do so. ' ' 
 
 SECT. 3. BEAUTY IN THE CONCRETE ; OR THE ELEMENTS IN OBJECTS 
 WHICH GIVE THE IMPRESSION OF BEAUTY. 
 
 It is in concrete objects that beauty is seen by the ordinary eye. 
 All language for abstract ideas is primarily drawn from the field of 
 the concrete ; as words expressive of spiritual ideas are derived 
 from material objects. It was natural when Socrates asked, "What 
 is beauty?" that his interlocutors should constantly make the mis- 
 take in reply of citing some beautiful object, as a blooming girl, 
 or a masterpiece of statuary to express their conception. We, for 
 the same reason, use comparisons to illustrate our ideas ; saying, 
 " It was as beautiful as a rose ; she was as fair as a lily ; he is as 
 graceful as a gazelle. ' ' 
 
 When any object gives us the impression of beauty, we instinct- 
 ively think of the elements in the object which give this impres- 
 sion If a boy's marble, a cornelian and a diamond were together 
 held up before a company of men or of children, of savages or of 
 refined scholars, all would refer the beauty in each respectively to its 
 form, color and lustre. In a spirited saddle-horse by the side of a 
 pack-mule, form and color would be quoted as elements of beauty, 
 with the additional quality of grace in motion. In a lovely young 
 female the three classes of qualities already mentioned would still 
 be referred to, with the additional element of expression in the eye 
 revealing traits of intellectual and moral character. Into each of 
 these successive examples some new element enters to make up what 
 
 D* 
 
82 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 in each instance we designate by the general name beauty ; and 
 abstracting the several elements in each case we can look for their 
 counterpart elsewhere in nature, or seek to reproduce them in art. 
 
 Most of the ancient Greek writers on beauty, Plato excepted, 
 satisfy themselves with referring to objects of beauty in the concrete. 
 Pjthagoras taught that beauty is "unity in variety, and harmony 
 ii. opposite qualities." Later Greek critics recognize beauty as a 
 quality in objects distinct from both truth and goodness ; while, 
 nevertheless, though truth and goodness are not themselves beauty, 
 they are indispensable associate principles. 
 
 Thus Socrates having obtained two disconnected admissions that 
 purple is the most beautiful color, and that the eye is the most 
 beautiful part of the body, asks, "Why then do not painters add 
 beauty to the eyes by painting them purple ;" and having kept his 
 wrak antagonist perplexed a while he exclaims, " Wonderful critic ! 
 you do not imagine, do you, that in order to make the eyes more 
 beautiful we should paint them so that they would not appear to 
 be eyes?" The power of simple goodness to give the impression 
 of beauty is admirably illustrated by a fancied or real conversation 
 between Socrates, whose ugliness of form has passed into a proverb, 
 and Alcibiades, who was a paragon of manly beauty. Alcibiades 
 said to Socrates that in personal appearance he seemed to him like 
 " the figures of Silenus," noted for his flabby and beast-like gross- 
 ness, and, indeed, like "to the satyr Marsyas," the eminent flute- 
 player, characterized by his grimaces in blowing his instrument v 
 and added, "That in your outward appearance, Socrates, you re- 
 semble those beings, you yourself will not deny." Mentioning 
 then that in spite of his ugly aspect, he was irresistibly drawn to 
 bim and even admired his features, Socrates recognizes this as 
 illustrating his principle of beauty ; and exclaims, " What is that 
 matchless beauty you could see in me so vastly superior to your 
 own fine form?" 
 
 The special qualities which united produce the impression of 
 beauty are graphically pictured by Plato as meeting in Cupid. 
 "Love is ... the most blessed of the gods; at once the most 
 beautiful and the best." "He is very young and very delicate ; 
 and in addition to these qualities, he is of a most flexible form; 
 otherwise he would not be able to entwine himself around every 
 form." " Another great proof that his form excels in symmetry 
 
MODERN STATEMENTS OF ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 83 
 
 and flexibility is found in its gracefulness ; which excellence Love 
 confessedly possesses in a mariner superior to all beings." "His 
 diet, too, on flowers points out the beauty of his color." 
 
 A surprising likeness in practical minds appears in their analysis 
 of beauty. Hogarth on the title-page of his celebrated treatise, as 
 the symbol of his theory, inscribed a triangle, within which he 
 drew a serpent in the waving line which his body takes when 
 moving. His idea, he says, is borrowed from Michel Angelo's 
 maxim for his pupils, that figures should alwa3*s be made "pyra- 
 midal, serpentine, and with a ratio of increase by one, two and 
 three." This maxim, M. Angelo himself had borrowed from Aris- 
 totle's suggestion that "flame, pyramidal in form and serpent-like 
 in its motion, is most indicative of life and symbolic of spirit." 
 Hogarth finds these principles in the Grecian and Roman gabies, 
 and in the waving lines introduced into their architectural orna- 
 ments ; while in the group of Laocobn the same idea is so control- 
 ling that the two sons at the side of the father are made of natural 
 size, and the central figure colossal, so as to make the whole come 
 within the triangle or pyramid. 
 
 The admirable critic Beattie, finds the chief elements of beauty 
 to reside in form, color and expression ; united with the moral idea 
 of suitableness, or fitness. Thus he says, "Colors are beautiful, 
 first when they convey to the mind a lively sensation, as white and 
 red ; second, when they cherish the organ of vision, as green ; third, 
 when they have that character which we term delicacy, and yield 
 a sensation both lively and gentle, as pale red and light blue. But, 
 fourth, the beauty of color depends chiefly on the agreeableness of 
 the ideas it conveys to the mind. The verdure of the fields, for 
 instance, is delightful because it leads us to think of fruitful ness, 
 fragrance, and many other pleasant things ; but greenness in the 
 human face would be horrible because it would suggest the notion 
 of pain, of disease, and of something unnatural." Again he 
 says, "That which in the smallest compass exhibits the greatest 
 variety of beauty is a fine human face. The features are of various 
 sizes and forms ; the corresponding ones are exactly uniform ; and 
 each has that shape, size, position, and proportion which is most 
 convenient. Hire, too, is the greatest beauty of colors, which are 
 blended, varied and disposed with marvelous delicacy. But the 
 chief beauty of the countenance arises fiom its expression." 
 
84 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Lord Karacs, a critic of the greatest acuteness, divides beauty 
 into two species, intrinsic and relative. Relative beauty depends 
 not on what the thing is in itself, but on its relations to other things, 
 its associations, its utility and its propriety, " Intrinsic beauty," 
 he says, "must be analyzed into its constituent parts. If a tree 
 be beautiful by means of its color, its figure, its size, its motion, it 
 is in reality possessed of so many different beauties ; which ought 
 to be examined separately, in order to have a clear notion of them 
 when combined. The beauty of color is too familiar to need ex- 
 planation." " The beauty of figure, arising from various circum- 
 stances and different views, is more complex ; for example, viewing 
 any body as a whole, the beauty of its figure arises from regularity 
 and simplicity ; viewing the parts with relation to each other, uni- 
 formity, proportion and order contribute to its beauty. The beauty 
 ot motion deserves a chapter by itself." The more elaborate Reid 
 in presenting his analysis of beauty, says, " Our sense of beauty is 
 resolvable into instinctive and rational, and beauty itself into origi- 
 nal and derived. ' ' These he further analyzes thus : "The qualities 
 of inanimate matter in which we perceive beauty are sound, color, 
 form and motion; the first an object of hearing, the others of 
 sight." "All that can be called beauty in the human species may 
 be reduced to these four heads ; color, form, expression and grace. 
 The two former may be called the body, the two latter the soul of 
 beauty." 
 
 Alison argues that the beauty both of color and form arises 
 mainly from our associations connected with them. Thus three 
 classes of colors are regarded beautiful; " first, such as arise from 
 the nature of the objects thus permanently colored," as green in 
 grass; " second, such as arise from some analogy between certain 
 colors and dispositions of mind," as white for bridal dresses; 
 " third) such as arise from accidental connections, whether national 
 or particular," as purple in every land for a royal robe, and scarlet 
 in England for a soldier's uniform. Forms, like colors, are depend- 
 ent on the same law of association for their beauty. Thus foliage 
 and flower are beautiful only when the material seems adequate ; 
 delicacy in marble, for instance, being a bL-tnish unless cut in low 
 relief, so that it seems firm as well as delicate ; while also the ser- 
 pentine curve, specially expressive of delicacy, is a blemish when, 
 
MODKS OF REASONING AS TO BEAUTY. 85 
 
 as in the rose stem, strength and erectness seem to be naturally 
 requisite. 
 
 The modern French philosopher, Cousin, one of the ablest, as 
 well as most comprehensive of critics, recognizes the distinction be- 
 tween abstract and concrete beauty; treating first of the "true, 
 the beautiful and the good" in themselves, and second of " beauty 
 in things." He thinks the theory of Plato, in his Ilippias, that 
 beauty consists of the suitableness of means to an end, nearest to 
 the true view. A condition, however, of suitableness, is proportion 
 and order ; unity and variety too are among its essential elements ; 
 while even the ideal, the fictitious, is in an important respect suited 
 to our nature; and he concludes, "The great law of beauty, like 
 that of truth, is unity as well as variety." Proceeding from ma- 
 terial to spiritual elements, he* refers to Winckelmann's masterly 
 analysis of the Apollo Belvidere, especially of the face, as " express- 
 ing beauty of soul;" and using Plato's illustration that n.oral 
 beauty may even make natural ugliness to appear beautiful, he 
 adds, "The natural face of Socrates contrasts strongly with the 
 type of Grecian beauty ; but look upon him on his death-Led, at 
 the moment of drinking the hemlock, conversing with his disciples 
 on the immortality of the soul, and his face will appear to you sub- 
 lime." A correct analysis of beauty in the concrete will lead us to 
 fix upon the particulars already considered in the preceding chapter 
 as its chief elements. 
 
 SECT. 4. ^ESTHETIC JUDGMENT; THE PROCESS OF THUS MIND BY 
 
 WHICH WE DECIDE THAT AN OBJECT IS BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 The process of mind by which we decide that a thing is true, 
 good, or beautiful, or that an act is right, follows the same law of 
 reasoning in either of these fields. 
 
 When a child first sees a cricket-ball neatly rounded and stitched, 
 at rest or flying in the air, a process of syllogistic reasoning, with its 
 two premises and its consequent conclusion, is instinctively sug- 
 gested. He sees the ball, its elaborated form, its projectile mo- 
 tion ; he has confidence in the testimony of his eyesight ; and this 
 axiom is his first premise. At the same moment he has the con- 
 sciousness of an inward conviction that the ball could not possess 
 such a form, or move in such a manner, unless the hand of some 
 intelligent being had formed it and given it its impulse ; he lias 
 8 
 
96 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 confidence in tliis testimony of his consciousness; and this axiom 
 is his second premise. He has thus arrived at absolute truth, bj 
 a process of metaphysical reasoning, upon which no philosopher 
 can improve ; for it is only superior skill in employing the powers 
 of reasoning native to man, the power of observing facts, of mark- 
 ing the mind's suggestions as to their causes, and of referring the 
 one to the other, that distinguishes a Newton from a child or a 
 savage. 
 
 B} r a similar process the mind decides upon the goodness of a 
 thing, or the right of an action; and also upon the leauty of ob- 
 jects. At the sound of a sweet-voiced singing bird, or of a well- 
 trained musical band, at sight of a richly colored flower, a grace- 
 fully moving horse, or of a lovely female face, the eye of the child, 
 of the savage, and of the philosopher would alike sparkle with 
 delight ; and were any one of this company of beholders, so diver- 
 sified in character, asked the cause of his pleasure, he would pre- 
 sent the same view and in the same order of thought. He has 
 heard the peculiar melody from the single note of the warbler and 
 the combined harmony of many-toned instruments ; he has seen 
 the peculiar color, form, movement, and expression ; and this is 
 his first premise. He has within him the common organism of 
 ear, eye and associated soul, on which such sounds and sights are 
 made to produce a pleasant impression ; and this is his second pre- 
 mise. It is by the use of his judgment upon the facts, and of his 
 taste upon a principle, that every beholder of an object decides 
 upon its beauty as he does upon its truth. 
 
 This law of the mind, which enables the artist to forecast what 
 will please men as certainly as the philosopher can predict what 
 will convince them, has been set forth with great force by the ablest 
 minds. Socrates emploj^ed his keenest power of analysis, his most 
 comprehensive range of illustration and his closest logic, as well as 
 his most admirable wit, in his reasoning upon beauty. Lord Bacon 
 in his "Novum Organon" ascribes the same high office to fan- 
 tasy in poetry and art as to memory in history, and to reason in 
 science and philosopl^. Kant places aesthetic judgment, which 
 decides as to beauty, before the teleological which decides as to 
 truth. Hume, replied to by Reid, in maintaining the position that 
 the decisions of the mind as to beauty are not to be relied upon, 
 had to contend that "beauty is not a quality of the cirde " 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF TASTE BY CULTURE. 87 
 
 Cousin's second course of Lectures presents an admirable outline 
 of the exercise of the mind in this department. It is important 
 for the pupil in art to be assured that there are certain elements in 
 the form, color and relations of objects which will always please, 
 and that the artist and his critic may attain positive knowledge of 
 these, 
 
 SECT. 5. COMPARATIVE TASTE ; THE VARIED DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
 IDEA OF BEAUTY AMONG MEN; ITS PROBABLE ABSENCE IN BEINGS' 
 INFERIOR, AND ITS POSSIBLE PERFECTION IN BEINGS SUPERIOR 
 
 TO MAN. 
 
 If the powers of the mind are employed in the same manner to 
 decide upon the beauty as on the truth of an object, it is a legiti- 
 mate inference that the natural and acquired power of correct 
 decision on questions of beauty must differ in different persons, as 
 does the power of logical reasoning upon questions of truth. More- 
 over as no being inferior to man is supposed to possess the power 
 of arriving at principles of abstract truth, though all animals below 
 man have an intelligence which gives them practical knowledge of 
 truth in the concrete, so animals may be supposed to have no theo- 
 retical apprehension of principles of beauty, though subject in a 
 measure to impressions from its objects. Yet again, as we are 
 assured that there are beings higher than man in the gift of reason 
 which apprehends truth, and as we ourselves may in another state 
 of being possess this endowment in a higher degree, so may it be 
 with the power of apprehending and judging of beauty. 
 
 The child is fond of pure unmixed colors and rudely carved 
 forms, and is restricted by the limit of a child's development. The 
 female sex, though quicker than the male in intuitive conceptions, 
 seem as a rule, to which there are noble exceptions, to tire in the 
 effort at higher execution in the field of beauty ; since in the his- 
 tory of art eminent female sculptors and painters are as rare as 
 eminent female sages and poets. The Asiatic, and especially the 
 African race, quick to attain the elements of science and art, have 
 topped short, each at its own fixed limit, of the goal attained by 
 .he European race. The general fact that age, sex, race and 
 fe rades of culture place limits to the development of power in art 
 Las been recognized by ancient and modern critics. Aristotle dis- 
 cusses the limits of development in the appreciation of truth and 
 
88 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 beauty reached by different ages and sexes. Reid says, "The 
 most perfect works of art have a beauty that strikes even the rude 
 and ignorant ; but they see only a small part of that beauty which 
 is seen in such works by those who understand them perfectly and 
 can produce them." Blair maintains that there is among all man- 
 fcind a common standard of taste ; adding this explanation, "When 
 we refer to the concurring sentiments of men as the ultimate 
 standard of taste, or of what is to be accounted beautiful in the 
 arts, this is to be always understood of men placed in such situa- 
 tions as are favorable to exertions of taste." Burke remarks, 
 " There is rather less difference upon matters of taste among man- 
 kind than upon most of those matters which depend upon the 
 naked reason." He adds this important fact, "As arts advance 
 toward their perfection, the science of criticism advances with 
 equal pace." 
 
 In considering the manner in which animals are affected by 
 sights and sounds that are pleasing, ancient and modern critics 
 have distinguished between the active power of forming concep- 
 tions of beauty in the abstract and the passive capacity of being 
 affected by beauty in the concrete. The weary camel is inspirited 
 by his rider's flute, and the horse seems to feel pride in a gay 
 equipage ; but they do not, like the young child, attempt to copy 
 what thus gives them a passive delight. The nightingale sings 
 sweetly, and the bee builds skillfully ; but, if these were arts with 
 them, they could vary and improve upon their performance. Be- 
 ings inferior to man may not only be affected by art, but may even 
 delight .the ear and eye of man ; yet they have no principles to 
 guide them in their execution, and they operate not as men. but as 
 machines, turning out ever the same work. 
 
 As there seems to have been in the history of art, as well as of 
 science, in Greece, Rome, and modern Italy, a limit beyond which 
 neither nations nor individuals can go in their advance, while never- 
 theless each stage of the new rise and progress of science and art in 
 each nation has seemed in some respects to exceed any preceding, so 
 philosophers have believed there may be a state of being where the 
 soul of man untrammeled bj 7 the body's grossness will have clearer 
 perception, and attain higher execution in the fields of truth and 
 beauty than are possible to even the most gifted genius on earth. 
 Thus Plato says, the soul on earth " recoil )cts the reality of Ijr 
 
THE SENSIBILITIES AFFECTED BY ART. 8 ( J 
 
 it Las seen in its celestial journeyings ;" and he adds that " It is by 
 having seen the truth that man resumes the human form in the 
 second life." In illustration of both these ideas lleid says, "We 
 gee many beauties, both of human and divine art, which the brute 
 animals are incapable of perceiving ; and superior beings may exce 
 us as far in their discernment of true beauty as we excel the 
 brutes." 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CLASSES OF IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED ON MAN BY WORKS 
 OF ART. 
 
 THE word beauty, like the word truth, is a term of comprehen- 
 sive import. As there are many orders of truths, so there are 
 various classes of beauties. Truth addresses the intellect, beauty 
 the sensibilities. A general notice of the mental sensibilities to 
 which art appeals, and a classification of the leading impressions 
 awakened by its varied addresses, naturally follow the considera- 
 tion of the intellectual faculties as employed in the field of the 
 beautiful. 
 
 SECT. 1. CLASSIFICATION OP MENTAL SENSIBILITIES; AND DESIG- 
 NATION OF IMPRESSIONS PROPERLY .ESTHETIC, OR CAPABLE OF 
 BEING ADDRESSED BY ART. 
 
 The sensibilities may be divided into three classes ; emotions, 
 which are simple passive impressions ; affections, which are emo- 
 tions with an impulse awakened by the object ; and desires, which 
 are affections with a craving to possess or to serve the object. 
 
 Emotions are subdivided into instinctive and deliberative ; which 
 latter are awakened only when the reasoning powers are employed 
 on an object. Among deliberative or rational emotions, to which 
 alone art is addressed, are those awakened by the negative leaturo 
 the novel, by the positive quality the lively, by the aesthetic attri- 
 bute the beautiful, by the intellectual characteristic the witty, an<] 
 by the moral element the proper. 
 
 Affections, styled passions when inordinate, are designated a* 
 8 * 
 
91) ART CRITICISM. 
 
 benevolent and malevolent. Among the benevolent are love of 
 kindred, of congenial friends, of benefactors, of dependents, of our 
 Creator and Redeemer, as intelligent objects ; and of home, country 
 and nature, as objects without intelligence. 
 
 Desires, called appetites when inordinate and unworthy, may be 
 classed as physical and mental, and they relate to the present or 
 the future. Desires may arise from individual needs seeking as 
 tfieir aim wealth, knowledge or moral integrity ; from social connec- 
 tions having as objects companionship, power, esteem or useful- 
 ness ; or from religious aspirations for divine approval or benefac- 
 tion. As they relate to the future, desires are hopes and fears. 
 
 In art these three principles are to be observed ; first, the im- 
 pressions made by the fine arts are emotions only ; second, the end 
 sought by design in the fine arts is the awakening of affections. 
 and third, an indirect result of works of art may be the stimulating 
 of desires. This distinction was clearly recognized by the ancients, 
 Plato and Aristotle, and is carefully observed by writers of the pre- 
 sent age, such as Reid, Alison, Cousin, Wayland and Haven. Reid 
 says, " The emotion produced by beautiful objects is gay and plea- 
 sant. It sweetens and humanizes the temper, is friendly to every 
 benevolent affection, and tends to allay sullen and angry passions. 
 tt enlivens the mind and disposes it to other agreeable emotions, 
 such as those of love, hope and joy. " " Beauty naturally produces 
 love." Cousin argues, " The idea of the beautiful is free from all 
 desire ;" "The artist sees only the beautiful where the sensual man 
 sees only the alluring and the frightful." He cites Horace Vernet 
 lashed to the mast of a vessel in a storm that he might enjoy and 
 then paint the scene, as proof that, "when he knows fear the 
 artist vanishes;" and urges with warmth that the admiration of 
 beauty in the female form utterly excludes every sensuous im- 
 pression. 
 
 In works of sculpture and painting a legitimate appeal may be 
 made even to the lowest of all deliberative emotions, the impres- 
 sion of novelty ; yet their more worthy addre,;s is by the beautiful 
 proper. In his design the artist may make the awakening of 
 either of the affections, love of home, of country, or of the Creator, 
 his dirtcl aim. As a final end, the nurturing of any one of the 
 nobler desires, individual or national, as thirst for knowledge, 
 fame, or moral excellence, may, as Plato in his Republic and in his 
 
DESIGNATIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL CLASSIFIED. 91 
 
 Laws argues, be a result indirectly sought by the statesman in hia 
 patronage of art. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE BEAUTIFUL PROPER AND IDEAS ALLIED; AS THE 
 DELICATE, THE EXQUISITE, THE FAIR, THE BRILLIANT, THE 
 GRACEFUL, THE PRETTY; IN WHICH BEAUTY OF SUBSTANCE, 
 FORM, COLOR, LUSTRE, MOTION AND EXPRESSION SEVERALLY 
 PREDOMINATE. 
 
 In discriminating the characteristics of the beautiful proper, re- 
 gard must be had to the organ that perceives, to the size of the 
 object and to the elements of substance, form, color, lustre, motion 
 and expression which severally constitute its special charm. The 
 Greeks most thoroughly entered into the spirit of the beautiful 
 proper, making its creations their special field of art execution. 
 
 Lord Kames observes as to the first point named : "Beauty in 
 its native signification is appropriated to objects of sight." " Aj 
 agreeable impression is made by the musical sounds of a bugle 
 by the soft texture of velvet, by the delicious flavor of a peach, 
 and the spicy fragrance of the honeysuckle." " The designation 
 beautiful is given to each of these impressions probably at first, 
 from the fact, that because of the pleasure they give to other 
 senses, objects which otherwise would make no pleasant impres- 
 sion on the eye, come to be so agreeable to it, that we call the 
 imgle, the velvet, the peach, the honeysuckle, beautiful. Going 
 farther, we speak of a beautiful thought, metaphor, theorem, 
 discovery ; applying the word to ideas or objects that address ug 
 through no one of the bodily senses, but appeal to the mind itself 
 without the intervention of the bodily senses ; in which case there 
 is not as before a transfer of the language of one of the senses to 
 that of another, but a transfer of the terms of the material to the 
 spiritual. ' ' 
 
 A second consideration, one fixing the limits of the beautifuJ 
 proper, is thus suggested by Burke: "Attending to their quantity 
 beautiful objects are comparatively small. " "In most languages the 
 objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets." The 
 true idea in this respect, as careful reflection intimates, seems to 
 be this: We seem naturally to apply the word beautiful to an 
 object however small or large which the eye takes in at its ordi- 
 nary angle of vision. Thus we speak of a single statue and of 
 
92 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 small easel paintings, as beautiful, because the eye takes in the 
 entire work. So, too, we call a building at a distance and even a 
 vista view in a landscape miles in extent " beautiful," when, how- 
 ever extended, the entire view comes into the range of the eye's 
 single glance. 
 
 After quantity that of substance is an element of beauty. This 
 the word delicate is appropriately employed to express. Kames 
 alludes to " the slender make of a horse," as a chief charm. Burke 
 devotes a section to delicacy, citing the myrtle as opposed to the 
 oak, the greyhound as opposed to the mastiff, and the Arabian 
 steed as opposed to the war-horse, in confirmation of his view. 
 Alison with discrimination says, "It is not delicacy in itself, but 
 delicacy in the appropriate material that constitutes beauty ; since 
 delicate foliage in marble and iron seems unnatural, and therefore 
 inappropriate. Delicacy is properly an attribute of substance ; it is 
 that quality in material, from fineness of texture and tenacity of 
 particles united, that admits of a prolonged and slender form." 
 Lexicographers make " fineness of texture, " the primary definition 
 of " delicacy;" and hence our association of the word "fine" with 
 "delicate," in metaphorical usage, as when we speak of a man of 
 delicate sensibility, adding by way of explanation that he is a per- 
 son of " refined nature," and therefore of " fine feelings." 
 
 Beauty in form naturally follows that of substance. When 
 marked or separated for special consideration, the natural term to 
 express its impression is the word " exquisite." The word refers 
 properly to the exact nicety with which straight or regularly curved 
 lines are drawn by a master in art. Hence we speak of " exqui- 
 site workmanship," and metaphorically of "a man of exquisite 
 mould in taste and sensibility," the figure showing that the idea 
 of form is prominent in the mind. 
 
 The beauty residing in color, next in thought, we designate by 
 the term "fair." The Saxon word refers to the bringing out of 
 original color in wood, stone, or metal, by polishing or burnishing 
 Asiatics, better critics in color than in form, boast of their own as 
 " the fairest of women." It is not to form but to color we refer in 
 the expression "fair weather." 
 
 Associated with color is beauty derived from lustre; an aspect im- 
 parted by perfect reflection of pure white light. The word " ///// 
 liant" is used to express this element ; a word naturally original is:# 
 
THE GRAND, AND KINDRED IMPRESSIONS. 93 
 
 among the French, whose sky is in such contrast with that of Eng- 
 land. The beauty of the diamond is exclusively its lustre; a 
 characteristic embodied in the name " brilliant," which the world 
 have agreed in giving to it. Burke, under the head of "light," 
 alludes to this element of beauty; as do also other critics. 
 
 Beauty of motion is the foundation of that peculiar aim of the 
 Greek artist, "grace." The Greek sculptor sought to make his 
 work appear a living, moving being ; and the rudest Greek architects 
 in their first temples made the gentle curve of platform, column 
 and roof seem in grace like a bird poised for flight. Plato culls 
 Cupid the "most graceful" of beings, because he is "flexible and 
 capable of twining about every object." Virgil illustrates it in 
 Venus ; the mere grace in the bend of whose neck as she turned from 
 ^neas betrayed her divinity. Burke, defining "grace," says, "it 
 is an idea belonging to posture and motion. ' ' lleid more fully 
 remarks, "There is no grace without motion; some genteel or 
 pleasing motion either of the whole body, or of some limb, or at 
 least of some feature. Hence, in the i'ace, grace appears on those 
 features that are movable and change with the varying emotions 
 and sentiments of the mind ; such as the eyes and eyebrows, the 
 mouth and parts adjacent." 
 
 Beauty of expression is popularly designated by the word 
 "pretty," allied to a Welsh term meaning appropriate. The 
 statement, " She is a pretty woman," expresses a judgment formed 
 after acquaintance ; and refers to mental and moral traits revealed 
 in the expression of the features. We speak of a pretty dress as 
 one becoming the wearer ; and of a pretty story or song as one 
 appropriate to the age of those to whom it is addressed. 
 
 All these attributes, as objects taken in by a glance of the eye or a 
 single effort of the mind, belong to the field of beauty proper. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE GRAND; BEAUTY UNITED TO MASSIVENESS; AND THK 
 ASSOCIATED IPEAS, THE NOBLE, THE ELEGANT, THE SUPERB, THE 
 
 MAGNIFICENT, THE SUBLIME, THE MAJESTIC J IN WHICH THE ELE- 
 MENTS OF SUBSTANCE, FORM, COLOR, LUSTRE, MOTION AND MORAL 
 DIGNITY ARE SEVERALLY PREDOMINANT. 
 
 As the beautiful is the general designation for the pleasing effects 
 of smaller objects, so "the grand" is the appropriate designation 
 of the general impression of pleasure produced by larger objects, 
 
94 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 While the field of the beautiful proper was specially cultured by 
 the Greeks, the wider domain of the grand is marked everywhere 
 by the track of its Roman lords. Asiatic taste gloried in mere 
 missiveness ; but the Roman sought to combine the spreading 
 breadth and towering height of the Egyptian with the finish of the 
 Greeks. The words denoting special elements belonging to this 
 general idea are chiefly Roman in their origin. 
 
 The grand, as it appears in substance, is designated by the word 
 " noble." The Romans used the word in early times to designate 
 a man noted for great qualities; though when Pliny wrote ita 
 modern degenerate signification prevailed. It suggests that in the 
 very blood the noble is of superior nature. Hence the designation of 
 mercury, silver, gold and platinum as the "noble metals." Ap- 
 plied to a monumental shaft or statue, the word " noble" properly 
 used designates superiority of material. 
 
 Grandeur in form is properly designated by the Latin word 
 "elegant." The Romans thus applied it first to their men, next 
 to their edifices, and finally, in metaphor, they spoke of the "ele- 
 gant arts." In modern acceptation an elegant mansion possesses 
 mingled ampleness and finish ; and an elegant scholar duly developed 
 native faculties, cultured by proportionate study in varied fields. 
 
 The grand in color is naturally expressed by the term " superb." 
 In early Roman times it designated splendor in personal achieve- 
 ments, in later times unworthy ostentation. Virgil alludes to the 
 " superb purple robes" and " superb tapestry curtains of the early 
 kings." In modern language a general superbly decorated is one 
 parading gorgeous colors with great breadth of display. A man 
 of superb imagination is one in whose imagery gorgeous coloring 
 sets off boldness of conception. 
 
 The grand, lit up with lustre, is designated "magnificent." The 
 Roman historian, Nepos, characterizes as "magnificent" a man 
 fond of brilliant display, who nevertheless possesses true grandeur 
 of character. Paris viewed in detail is brilliant ; but the vast pile 
 of the Hdpital des Invalides, with its gilded and glistening dome, 
 cannot be called anything else than magnificent. Constantinople, 
 with its numerous massive domes radiant with white paint in the 
 morning sunbeams, is magnificent when seen as a whole from the 
 Posphorus ; but it is far from brilliant when viewed near and in 
 detail from the street. 
 
 
THE NOVEL AND PICTURESQUE. 95 
 
 The grand in motion is the " sublime." The Greeks in poetr> 
 often appealed to it ; their word to express the sublime was an in- 
 adequate one. Native and congenial to the Oriental caste of mind., 
 it is an impression specially sought by their artists ; as is strikingly 
 illustrated in the efforts of Hebrew poets and sculptors to give form 
 to their conceptions of a living, moving Deity, unseen yet every- 
 where prosent ; a spirit like the clouds floating above the earth, and 
 like the clouds ever shifting yet brooding. The Roman use of 
 their own word sublime is seen in Virgil's allusion to the " pole" 
 of the heavens as " sublime;" and to Venus, graceful as she glides 
 along the earth, but " sublime" when bounding upward to heaven. 
 Theoretic critics, as Burke and Cousin, speak of the sublime as an 
 impression of awe awakened by objects and ideas uncomprehenucd, 
 because indefinite or infinite. Poets apply it to personified objects 
 moving as self-acting agents. Mont Blanc, lifting its "bald awful 
 front," and the "cross of Christ," "towering" with "light around 
 its head," are declared by Coleridge and Bowring "sublime" The 
 jet of burning lava shooting from the crater of Vesuvius is stil >- 
 lime ; the glowing stream overflowing at night is magnificent ; the 
 whole dark mountain with its sides and crest is grand. It is the 
 elastic force of the upward motion that constitutes the sublime 
 proper. 
 
 When the grand is accompanied by moral dignity the term " ma- 
 jestic" expresses its impression. The Latin poets and orators 
 spoke of the majesty of their gods and of their state. In Christian 
 theology " the majesty" of God is grouped with His "beauty and 
 glory;" these three being the aesthetic impressions made on man 
 by His relation to His physical, intellectual and moral creations. 
 The proper discrimination of the subdivisions of the grand as well 
 as of the beautiful will be found to give precision in thought and 
 expression in the criticism of art. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE KOVEL, THE SURPRISE AT NEWNESS, AUXILIARY TO 
 THE EMOTION OF BEAUTY; AND THE PICTURESQUE, AN EIFECT 
 FROM GROUPING ALLIED TO GRANDEUR. 
 
 Lord Kames remarks, " Of all the circumstances that raise emo- 
 tions, not excepting beauty nor even greatness, novelty has the 
 most powerful influence." Though the lowest in dignity of all the 
 impressions made by art, its power to arouse has been resorted to 
 
96 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 by artists in every department. The ancient Hebrews continually 
 asked after new luxuries, new pleasures and even new gods. The 
 Greeks, Plato said, were even in their best days fond "of novel 
 things," and of " novel deities ;" while Luke, the Greek Christian, 
 attests that in the age of their degeneracy "the Athenians spent 
 their time in nothing else than to tell or hear some new thing." 
 Cicero in his day laments that the practical Romans were drawn 
 after "new things." Yet Burke makes novelty the first element 
 in the " sublime and beautiful," saying, "Some degree of novelty 
 must be one of the materials in every instrument that works on the 
 mind ; and curiosity blends itself more or less with all our passions. ' ' 
 The artist has the critic as his supporter in a due appeal to thw 
 impulse of human nature. 
 
 The "picturesque" derives its claim to consideration from its 
 association with the modern advance of landscape painting and 
 landscape gardening. It is a complex impression, coming from 
 several objects, so grouped as to produce a pleasing impression ; 
 originating partly from mere novelty, and akin to the emotion of 
 grandeur. The word picturesque, properly French, relates to that 
 artificial grouping of objects which makes them seem parts of a 
 picture. A picturesque costume is one so adjusted that every 
 beholder at once says, "That is not natural; it is too studied: 
 it is a dress for a picture." Alison quotes at length poets from 
 Homer to Goldsmith who furnish a "grouping eminently pic- 
 turesque;" and he characterizes its impression as that coming 
 from "a variety of pleasing images passing with rapidity and 
 awakening a sensibility beyond what the scene or description im- 
 mediately before him can, of itself, excite, giving rise indeed to 
 sublimity." 
 
 Modern landscape painting originated the style designated pio- 
 turesque. The ancient painters did not work up the details of far- 
 reaching background. When landscape proper was attempted, 
 though nature was substantially the artist's standard, the landscape 
 could not be truly, like a human being sitting for a portrait, an un- 
 changing, ever present model to be copied. Sunlight and shade 
 alternate ; trees wave and animals move from their first observed 
 positions; and even foliage and flowers change their forms and 
 hues with every rolling hour. It was necessary, therefore, that the 
 landscape painter should select some one definite position of each 
 
THE COMIC, GROTESQUE AND TRAGIC. 97 
 
 object, and some chosen grouping of the whole ; and these chosen 
 attitudes and preferred combinations, necessarily artificial to a cer- 
 tain extent, gave an ideal instead of a real character to the scene 
 depicted, which took the name of picturesque. 
 
 In the same connection a style of landscape gardening arose, in 
 which walks and trees were neither arranged in stiff, mathemati- 
 cally exact lines, nor yet left to the fortuitous grouping of nature ; 
 and, this artificial and yet artistic intrusion into nature's order, 
 just far enough to add the charm of art to that of nature, was 
 designated picturesque. Whether applied to personal adornment, 
 to a painting, or to a landscape, the term picturesque relates mainly 
 to the grouping of beauties. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE COMIC, GROTESQUE AND TRAGIC ; EMOTIONS AWAKENED 
 BY DISTORTED FORMS AND INCONGRUOUS RELATIONS, ALLIED TO 
 BEAUTY AND GRANDEUR EITHER IN ANIMAL OR HUMAN EXPRES- 
 SION. 
 
 The comic is the combination of the ludicrous addressing the eye, 
 and of wit addressing the ear ; and as the expression of human 
 passion and action it is accompanied by gestures and attitudes. It 
 suggests ideas of smallness and meanness ; as is seen in the droll, 
 the semblance of the comic exhibited by animals like the monkey 
 destitute of the intellectual element, wit. 
 
 The Hebrew poets as Job and Isaiah, Homer in his battle of the 
 frogs and mice, Aristophanes in the Greek drama, as well as Gre- 
 cian and Roman critics like Aristotle, Cicero, Quinctilian and 
 Horace, show the law of the comic as employed by the poets. 
 Aristotle's illustration of the ridiculous leads from the comic in 
 poetry and song to the comic in forms addressing the eye in sculp- 
 ture and painting. He says: "A countenance ugly or disfigured, 
 but not occasioning pain, is ridiculous. ' ' As the actor by assum- 
 ing a comic expression, or putting on a comic mask, accomplished 
 his end more than by words, so the artist could embody comic ex- 
 pression in marble and on canvas. As there were artists to carve 
 and paint Achilles and Agamemnon, so there were true masters in 
 art who "recreated themselves," as Pliny says, " with comic sub- 
 jects amid tragedy;" as Homer relieved painfully pleasing sym- 
 pathy for Achilles and Briseis with the ludicrous appearance of ths 
 shallow-pated Thersites. 
 
 9 E 
 
y ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The grotesque, a name derived from the French grotte, is Oriental 
 rather than Grecian; and as developed in Europe it belongs to the 
 spirit of the Middle Ages. It is embodied in forms seen dimly as 
 in a grotto ; such as jagged rocks and shapeless stumps in a thicket, 
 or sculptured bats clinging to the ceiling of a dark room, owls 
 perched in jutting ledges, and toads squat in dark corners. The 
 term is applied properly to objects at rest, not in action ; and to 
 individuals rather than to groups. 
 
 The grotesque pervades in excess Chinese sculpture, painting, 
 architectural decoration and ornamental gardening; while the 
 Egyptians, though fond of the comic, but rarely resorted to the 
 grotesque. The Greeks had no sentiment in keeping with the 
 grotesque ; the universal spirit of animation and action pervading 
 their art, their love of transparence, and their high-toned aspiring 
 after the heroic forbidding it. To the Romans it was more con- 
 genial ; as is witnessed in the decorations of baths and private 
 sleeping-rooms now unburied at Pompeii. In the Middle Ages, 
 throughout Central and Western Europe, the whole spirit of the 
 people as well as of the rulers and the artists, seemed in keeping 
 with this lower order of the art; as is seen in the old cathedrals of 
 Paris and other French and German cities, perfectly overloaded 
 with every species of grotesque and hideous figures sculptured in 
 high relief. In the grotto proper the introduction of the grotesque 
 is true art ; but at the portal of a sanctuary for religious worship n<? 
 propriety of art can justify the introduction of toads, lizards and 
 other hideous devices. 
 
 The comic awakening mirth by diminutive or mean objects fklla 
 below the range of the grand ; the grotesque rises as in the colossi 
 of the Roman baths to its lower walks ; while the tragic appealing 
 to the intensest of human emotions towers to the loftiest heights 
 of the sublime and majestic in its conceptions. 
 
 Plato used the words tragic and comic much as they are employed 
 in modern times; calling Homer a "tragic poet," because he is 
 highly dramatic in the mournful passages of his poems. Aristotle 
 analyzes the principles of tragedy as one department of dramatic 
 composition ; indicating the connection between expression in the 
 histrionic art, and in the arts of sculpture and painting. In early 
 Grecian dramatic performances, as in modern Chinese theatricals, 
 pantomime, or sign language, played an important part. As the 
 
AET PROGRESSING WITH MAN^S DEVELOPMENT. 99 
 
 living actor assumed attitudes and looks expressive of grief and 
 anguish that spoke without uttered language, so the same attitudes 
 and expressions cut in marble or pictured on the tablet gave to dead 
 stone and wood an impressive voice. 
 
 The Laocoon and Niobe in Grecian sculpture, and the Iphigeniu 
 in Grecian painting, silent, yet eloquent in their "voiceless woe," 
 are monuments of the power which art possesses to appeal to our 
 impression of the tragic. The order in which these sensibilities, 
 the beautiful, the grand, and their allied and subsidiary emotions, 
 have been considered, will be found of value in tracing the history 
 of plastic art. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OP NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND OF DEGREES 
 OF CULTURE IN MODIFYING THE IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED BY 
 ART. 
 
 THE idea, common to mankind, that superior knowledge and skill 
 in any department are above ordinary apprehension, and thereforo 
 beyond general attainment, seems to cling to the human mind 
 when art is regarded; though increasing general intelligence hai 
 long since expelled this impression as to science. From time im- 
 memorial the superior race of India have been a caste bound by 
 oaths never to divulge the secret principles of science on which 
 their arts are practised ; and as their science seems to the peoplo 
 supernatural, so their arts seem magical. Pythagoras having 
 learned the science of this caste, thought to introduce it into Greece. 
 But he mistook entirely the spirit of the Greek people, so different 
 from the Asiatic. Among the Greeks the veil of pretentious mys- 
 tery was torn off from all science and art ; the common people 
 demanded to know the secrets of both ; and both alike they dis- 
 cussed, criticised and practised, regarding art no less than scienco 
 the common heritage of man, just like the air they breathed and 
 the water they drank. A principle was thus developed most im- 
 portant to be observed in the progress of every age or nation. 
 
 Another equally important principle, the necessary counterpart 
 
100 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of that just mentioned, was clearly recognized by the Greeks as 
 leaders in true art. While among the thousands of intelligent and 
 cultured youth in a nation all may be able to criticise art, and hun- 
 dreds if devoted to the pursuit might succeed as artists, yet differ- 
 ing tastes and the varied and numerous wants of man in society 
 call for only a limited class to make art the special business of life. 
 Socrates taught that every man of the common people should think 
 foi himself, and learn for himself the true principles of religion, of 
 morals, of political science, of letters and of art ; but he by no means 
 taught that every man should or could be a Phidias in sculpture, a 
 Polygnotus in painting, a Pericles in statesmanship, a Plato in 
 philosophy, or a Themistocles in generalship. There are inborn 
 natural characteristics of national and individual mental capacity, 
 and there are degrees of general and special culture, to be remarked 
 in the history of art among men ; without the observing of which 
 it is vain to attempt a consideration of the varied tastes that have 
 prevailed, and the wonderfully different success in execution that 
 has marked the people and the artists of different lands and ages. 
 
 SECI. 1. THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL 
 
 CUSTOMS ON THE SENSIBLE IMPRESSIONS PRODUCED BY ART. 
 
 He who " made of one blood all nations to dwell on the face of 
 the earth," has allowed differing race and culture to separate 
 "Greek and Jew, barbarian and Scythian." In art, palpable to 
 the eye as its productions are, this distinction is perhaps more 
 marked than in any other department of human attainment. One 
 family of mankind have never passed the infancy of human develop- 
 ment, and their art is that of a child ; a second has never risen 
 above mediocre talent and a style in art for ages stereotyped ; 
 while yet a third has soared at once to the very heights of human 
 attainment. 
 
 Science in every department, especially ethnology and the history 
 of language, join to confirm Guyot's analysis of the human familj 
 as suggested by the records of Moses and the testimony of universal 
 Asiatic tradition. The Hamitic family, peopling Africa, are imita- 
 tive but not originating in mental cast. The Shemitic, peopling 
 Asia, are imaginative and ideal, but sluggish in action and tardy in 
 improving. The Japhetic or Indo-European, quick and aspiring 
 in conception and also energetic in execution, have from the earliest 
 
ART CULTURE OF DIFFERENT RACES. 101 
 
 annals of history been leaders in art, controlled often in their ideals 
 by the people for whom they have d3signed, yet gradually elevat- 
 ing ruder races to a measure of their own superiority. The words 
 referring to art used in Egypt transferred by Moses to his Hebrew 
 records, the testimony of the sculptures everywhere on Egyptian 
 monuments, and the declarations of Herodotus and later Grecian 
 and Roman historians, all indicate that the noble Aryan stock of 
 the Caucasus, the proud Brahminic caste of India, and the "beauty 
 of the Chaldees' excellency" have been the moulding masters of all 
 the ancient ages and nations in art. 
 
 In every land as we make our survey we shall trace the rude 
 originals of a native art. That early uncultured native art, where 
 barbarian and African rudeness has been unbroken by the interven- 
 tion of a higher race, has been permanently dwarfed and remained 
 in perpetual infancy. Wherever the proud and hoary Shemitic 
 family has been undisturbed in its changeless ages of history, there 
 stereotyped mediocrity has reigned. Where, however, as in Egypt, 
 art has originated among a family whose popular spiritual notions 
 were as low as the African's in fetish worship of reptiles, and as 
 fixed as the Asiatics in blindness to the harmonies of nature in form 
 and color, we shall find the rudest of all conceptions in art stimu- 
 lated to their first step in progress by Indian resident artists, 
 prompted to a higher advance by Persian intervention, refined to 
 the farthest possible improvement of which its heavy massiveness 
 was susceptible by the grace of succeeding Grecian genius, and 
 finally ennobled into true grandeur by the all-absorbing and modi- 
 fying spirit of the imperial Roman. Everywhere, in fact, where 
 Ham has toiled alone we shall find art in its infancy ; where Shem 
 has dreamed secluded in petty tribes, or massed in colossal nations, 
 art has advanced to youth's period of half-matured imagination; 
 but wherever Japhet has both dreamed and toiled, whether domi- 
 ciled alone in his native hills and plains, or " dwelling in the tents 
 of Shem," or employing "Ham as his servant," there art has been 
 marked with that progress which claimed for it a place in the anal- 
 ysis of history. 
 9 * 
 
102 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF ADVANCING CIVILIZATION on 
 
 CRITICAL APPRECIATION OP ART. 
 
 The first marks of a nation's, as of an individual's progress, are 
 not seen in the field of the true, or of the beautiful proper ; but in 
 that of the good. 
 
 The material advancement, however, of a people soon creates a 
 taste for art proper ; which demand foreign or native skill will soek 
 to supply- That skill, once introduced, becomes an educating 
 power, stimulating the zest and gradually refining and instructing 
 the critical judgment of a people in their innate love of beauty and 
 its creations. In Egypt, no less than four marked stages of pro- 
 gress are observable. Even the matchless art of Greece, culminat- 
 ing in Rome, had the same rude beginning ; and it advanced by 
 stages of progress to its climax of perfection. In the Saxon and 
 German nations, all of whose steps in the progress of art are close 
 down to our own era, this progress is specially manifest. Of the 
 Germans at his day Tacitus says, " Among them silver vases, gifts 
 to their ambassadors and princes, are held in the same low esteem 
 as those which are wrought of clay. " " The walls of some of their 
 houses they smear with an earth so pure and glistening, that it 
 imitates a painting and the lineaments of colors. ' ' And this is the 
 comparatively modern history of art in a land that now boasts its 
 Thorwaldsen in sculpture, and its Albert Durer, Vandyke and 
 Rubens in painting. 
 
 The progress of art in a single nation, so like to its development 
 in the individual artist, seems to promise a kindred advancement 
 among mankind as a race. As the individual man leaves to his 
 children his life-time accumulations as capital with which they can 
 begin a new advance, so one generation of artists leaves to a succeed- 
 ing age its perfected material and practice ; and so, too, nations 
 coming to their climax and decaying leave collected products of the 
 chisel and brush and written treatises which enable a succeeding 
 nation to take up the work where it had been left by other minds 
 and hands. 
 
GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE OF ART. 103 
 
 RECT. 3. THE SPECIAL INFLUENCE OF FORMS OF POLITICAL ORQANI* 
 ZATION ON THE PATRONAGE OF ART. 
 
 Artists like other men must secure a livelihood, if not wealth, b> 
 their profession. No private patron can meet the expense of higher 
 works of art. Society in its civil organization must supply this need. 
 
 In the progress of civilization since the days of Herodotus and 
 Aristotle, as before the ages whose record they give, civil govern 
 nients by whatever name called have been virtually of two types; 
 representative republics and hereditary monarchies. The question 
 is an important one in the history of art criticism and art execution 
 which of these two forms of government is most favorable to the 
 patronage of art. The principle to which the mind might naturally 
 be led seems conformed to fact. A government which fosters the 
 free action of the intellect of the people, affording to genius, how- 
 ever obscure its origin, an open field for the indulgence of its 
 aspirations, must be favorable to the development of a capacity for 
 art. On the other hand, a stable government controlled by men 
 of culture is essential to the intelligent and liberal patronage which 
 art demands for its highest success. 
 
 In Greece the popular government of Athens called forth among 
 its own citizens and attracted from distant provinces the rarest 
 gifts and culture devoted to art ; it culminated under Alexander, 
 the first monarch of all Greece, whose ambition if not his taste 
 led him to become the liberal patron of art ; but its spirit declined 
 rapidly under the successors of Alexander, who, with less noble- 
 ness of nature than the first monarch, were no less ambitious 
 to make art subservient to their personal fame. At Home, science, 
 art and letters had their spring under the Republic ; they attained 
 their acme of advance under the first emperor; and steadily de- 
 clined when the imperial ambition prostituted genius to low and 
 selfish ends. In modern Italy the revival of art began under the 
 cultured aristocracy of Tuscany, took wing during the brief reign 
 of republican institutions, and went steadily on to its acme under 
 emperors and cardinals who felt it an honor to be its patrons. The 
 history of all ages and nations shows at least this ; that popular 
 institutions have been the early nursery of genius in art ; but that 
 despotism has blighted and withered every bud of promise in its 
 most matured growth. 
 
104 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 4. SPECIAL INFLUENCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS IN 
 SCIENCE AND LITERATURE ON THE STYLE OF ART. 
 
 In art as in literature, we speak of the style of an age, of a coun- 
 try, or of a school to designate the character of the conceptions 
 ernoodied and the methods of execution employed Intellectual 
 prDgress, especially attained in the European races, has originated 
 or modified styles ; for the advance of a nation in metaphysical 
 speculation gives form to design, and improvements in physical 
 science add skill in execution. The philosophy of the Vedas of 
 India, associated with practical energy among the people of North 
 ern Africa, culminated in the wisdom of Egypt, in which the He- 
 brews Joseph and Moses became learned, and from which Pythagoras 
 and Plato drew their inspiration. As a consequence all Greek and 
 Roman writers trace back the origin of art in Greece to masters 
 who drew their skill and their material from that earliest centre of 
 intellectual development. Afterward Grecian philosophy so re- 
 acted upon Egypt that Alexandria under the Ptolemies became a 
 chief centre of learning ; and in nothing more than in the art of 
 that age is the influence of this advancement to be remarked. The 
 progress of the Greeks through the ages of the epic, the lyric and 
 the drama, of philosophy and of oratory, and also the history of 
 the Romans up to their Augustan era, all show that art is but the 
 reflex of advancing culture. The appearance in modern Italy of 
 Galileo and Columbus, Dante and Savonarola, at the same era with 
 the great masters in revived sculpture and painting, demonstrates 
 that the important element essential to a nation's progress in true 
 art is the advancement of a people in science and culture. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE SPECIAL INFLUENCE OF MORAL REFINEMENT ON THE 
 ACCESSORIES OF ART. 
 
 While principles growing out of intellectual development influ- 
 ence the style of art, moral considerations will control the acces- 
 sories of sculptured and pictured forms. This has especially to do 
 with the robing of the human figure. Climate and custom control 
 fullness of dress and nudity. The portions of the person covered in 
 the cold of winter are left bare in summer and in a heated winter 
 parlor. The delicate maiden in Southern Italy, no less than in the 
 mountains of Syria and in the African jungles, exposes her per;on 
 
MORAL INFLUENCE OF NUDE STATUAIIV. 105 
 
 without thought of impropriety when bathing in an open stream. 
 Moral propriety in the climactic age of Greek ethics commended 
 rather than censured the nude Apollo and Venus. The love of 
 beauty is created in man to be the refiner of his moral nature. 
 Among all the works of the Divine hand no form is so exquisite, 
 no color so delicate, and no entire figure such a model of beauty, 
 as that found in the human frame, both male and female ; and that 
 alike in childhood, youth and maturity. It cannot be conceived 
 that the Divine mind designed that this form should be hidden 
 from the eye made to admire beauty or that to copy its perfect out- 
 line can be opposed to His will. Hence everywhere that dress ia 
 most admired for its intrinsic beauty which most brings out and least 
 hides the contour of the entire form. This principle early prompted 
 the Greek artists to so general a study and representation of the 
 nude in art as to call forth Pliny's remark, "Grseca res est nihil 
 velare;" the Grecian method is to drape no figure. 
 
 The most spiritual of poets, philosophers and artists have agrees 
 that true and deep-seated morality is nurtured, instead of being 
 vitiated, by ideals of the male and female form presenting the 
 entire human figure in its nobleness and loveliness. This truth 
 Milton earnestly argues when picturing Adam and Eve seen by 
 angels and by Satan in their native perfection of form. The 
 profound Cousin says, "It is the property of beauty not to irri- 
 tate and inflame desire, but to purify and ennoble it. The 
 more beautiful a woman is, the more, at the sight of this noble 
 creature, is desire tempered by an exquisite and delicate sentiment; 
 and is sometimer even displayed by a disinterested worship. If 
 the Yenus of the Capitol, or the St. Cecilia, excite in you sensual 
 desires, you are not made to feel the beautiful." The most ad- 
 mired of all works of American sculpture is the Greek Slave of the 
 modest, sensitively chaste and humbly devout Powers. 
 
 Truth, beauty and goodness always go hand in hand. Tb 
 human frame must be studied, not only by the trained physician, 
 but also by educated youth of both sexes, that the sacred obligation 
 of care for a structure so delicate may be suitably felt. A kindred 
 study of this masterpiece for its beauty's sake has realized the fact 
 that the highest tone of morality always prevails where, under the 
 influence of cultured taste in art, youth of both sexes can together 
 admire such works as the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Bel- 
 
 E * 
 
106 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 videre, the Greek Slave of Powers and the Washington of Gree* 
 nough. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE SPECIAL INFLUENCE or RELIGIOUS CULTURE ON THB 
 
 SUBJECTS OF ART. 
 
 Pliny's statement that "the first statues made were images of 
 the gods," suggests a principle of universal truth. Among rude 
 African, Asiatic and American tribes, rude art is exhausted on 
 images and shrines for deities ; and in its progress through Western 
 Asia till it culminated in Greece, its highest efforts in every de- 
 partment were consecrated to religion. Under Christianity, too, 
 religion has given spring and guidance to the spirit of art. 
 
 The Old Testament forbade any graven image or likeness as an ob- 
 ject of religious reverence. Yet the whole ceremonial service of 
 the Old Testament required images wrought by art, and the Deity 
 made His presence known by the flame of the Shekinah on the 
 mercy-seat. The New Testament declares that God is a spirit to 
 be worshiped in spirit; yet the Christian religion has its prescribed 
 ordinances and forms of service addressing the eye and ear, and 
 teaches that no man can approach unto God, except through the 
 Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. It seems, therefore, a legitimate 
 conclusion that art is necessarily associated with spiritual Chris- 
 tianity. The fact that by their art-culture the Greeks were prepared 
 for a religion of such matchless harmony and beauty as the Chris- 
 tian system, while the Jews with the Old Testament prophecies 
 were not thus prepared, is proof that art was allied to the spirit of 
 the religion of Christ. 
 
 Under the Christian religion all other forms of art than the 
 plastic have their most legitimate and necessary emplo}^ and their 
 very highest development in connection with Christian worship. 
 Music was never so hallowed as when Jesus sang a hymn with his 
 disciples ; it was never so grand as in the pealing chorus of a thou- 
 sand Christian voices shouting their enthusiastic hymns of praise 
 to their Redeemer ; and it was never so perfect in melody and har- 
 mony as in tne sacred oratorios of Handel and Mozart. Poetr3 r , 
 too, never reached such a lofty strain as in the drama of Job, in 
 the lyrics of David, and in the epic of Isaiah and Habakkuk ; and 
 if the true genius of ancient Poesy lingers yet on earth, it is in the 
 souls of such men as Dante and Tasso, of Goethe and Schiller, of 
 
ART ALLIED TO SPIRITUAL RELIGION. 107 
 
 Milton and Moore, when, stirred by the fervor of Christian devo- 
 tion, the}' have poured forth those Christian melodies which will 
 outlive even Homer's Muse. Most of all, the histrionic art, yet 
 more akin to the plastic arts, never has had such masters as in 
 sacred eloquence. Paul the Tarsian, according to Longinus, sur- 
 passed Demosthenes in effective eloquence ; while the long line of 
 pulpit orators from Chrysostom, the "golden-mouthed," have 
 alone found a theme worthy the power of histrionic genius. 
 
 Moreover history shows that Christian culture has called fortli 
 thr highest perfection of plastic art in all three of its departments. 
 In Christian lands common utensils, dress and equipage have as- 
 sumed a special elaborateness controlled by chasteness. There are 
 no such aspirants for relics, for family portraits, and for adorned 
 burial-grounds as a Christian people. Yet more, among the most 
 scrupulous opposers of forms and rituals there is seen a demand, 
 which no community can resist, that the house for Christian wor- 
 ship keep pace with, if it do not outstrip in symmetry and elegance, 
 the private mansions that surround it. The singing of sacred 
 hymns by an irresistible influence takes on more and more of artistic 
 culture. The furniture and ornaments of the pulpit, the choir, the 
 altar and the communion-table, assume a constantly increasing 
 costliness of finish. And indeed the observing student that has 
 visited the mosques of Oriental Mohammedism, the synagogues of 
 ancient Judaism, and even the temples of the most formal and 
 sensual heathenism, returns to observe the fact everywhere press-- 
 ing itself on his notice in Christian lands, that plastic art never has 
 been called forth in such profusion of subjects and in such chastened 
 beauty and sublimity of conception and execution as in the accom- 
 paniments of Christian worship. 
 
 History too rightly interpreted settles the question as to the pro- 
 priety of representations in sculpture and painting of the man 
 Christ Jesus. The fact that no Grecian limner, sculptor or painter 
 of Christ's age has left in marble or on canvas his form Or features, 
 and that no inspired historian of his life has even given the least 
 hint by which a single lineament of either can be traced, is most 
 instructive in many respects ; but they manifestly err who take it 
 as an indication that no ideal of his person may be legitimately 
 conceived and executed with the pencil, the chisel, or the brush. 
 It was not designed that Jesus should be the representative of one 
 
108 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 family, nation, age, sex, class, condition, or type of mankind ; that 
 he should be recognized as Asiatic or European, as Jew or Greek, 
 Roman or Scythian, as a man of ancient or modern times, as of 
 civic or rustic aspect, as of reflective or practical mental cast, as of 
 mild or stern disposition, or as of sanguine or retiring temperament 
 Yet every Christian does and must form his own conception of 
 Christ's human aspect ; the preacher's glowing imagery is designed 
 to aid this conception ; and the artist's chisel and brush may serve, 
 too, the same end, Augustine, living in the fourth century, a man 
 whose religious experience after that of Paul the apostle is one of 
 the most instructive in history, thus writes: " What was his per- 
 sonal appearance we are entirely ignorant. For the features of the 
 Lord's fleshly nature are varied and sculptured according to the 
 innumerable diversity of individual conceptions ; which neverthe- 
 less were one, whatever they were. ' ' This statement, fully con- 
 firmed by early and later Christian writers, intimates first that very 
 varied representations of Jesus' personal form and features had 
 been conceived and executed by artists in the early days of Augus- 
 tine ; second, that the artist's ideal, like that of the private Chris- 
 tian, is for him and for all having kindred conceptions a true, be- 
 cause to such it is the real image of the perfect man ; and, third, 
 that these creations of high art were commended by the evangelical 
 spirit of primitive Christian times. 
 
 It should be specially remembered, that true art always tends to 
 spiritual conceptions. As Jarves has well remarked, "The works 
 of Raphael, as those of Phidias, never have been worshiped . . . 
 It is ugly and hideous associations that have always led to error 
 and idolatry." 
 
 SECT. 7. THE NATURE OF ART-STUDY AND THE SOURCES WHENCE 
 ITS LESSONS ARE TO BE DRAWN. 
 
 Education in art is needed for two classes of youth ; first, for 
 those of select genius who are to be artists ; and second, for the 
 general student who o'Ught to be an art-critic. Some, like Giotto 
 and West, are born to an intuitive power of conception and a sug- 
 gestive skill in execution, which enable them without study to 
 draw, mould, or color with surprising skill. Others as Socrates, 
 Winckelmann and Kames, are gifted with critical judgment and 
 logical power of thought arid expression which make them surpass 
 
STUDY OF NATURE AM) OF MAX. 109 
 
 the artist in conception and suggestion, so as to be his instructors 
 hi design and his criticb in < xecution ; but who fail in every effort 
 to put their own theories into practice. The studies requisite for 
 these two classes are in theory, in elementary principle, the same; 
 as the study of anatomy for youth designed for the legal, clerical 
 and medical professions is the same. The consideration of therse 
 elementary principles of art belongs to the field of Art Criticism ; 
 the after study of the professional school fills volumes of detail 
 and years of practice. 
 
 The three main sources of elementary Art Education are studies 
 of nature; of works of art, and of text-books. The study of nature 
 embraces three departments ; first, material creations, inorganic as 
 rocks, clouds and mountains, and organic as plant and annual 
 forms; second, spiritual beings and their attributes, embracing man 
 in all his variety of character and action ; and third, since both thr 
 previous classes are but effects, the study of causes prior and supt 
 rior to all finite material and spiritual existence, embracing espe- 
 cially the contemplation of the great First Cause, the Divine 
 Author of all. The study of works of art, again, involves not only 
 the employ of the eye on preserved works of antiquity and on pre- 
 sent collections, but the reconstruction before the mind's eye of 
 what history describes in words ; in which study the art-critic may 
 search only for principles, while the artist must scan and guess that 
 he may attain methods of execution. The study of text- books, yet 
 again, embraces the wise selection of books and the successful order 
 of topics examined. 
 
 The study of nature is the study of the true or of actual exist- 
 ences. The transition from Egyptian to Grecian sculpture seemed 
 an inspiration, because when Daedalus the early Greek sculptor 
 wished to make a Hercules or a hero, he stripped a brawny peasant 
 to his skin, and trained him to the bend of limb, the strain of 
 muscle and the position of features which mark action and passion. 
 Painting seemed in the revival of art in Italy to be angel touches, 
 because Giotto as a shepherd-boy loved to draw his own sheep, be 
 cause Lionardo would thread a crowd for weeks to select a face of 
 miserly sordidness that might give him a Judas, and because 
 Raphael drew his sweetest Mary with the babe Jesus on the head 
 of a wine cask as he gazed on the unstudied attitude and uncon- 
 scious expression of maternity seen in a simple peasant woman 
 10 
 
110 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 nuvsing her child. The truly admirable feature of Ruskin's pcpu 
 lar works on art is embodied in this paragraph: " The chief aim 
 and bent of my system is to obtain, first, a perfectly patient, and 
 to the utmost of the pupil's power, a delicate method of work ; 
 such as may ensure his seeing truly. For I am nearly convinced 
 that when once we see keenly enough there is very little difficulty 
 in drawing what we see ; but even supposing this difficulty to be 
 still great, I believe that the sight is a more important thing than 
 ihc drawing; and I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may 
 learn to love Nature than to teach the looking at Nature that they 
 may learn to draw. It is surely, also, a more important thing for 
 young people and unprofessional students to know how to appre- 
 ciate the art of others than to gain much power in art them- 
 selves. ' ' 
 
 The study of human nature, virtually the study of the good or of 
 what is adopted to man as he is, is equally important. Mankind 
 have intuitions that are right, and prejudices which maj 7 be wrong; 
 and the artist, as truly as the Iaw3 r er, the phj^sician, and the clergy- 
 man, will fail of satisfying his masters and patrons, the public, who 
 does not study to harmonize popular convictions by guiding rather 
 than insulting popular prejudices. Because Apelles paid just re- 
 Bpect to the people's judgment when he placed his finished pictures 
 in the window of his studio and put the extra stitch in the sandal 
 suggested by the cobbler, he could make bold, when the cobbler 
 criticised the ankle, to reply before an exacting Athenian popu- 
 lace, " Let the cobbler stick to his last." When Brahminic pride 
 of consistency compelled Egyptian artists to cramp all promptings 
 of improvement on the orthodox pattern of their statues and 
 temples, it was the true spirit of art which prompted Grecian 
 artists afterward to yield to this demand as to general form in the 
 purely Egyptian temple at Philse, in order that they might invest 
 the structure with a charm of grace which to this day makes the 
 rude Nubians call it " Es-soor-el-Anas el- Wogood, " the palace of 
 beautiful aspect. The artist who arrays himself against popular 
 opinions, allowing himself to grow out of sympathy with those for 
 whom as a servant he toils, is as truly opposing nature as he who 
 should set at defiance the laws of gravity. The true master on the 
 stormy ocean of human passions controls the inconstant and obsti- 
 
STUDY OF THE DIVINE BEING. Ill 
 
 nate sea by humoring the gale ; while at the same time he firmly 
 breasts the billows and pursues his own chosen path. 
 
 The study of Nature, again, is the study of its Author and of 
 right or duty to Him. The artist who thinks to copy the Divine 
 works without any knowledge of the Divine workman, is like one 
 who should attempt to copy a picture of Raphael without first 
 studying the artist. Socrates and Plato laid the foundation of 
 Grecian art by directing the contemplation of their pupils above 
 His works to the great Author of all that is true, beautiful, good 
 and right. The wondrous power of the great masters of Italy was 
 the religious spirit that pervades their works. Human nature 
 always has demanded, and, because man was made to adore and 
 serve his Maker, it always will demand, that the artist, as truly as 
 other public men, respect if he do not personally appreciate 
 their religious opinions. Yet more as the experience of Cicero led 
 him to declare, " That no man can be a successful orator unless he 
 is a good man," so the history of art proves that no artist can 
 be great who is not a religious man. 
 
 The study of the worlts of art produced by other nations has been 
 auxiliary to the study of nature in giving spring successively t( 
 Grecian, Roman, Italian, German, French, and English art. The 
 unburied statues gathered from ancient Greece and Italy, the col- 
 lections of the masters in modern painting, are the necessary com- 
 plement to the field of nature in the study of art. The one is the 
 gallery of finished works to give the artist models in design ; the 
 other the studio to unfold to hire methods of execution long tested. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 DRAWING: THE REPRESENTING OF FORMS ON A PLANE 
 SURFACE. 
 
 DRAWING is the first of the plastic arts to be acquired ; the 
 earliest amusement of the child. In the tombs of Egypt, the 
 artist's first work was the drawing in outline. The Book of Job, 
 the earliest written record, alludes to inscriptions "graven with a 
 pen of iron and lead in the rock. ' ' 
 
 Peale, in his ' ' Graphics, ' ' calls writing with the pen a branch 
 of drawing. The child prefers to try his originating skill in tho 
 pastime of drawing before he will consent to the slavish toil of 
 copying letters of fixed shape and size. 
 
 in tne practical execution of any single work in drawing the 
 order of study in the art is hinted. The master first traces me 
 outline of a principal figure ; he next adds a background 01 SUD- 
 ordinate figures, or of landscape ; his sketch is next multiplied in 
 engraved copies, or by the quick penciling of the sun's rays ; while 
 in all this work intelligent thought guides the true artist. Plane 
 and Perspective Drawing, Engraving, Photographing and Design 
 are, therefore, the leading studies in this department of art. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PLANE DRAWING; THE REPRESENTING OF FORMS AS LOCATED 
 IN A SINGLE PLANE. 
 
 PLANE drawing is the representing by lines of the form of ?.D 
 object upon a plane surface. It is sometimes called " Geometrical 
 Drawing," because the figures are drawn as in Geometry in tneir 
 112 
 
LINES AS FIRST LESSONS IN DRAWING. 113 
 
 actual proportions. As distinguished from drawing in perspective, 
 plane drawing is the representing one instead of many objects ; and 
 it is the delineation of that one object as if all its parts lay in one 
 plane at the same distance from the eye. 
 
 SECT. 1. LINES AS THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING. 
 
 TLo elements of drawing are lines either straight or curved. 
 The outline in all drawing is in straight or curved lines longer or 
 shorter; and the shading, however executed, is made up of combi- 
 nations of short straight lines or dots. 
 
 The first lessons in drawing are in straight lines. Three attain- 
 ments are here requisite for the pupil ; first, the practice essential 
 to the making of a straight line ; second, the combining of straight 
 lines in parallels and in angles; third, the combining of those 
 parallels and angles into figures of more or less sides. The shading 
 of an unvaried surface, as the clear sky or a level country, is in 
 parallel lines; while the varied configuration of clouds, mountains, 
 and broken country is executed in broken lines. The drawing of 
 geometrical figures, as regular polygons, in all conceivable attitudes 
 and of all dimensions, until the slightest deviation in each figure 
 from its correct shape and proportions can be detected, should 
 follow. No amount of time spent in this attainment can be mis- 
 employed ; as Lionardo da Vinci hints in his maxim, " Remember 
 to acquire accuracy before attempting quickness." 
 
 The second lessons in drawing are in curves. First, all the regu- 
 lar curves in the conic sections, as circles, ellipses, parabolas and 
 hyperbolas, should be copied till by a single sweep of the pencil 
 any one of them can be accurately delineated ; then every form of 
 irregular or broken curves may be attempted. Finally, the combi- 
 nation of these different curves in every variety of form and figure 
 which fancy may conceive should be executed with the pencil. 
 The design of these preliminary lessons is to enable the pupil, first, 
 to master all the combinations of lines possible ; second, to com- 
 prehend the modifications to which the outline of an object is sub- 
 jected by being viewed at every variety of angle and at different 
 listances from the observer. It is in the nice discrimination of 
 changes wrought by minute variations of position that character 
 for truth and beauty in drawing consists ; as a careful inspection 
 of engravings after wovks of the best masters strikingly illustrates. 
 10 * 
 
114 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The next lessons are in figures of natural objects ; in whose out- 
 line both straight and curved lines are united ; such as, first ordi- 
 nary utensils, cups and mechanics' tools ; then houses, fences and 
 other larger objects having regularly shaped figures. After these, 
 tho features of the human countenance and the parts of the human 
 form are the most instructive study ; first, the separate features 
 and parts of the body, as the nose, the eye, the hand, the foot ; 
 then their combination in heads and entire human figures, at first 
 nude, and afterward clothed in varied costume and drapery and in 
 different postures. Sir Joshua Reynolds makes this the first and 
 great study essential to success in the highest works of art ; and 
 he regards the secret of the grace and beauty seen in the finished 
 works of the ancients their "attentive and well-compared study of 
 the human form." In drawing the human features and figure, 
 models in nature and plaster casts made from nature, as hands> 
 feet, busts and complete statues, may be used. Leslie objects to 
 pupils drawing the human form too long from antiques or plaster 
 casts ; and cites Sir Joshua Reynolds' suggestion that students 
 begin very early to draw from life. 
 
 After the human figure those of animals, quadrupeds, birds, 
 fishes, and insects may be drawn ; while flowers, fruits, single 
 shrubs and trees should be made the last essays in single objects. 
 The executing of groups, as clumps of trees, ranges of buildings, 
 herds of cattle, near views of single trees with foliage worked up, 
 and finally of all the varied and extended combinations and com- 
 plications of the landscape, will be the crowning effort of the pencil. 
 
 In vegetable forms, the complicated interior, which in man and 
 in animals is hidden as in a case, is laid open to the eye, and must 
 with its convolutions be copied by the pencil. It is this delinea 
 tion, especially in landscape, in which Ruskin supposes the moderns 
 have excelled the ancients. This, however, is to be remembered. 
 The very exposure to the eye of the fixed forms and open work- 
 manship of the vegetable creation makes it but a work of secondary 
 skill to copy a flower ; while to conceive the ever-changing and 
 hidden swell and play of the human muscles is a profound study 
 and its execution most difficult. This indicates that the ancients, 
 who so highly excelled in the greater work, might have proved in 
 the easier field still more in advance of the moderns hod tl ey 
 turned their attention to landscape drawing. 
 
PROPOETION AND METHODS OF LEARNING. 115 
 
 SECT. 2. PROPORTION IN THE OUTLINE OF PLANE DRAWINGS. 
 
 Next to the executing of lines of a definite contour comes the 
 study of just proportions in the different parts of figures. Here 
 the work is two-fold ; first, the preserving of the respective size of 
 each part in a figure drawn in its natural dimensions ; second, the 
 securing of the proper enlargement or diminution in drawings made 
 upon an increased or reduced scale. To assist in first essays at 
 executing proportion, artificial aids may be for a time employed. 
 The old masters recommended laying off the parts, as in plotting, 
 by the dividers. Dr. Bell, the eminent writer on anatomy in its 
 relation to art, recommends the drawing of a network of parallel 
 lines over an engraving to be copied, or holding such a network 
 of threads between the eye and the object in nature to be copied. 
 As the astronomical observer measures the transit of a star by the 
 network of spider's web in the field of his instrument, as the map 
 drawer locates different sections of country by the parallels within 
 which they lie, and as the embroiderer has a network pattern to 
 follow, so the proportions of any object are most rapidly and dis- 
 tinctly learned by observing the squares in such a network in 
 which the different parts naturally fall. This method, as is seen in 
 the small ruined temple of Ombos near Syene, was employed by 
 Egyptian artists ; a network of fine lines being first traced over the 
 field of their work. All artificial resorts, however, are to be laid 
 aside when the pupil begins to draw ; and the eye must be trained 
 to be its own measurer. 
 
 In studying proportion the human figure most strikingly illus- 
 trates the extent to which the Creator has carried the law of inter- 
 measurement in the forms of beauty given us as models. Lionardo 
 makes the important remark : "In proportion the length of figures 
 is to be regarded more than their breadth ; for the proportionate 
 lengths of the different parts of the human frame vary very 
 slightly." The breadth and fullness of the human figure vary 
 greatly in the changes of life ; while the stature is fixed to the un 
 varying standard of the bony framework. In drawing all objects 
 in nature, Lionardo teaches that altitude should first be regarded ; 
 then its main proportions should be fixed ; after which the finish 
 of details may commence. 
 
 A second study in proportion relates to the scale of diminution 
 
116 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 in plane drawings made for different purposes, and of objects of 
 varied sizes. The study of natural objects will soon give such a 
 practical knowledge of the proportionate size of their parts that the 
 artist's hand will possess an almost magical skill in preserving the 
 scale of proportions he has adopted, whether the subject be a 
 mountain compressed into a miniature, or the leg of an insect 
 magnified by the microscope. The characteristic features, as well 
 as the beauties of every object, consist in its main proportions and 
 the distribution of its masses ; not in its mere accessories and 
 ornaments. 
 
 SKOT. 3. ELEMENTARY SHADING ; THE REPRESENTING OF THE THIRD 
 DIMENSION IN PLANE DRAWING. 
 
 In drawing, the outline first sketched gives no idea of the ro- 
 tundity of a figure. In nature the impression that a form observed 
 is a solid body arises from the shadows on its surface. The sun's 
 rays proceeding in parallel lines light up the parts of an object on 
 which, because unobstructed, they directly fall ; while the shaded 
 parts are those on which the rays do not directly strike because 
 they are interrupted by solid projections. The imitation of this 
 law of nature in drawing gives the penciled outline the aspect of 
 the real object. By Descriptive Geometry it may be determined 
 aside from observation what portions of an object will be shaded 
 in nature, and what parts of a drawing must therefore be shaded ; 
 but the habit of observation gives the artist the practical science 
 that enters into this art. 
 
 Methods of shading have differed in different eras, and in the 
 practice of different masters. Some ancient engravers covered the 
 shaded parts with a regular network of straight lines crossing each 
 other at angles of about eighty degrees. The method called 
 "hatching," from the French hacher, to hack or notch, accom- 
 plished by lines jutting in from the outlines like the drippings of 
 a hatchet upon the edge of a board, is appropriate in giving the 
 slopes of mountains. Ruskin refers to the fact, that Raphael and 
 Lionardo da Vinci shaded even rounded surfaces with shoit 
 straight lines ; and he regards this the mark of a great master. 
 The old German masters differed much in their style of shading ; 
 employing lines straight or curved, dots or rubbings of India ink, 
 of red or black crayon, as seemed best to suit their end; varying 
 
CHIAROSCURO OR GRADATION IN SHADE. 117 
 
 their method in works of different character: while, too. the same 
 artist had different styles for the same work at different periods of 
 life. Their great aim was to secure a resemblance to Nature by as 
 few lines as possible. 
 
 SECT. 4. CHIAROSCURO; THE GRADATION OF LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 In nature no shadow is completely dark. Rays of light falling 
 on objects, rough or polished, and having faces either perpendicular 
 or oblique to the illuminating beams, are reflected with more or less 
 completeness, according to the character of the surface, and in 
 directions corresponding to the inclination on which they fall. 
 Thus objects in nature have shades proportioned to the amount of 
 light they receive. This effect is illustrated when two lamps in the 
 same room cast each its own separate shadow of any form ; a half 
 shade being seen where the light of one only of the two lamps falls. 
 In the sunlight the number of counter lights from reflection is 
 without number, and the gradations are correspondingly numerous. 
 
 The Italian word chiaroscuro, or clear-obscure, designates this half 
 shade in nature and in drawing. Lionardo who, in the revival of 
 art in Italy, taught its principles, has the following suggestions: 
 "Observe well among the lights, which, and how many hold the 
 first rank in point of brightness ; and so among the shadows darker 
 than others. Observe, also, in what manner they blend together; 
 compare the quantity and quality of one with the other ; and ob- 
 serve to what part they are directed. Be careful also of your out- 
 lines, or divisions of the members. Remark well what quantity of 
 parts are to be on one side, and what on the other; and then where 
 they are more or less apparent, broad or slender. Lastly, take 
 care that the shadows and lights be united, or lost in each other ; 
 without any hard strokes or lines. As smoke loses itself in the air, 
 so are your lights and shadows to pass from one to the other with- 
 out any apparent separation." Ruskin enlarges on light touches 
 which give true shading in water and cloud ; the former requiring 
 delicate curves among the parallels to indicate shadows and ripples; 
 while to attain skill in the latter, he recommends his pupil to draw 
 a bunch of cotton placed in the rays of the sun. 
 
118 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE APPLICATIONS OF PLANE DRAWING. 
 
 The most important applications of plane drawing are found in 
 the mechanical arts and in surveying. The manufacturer of a chair 
 must first draw his pattern for a new fashion ; of which work the 
 patent agency furnishes an endless variety. The ordinary house- 
 builder must have a ground-plot plan of each story ; while the 
 finished architect requires elaborated sketches of every section of 
 interior and exterior details. 
 
 The business of the surveyor calls into requisition the same art. 
 The humblest farmer needs a plot of his fields, and the country 
 maiden of her flower-bed. To execute these skillfully requires the 
 theory derived from geometrical study, and practice with the draw- 
 ing-pencil. In the plotting of a field a mere outline is required. 
 In the mapping of a town, the outline, including the great high- 
 ways, is to be first laid down, as in the plot of a field ; and then the 
 varied delineation of roads, and water-courses, forests and open 
 fields, houses and other buildings is to be artifically represented 
 with the pencil. In ordinary maps the observer is regarded as 
 looking from above ; roads are represented by two parallel lines ; 
 railroads by two parallels with cross lines or bars ; unfinished rail- 
 roads by the absence of one of the side lines ; water courses by two 
 lines varying slightly from parallel with faint parallels between ; 
 plain land by dots sprinkled over the surface ; sheets of water by 
 faint parallels ; forests by involved curves representing tree tops ; 
 rocky lands by broken dark lines forming irregular figures ; dwell- 
 ing-houses by small parallelograms ; and public buildings by larger 
 parallelograms with dots for front columns or spire. In maps of a 
 more extended region, the parallels of latitude and the lines of 
 longitude are first drawn ; then the general outline of sea-coast, of 
 mountains, rivers and state limits ; and then the minuter delinea- 
 tions of towns, high-roads and lakes. The coast is marked by 
 short horizontal parallels projecting from it ; and mountains by a 
 dark-ribbed delineation following the track which water-courses 
 flowing from them would take. 
 
 In the representation of sections of railroad, and of the elevation 
 of a country above the water level, a view of a perpendicular face 
 is given. Upon a horizontal line perpendiculars of the proportion- 
 ate height and distance from each other are raised, and the outline 
 
PERSPECTIVE AND FORESHORTENING. 119 
 
 of the surface is drawn above in broken curves. Ledges of rock in 
 such outlines are represented by oblique parallels, water-channels 
 by fine horizontal parallels, sand by fine dots, and gravel by coarse 
 dots. 
 
 The proportion as to size between the object and the drawing is 
 in mechanical drawings from one-fourth to one-eighth of the natural 
 object ; in architectural drawings one-fourth of an inch to a foot ; 
 and in maps and plots, a given number of inches to a rod, a chain 
 or a mile. In the U. S. Coast Survey, the proportions in mapping 
 are expressed in fixed decimals ; varying according to the size of 
 the chart from the proportion of 1 to 5000, up to that of 1 to 
 400,000. In the engineer service, the proportion for plans of 
 buildings is 1 to 120 ; of railroad sections 1 to GOO ; of maps of an 
 extended country 1 to 2640, or two feet to a mile ; the scale en- 
 larging with the extent of surface. The rule for shading the slopes 
 of hills and mountains is for a descent of 75, nine of black to 
 one of white, and thence decreasing to a slope of but 2 30 m., 
 where the proportion is one of black to ten of white. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PERSPECTIVE DRAWING; THE REPRESENTING OF FORMS LOCATED 
 IN PLANES MORE OR LESS REMOTE. 
 
 IN Plane Drawing the parts of an object are represented as they 
 appear when . the eye is equally distant from every part. In Per- 
 spective Drawing the parts of an object more distant from the 
 iye are represented as diminished in size according to their re 
 inoteness. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE NATURE OF PERSPECTIVE, AND OF FORESHORTENING. 
 
 The term "perspective" means looking through. In a per- 
 spective drawing there is added to a plane drawing in the fore- 
 ground a lengthened view of objects in the background. The law 
 of perspective in nature is, that objects diminish in size as their 
 distance from the eye increases. This arises from the law of optics, 
 
120 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 that the angle of vision filled by a small object near the eye takes 
 in objects however large within its range in the distance ; and also 
 on the correspondent geometrical law, that in triangles the angle 
 opposite to a side of fixed length diminishes in proportion as the 
 length of the sides containing it are increased. 
 
 A simple method of illustrating to the eye perspective in nature 
 is to look at a landscape through a network of lines crossing each 
 oilier at equal distances; when the largest object in the distance 
 will be seen to fill a square no larger than that occupied by a small 
 objoct near the eye. A simple method of assuring the eye of the 
 geometrical law of diminution is to look at any object, as a man, 
 across the edge of a graduated ruler ; when the form which covers 
 ten inches near the eye will be seen to cover but five inches at 
 double that distance. An easy method of accustoming the hand to 
 trace correctly the proportions of objects in perspective, one recom- 
 mended by the ablest masters and repeated by Ruskin, is to hold a 
 pane of glass between the eye and the landscape, and to trace with 
 the pencil upon the glass the outline of a row of trees, or other 
 similar objects. As this diminution of the proportions of a retreat- 
 ing object exists in two dimensions, length and breadth, or in both 
 the vertical and horizontal axes of the field of vision, the propor- 
 tions of an object diminish as the square of the distance increases. 
 The law of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism is the same, 
 since their force issuing from a centre goes out in space enlarging 
 in two dimensions. 
 
 Plane and Perspective Drawing are distinct in the end they pro- 
 pose, as well as in their method. Plane drawing is designed to 
 represent only the face of an object, as a model of a machine or the 
 front of a house, to be a guide to a workman. The eye in execut- 
 ing the drawing is supposed to move and to place itself at the same 
 distance from each part of the figure ; as the workman moves his 
 position in executing each part of his work. In a plane drawing, 
 therefore, all lines are parallel in the model of the draftsman which 
 are parallel in the object itself; this representation being essential 
 for the mechanic. Perspective drawing is designed to represent dis- 
 tant and near objects as they appear to the eye from one fixed point 
 of view. Lines therefore which in nature are parallel, as the tops 
 and bottoms of a row of trees, the eaves and sills of a house, or the 
 iside-walks of a street, are made to converge in the drawing toward 
 
METHODS OF ILLUSTRATING PERSPECTIVE. . 21 
 
 a point where they meet each other in the picture as they apj ar- 
 ently meet on the horizon in nature. 
 
 The drawing in perspective of the parts of an object near the eye 
 but oblique to its line of vision, called u foreshortening," is the 
 most difficult work in the art of drawing. The effect of oblique 
 vision is illustrated by turning a pencil about from a perpendicular 
 through an arc of 90, and observing its aspect in changing from 
 the long cylinder of its entire length to the mere circle of its end. 
 To copy with the pencil these changes requires the highest skill in 
 the art of drawing. Foreshortening is required in drawing the 
 leg of a person seated, or an arm projecting obliquely; in. sketching 
 animals with their limbs or bodies advanced toward the beholder ; 
 also in a landscape drawing where trees or other objects are leaning 
 in different directions. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE PRACTICAL EXECUTION or DRAWING IN PERSPECTIVE ; 
 
 AND ARTIFICIAL METHODS OF ILLUSTRATING ITS PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Teachers of art suggest that the first lessons of the student in 
 perspective be the copying of the best engravings to acquire the 
 method of the engraver in the execution of perspective. Proceed- 
 ing then to nature, the first attempts should be made in delineating 
 the faces of objects with regular straight sides, as a cubic block, a 
 house with its windows, or a door standing open at different angles ; 
 the eye looking at the more remote over the equal side nearer the 
 observer. The drawing of the top of a cup or drinking glass, 
 placed at different angles to the eye, gives practice in tracing 
 curves in perspective. These lessons in single objects may be fol- 
 lowed by drawing regular rows of trees and houses and chairs ; 
 then rows of animals and men. As a last study portions of land- 
 scape more and more extended may be attempted. 
 
 Pietro di Borgo, the earliest modern writer on the science, sug- 
 gested the tracing of perspective on glass held between the eye and 
 the landscape ; a suggestion approved by Ruskin. Albert Durer 
 constructed a machine which could be adjusted so as directly to 
 measure the proportions of objects seen in perspective. Other 
 teachers have suggested the holding of a thin paper on which the 
 drawing is to be taken again and again before the eyes, and looking 
 at the line of objects across the edge till their proportionate height 
 and breadth compared with that of the drawing paper is fixed. 
 11 F 
 
122 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Yet others have recommended the use of a jointed ruler, opening 
 with its hinge farthest from the eye, so that its sides sloping to an 
 angle shall take in and range with the perspective lines of the 
 objects to be copied ; when, by placing the ruler on the drawing 
 paper and tracing lines along the inside of the arms till they meet 
 at the joint of the ruler, rows of houses, trees or other objects: may 
 be drawn of their altitude in perspective. The eye, however, 
 .should soon come to be its own measurer in fixing and following the 
 perspective lines ; as in plane drawing, the eye must learn to 
 measure the proportions of objects drawn after a given scale. 
 
 SKCT. 3. THE LINES AND POINTS TO BE FIRST FIXED IN PERSPEC- 
 TIVE DRAWING. 
 
 In perspective drawing the horizontal line, toward which all 
 lines above and below the observer slope, is to be first fixed. In 
 nature the line of the " horizon," a term derived from the Greek 
 verb "horizo" to limit, is .at the remotest point visible where the 
 sky and earth seem to meet. In a long hall or street, as well as in 
 the landscape and the canopy of sky, all lines above and below 
 seem to slope downward and upward to this common line. The 
 science of perspective teaches the method of copying in a drawing 
 made with the pencil this law of vision. 
 
 To aid in fixing this line Lionardo gave this rule: "The point 
 of sight must be taken on a level with the eyes of a common man, 
 and be placed upon the horizon ; which is the line formed by a flat 
 country terminating with the sky." As that level is about five feet 
 above the general surface, and as most objects, houses, trees, hills 
 and mountains are above the artist's eye, the horizontal line in 
 most perspective views is placed near the bottom of the picture. 
 The bird, however, unlike man, soars above the earth ; and there 
 is more below than above his horizon. In taking a view from a 
 mountain top, from a lofty rock, or from an elevated steeple, the 
 artist occupies the position of the bird ; and hence is said to take a 
 " bird's-eye view." In general, the elevation, supposed or real, of 
 the artist's stand-point while taking a view, determines the height 
 on the picture of the horizontal line. In views of the interior of 
 an elevated edifice, as a cathedral, the height of the horizontal 
 line is about one-tenth of the distance from the bottom to the top 
 of the picture ; in architectural exterior views of houses, street*, 
 
VANISHING AND DISTANCE POINTS. 123 
 
 one-sixth ; in extended landscapes one-third or one-fourth ; in 
 domestic scenes one-half or one-third; and in historical paintings, 
 where a limited view from an elevated position is taken, about 
 three-fifths of the same distance. 
 
 In landscape the Flemish artists, accustomed to the lowlands of 
 Holland, have fixed the line of their horizon very low ; while Swiss* 
 Scotch, and Italian painters in a mountain region have followed an 
 opposite rule. In the period previous to Raphael, the horizontal 
 line was often fixed at the extreme height of four-fifths, and even 
 of nine-tenths of the altitude of the picture, thus giving to their 
 works the aspect of bird's-eye views, and precluding the execution 
 of landscape proper. The design of this method was to furnish a 
 large field for the front view and action ; thus leaving little for the 
 background and the repose of the picture. In general the hori- 
 zontal line in a perspective view is placed higher or lower on tho 
 picture according to the height of the artist's elevation, or to tho 
 extent of the field of action embraced in his design. 
 
 After the horizontal line, the point on that line called "tho 
 vanishing-point," is to be fixed. As lines above and below the eyo 
 seem in the distance to converge to a horizontal line, so lines on 
 either side of the eye seem to converge from either hand to a per- 
 pendicular line ; and these two combined effects make the seeming 
 convergence tend to one point. This point, called the vanishing- 
 point, is on the horizontal line at the point immediately before the eyo 
 of the artist, whence he can take in the whole of his picture with- 
 out turning his head. In any drawing there may be subsidiary 
 vanishing-points to which the lines of certain portions of the picture 
 converge; points located within the picture, or without it, on 
 either side ; but all lying in the horizontal line prolonged. The 
 principal vanishing-point is the one to which all lines parallel to tho 
 line of vision tend ; as the walls of a hall, the sides of a street or 
 valley within which the artist is located. It will be either at the 
 centre of the picture, or, as the artist works with his right hand, a 
 little to the left of his main standing-point. In the " Last Sup- 
 per" of Lionardo, the principal vanishing-point is at the eye of 
 Christ in the very centre of the group. In subsidiary parts of the 
 picture, as in the ends of buildings whose fronts tend to the princi- 
 pal vanishing-point, and in all objects at either side of the line of 
 vision, the convergence of parallels in the object is to points on the 
 
124 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 horizon toward which those parallels are directed. In a perspec- 
 tive view of a hall, the fronts of chairs and benches ranged on either 
 side would converge to the principal, and their sides to a common 
 subsidiary vanishing-point ; but articles of furniture standing ob- 
 liquely must have each its own separate vanishing-point. The 
 same is true to a greater extent in a large field with many figures. 
 
 The distance-point or eye-point is the opposite of the vanishing- 
 point ' the point without and in front of the picture, to which the 
 lines of light coming from each of its parts to the eye of the be- 
 holder also converge. The artist constructs his work with the de- 
 sign that it be viewed from his own fixed point of view in front of 
 the picture, and at a certain distance. Its distance in front of the 
 picture must be such that every part of the picture without the 
 turning of the eye will fall within the angle of vision. Ruskin says 
 to young artists : "First fix the station-point, or distance at which 
 you will stand from your picture." Lionardo gives these direc- 
 tions: "Remember that objects diminish in size as distance in- 
 creases. In calculating this diminution, stand at twice the length 
 of your picture from it. Remember that if you vary your distance, 
 you vary the rate of diminution. It must be one point, not only in 
 distance, but also in elevation and laterally. It should be on a 
 level with the eye of a man of ordinary stature." The practical 
 effect of an error in this respect is seen in photographs when one 
 part of the person, as a hand, is advanced in front of the other 
 parts. Raphael's chosen distance for the eye of the beholder was 
 one and one-half the breadth of his picture. Some objects, how- 
 ever, require three lengths of the picture as the distance of the 
 eye-point ; the larger dimension, whether height or breadth, being 
 the one to regard. In all cases it should be the point where the 
 field of vision takes in at a single glance, and without the, turning 
 *>f the eye, the entire picture ; while at the same time the eye can 
 be directed to each separate part of the picture without the turn- 
 ing of the head. 
 
 The skill of the artist in the selection of " eye-points" is magical 
 in the illusion of frescoed walls and ceilings, which seem to open 
 outward to the living landscape, and upward to the floating clouds, 
 in which, however, the illusion fails and the enchantment is lost, 
 unless viewed from the proper point. 
 
GEOMETRICAL EXECUTION OF PERSPECTIVE. 125 
 
 SECT. 4. PRINCIPLES OP DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY AND PROJECTION 
 ENTERING INTO PERSPECTIVE DRAWING. 
 
 Though genius for art may enable the pupil to become practi- 
 cally efficient in executing perspective, yet a knowledge of the 
 science that enters into the art is most important to the artist, and 
 all important to the amateur who has little or no time for practice. 
 A brief reference to the leading applications of geometrical science 
 to perspective is therefore requisite. 
 
 Descriptive Geometry presents the laws for representing with 
 mathematical accuracy the visual appearance of objects having 
 three dimensions on a plane having but two dimensions. This 
 representation is called the projection of an object ; and the plane on 
 which it is executed is called the plane of projection , or the perspec- 
 tive plane. Every portion of the thicJcness of an object viewed in 
 front of the eye lies in one of a series of vertical planes, or of planes 
 perpendicular to the line of vision ; and every portion of the height 
 of the same object also lies in a series of horizontal planes, or of 
 planes parallel to the line of vision. In projection, all the parts 
 of an object are referred to two planes called the vertical and the 
 horizontal ; and the artist is obliged to transfer the representations 
 upon both these planes to the one plane of projection or of per- 
 spective. 
 
 Descriptive Geometry treats first of the methods of projecting on 
 the plane of the drawing single objects with straight or curved 
 lines, as their contour ; second, of drawing straight lines and plane 
 surfaces as tangents to curved lines and curved surfaces, such as 
 circles and spheres, ellipses and ellipsoids ; and third, the method of 
 representing the intersections of various bodies bounded by curved 
 lines, as cylinders, cones, etc. , which cut each other. 
 
 To illustrate the first principle, a book set upon its edge on a 
 table may represent the vertical, while the table represents the 
 horizontal plane. If a pencil be held between the eye and these 
 two planes its trace will be straight or bent according as it falls 
 in one or both planes. A coin thus held is but a line upon the 
 vertical plane when viewed horizontally ; it is a circle on the hori- 
 zontal plane when viewed from above ; and it is an ellipse of greater 
 nr less eccentricity when viewed from any point between the vertical 
 and horizontal positions. The eye, trained to this observation with 
 11 
 
126 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the two planes, learns to trace any visual aspect of an object on the 
 single plane of the drawing. 
 
 The second principle may be thus illustrated. On a sheet of tin 
 the sun's rays are reflected from every point of the surface at the 
 same angle. Upon a cylindrical tube, however, the observed re- 
 flection will be a single narrow line of light extending from top to 
 bottom ; while upon a globe it will be but a single circular bright 
 spot ; and upon an ellipsoid of a corresponding shape. Thus the 
 bright spot called the white of the eye, indicates by its location the 
 direction in which the eye is turned. The point on the sphere, and 
 the line on the cylinder where the reflection is seen, is the poi tion 
 of the curved surface which would be touched by a plane made 
 tangent to that surface. Lionardo treats at length of the applica- 
 tions of this principle in drawing and in sculpture. 
 
 The third principle may be observed in the juncture of the stones 
 in an arch, or in the joinings of mouldings in the ornamental carved 
 work of doors; whose difficult attainment has made the name 
 "joiner" the designation of a profession in the mechanic arts. 
 The power to draw the appearance of such junctures, and that at 
 every conceivable angle, is only acquired after long practice ; while 
 the method in theory can only be learned by careful study of 
 Descriptive Geometry. 
 
 As the plotting of maps of a limited extent of country, supposed 
 to be a plane surface, belongs to Plane Drawing, so the plotting 
 of an extended region as of a hemisphere, in which the 
 sphericity of the globe must be regarded, requires the application 
 of the principles of Perspective and of Descriptive Geometry. 
 The Greeks employed for this three methods. The first, called 
 anciently analemma, but now orthographic, supposes the e3 r e of the 
 beholder, as in viewing the moon's surface, at a distance relatively 
 infinite. In the second, styled gnomonic, the eye is located at the 
 centre of the sphere whose opposite hemisphere is projected. In 
 the third, invented by Hipparchus, and called by him plan isphere, 
 and used afterward by Ptolemy, the lioruan, and by the Arabian 
 geographers, the eye of the plotter is in the surface of the sphere 
 at the upper pole of the globe whose lower half is copied. A 
 fourth method, unknown to the ancients, places the eye on tha 
 axis of the hemisphere to be plotted, and at a distance above it 
 such that lines from the eye to its surface shall cut the upper sur- 
 
TRIGONOMETRIC LAWS OF PERSPECTIVE. 127 
 
 face of the hemisphere, which is the plane of projection, half-way 
 from its centre to its circumference, and at the same time cut the 
 hemisphere to be projected half-way from its nadir to its horizon. 
 To these four methods of projection that of Mercator has been more 
 recently added. 
 
 RECT. 5. THE PRINCIPLES OF TRIGONOMETRY AND OF OPTICS AS 
 THEY RELATE TO PERSPECTIVE DRAWING. 
 
 Trigonometry treats of the relation of sides and angles in triangles, 
 by means of which the size and distance of remote objects are de- 
 termined. Optics states the laws of the reflection and refraction of 
 light as they relate to human vision. 
 
 The artist is called to observe especially three points ; the dimi- 
 nution of objects in size according to distance, their different 
 shadings as dependent on the laws of the reflection of light, and 
 the distorted appearance of objects seen through a medium that 
 refracts light. The first of these is associated with Plane Geometry, 
 the second with Descriptive Geometry, and the third has a relation 
 to color which connects it with painting. 
 
 The law of the diminution of objects is associated with that of 
 the distance point. The angle of distinct vision covers about 30 
 in a vertical, and 45 in a horizontal direction ; the chord of the 
 former arc is about one-half, and of the latter about two-thirds of 
 the radius; and hence an object having a breadth one-half greatei 
 than its height fills that angle at a distance of twice its height. A 
 picture two feet in height, and three feet in breadth, fills the eye 
 at a distance of six feet; and since a mountain three miles high, 
 four and a-half miles broad at the base and at a distance of ten 
 miles is seen through the frame of such a picture without the 
 canvas, the mountain and all the intervening country can be 
 brought into the field of that canvas. 
 
 By the law of reflection a ray of light is bent back at an angle 
 equal to that at which it falls upon the reflecting surface. The 
 form of Mont Blanc, rising four miles high, about forty miles 
 south of Geneva, can be seen reflected on the bosom of Lake 
 Leman, near that city, by a person on its northern bank. The 
 student of perspective learns by observation that every object in 
 nature, even a cloud, is a reflecting surface ; that every body with 
 several faces throws back light upoa objects around it from each 
 
128 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of its sides that the angle of each reflection is fixed ; and that the 
 intensity of the light reflected is always proportional to the smooth- 
 ness or polish of the reflecting surface, and to the clearness of the 
 atmosphere through which it passes. 
 
 The phenomena of refraction had been observed by the oldest 
 painters. The early Egyptian and rude Chinese artists remarked 
 that the rays of light are bent downward as they pierce a surface 
 of water ; so that the foot of a man or animal seen in water sec 'iis 
 raised, and his leg shortened from the point where it enters the 
 water. The Grecian sculptors understood that objects seen through 
 vapor, especially white objects, appear colossal ; chiefly, indeed, 
 from dimness of outline, which makes them seem more distant 
 and therefore larger ; but partly also, as Lionardo has demonstrated, 
 from the law of refraction. 
 
 The careful study of the laws of Trigonometry and of Optics is 
 essential to the successful practice of the artist's profession; for 
 though genius in art seems intuitively to catch from observation of 
 nature the laws of perspective, it will fail in some of their apx>r i- 
 tions if not master of their theory. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE PERSPECTIVE or SHADOWS. 
 
 Shadows in Perspective Drawing are to be distinguished irr i 
 shades in Plane Drawing. A shade is the darkened portion of i 
 object from which the light is cut off; a shadow is the indefinite*/ 
 prolonged space behind an opaque object and in the line of rays of 
 light intercepted by it. The west side of a house is shaded when 
 the sun is rising ; while the shadow of the house is cast, for miles 
 even, westward on a line of objects from which it cuts off the sun's 
 rays. The dark portion of the moon is shaded by its own body 
 cutting off the sun's rays ; while mountain peaks cast shadows on 
 other peaks in their rear. 
 
 To represent shadows in perspective correctly three things must 
 be observed ; first, the position of the luminary ; second, that of the 
 object illuminated ; and third, that of the observer. The position 
 of the luminary may be in front of the observer and back of the 
 object, and thus the shadow be cast toward him ; or the luminary 
 may be behind him and the shadow of the object be behind the 
 object; or the luminary may be at the observer's right or left, and 
 the shadow therefore fall at his opposite hand. 
 
PERSPECTIVE OF SHADOWS. 129 
 
 The important laws of shadows as they relate to perspective are 
 the following. The depth or darkness of shadows is in proportion 
 to the amount of light of which they are deprived compared with 
 that which illuminates other objects ; shadows in sunlight being 
 really lighter than in moonlight, while nevertheless they are com- 
 paratively darker. The shape of a shadow is of the form of the 
 object ; either a cone converging to its apex, or a cone diverging 
 toward its base, or a cylinder of equal dimensions throughout, 
 according as the luminous centre compared with the object casting 
 the shadow is of greater, less, or equal size. The size of a shadow 
 at any given point will depend on the relative size of the luminous 
 point as compared with the object casting the shadow, and also 
 upon the distance between the object and the shaded spot as com- 
 pared with the distance between the object and the luminous centre ; 
 the shadows from objects on the earth as men and trees being sub- 
 stantially of the same size as the objects themselves when cast on a 
 wall near by, because though the size of the sun is immensely 
 greater than that of a man on the earth, yet its distance from the 
 man as compared with his distance from the wall is equally im- 
 mense. The length of shadows is dependent on the same causes 
 as its size ; the shadow of the moon being shorter than that of the 
 earth in eclipses ; as may be illustrated by letting the shadow of a 
 book larger or smaller, held before a window in bright sunlight, 
 fall on a sheet of white paper. The number of shadows cast by 
 an object depends upon the number of centres of light, whether 
 of the sun or moon, or of one or more lamps added to the number 
 of reflecting surfaces, as of mirrors, smooth waters and polished 
 walls, from which light is reflected. 
 
 It is mainly by skillful copying of the contrasts of light and 
 shade in nature that the pencil or brush can make an object seem 
 to stand out from the canvas as real. The artist must, therefore, 
 avail himself of a time when, and of a point of view where, the most 
 advantage can be taken of the lights and shadows in nature. In 
 portrait painting a position in which the light falls on the counte- 
 nance at an angle of about 45 from above and at one side is most 
 favorable. In landscape, noonday short shadows give the impres- 
 sion of languor, the morning and evening long shadows of delight- 
 ful repose, while the medium shadows of midforenoon and after- 
 
 F* 
 
130 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 noon furnish the strong contrasts of light and shade essential to the 
 highest relief and action. 
 
 In tracing shadows in an enclosed room it must be observed that 
 the lines of light are parallel to each other coming through a 
 window from the sun, but diverge when the luminous centre is 
 Binall, as a lamp's light or an aperture in a window. In shadows 
 thrown upon a horizontal plane, as the floor of a room or the sur- 
 face of the earth, an oblique section of the cylinder or cone of 
 shadow is to be traced; prolonged in length but unchanged in 
 breadth. When the shadow of an object falls on a broken surface 
 and upon objects of greater or less height than itself, the nicest .care 
 is requisite that the cylinder of shade follow its true line in nature 
 and cast a shade of truly proportionate height or length, or of the 
 precise breadth of the object on every other object or part of an 
 object behind it. Ruskin specially suggests that though the shad- 
 ing of water is in the main to be made by parallel lines, yet great 
 skill is requisite in varying the depth of shade according to the 
 shadows falling on the water, and also to insert the broken curves 
 which indicate the outline of shadows on its face when smooth, or 
 the ripples upon it where it is ruffled. 
 
 SECT. 7. AERIAL PERSPECTIVE, AND ITS RELATION TO CHIAROSCURO. 
 
 Distance not only diminishes the size but also obscures the dis- 
 tinctness of objects. Linear perspective relates to the due diminu- 
 tion of outline in drawing distant objects. The accurate gradation 
 of distinctness in the shading of distant objects belongs to the 
 province of aerial perspective. It is called "aerial" perspective 
 because the air, whether clear or hazy, has even more influence 
 than distance in rendering a remote object indistinct ; as is wit- 
 nessed in the clear atmosphere after a shower of rain. 
 
 The shading of a single object demands a practical acquaintance 
 with the principles of chiaroscuro ; otherwise the jutting corners 
 and retiring indentations of an object with plane surfaces cannot 
 be represented to the eye ; and still less can the rounding of curved 
 surfaces be so pictured that the alternate swell of the convex and 
 depression of the concave will be made to stand out as in the object 
 itself. In perspective a second end is to be attained. The known 
 size of a man, a house, or a tree makes the proportion of their 
 diminution in a background the measure of their distance. On tbe 
 
CURVILINEAR PERSPECTIVE. 131 
 
 Dther hand, a cliff, a river, a mountain or a cloud has no fixed 
 size ; and therefore the space it is made to occupy in the drawing 
 is not at all an indication of its distance. It requires a long train- 
 ing of the eye to determine the distance of such objects in the land- 
 scape by their peculiar tinge or shade ; so that by the distant blue 
 or the deep black, the beholder is able to judge rightly of the miles 
 that intervene between the eye and the mountain, and to define 
 the shape and the depth of the valleys on its side. It is only the 
 practised huntsman on the prairie, or sailor on the ocean, that 
 forms a just judgment of aerial perspective as it exists in nature. 
 The artist has a double task ; first, to learn by careful observation, 
 and then to copy the aerial tinges of the landscape. 
 
 As aerial aspects vary with each alternate atmospheric change, 
 BO aerial perspective is a distinct and new study in every different 
 country and climate. As in one's own clime the distant hills look 
 nearer of a morning after a long storm, so the Englishman or Hol- 
 lander, accustomed to a murky, hazy or foggy sky, has no standard 
 for measuring distances in the clear atmosphere of the American 
 prairie, of the desert about Egypt, or of the sunny plains of Italy. 
 The artists of England and Holland who have never dreamed of the 
 bright yellow preponderating in the green of a Southern clime, and 
 of seeing the moon's dark side on a clear night, must be a school 
 distinct from the Italian, the American, and even the French, in 
 landscape sketching; since the "aerial perspective" they have 
 studied is so different. 
 
 SECT. 8. CURVILINEAR PERSPECTIVE; AND THE RELATION WHICH 
 THE ACTUAL CURVE OF PERSPECTIVE LINES IN NATURE HAS TO 
 
 THEIR REPRESENTATION IN DRAWING. 
 
 In the Creator's handiwork, in flower, leaf, fruit, twig, branch, 
 and even in the sloping height as well as the rounded sides of the 
 tree trunk, in hill and vale, in mountain top and cloud, in the form 
 of the round world and of the " grand o'erhanging canopy" of the 
 vaulted sky, there is not, perhaps, a purely straight line to be met; 
 while the human form, the masterpiece of beauty, has its myriad 
 forms of grace wrought out in lines of varied curvature. The 
 Greeks in their best works of architecture followed this hint of 
 natu e ; for in the Parthenon there is not a single purely straight 
 line. 
 
132 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 In nature, too, all lines in themselves straight are in thei. pi 
 spective view curved. In the photograph, which copies the lin , i 
 of a long building as we actually see them, we detect in the copy 
 the fact which we overlook in nature. Careful attention indicates 
 that the floor of an extended hall appears to rise in a slightly curved 
 line ; as every line in the landscape and the vaulted sky seems also 
 curved. By the law of vision every point of each line in perspec- 
 tive is not only raised to a horizontal plane nearer the eye, but 
 every point is by this very fact also drawn inward to a vertical 
 plane nearer the eye ; hence giving a curved appearance to the 
 perspective line. This law is observed in all mountain and balloor 
 views; from which elevated points the landscape appears as a 
 hollow basin. In drawings upon a small scale, this curvature is so 
 minute that it need not be taken into account ; yet nature herself, 
 the only perfect artist, does even in the smallest picture taken by 
 her pencil of light, strictly regard her own law, that the curved line 
 is the line of truth, if it be not the line of beauty. 
 
 The law of Curvilinear Perspective may be demonstrated by the 
 principles of Geometry and of Optics ; arid the precise measure of 
 this curvature may be fixed by the Calculus. Suppose the observer 
 to be standing at a distance of 200 feet in front of the centre of a 
 symmetrical building 100 feet long and 40 feet high. It is mani- 
 fest while the centre of the front of the building is precisely 200 
 feet from his eye, each line in the remaining portions of that front, 
 as he looks from the centre toward either end, is more than 200 
 feet from his eye ; the ends of the building being about 206 feet 
 distant. As now the space which an object occupies in the angle 
 of vision is less in proportion to its distance from the eye, the appar- 
 ent height of the building should be about one-thirtieth less at 
 the ends than at the centre. In ordinary vision the knowledge 
 that the building line is straight irresistibly overcomes the impres- 
 sion on the eye ; but the photograph dissolves self-deception ; and 
 instead of a straight horizontal line it shows a curved line arching 
 upward. 
 
 The same law applies to the horizontal lines in the building. 
 The one five feet above the ground is at its centre 200 feet from 
 the eye. The line, however, running along the top of the building, 
 is about 203 feet at its centre from the eye ; an 1 must, therefore, 
 be shorter in appearance than the lower line. Thus tho vertical 
 
THE LAW OF CURVILINEAR PERSPECTIVE. 133 
 
 lines at either end of the building seem to slope inward as they 
 rise ; which slope the photograph makes a curve. It is equally 
 manifest that every line or part of a line out of the centre of view, 
 above or below, at the right or the left of the eye on the face of the 
 building, will be correspondingly curved. 
 
 This general curvature makes the face of a broad surface seem 
 to be a hollowed curve ; the surface of a lake or plain, of a broad 
 ceiling or of the heavens, appearing to be concave toward the. 
 beholder. The apparent cause of this aspect may be thus illus- 
 trated. When a company of men all known to be of equal stature, 
 stand in a line, the observer unconsciously ascribes to the men at 
 the extremes of the line the same size as to those at the centre ; 
 and hence regards them as at equal distance. The full effect of 
 this illusion would bring the line into the form of an arc of a ciicle; 
 whence the former designation of "circular perspective." The 
 eye, however, does in part correct the illusion of the mind ; and the 
 name "curvilinear perspective" is truer to the fact. 
 
 By the simplest principles of geometry and of the calculus the 
 law of this curve and the rate of its curvature are ascertained ; and 
 it can be laid off readily from the elements thus obtained. Sup- 
 pose lines drawn from the eye to different points upon the horizon- 
 tal line immediately before the eye on the front of the building 
 above mentioned ; the first line to the point immediately before 
 the eye, the second ten feet to the left of this point, the third 
 twenty feet, the fourth thirty feet, the fifth forty t'eet, and the 
 sixth to the end of the building on the left, fifty feet of course from 
 the centre. The first of these lines is now the altitude of a right- 
 angled triangle ; while the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth 
 lines will each be a hypothenuse of a series of right-angled triangles 
 with bases severally of ten, twenty, thirty, forty and fifty feet. 
 Each hypothenuse is the distance of the eye from the vertical line 
 running from the top to the bottom of the building at its extremity , 
 the length in perspective of each vertical line is proportional to the 
 length of the corresponding hypothenuse ; and the length of each 
 hypothenuse is found by squaring the altitude and base, adding 
 these squares, and extracting the square root of the sum. The 
 curve may be drawn by laying off on an abscissa ordinates which 
 shall be to each other inversely as the square root of the sum of 
 the squares of two quantities', one of which is fixed, while the other 
 12 
 
134 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 increases at the same rate as that abscissa. The curve may be 
 traced through the termini of these ordinates thus laid off. 1 
 
 It is only in very recent times that the execution of perspective 
 in extended landscape is giving practical value to these principles 
 long observed. Tibaldi, a leading master in the Bolognese school, 
 wrote three centuries ago, "The horizon of nature is a circular 
 line ; but this line drawn on a plane horizontally at the point of 
 view is a straight line." Herdman, a recent and comprehensive 
 writer, says of curvilinear perspective, "In views of large extent 
 its use will give greater beauty and less distortion than rectilinear 
 perspective ; ' ' and thus he adds, ' ' Lateral extents and spaces 
 hitherto totally unattainable in art may be wrought with truth, in 
 accordance with what is seen. 1 ' 
 
 SECT. 9. BINOCULAR VISION, IN ITS RELATION TO PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 The distance between the two eyes in ordinary persons is about 
 two and one-half inches, which is termed " the visual base." When 
 a small object is placed near the nose, as a thin book, one eye views 
 one side, and the other the opposite side. At their focus, and be- 
 yond, the two eyes see more than half the circumference of a ball or 
 other object. This two-eyed or "binocular" vision, which led 
 Wheatstone to the idea of the stereoscope, has suggested methods 
 in drawing for giving roundness, projection and life-like relief to 
 objects in the foreground. 
 
 By binocular vision distant objects directly behind near ones are 
 fully seen. If a book be held between the two eyes and in front 
 of a wall, the right eye alone locates it on the wall far to the left 
 of its central position, and the left eye alone far to the right; while 
 both eyes see the entire wall behind it. From this effect two im- 
 portant principles are suggested in the execution of perspective. 
 The object near the eye is indistinctly seen ; while objects immedi- 
 ately behind it are completely observed. A careful attention to 
 the impression on the eye will indicate that two separate images 
 are recognized on the retina, and that two projections of these im- 
 ages are thrown upon the background. 
 
 1 Taking a = altitude, x = base, y = hypothenuse, we have y 2 = a f 
 
 __ 
 
 f r 2 ; whence y V a 2 -f x 2 . Differentiating, dy = / . 
 
 * Or -\- X 2 
 
LAW OF BINOCULAR PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 Lionardo, in his "Rules in Painting," describes the effects of 
 binocular vision at length ; and directs : " When a ball held beflre 
 a wall is painted, the painted figure must cover the space behind 
 it. Since, then, when seen with both eyes, the wall would appr.-n 
 behind the ball, the painter should place a mirror before the object, 
 and paint it as it is seen reflected looking at the object with one 
 eye only." This monocular or one-eyed method thus taught has 
 required reconsideration in the age of landscape painting proper. 
 In England Sir David Brewster has written upon the general 
 theory of binocular vision. Professor Wheatstone has applied it 
 to the construction of the stereoscope ; and James Hall has dis- 
 cussed its relation specialty to art execution. By its law "each 
 line in perspective not parallel to the picture has two vanishing 
 points," one corresponding to each eye. Hall's suggestions are 
 these : First, all objects should first be constructed of life-size as 
 they appear to loth eyes when directed to the principal object, and 
 on a vertical plane passing through the principal part of the chief 
 object; and the "duplications and regulated obscurities" under 
 which the very near objects are seen should be introduced. Second, 
 this life-sized construction should be reduced to the miniature scale 
 of the artist's design and be finished as seen by both eyes, with the 
 "regulated obscurities" still retained. In support of this view, 
 Hall cites the experience of the best artists ; first, that the view of 
 an object, drawn in perspective with one eye, has less breadth than 
 if drawn with two eyes ; and second, that a monocular view of an 
 object gives no measure of its distance. Its adoption Hall thinks 
 would realize Sir Joshua Reynolds' suggestion as to the overwork- 
 ing of minor, details by able artists. The pre-Raphaelite theory 
 was that the eyes of the artist be adjusted to every part of the 
 picture separately ; and that he delineate every part of the picture, 
 whether in the foreground, middle ground, or distance, with the 
 same distinctness with which he sees it when thus separately 
 viewed. Sir Joshua advised against this method; remarking, 
 " I have observed that an excessive labor of detail has, nine times 
 in ten, been pernicious to the general effect, even when it has been 
 the labor of great masters." Probably Turner has carried to an 
 extreme this suggestion of Hall. 
 
136 ART (J1UTICISM. 
 
 SECT. 10. THE HISTORY OF DRAWING IN PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 The artists of all rude and half-civilized nations have failed 
 either in observing or in applying the laws of vision to drawing in 
 perspective. In the sculptures and paintings on the monuments of 
 Egypt the most distant in a line of soldiers, the farthest of four 
 chariot horses abreast, is drawn of the same dimensions with the 
 nearest in the line ; and objects in more distant fields are put in 
 compartments in corners of the main picture without any apparent 
 connection with it. In Chinese paintings either everything is pul 
 in the foreground, or if there be a background and the figures in it 
 are drawn smaller, the gradation of the intervening space is not 
 preserved, and the geometrical law of convergence in the lines of 
 the picture is not attempted. 
 
 Vitruvius, the Roman architect of the Augustan age, thus illus- 
 trates the Grecian knowledge of perspective : " Agatharsius, at the 
 time when j?Eschylus taught at Athens the rules of tragic poetry, 
 was the first who contrived scenery ; upon which subject he wrote 
 a treatise. After him Democritus and Anaxagoras went still 
 further in that way, showing the power of imitating natme by 
 making all the lines to vanish to one point as a centre, when viewed 
 at a fixed distance ; by which means they are enabled to represent 
 in their scenery on the stage the image of real buildings as they 
 usually appear to the eye, and that whether they were painted OD 
 horizontal or upright surfaces; and thus they exhibited objects 
 near and remote." Pliny says of Pamphilus, a teacher of painting 
 at Athens in the days of Demosthenes : "He was learned espe- 
 cially in arithmetic and geometry ; without whose principles lie 
 declared that art could not be perfected." 
 
 The revival of the study in modern times has been allied chiefly 
 to the department of landscape painting. The great masters, 
 however, of Italy and of Germany, Lionardo and Durer, have 
 especially developed its principles. 
 
HISTORY OF ENGRAVING. 137 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ENGRAVING; THE TRANSFER OP DRAWINGS TO ENGRAVED 
 PLATES FOR THE MULTIPLYING OF COPIES. 
 
 IN the progress of art, its applications come often to overshadow 
 the original ; as printed books make us forget the day when the pen 
 copied everything. Engraving, and its kindred arts, but copy that 
 of which the drawing pencil has given an original; and photograph}', 
 in its various branches, only compels nature to the imposed toil of 
 penciling her own face. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE NATURE AND HISTORY OF ENGRAVING. 
 
 In the study of an art proper we naturally consider the processes 
 before tracing the history of its practice. It is the reverse in our 
 consideration of an invention, or the application of the art. En- 
 graving originated when drawing as an art was so perfected that 
 men sought some method of multiplying its superior creations. An 
 engraving is a drawing cut into wax, clay, wood, stone, metal, or 
 other material ; and it is executed for two purposes, first, to be 
 itself a work of art ; second, to be a mechanic's copy whose impres- 
 sions are to be works of art. The first kind of engraving is alluded 
 to by Job, and is preserved now in the monuments of Egypt and As- 
 syria of the same age. The second kind of engraving existed in its 
 germ in the signet rings of the ancients, worn even by the Pharaohs 
 of Joseph's time, and also in the dies from which the earliest rude 
 coins, marked with the image of a sheep, were struck, mentioned 
 in Abraham's day, and found in the oldest tombs of Egypt. En- 
 graving of the former class in its increasing perfection became the 
 germ of the art of sculpture . while the exquisite specimens of the 
 second kind executed in modern times have made engraving a 
 master art. 
 
 To the first class belong the choice relics of Grecian engraving* 
 now among the richest treasures of art. Even the decorators of 
 armor and rings, described by Homer, were advanced in the art. 
 Herodotus mentions maps engraved on metal. In the days of 
 rfocrates engravers were numerous and .skillful ; and under Alexan 
 12* 
 
138 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 dor Pyrgoteles was so superior that the monarch forbade any other 
 to engrave his portrait. 
 
 Plates from which to print pictured hieroglyphics are of very 
 early date. In the oldest tombs of Egypt are found cones of clay 
 stamped by engraved plates. In China the same art existed as 
 early as B. C. 1120 ; and probably it was never lost in the East. 
 The modern art seems to have been brought from Constantinople 
 to Venice. It was first employed in the copying and multiplying 
 of small pictured cards requiring very little art ; as playing cards 
 and pictures of saints executed in dark and colored figures. 
 
 SECT. 2. XYLOGRAPHY OR ENGRAVING ON WOOD. 
 
 The simplest material for engraving is wood ; whence the Greek 
 word Xylography. The best woods are box, beech and mahogany. 
 The engraving is executed on a section cut across the fibre of the 
 standing wood. The picture is first drawn with a pencil on thin or 
 tissue paper, oiled so as to be transparent. A second paper, 
 smeared upon one side with white, red, or black chalk, is laid with 
 its chalked face downward upon the wood to be engraved ; and 
 over it is placed the first paper with the drawing upon it down- 
 ward. With a hard pointed style the lines of the drawing are 
 traced through the two thicknesses of paper upon the wood, so as to 
 leave its lines in chalk upon the face of the wood. With a fine chisel 
 a small groove is cut along both sides of each line in the drawing, 
 so as to leave a thin raised edge corresponding to the lines of the 
 drawing ; and the intervening parts of the surface of the wood are 
 scooped out with a gouge. The block thus prepared is used as a 
 stereotype plate in printing ; the raised lines only, like the type, 
 being touched by the ink. As the drawing was reversed when 
 traced on the wood, and as thus the engraved block is the reverse 
 of the drawing, the print upon the paper is the reverse of the en- 
 graving on the block, or the original drawing restored again. The 
 more experienced engravers will copy the drawing directly and in 
 reverse upon the wood. 
 
 Wood engraving existed in China under the Emperor VCM 
 Vang, about B. C. 1120; as this allusion in the "Book of 
 Changes" then published shows: "As the ink which is used to 
 blacken the engraved characters can never become white, so a 
 heart blackened by vices will retain its blackness." The entire 
 
WOOD AND COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVING. 139 
 
 page is written carefully on :hin paper through which the writing 
 is seen ; this page is then glued with the written face downward 
 upon a block of wood of the apple or pear tree; when the engraver 
 cuts the. block in the manner already described. 
 
 The art was introduced into Europe from Asia in the twelfth 
 century by Venetian merchants. At first the execution was ex- 
 tremely rude. Only the outside border lines were cut upon the 
 wood; the printed outline being filled in by the colorist. Next 
 inner lines, tracing limbs and features, were introduced ; the 
 shading, however, being left for the finishing touch of the artist. 
 Still later, a species of shading by dots was added ; until at length 
 Wohlgemuth, a German, began to put in the cross-cuts and hatch- 
 ings which formed the shading of the drawing. 
 
 It was, however, among the Flemish artists, between the eras of 
 Van Eyck, A. D. 1395, and of Albert Durer, A. D. 1495, that en- 
 graving became truly a fine art. The difficulty of cutting the nice 
 cross lines to a sufficient thinness, and the spaces between to a 
 sufficient depth, to give at once fineness and clearness to the im- 
 pression, was overcome by the skill of Albert Durcr. The genius 
 of Holbein gave its last perfection to the art. It is now superseded 
 except in the very coarsest of work by plates of other material. 
 
 SECT. 3. CHALCOGRAPHY; OH ENGRAVING ON COPPER. 
 
 The maps engraved on copper mentioned by Herodotus were 
 not, like those of our day, designed for printing copies. The word 
 chalcography is modern, though the Greeks had similar compounds; 
 as chalcoergos, to designate the coarser, and chalchotypos, the finer 
 artificer in brass or copper. 
 
 The main distinction between wood and copper engraving is that 
 the ink is transferred to the paper in the former from raised, and in 
 the latter from depressed, lines. The ancients took impressions 
 upon wax with signets ; the soft wax being pressed into the depres- 
 sions in the engraved seal. The idea, however, that ink might be 
 made to fill the cavities of engraved plates, and that pressure on 
 the plate might cause the fibres of the sheet to be so forced into its 
 depressions as to receive the distinct lines of the engraving, seems 
 not to have occurred to the minds of those accustomed to wood en- 
 graving. A happy accident revealed the fact. 
 
 Among the arts of adornment for chalices and sword-hilts, that 
 
140 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 called niello was extensively practised in Italy. It consisted in 
 filling the depressed lines of the carved or embossed silver or gold 
 with a fused compound of silver and lead, which turned black, thus 
 giving the outline of the engraved figure. A servant woman in the 
 studio of Tomaso Finiguerra, having accidentally laid a wet cloth 
 on a piece of niello, the print left on the cloth suggested to that 
 artist the idea of copper-plate printing. The art, though long 
 restricted, like wood engraving, to mere outlines, grew in Italy, 
 while in Germany it made slow progress ; even Albert Durer, so 
 skillful in wood engraving, failing to attain the grace of the Italian 
 copper-plate engravers. 
 
 Copper-plate engraving embraces several varieties. The simplest 
 method is first to cover the prepared copper-plate with a very thin 
 layer of white wax ; then to lay a copy of the drawing to be exe- 
 cuted on the wax, and to subject it to a heavy pressure, so as to 
 leave its outlines upon the plate ; next, to remove the paper of the 
 transferred drawing by moistening and gentle rubbing ; afterward 
 to expel the wax by heating the plate ; and lastly, to cut the pic- 
 ture left upon its surface into the copper. The point of the graver 
 by which the heavier lines are cut is triangular or pyramidal in 
 shape ; faint parallel lines for the shading of clouds are traced 
 with a fine pointed instrument drawn along the edge of a ruler ; 
 while yet fainter shades are scratched in with a needle. The polish 
 of the plate is completed by rubbing with olive oil. When prepared 
 for printing the ink roller is passed heavily over the plate ; after 
 which the ink covering its entire face is removed by a rubbing of the 
 hand so delicate as not to disturb that sunk in the engraved lines. 
 
 The method called stippling, from stipula or stubble, consists in 
 puncturing the surface of the plate with dots, originally employed 
 in certain portions of engravings, but a century ago made a special 
 style of engraving. It gives a peculiarly soft appearance to human 
 flesh and to the more delicate flowers. The best line engravers, 
 however, are regarded the true masters in the art. 
 
 The delicate shading called mezzo-tinto, or half-tint, executed on 
 copper-plate, is said to have owed its origin to Sir Christopher 
 Wren. It is executed with a small steel wheel having a notched 
 edge, which, when rolled over the plate, covers it with regular and 
 superficial indentations which receive slight amounts of ink, and 
 give to the print a delightful evenness and softness of aspect 
 
141 
 
 SECT. 4. ETCHING ; ENGRAVING ON COPPER BY ACID REACTION. 
 
 Etching by acids was introduced about forty years later than 
 copper-plate engraving. The plate is heated over a spirit lamp, 
 and then covered with a varnish. Upon this varnish the copy is 
 transferred, and then traced by the graver, only the varnish being 
 cut. A solution of aqua fortis, or nitric acid, is then poured over the 
 plate ; which cats into the copper along the lines where the varnish 
 is removed. When the acid has stood long enough to produce the 
 light shading it is poured of; the plate is washed with water and 
 dried; and the parts which are to remain of a light shade arc 
 covered again with varnish. The acid is then again poured upon 
 the plate and allowed to stand until the shade next darker is 
 secured ; the deeper corrosion of the plate enabling it to take up a 
 greater quantity of ink when used in printing. By repeating this 
 process, any number of shades may be produced. 
 
 A double advantage over ordinary plate engraving was secured 
 by acid reaction. The labor is diminished, and thus cheapness is 
 secured ; while the eating of the acid, forming a regular depression, 
 secures a more uniform distribution of the ink. Etching has been 
 specially in use for ordinary landscape engraving. 
 
 The aqua-tin fa, or water-tint, a species of etching, is so called 
 from its resemblance to drawing in water-colors with India ink. 
 The light shade is first produced as in etching ; when a solution of 
 resin, or of Burgundy pitch, in alcohol, is poured over the plate. 
 As the alcohol rapidly dries off, the resin is left in dots, or granula- 
 tions, over the entire surface ; and these dots remaining fixed dur- 
 ing all the future process, preserve the light shade in dots. The 
 portions of the plate to receive the darker shades are then covered 
 with a gummy syrup called the bursting-ground ; when the whole 
 is again covered with varnish. "Water is then poured on the plate ; 
 in about fifteen minutes the gum breaks and exposes the plate on 
 all the portions which are to receive the deeper shade ; when the 
 acid is poured on the plate a second time. The granulated or 
 dotted light spots amid the dark shade preserved by the resin gives 
 a delightful softness to the aspect of backgrounds in portraits and 
 oight-scenes. 
 
142 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 5. SIDEROGRAPHY; ENGRAVING ON STEEL. 
 Though early suggested as a material desirable for engraved 
 plates, steel was little used until the process of alternately softening 
 and hardening the metal was discovered. The great demand for 
 costly engraving in bank-notes prompted the invention of Mr. Jacob 
 Perkins, of Massachusetts, about 1808. The engraving is first 
 executed on a hardened steel plate. A cylinder of soft steel is 
 then rolled over the engraved plate under a heavy pressure until 
 the soft steel has been forced into the indentations of the hard 
 plate ; forming thus on the soft cylinder a raised counterpart of the 
 engraving. This cylinder is then hardened to serve as a punch in 
 making engraved plates like the original. These copies are made 
 on soft steel ; which when hardened become each of them capable 
 of furnishing from 50,000 to 100,000 impressions. Plates of soft 
 or uncarbonized steel are extensively employed for the illustration 
 of works of popular literature having an extensive sale. While a 
 copper-plate is worn out in printing 5000 or 6000 impressions, the 
 soft steel will print nearly or quite 100,000 copies. 
 
 SECT. 6. LITHOGRAPHY; OR ENGRAVING ON STONE. 
 
 Engraving on stone as a work of sculpture is one of the earliest, 
 and its use as a plate for printing one of the latest arts. There are 
 two methods of preparing stone for lithographing ; the one corres- 
 ponding to copper-plate engraving proper, and the other to etch- 
 ing proper. 
 
 As an engraved plate for printing a hard stone is employed ; the 
 lines are cut upon it as upon copper-plate, and the depressions 
 receive the printer's ink, 
 
 The method of preparing the stone corresponding to etching ia 
 said to have originated with Senefelder, an actor of Munich ir 
 Bavaria. A calcareous limestone found in Bavaria and Hungary, 
 as also the white lias of England, are specially adapted to this pur- 
 pose. The drawing is executed with an oily or resinous paint ; 
 which from its chemical affinity adheres tenaciously to the stone. 
 The design or copy is first traced upon paper with the paint ; and 
 is then transferred to the stone. By the action of vitriolic acid the 
 stone is eaten away where it is not covered with the paint. Thus 
 prepared, the stone, when about to be used, is kept wet with guui 
 
LITHOGRAPHY: PRINTING AND PROOFS. 143 
 
 water. The ink is composed of an oily soap mixed with lamp- 
 black ; which when applied adheres only to the lines of paint, for 
 which it has an affinity; while the portions soaked with vruter are 
 left free from ink. The stone thus prepared is almost as durable 
 as a steel plate. 
 
 A later suggestion has led to the employ of zinc plates, prepared 
 as the stone by tracings with the oily ink, for which this muta! has 
 a strong affinity. When the drawing is completed this affinity for 
 the ink is destroyed by dipping the plate in gallic acid, after which 
 it is also washed with gum water. The zinc plate is said to be 
 preferable to the stone, because the acid on the stone continues its 
 action, and thus injures the finer lines, while upon the zinc tho 
 action of the acid is exhausted at its first application. 
 
 The chief advantage of lithography over any other kind of en- 
 graving is the rapidity and facility with which coarse prints may 
 be obtained. Hastily prepared charts of marine and military sur- 
 veys are printed from stone ; but the finished work is engraved on 
 copper-plates. 
 
 SECT. 7. PRINTING OF ENGRAVINGS; THE WEAR AND RENEWAL OP 
 PLATES; PROOF IMPRESSIONS AND THEIR GRADUATED VALUE. 
 In printing from engraved plates the face is subjected to a heavy 
 pressure ; which has the eifect gradually to wear and obliterate the 
 outlines and make the impression indistinct. Two causes control 
 this wear; the durability of the material of the plate, and the 
 amount of pressure requisite to secure the impression. Relief sur- 
 faces, as wood, type-metal, and stone, which receive readily the 
 ink from the roller passed over them, require far less weight of 
 pressure in printing than do copper and steel plates. 
 
 The constantly growing wear of the plate produces a constant 
 deterioration in the distinctness and value of the successive prints ; 
 which in higher works of art diminishes proportionately the value 
 of successive copies. As the "press-proof" in book-printing is 
 the first finished impression when all the author's and compositor's 
 corrections are made, so in printing engravings, "press-proofs, 
 first-proofs, engraver's proofs," have been used as terms indicating 
 the earliest and most distinct impressions from engraved plates. 
 Some of the more celebrated engravers, as Raphael Morghen, have 
 made it a condition of subscription to their superior works that not 
 
144 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 more than one hundred impressions should be taken and that then 
 the plate should be broken up, so that no inferior copies could 
 detract from the privilege of the purchasers or from the merit of 
 the artist. In all cases the wear of the plate compels its renewal 
 either by retouching or reproducing. 
 
 SECT. 8. RENEWAL OF PLATES ; ELECTROTYPING, OR THE MULTI- 
 PLYING OF ENGRAVED COPPER-PLATES. 
 
 The fact that a copper plate, whose engraving costs not less than 
 ten years' labor, is soon worn out, calls for a cheap and expeditious 
 method of renewing the plate. The electrotype has realized this 
 demand. 
 
 In 1801 Wollaston observed that silver immersed in a solution 
 of sulphate of copper at the negative pole of the galvanic battery 
 is coated with copper. In 1805 an Italian chemist gilded silver by 
 the same method. In 1837 Spencer observed that a drop of 
 varnish upon the exposed coin prevented the uniting of the copper 
 at the point thus covered. The idea of copying coins and medals 
 in reverse, was thus suggested. 
 
 The suggestion that engraved copper plates might thus be multi- 
 plied was delayed by the difficulty of finding a material which, 
 when spread on the plate, would allow the nicest lines of the en- 
 graver to be penetrated, while at the same time direct union of the 
 deposit with the plate was prevented. Oil, first tried, failed to 
 meet the demand. Mr. George Mathiot, of the U. S. Coast Sur 
 vey, suggested iodine in solution with alcohol ; a single grain of 
 which may be spread so thin that 400,000,000,000 layers make but 
 an inch in thickness. 
 
 Acting on the silver with which the plate is first coated a stratum 
 of iodide of silver is formed so thin that the minutest line of the 
 engraved plate is filled with the copper deposit in the battery, 
 while a perfect cleavage is also preserved. After about four days' 
 action of the battery a perfect raised counterpart of the original 
 engraved plate is obtained. This new plate, taken as a positive, 
 furnishes, by the action of the copper bath, any number of engraved 
 plates like the original. 
 
 By electro-metallurgy type-metal is also coated with copper; 
 furnishing a cheap engraved plate, which now takes the place of 
 wood. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY; COLORING EFFECT OF LIGHT. 145 
 
 SECT. 9. THE PLACE OF ENGRAVING AMONG THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 Engraving, practised as a useful art, may become a mere trade i 
 or it may be presided over by artists of true genius. In the Ger- 
 man Academies, the aspirant for future practice as an engraver, is 
 required to pass through all the schools except that of Composition. 
 This requirement is just ; for the engraver must so enter into the 
 spirit of the master whom he represents as to be a true interpreter 
 of his work. 
 
 Burnet, urging the dignity of line engraving, says: "We must 
 always bear in mind that an engraving is not a copy of a picture ; 
 it is a translation ; and as a picture is possessed of three properties, 
 outline, light and shade, and color, no print can be a proper trans- 
 fer, unless something is given as an equivalent for this last" 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 PHOTOGRAPHY; OR DRAWING BY LIGHT. 
 
 THE art of Photography is assuming a constantly increasing im- 
 portance in connection with Drawing. Though every effort thus 
 far made to copy color by the power of light has failed, yet the 
 pencil of the sun's ray is so unerring a delineator of form that 
 photography has taken the place veiy extensively of engraving in 
 the multiplying of copies both of drawings, statuary and paintings. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE COLORING INFLUENCE OF LIGHT, WHICH LED TO THE 
 ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 The effect of light in blackening the chloride of silver, or horri- 
 eilver, was known to the ancient alchemists. As early as A. D. 
 1722, a French chemist, named Petit, referred this effect to the 
 crystallization of the metalic salts produced by the influence of light. 
 Between 1775 and 1800, several German chemists investigated the 
 different effects of the different colored rays of the solar spectrum 
 in producing the black tint on paper saturated with a solution of 
 chloride of silver; and ascertained that the violet ray produced the 
 13 G 
 
146 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 eflect after fifteen minutes' exposure, while the red rays required 
 twenty minutes. 
 
 About 1800, Wedgewood and Sir Humphrey Davy conceived the 
 idea of copying pictures by the action of light on paper saturated 
 with a solution of nitrate of silver ; and succeeded in getting a copy 
 in two or three minutes. Of this effort Davy wrote in 1803: " All 
 that is now required to render these experiments as useful as they 
 are interesting, is to find a way of preventing the subsequent color- 
 ing of the white parts upon exposure to daylight." In 1812, the 
 existence and properties of iodine were discovered, an agent found 
 to be most efficient in giving to the metallic salt an increased sensi- 
 tiveness to the action of light; and in 1819, seven years yet later, 
 the discovery of the hyposulphite of soda, by Sir John Herschel, 
 furnished an agent which arrested the chemical action of light on 
 the salt when the picture was taken. 
 
 Meanwhile, in 1814, Niepce, a French chemist, the real author 
 of Photography as an art, began his experiments. In 1827, he 
 obtained photographic pictures; and in 1829 he communicated the 
 result to Daguerre, a French artist. Niepce died in 1833; and 
 Daguerre continued his experiments till 1839, when he astonished 
 the French Academy by the report of his perfected invention. At 
 that time, however, twenty minutes were required to take a picture ; 
 and no living object could be copied, owing to the difficulty of secu- 
 ring a quiet position so long. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE DAGUERREOTYPE ; AND THE EARLY APPLICATIONS 
 OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 The original process of daguerreotyping was as follows. The 
 copper-plate, silvered by galvanism, was held over a box of iodine 
 heated so that its vapor would rise to the plate. The iodine fumes, 
 forming iodide of silver on the plate, changed its color first to a 
 straw, then to a gold, then to a rose, then to an indigo, and finally 
 to a blue tint. The blue tint was found to render the plate the 
 most sensitive to light, allowing an impression to be obtained in 
 about two minutes. At a later day the plate was dipped in water 
 having bromine, or both bromine and chlorine, in solution ; when 
 its sensitiveness was so increased as to receive an impression in a 
 few seconds. 
 
 The camera consists of a box having a double lens as an object 
 
DAGUERREOTYPE AND AMBROTYPE. 14? 
 
 glass In a tube and a dark square chamber in the rear. The light, 
 admitted into the front of the object-tube, passes through it into the 
 camera. When the object to be copied is placed in the best posi- 
 tion for taking a good picture, the metallic plate, before prepared, 
 is brought from a darkened room covered by a slide over its face to 
 protect it from the light. The plate and slide are introduced 
 through the top of the camera into the field of the object-glass ; 
 when the slide is removed, and the rays of light from the object 
 fall directly on the plate. From the countenance, white portions 
 of the dress, and all light-colored substances there is a strong light 
 reflected through the tube on the plate ; while from the pupils of 
 the eyes, the hair, and all dark-colored objects the light reflected is 
 feeble. When this action has continued sufficiently long for the 
 proper impression to be made on the plate by the light, the plate is re- 
 moved to a room into which only the yellow ray of light coming from 
 a lamp or through a curtain, is admitted ; the yellow ray not acting 
 on the plate. Thus far the art has not changed with its advance 
 in many particulars. In the early art the plate was next held 
 over mercury evaporated by a spirit lamp ; when the vapor of 
 mercury so acted on the parts which had been most exposed to the 
 light, as in the language of the art, to "bring out" the picture. 
 To remove then the iodine still in combination with the silver of 
 the less exposed portions of the plate, and thus in the language of 
 the art, "to fix the picture," the plate was immersed in a solution 
 of the hyposulphite of soda dissolved in distilled water. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE AMBROTYPE; AND FEINTING OF MULTIPLIED EN- 
 GRAVINGS BY PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 The photographs of Daguerre were taken on metallic plates. 
 Daw, however, in 1800, had taken pictures on paper saturated 
 with a solution of nitrate of silver. Fox Talbot perfected this 
 branch of the art; and in England photographs on paper were 
 called Talbotypes. The paper was prepared by immersion first in 
 salt water, chloride of sodium, drying and immersing again in a 
 solution of nitrate of silver. Talbot first used gallic acid, made of 
 gall or oak apples, in the nitrate solution, to heighten the sensitive- 
 ness of the paper. The paper thus prepared received the picture 
 in the camera as the plate receives it, and was, like the daguerreo- 
 type, a negative or reverse. 
 
148 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 To obtain the positive, now specially designated as a photograph, 
 the negative was laid upon a second paper prepared as the first ; a 
 board was placed behind the second and a glass before the first ; 
 and the whole, being then carefully pressed into contact, was ex- 
 posed for some hours to the sunlight with the glass uppermost. 
 The impression was received through the glass and the first paper 
 upon the second ; the rapidity of the process depending upon the 
 thinness of the paper through which the light must pass, and its 
 evenness on the purity of the paper. 
 
 The difficulty of obtaining paper free from impurities, and the 
 slow action of the light through paper, led Sir John Herschel to use 
 glass as the plate; hence called Vitrotype or ambrotype. Im- 
 proving methods of preparing the glass plate have led to the fol- 
 lowing. Dissolve ordinary cotton fibre in an equal mixture of sul- 
 phuric and nitric acids, forming collodion. Dissolve iodide of 
 ammonia and bromide of potassa in water ; take equal parts ol 
 alcohol and of ether ; and with these two mixtures combine the 
 collodion. In a room to which only yellow light is admitted, pour 
 the compound over the glass. When by the rapid evaporation of 
 the ether the plate is dry, immerse it in a bath of nitrate of silver; 
 which will soon form with the collodion a white film over the sur- 
 face. After being placed in the camera, and removed to the 
 darkened room, fix the picture by immersion in a mixture of 
 acetic or pyrogallic acid, having protosulphate of iron in solution. 
 After rinsing in water immerse the plate in a bath of hyposulphite 
 of soda, to destroy any remaining nitrate of silver ; and, if haste 
 is required, add to the soda-bath the cyanide of potassium. 
 Finally wash thoroughly to destroy the hyposulphite of soda. 
 
 The picture thus brought out and fixed is now used as a nega- 
 tive for obtaining positive pictures ; the printing process being the 
 same as that already described. In its early first use, however, 
 the ambrotype was framed as a daguerreotype ; having the double 
 advantage of allowing the picture to be seen at any angle, and also 
 of being reversed so to become a positive, the picture being seen 
 through the glass, and viewed on its back side. 
 
CHEMICAL ACTION IN PHOTOGRAPHING. 149 
 
 SECT. 4. THE CHEMICAL, ACTION WHICH TAKES PLACE IN 
 PHOTOGRAPHING. 
 
 The law of the chemical action which takes place in photograpn- 
 ing seems to be this. The sun's rays, in which light and heat are 
 associated with a chemical agency, weaken certain chemical affini- 
 ties. When for instance chlorine is mixed with water, its affinity 
 for hydrogen, while kept in the dark, is not sufficient to decompose 
 the water ; but on exposure to the light, the affinity of the oxygen 
 for the hydrogen of water is so weakened that the chlorine decom- 
 poses the water, unites with its hydrogen, and sets free the oxygen. 
 So when the Daguerrean plate is exposed to the light, the affinity 
 of the iodine for the silver is so weakened on the parts specially 
 exposed to the light that the silver is disposed to enter into another 
 union. When, therefore, the plate is taken from the camera, and 
 held over the vapor of mercury, the affinity of the mercury for tho 
 silver overpowers that of the iodine ; and an amalgam of mercury 
 and silver more perfect on the light, and less perfect on the dark 
 parts, is formed. The iodine is thus expelled in vapor where the 
 amalgam is complete ; and the remainder is taken up when im- 
 mersed in the hyposulphite of soda. 
 
 Where now, the amalgam of the mercury and silver is complete, 
 the surface of the plate is covered with an unbroken metallic coat- 
 ing ; thus presenting a smooth polished surface from which the 
 light falling on the picture is reflected, and by which its light parts 
 are formed. On the parts of the plate where shadows fall, leaving 
 the iodide of silver undecomposed, the removal of the iodine by 
 the hyposulphite of soda leaves the silver coating broken intc 
 minute particles ; whose surface, reflecting no ray of light, forms 
 the dark background of the picture. The intermediate shades are 
 produced on the parts of the picture where the light is of medium 
 intensity in taking the impression; and where consequently the 
 amalgam on the plate is but partial. 
 
 The chemical action in the case of the ambrotype, and in photo- 
 graphs on paper, appears to be this. When the light has acted on 
 the plate or paper, the affinity of the silver for the nitric acid is so 
 weakened that it can unite with the vegetable fibre of the cotton, 
 or the animal albumen of the egg ; for both of which the acid haa 
 a strong affinity. The silver set free forms a thin film on the glass i 
 13* 
 
150 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 which, becoming a reflecting, and therefore light surface, gives the 
 light parts of the picture where the surface of the object was lightest 
 and therefore more reflecting. When employed in printing, this 
 film of silver cuts off the action of the sunlight from the parts of 
 the ambrotype that were made light by this same film ; leaving the 
 other parts to be darkened and thus shaded by the action of the 
 light. The action of the protosulphate of iron, prior to the immer- 
 sion of the plate in the hyposulphite of soda, seems to be, to take 
 the oxygen from the nitrate of silver, prepared beforehand as it is 
 by the sunlight to be easily decomposed. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE CLAIM OF PHOTOGRAPHY AS A FINE ART. 
 
 Photography, now extensively employed in three fields, in copy- 
 ing portraits, landscapes and works of sculpture and painting, may 
 be practised merely as a trade ; and yet it may rise to the highest 
 dignity as an art. In taking portraits, positions and attitudes 
 which will best bring out grace and charr-^teristic features are to be 
 sought. Hence, instead of the universal resort of a book in the 
 hand, emblems consistent with the occupation, and accompaniments 
 in harmony with the culture of the sitter, should be studied. Re- 
 gard also must be had to the direction and degree of light best 
 suited to the complexion of the skin, to the color of the eyes and 
 hair, and to the style of dress to be copied. The highest genius and 
 amplest culture in art may find a field for exhaustive employ in the 
 photographer's gallery. 
 
 In photographing natural scenery, there is not, as in the taking 
 of portraits, the direct arranging of attitudes and of light. Yet the 
 artist has the power of unlimited choice as to the point from which, 
 and the season or hour at which, he will take his view ; and these 
 two studies will be decisive as to his success. 
 
 Recent discoveries in sensitive chemicals have caused photo- 
 graphy to become a cheap and most perfect substitute for en- 
 graving. Like the Genii with talismanic wand, it claims to 
 be gifted with power to reproduce the finest originals in the gal- 
 leries of painting, and to multiply them in such numbers that 
 every student and lover of art can have all the best masters on 
 the walls of his studio. More than all, cartoons by the most 
 eminent artists, rough charcoal sketches drawn of colossal or life- 
 Size proportions, admitting, of course, of groat accuracy in the 
 
DESIGN IN PLASTIC ART; CONCEPTION. 151 
 
 detail of the drawing, have been reduced by the photographing 
 camera ; and when thus copied in miniature, the bold and rough 
 outline assumes a delicacy and nicety of finish which no skill of the 
 engraver can approach. The culturing influence thus exerted on 
 both artist and people will depend for its extent and its value on 
 the position which the photographer trains himself to take among 
 masters in high art. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DESIGN IN DRAWING. 
 
 A MECHANIC working after a model has nothing to do with de- 
 signing ; he only copies a design. So the pupil drawing after 
 patterns set by his master, or in advanced studies from casts and 
 even from nature, is but executing a design already prepared ; he 
 is not at all the originator of a model, much less of an ideal. As 
 in the useful, so in the fine arts, when any new work adapted to a 
 special end is required, the artist, like the artisan, has to design 
 before he can execute the desired object. 
 
 The act of designing as a study naturally includes three parts : 
 first, the conceiving of the general work by which the end is to be 
 attained ; second, the inventing of the parts of the work which is 
 to accomplish that end ; and third, the combining of those parts so 
 that as a whole they shall secure that end. Drawing is the first of 
 the arts of design ; being the first which the child or savage learns; 
 and also the foundation of all the other arts, sculpture, architecture 
 and painting. The art galleries of Europe attest this. The Uffizi 
 Gallery at Florence contains over 20,000 drawings of the ablest 
 Italian sculptors, painters and architects, such as Raphael and 
 Michel Angelo ; and German galleries are filled with similar collec- 
 tions from the pencils of Albert Durer, Rembrandt and others. 
 
 Design includes conception, invention, composition and expres- 
 sion ; which Lionardo and other eminent masters have treated of 
 under the heads of both Drawing and Painting. 
 
152 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 1. CONCEPTION, OR THE ORIGINATING OF THE IDEA TO JBE 
 EMBODIED IN DRAWING. 
 
 Conception is the originating stage in the development of form 
 and life in all objects. The Greeks called the artist's first concep- 
 tion, the orator's proposition, and the statesman's purpose by the 
 name hypothesis. Pliny says that Nicias, the painter, excelled in 
 this ; and he declares that a good design, hypothesis, is as import- 
 ant to the painter as is a well-conceived theme, mythos, to the 
 poet. The completed conception Plato designated by the word, 
 eideia, or idea. 
 
 The design of the artist takes its form from the particular object 
 sought in the work of sculpture, painting or architecture for which 
 the drawing is the first study. The consideration of his design 
 leads the artist to a conception which he puts into a drawing. This 
 conception, whether it embrace one or more figures, is not the 
 direct copying of any form or forms already existing in nature or 
 embodied by another artist. It is the originating of new forms that 
 constitutes design. 
 
 The study of design is the great work of a true master in art. 
 Fuseli, after devoting an entire lecture to this subject, quotes, in his 
 next on Color, the statement of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the same 
 effect. Though one of the ablest of colorists, Reynolds declared 
 that this department of art in which he excelled was but secondary 
 and subordinate to that of design in drawing, the forms afterward 
 to be colored ; and he expresses regret that his own education in 
 this fundamental art had been pursued under such great disad- 
 vantages. 
 
 SECT. 2. INVENTION, OR THE ELABORATING OF CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 Passive imagination differs from active ; some men having the 
 power of forming conceptions, both poetical and artistic, which they 
 lack skill to put into form. The second work in design is invention, 
 or the power of working up the details of a fine conception. 
 
 Lionardo thus describes the labor of inventing for a single figure. 
 " The artist should form his style upon the best-proportioned model 
 in nature. After having taken its measure, he should take that of 
 his own person ; so as to avoid the influence of self-love in copying 
 his own defects. He should aim at universal excellence ; for one 
 
INVENTION; PRINCIPLES OF RUSK IN. 153 
 
 excellence in a painting only makes more manifest attendant de- 
 fects." He dwells then at length on attitudes, the grace of differ- 
 ent positions, the shape the muscles and the folds of garments 
 assume in each position, and especially the contour of each linib 
 when strained under any nervous excitement. 
 
 Fuseli in treating of invention suggests that its true spirit allows 
 the borrowing of ideas, not of details, from great artists of former 
 ages. As a Milton may borrow conceptions, not their embodi- 
 ment, from Virgil or Homer, and as an inventor in the useful arts 
 may borrow principles from a man of science, so may a truly 
 original artist gather ideas from former great masters, and incorpo- 
 rate them into his own independent works. Each great master in 
 art has his own peculiar style, as distinct from that of other lead- 
 ing minds, as one poet's style is distinct from another; Michel 
 Angelo being epic in his invention, llaphael dramatic, while such 
 an artist as Poussin is historical. In each of these styles a different 
 order of invention is of course required. Hans Holbein is cited as 
 remarkable for the fertility of his inventive skill. 
 
 Ruskin, urging the attaining of truth in drawing, says that the 
 early Italian artists had their "judgment so tempered by venera- 
 tion for old models" that they were "dull in their perception of 
 truth;" and hence "there was little genuine invention in their 
 works." A "particular truth" is more important than a general 
 truth ; and variety is attained " in giving a genus by individuals." 
 "The painter and preacher are both commentators on infinity; and 
 the duty of each is to take for each discourse one essential truth. ' ' 
 "Primary truths, or those which belong to essence or substance, 
 are of greater importance than secondary truths, as those of 
 color;" an idea of Sir Joshua Reynolds as quoted by Sir William 
 Hamilton. 
 
 Ruskin thinks the Italians excelled in their principal figures, the 
 Dutch in backgrounds ; he groups his criticisms under the headings 
 "Truth in Space, Clouds, Earth and Water." In distant back- 
 grounds the old masters gave no graded obscurity; "you could 
 either count all the bricks as well in a distant as in a near house, 
 or both alike would be a blank flat." Their clouds were separated 
 from the blue beyond, instead of being part of the common vault. 
 In their backgrounds the foot of a mountain comes from under- 
 leath the plains ; and the summit is always pyramidal, instead of 
 
 G* 
 
154 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 having the sharp outline always indicative of distance. After 
 truth in cloud the rarest modern attainment is in water ; especially 
 the irregular effect of its reflecting surface when agitated. In all 
 these nicer efforts to copy Nature it is the principle of truth, not 
 any real appearance, that can be imitated ; for appearances, espe- 
 cially in cloud and water, are so perpetually shifting, that no uopy 
 can possibly be made. 
 
 As exceptions to his general estimate of Italian art in this de- 
 partment, Ruskin cites Raphael and Salvator Rosa. In Raphael's 
 drawings the dark and heavy lines are toward the light, as seen in 
 his "Angel pursuing Heliodorus" at the Louvre; in which the 
 dark and strong lines terminating the nose and forehead toward 
 the light are opposed to the tender and faint lines behind the ear 
 in the shade. Salvator ' ' had great perception of the sweep of 
 foliage and of the rolling of cloud ;" but he " never drew a single 
 leaflet or wreath of mist" aright. 
 
 SECT. 3. COMPOSITION, OK THE GROUPING OF DETAILS WHEN 
 INVENTED. 
 
 In the fine as in the useful arts the grouping of the parts in- 
 vented is an added study. In composition, called by the Latins 
 dispositio, Pliny cites Apelles and before him Nicias as excelling. 
 Nicias said " that it was not a small matter in his art to take a 
 whole forest and picture it ; to delineate contests of horses and 
 ships; to group horses in many positions, some running, some 
 standing in battle array, and some kneeling for their riders ; to 
 represent the riders of some horses as hurling javelins, and of 
 others as falling from their backs." 
 
 Lionardo gives the following lessons from his own life-labor. 
 " In proceeding to composition the pupil should study every 
 variety of form and of motion ; making sketches of single figures 
 from various different points of view. Then he may combine 
 figures in different attitudes ; as two men walking, wrestling, etc. 
 If a historical picture, which he is studying, is to be elevated for 
 subsequent view, the artist must place himself in the same relative 
 position while composing. In countenances and figures he should 
 never repeat, but always present an entirely new and original 
 specimen. For this purpose the young artist should watch men as 
 lie sees them under the influence of varied passions ; and in his 
 
COMPOSITION ; KXl'liKSSION. 156 
 
 note-book he should copy their expressions of countenance, their 
 positions and gesticulations, so that when composing he may have 
 an inexhaustible store of nature from which to draw. Each part 
 of the body, in its anatomy and in its perspective, must be a sepa- 
 rate study and labor. The folds of dress should be copied from 
 nature, so as to represent real clothing, flowing and easy, not 
 swelled as with wind, nor stiff and tight drawn. When the figure 
 is foreshortened, there ought to appear a greater number of folds, 
 all drawn around in circles." "In grouping a historical subject, 
 the chief figure should stand forward arid be painted in clear strong 
 colors. In drawing trees, contrive to have them half in shadow 
 and half in the light ; selecting a day when the sun is partially hid 
 by clouds. ' ' Hogarth says, ' l The art of composing well is no more 
 than the art of varying well." 
 
 Ruskin states the following laws of Composition. First, Princi- 
 pality ; there should always be a principal figure in a work of art 
 Second, Repetition ; symmetry requiring that the principal figure 
 be supported on each side by similar subordinates ; as two small 
 domes with a central one. Third, Continuity ; the pinnacles of a 
 Gothic cathedral having a regular ratio of increase or diminution. 
 Fourth, Curvature ; the tops of spires, trees, bridges and buildings, 
 as well as clouds being drawn in curvilinear perspective. Fifth, 
 Radiation ; as fibres in leaves and ribs in a boat. Sixth, Contrast; 
 dresses being not all of the same cut or color ; and battlements of a 
 tower not having one fixed measure. Seventh, Interchange : suc- 
 cession in change, as in colors of dresses, and in light and shade. 
 Eighth, Consistency; the colors of massive and of distant objects 
 being appropriate ; the slender and graceful depending on the 
 sturdy and rugged. Ninth, Gradation ; the making all tints in a 
 landscape alike shaded by a cloudy, or lit up by a bright sky. 
 
 SE<JT. 4. EXPRESSION ; OR THE GIVING OF REALITY AND LIFE TO 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 In the useful and fine arts alike, the end of design is the realiz 
 ing of movement, indicative of life in a labored work. To concep 
 tion, invention and composition the artist must add expression ; 
 the attribute of apparent life and motion. 
 
 Socrates, as Xenophon relates, went one day into the studio of 
 * sculptor who had admirably succeeded in representing every 
 
156 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 variety of human posture in marble, those of the racer, boxer and 
 wrestler ; and he asked, " Is it not necessary in order to give plea- 
 sure to the beholder, to imitate the emotions of the men perform- 
 ing any particular act?" Lionardo makes character in inanimate 
 objects correspond to expression in animate beings, and says, "The 
 artist should express motion in the forms he draws ; old men and 
 youth must appear to be real ; those laughing and weeping should 
 so speak as to call forth the sympathetic emotion in the beholder. ' ' 
 "Shadows must be made to seem actual; more time even being 
 spent upon them than upon the figures themselves. Clouds should 
 be so detached from the background as to seem suspended in the 
 air. ' ' Among numerous particulars he mentions, ' ' In laughing, 
 the brows are open and the corners of the mouth turned up ; in 
 weeping, the brows are contracted and the corners of the mouth 
 turned down ;" "Men weep from anger or fear, joy or sorrow, sus- 
 picion or compassion, enmity or tenderness;" "each mental im- 
 pression has its outward expression in the form of the features ;" 
 yet more, " there is a position of each part of the body, a, well aa 
 a form of the features, characterizing different emotions and eacb 
 shade of emotion." Fuseli makes this striking observation : " Ex- 
 pression gives vividness to an image, and interprets composition." 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 SCULPTURE; THE EXECUTING OF FORMS IN ALL THEIR 
 
 DIMENSIONS. 
 
 DRAWING presents figures in two dimensions on a plane ; only 
 representing the third dimension by shading. Sculpture actually 
 executes forms in three dimensions; rounding out the figure in its 
 solid proportions. Drawing must precede sculpture ; since the 
 sculptor cannot model any form, till he has first conceived the out- 
 line from every point of view, and has elaborated each view with 
 the pencil. A notice of the modes of executing sculpture, a sketch 
 of the history of ancient sculpture, particularly in Egypt and 
 Greece, and a brief glance at the sculpture of modern Europe will 
 illustrate the nature, the principles and the progress of the art 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES RELATING TO THE EXECUTION AND CLASSI- 
 FICATION OF WORKS OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 IN drawing, lines are the elements of the art ; in sculpture, sur- 
 faces. As, however, surfaces are made up of lines, the principles 
 of drawing enter into the study of sculpture ; while new and distinct 
 applications of those principles, new ends to be attained, and dis- 
 tinct methods of accomplishing those ends, are also to be regarded. 
 
 SECT. 1. TECHNICAL TERMS EXPRESSIVE OF DIFFERENT METHODS 
 OF EXECUTING AND OF CLASSIFYING WORKS OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 Sculpture is the chief of the plrstic arts ; a designation derived 
 from the Greek wordplasso or platto, whence our word plat or plait, 
 14 157 
 
J58 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 and also plaster. The terms which designate the different pro- 
 cesses, methods or styles of plastic art have been suggeste 1, eithei 
 by the character of the material employed, or by the principle of 
 design in the artist's mind. 
 
 To the first class belong the following : Moulding is the pressing 
 out of forms in soft pliable material, as clay ; and it designates 
 dther the finished work of the house plasterer, or the first process, 
 usually called modeling, of the sculptor. Akin to this is wrought 
 or "beaten" work ; the shaping by the hammer of hard but malle- 
 able material, as the metals, into forms more or less finished, which 
 constitutes the work of the ordinary smith, and one method of 
 executing the most finished sculpture. Costing is the forming of 
 images from material in a liquid state ; as from plaster mixed with 
 water, or from melted metal, poured into a mould previously pre- 
 pared and then left to harden by drying or cooling ; and it is either 
 the second process of the sculptor in making his plaster cast from 
 his clay model after which his marble statue is subsequently to be 
 cut, or it is the final process of the common brass and iron founder, 
 as well as of the ablest artists executing sculpture in copper or 
 bronze. Graving is not the constructing of whole forms, but the 
 cutting and rounding out of half forms projecting from the rough 
 surface of material, like wood and stone, hard and friable as opposed 
 to malleable. Carving, is the slighter cutting, of indented figures 
 as opposed to projecting forms, in material with a polished instead 
 of a rough surface, and either of malleable or friable texture, as 
 copper or marble. The word sculpture, from the Greek glypho 
 to carve finely, preserved in the terms triglyphs and hieroglyphs, 
 was anciently applied to the finer works in marble. It is now the 
 designation of a branch of the fine arts. 
 
 Forms determined rather by the idea of the artist than by the 
 character of material, are classified by Italian terms expressive 
 of the completeness of their execution. Intaglio, or form cut in, 
 is a graving on the surface of stone without any rounding out of 
 the figure ; as in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Basso-relievo, bas-relief 
 in the French, or low-relief, is the slight rounding up of figures ; as 
 seen in coins and medals of metal ; and in cameos cut in shell. 
 Alto-relievo, or high relief, is a carving projecting about one half 
 the diameter of the natural object; illustrated in coarse embossed 
 Work on stove? and pitchers, and in medallion heads. Perfect or 
 
MATERIAL OF SCULPTURE. 15i> 
 
 complete relief, presents the entire half of an object, as pilasters or 
 half columns projecting from a wall. Finally, statuary gives an 
 entire figure complete on all sides, as a column or human form. 
 
 The choice of material and the mode of working it have depended 
 partly upon its character and partly upon the taste and culture of 
 a people. Thus wood and stone must be carved, though metal 
 may be either cast, carved, or beaten ; but the rude Indian carves 
 in wood and bone, the African in ebony and ivory ; while even the 
 Chinese carve in stone, cast in metal and mould in plaster. 
 
 The choice of style in forms lias depended in part upon location 
 and design, in part too on the cost of the work, but partly also on 
 the taste of the age. Thus the carving on the walls of Egyptian 
 and Hebrew temples must be low relief, and the images standing 
 in front complete statues. The rich may have statues for funereal 
 monuments, the less wealthy a relief upon a marble shaft, but the 
 poor only a simple engraving on slate. Egyptian taste allowed an 
 entire temple to be covered with carving in low relief, the Greeks 
 admired high relief in the frieze, but modern taste excludes sculp- 
 tured walls. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE MATERIAL OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 For carving wood, as the substance most abundant and readily 
 cut, has been universally first chosen ; the boy's penknife and tho 
 savage's flint easily and skillfully shaping it; while the lids of 
 Egyptian sarcophagi, the early statues of Greek artists, and espe- 
 cially the elaborate bak carvings of modern times, have proved it 
 even a noble material. Shell, ivory, and kindred substances, 
 harder than wood, follow; the rudest tribes of Africa and the 
 islanders of the Pacific showing true genius in this species of carv- 
 ing, while the master-work of Phidias gave ivory a dignity never 
 reached either before or since. The very hardest substance, flint, 
 has been shaped by the American Indian into his hatchet, and by 
 the Chinese into miniature groups, having the figures in a light 
 vein and the background in a dark stratum. The ancient Egyp- 
 tians, probably because their own river banks furnished this ma- 
 lerial and their own bold ideas demanded this coarse stone, carved 
 their statues and cut their obelisks in granite ; while the Greeks 
 found in the fine-grained marble native to their hills a material 
 fit to set forth their refined ideals. 
 
160 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 For moulding clay has been the almost exclusive material, whether 
 the work were designed to be fused by heat as a work of ait, or to 
 be a pattern for a chiseler in stone, or a model for the caster in 
 metal. The rich pottery found in the tombs of Egypt, Chaldea, 
 Greece, Italy and ancient America, and even the famed Etruscan 
 vases, the admiration of ancient and of modern times, are of that 
 nicely baked clay called by the Italian name terracotta. The 
 finest statuettes are formed of mere clay, coated with a silicious 
 earth, which by intense heat is turned to glass ; rivaling in beauty 
 of material the finest Chinese porcelain. The ancient Egyptians 
 had a composition hardened with lime, which, when laid on rough 
 walls and sandstone columns, bore like marble the nicest touches 
 of the chisel. 
 
 For casting brass or bronze has been used from the earliest times. 
 Pliny's history of Grecian and Roman sculpture is an episode in 
 his treatise on this metal. After stating that rude primitive sculp- 
 ture was executed in "wood and clay," he says that the metal brass 
 reached its glory first in "Delian," then in " Corinthian" castings. 
 The purest of all material, however, created as it were for perfected 
 sculpture, is marble, Pliny mentioning that Phidias made his 
 Minerva of "ivory and gold," but that Praxiteles was "happier 
 in marble." 
 
 In each class of material employed for works of sculpture there 
 is, as Jarves has intimated, a distinctive characteristic, expressive 
 of a correspondent idea, which in the higher development of the 
 art has led to its special selection for specific effects. Thus, per- 
 spective and details of background, plumage and foliage, are not 
 subjects for sculpture, since no material is fitted for them ; while 
 within the field of this art, strength and mass are for stone ; light- 
 ness for wood ; transparencj 7 for glass ; ease and freedom for stucco 
 and clay ; and tenacity combined with ductility for metals, since 
 they change their shape but by effort. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE OBJECTS OF DESIGN ; AS SPECIALLY ADAPTED TO THIS 
 ART OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 No work of art proper can be even conceived, much less be exe- 
 cuted, without a design. In drawing the object represented i? con- 
 ceived in the mind before its outline is traced. The " Arts of De- 
 sign/' technically speaking, are "Sculpture, Architecture and 
 
THE ETRUSCAN VASE AND GRECIAN STATUE. 161 
 
 Painting;' sculpture preceding the other two of the three, because 
 architecture takes on as appendages the single forms which sculp- 
 ture has elaborated, while painting groups and colors them. 
 
 Art proper excludes the idea of utility ; and design in art is re- 
 stricted to objects of beauty. The work of the architect must be 
 founded primarily on the idea of utility. Sculpture appeals to the 
 love of beauty alone, or through this love to sentiments of friend- 
 ship or of patriotism, to emotions of human affection or of religious 
 veneration ; and its creations are either ornaments to decorate, me- 
 mentos of affection to be cherished, monuments of national grati- 
 tude to inspire, funereal emblems to chasten, or symbols of religion 
 to awaken devotion. 
 
 In sculpture the love of design has shown itself to be a universal 
 impulse of human nature. The rudest savage, though he shows 
 no conception of art in architecture or painting, carves his pipe and 
 tomahawk into the image of some object of admiration or devotion, 
 and covers it with devices of his own grotesque taste or supersti- 
 tious adoration. The school-boy, who thinks of no other art, is 
 universally a sculptor ; cutting his bow or bat into a shape to please 
 his eye, and never happier than in giving form to some bit of 
 wood with his pocket-knife. Men of universal genius in art, 
 like Phidias, excelling with the painter's brush and the archi- 
 tect's rule, have aspired to shape their purest and loftiest ideals 
 with the chisel. 
 
 Sculpture has two fields. Single objects of personal adornment 
 or public interest are its first creation. Beginning with the rude 
 Indian's or African's carvings, its highest creations are funereal 
 miblems ; civic statues and monuments; and sacred images and 
 symbols. The other form which works of sculpture have assumed 
 is that of decorations carved upon larger and permanent structures. 
 Such are the sculptures covering the entire walls and columns of 
 temples and tombs in Egypt, and the reliefs on the cornices of 
 Grecian temples. 
 
 Among the objects selected by sculptors in all ages upon which 
 to display the beauty and grandeur possible in artistic design, the 
 vase and the human fo: m may be taken as climactic ideals. 
 
 The Etruscan vase, a product of mingled Grecian and Roman 
 raste, is the masterpiece of simple and chaste beauty, upon which 
 admirers of ait have exhausted the vocabulary of words expressive 
 14 * 
 
162 ART CEITICISM. 
 
 of grace. The vase seems to have been designed for thiee pur- 
 poses ; for private and domestic use, as holders of flowers ; for pub- 
 lic and civic uses, as the urn that received lots and ballots ; and 
 finally and chiefly, as receptacles for the ashes of the burnt dead. 
 The forms of manly grace and female beauty traced in miniature 
 upon their surface, and then painted in simple black, or in dark 
 red, have been copied and published in every country of Western 
 Europe. 
 
 The general outlines of the vase itself most admired are those 
 which make the human form so matchless as a work of art. There 
 is in the lower part the same gently declining inward curve to the 
 foot ; and in the upper portion the same sharper but equally grace- 
 ful slope from the shoulders to the neck, and the same rounding 
 out again of the head at the summit. The art of design in the 
 sculptured vase reached at once its climax because it took the 
 Creator's most perfect work in material forms for its model. 
 Winckelmann says, " The forms of a beautiful body are determined 
 by lines the centre of which is continually changing. This diver- 
 sity was sought after by the Greeks in works of all kinds ; and their 
 discernment of its beauty led them to introduce the same sj^stem 
 into the form of their utensils and vases, whose easy and elegant 
 outline is drawn after the same rule, that is by a line which must 
 be found by means of several circles." 
 
 The human figure itself is the most perfect work of the sculptor ; 
 our impression of beauty uniting in it these two elements ; that 
 lightness which belongs to grace of form, and that perfect balance 
 which takes away all fear as to its strength and firmness of sup- 
 port. In this special work of design, the distinction between 
 Asiatic and European art is palpably manifest. The Egyptian 
 Osiride column was the colossal frame of a Herculean warrior, 
 holding up the crushing burden of massive blocks, all of whose 
 weight is apparent ; while the Greek column called Caryatides was 
 the sylph-like form of a maiden flower-vender, sporting, as it* it. 
 were a wreathed turban of which she was proud, the foliated and 
 concealed burden of stone really resting upon her head. The 
 Hebrew artist carved the cherub as an embodiment of physical 
 perfection, but did not attempt the seraph, the type of intellectual 
 excellence ; while the Greek artist, though he began with the 
 majestic person of Jove and the muscular frame of Hercules, soon 
 
SYMMETRY AND ITS MODULUS. 163 
 
 aspired to the higher forms of spiritual superiority conceh ed in 
 the Apollo and Minerva. In every department of sculpture, more 
 truly than in architecture and painting, the power of design has 
 sought to show itself in an effort to master that chief study among 
 God's perfect works, the matchless symmetry of the human form. 
 
 SECT. 4. PROPORTION AS SECURING SYMMETRY IN WORKS OP 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 A work of sculpture is not like a drawing, a picture of an object; 
 but it is the object itself; and its parts must not simply seem, but 
 actually 6e, copies of the object. This requires not only that the 
 general dimensions of the object be in proportion, but that the 
 junctures and articulations of the parts be in symmetry. 
 
 In fixing laws of symmetry, the Greeks regarded age as well as 
 general proportions. In man, as in the lower animals, the pro- 
 portionate length, even more than the breadth and plumpness ol 
 the limbs, is varied by age. In the young of horses, cows and 
 sheep, which suckle standing, the legs are disproportionately long; 
 while in the cat, dog and other animals suckled by the mother 
 when lying down, the same limbs are as disproportionately short. 
 The human infant has, comparatively, the body long and the 
 limbs short, the head large and the feet small. The Greeks chose 
 for a Cupid the dimensions of a child ; for a Hercules or Jupiter, 
 the proportions of a man mature in body and in mind ; but youth 
 was the age chosen for the expression of beauty and grace. 
 
 As the "summetron," the "modulus," or standard of propor- 
 tionate measurement, both the head and the foot were selected ; 
 the latter being preferred in sculpture, and alone used in archi- 
 tecture. These natural measures, the nail, digit, palm, foot, cubit, 
 pace, ell, fathom, having their type in portions of the human 
 body, so universally fixed in their proportions that they have be- 
 come recognized standards in every nation, rule in art even when 
 forced by legislation from the field where utility holds sway. 
 
 Vitruvius, presenting the proportions observed in Grecian stat- 
 uary, says: "Nature in the composition of the human frame has 
 so ordained, that naturally and ordinarily there should be such a 
 proportion that the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead 
 or roots of the hair, should be one-tenth part of the whole stature ; 
 While the same proportion is preserved in the hand measured from 
 
164 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the bend of the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. The measure 
 of the head from the chin to the top of the scalp is an eighth of the 
 whole body; and the same, behind, is the measure from the 
 bottom of the neck to the bottom of the scalp. From the top of 
 the breast to the roots of the hair is a sixth of the body's height, 
 and from the same point to the top of the scalp is a fourth of tho 
 stature. If the distance from the chin to the roots of the hair be 
 divided into three parts, one of these terminates at the nostrils, the 
 other at the eyebrows." " The foot is a sixth of the stature ; the 
 cubit, or distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, 
 and also the breadth of the chest, is a fourth. The height of the 
 human frame is the same with the measure from one hand to the 
 other." "The other members have certain aflini ties which were 
 always observed by the most celebrated of the ancient painters and 
 sculptors ; and we must look for them in those productions which 
 have excited universal admiration." 
 
 From other ancient authors the details thus referred to may be 
 gathered; the following of which are important to the general 
 student : The head is egg-shaped in the front view, and circular in 
 the side view ; the nose and forehead are nearly in a straight line 
 in the Grecian profile ; the neck is nearty a cylinder ; the arms and 
 legs tapering cylinders ; and the thumb extends to the first joint 
 of the first finger. In the female figure the height is about one- 
 tenth less than in the male; the shoulders and loins are proportion- 
 ally narrower, and the thighs much broader; while the body, limbs, 
 hands, fingers, and nails are less flattened and more perfectly round 
 than in the male. 
 
 SECT. 5. POSITION AS RELATED TO BALANCE IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 In drawing the position of objects must give the appearance of 
 balance ; in sculpture balance must be actually secured. 
 
 In order to this the centre of gravity must be sought, and all tlu 
 parts be so adjusted that the weight be duly distributed around the 
 point of support. It is necessary, therefore, to study the object 
 from every point of view, above, below and around ; observing 
 every conceivable position of its parts, scanning the centre of sup- 
 port in each attitude, and remarking portions of the object lying to 
 the right or the left of the line perpendicular to that centre. 
 
 In all simple and regularly formed bodies, as upright columns, 
 
BALANCE AND PERSPECTIVE IN STATUES. 165 
 
 this is an easy study; but it becomes difficult in an animal moving. 
 in a man poised in action, and yet more in a horse rearing with hia 
 rider and balanced upon his hind hoofs. The artist's difficulty in- 
 creases, according to the laws of stable equilibrium, in proportion 
 to, first, the narrowness of the base ; second, the height of the 
 centre of gravity above the base ; and third, the projection of the 
 parts from the line perpendicular to the centre. A bccr-ning 
 stands firmer than a coffee-cup, because its base is broader ; a rope- 
 walker with his balancing-pole moves securely, because, first, the 
 centre of his entire weight is made lower, and second, the move- 
 ments of the pole readily throw a larger weight, when required, to 
 either side. It is difficult to execute the statue of a rcnrinir li>i>c, 
 both because of the smallness of the base, and of the involved 
 curve in his unusual and momentary position. 
 
 The representations of the work of the sculptor on the monu- 
 ments of Egypt show that their carvers were guided in cutting 
 their granite statues by fixed measures as to balance and propor- 
 tions. The Greek artists, as Xenophon states, studied the human 
 frame in all its varied attitudes. They conceived the human form 
 with the arms and limbs extended to be enclosed in a circle or 
 sphere, whose centre was the navel. Every posture of action, as 
 in walking, running, wrestling, boxing, was mathematically studied; 
 the line of the centre of gravity was carefully marked ; and the 
 position of each limb and portion of the frame was located and 
 measured with the greatest accuracy. At the revival of art, 
 near the close of the fifteenth century, Lionardo wrote minute 
 directions for the sculptor; accompanying them with drawings 
 representing the male and female figure in every posture of 
 repose and of action, and showing in each where the line of 
 gravity would fall. 
 
 SECT. 6. PERSPECTIVE AS AFFECTED BY DISTANCE AND AICQULAR 
 ELEVATION IN WORKS OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 In drawing a distant or elevated object, the artist sees its aspect 
 as actually presented ; and he simply copies the appearance to hi? 
 eye. The sculptor has to conceive beforehand the effect which 
 distance and elevation will produce ; and keeping this before his 
 mind as he works, he has to form an image, which, while he is 
 near and moulding it into form looks distorted and disproportioned, 
 
166 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 but which when elevated to its place will present a perfect outlino 
 and just proportions. 
 
 The two aspects of perspective which the sculptor is to regard 
 are the dimness of outline produced by distance, and the shorten- 
 ing of dimensions from elevation or oblique vision. The former ia 
 illustrated in one of the great works of Phidias. The Athenians 
 had desired both him and his pupil Alcamenes, more admired 
 than his master by many of the people for the extreme grace and 
 polish of his workmanship, to prepare a statue of Minerva of 
 colossal dimensions and for an elevated pedestal. When com 
 pleted, that of Alcamenes seemed perfect in proportion and finish, 
 while that of Phidias appeared to distort the principal features. 
 and to make the whole countenance rude and even hideous. Bu>, 
 the master had studied the science of his art ; and when the two 
 statues were elevated to their pedestals the grand and impressi\e 
 beauty of the work of Phidias stood out, and every feature was 
 softened into grace; while the polish of Alcamenes was lost in dim- 
 ness, and no feature indicating life or beauty could be traced. 
 
 In foreshortening the sculptor has a yet more difficult task. In 
 perspective we judge of dimensions by the angle of vision filled ; while, 
 nevertheless, in real objects of known dimensions we partially correct 
 this impression. The form of a friend on an elevation fills a less 
 angle of vision than when seen on a level with the eye, yet we readily 
 correct this impression. When looking, however, from a tall spire 
 on the heads of passing men, they seem like turtles without stature; 
 this extreme of entire foreshortening indicating its law when par- 
 tial. In the statue the mind follows only partially the law of cor- 
 rection made in living persons. While the sculptor would gieatly 
 err who should suppose that all the difference of height which the 
 mathematical law indicates is to be introduced into his work, he 
 must give that slight exaggeration of the height of his figure re- 
 quired in a portrait or bust to set off any marked feature. To this 
 principle is probably to be referred the remark of Pliny as to Ly- 
 cippus, " He added much to statuary by making the heads smaller 
 and the bodies more graceful and less bloated ; through which the 
 height of statues seemed greater. " In many of the colossal statues 
 made for elevated positions in later times this principle ha? been 
 lost sight of. 
 
ACTION AND EXPRESSION IN STATUES. JO/ 
 
 SECT. 7. ANATOMY AS IT RELATES TO ACTION AND EXPRESSION IN 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 The proportionate length and breadth of the several parts of the 
 human figure may be learned from exterior aspect. It is only, 
 however, by anatomy or the cutting up of the human frame that the 
 sculptor comprehends the contractions and swellings of the muscles, 
 and the pressing out of the bone joints when men are putting furth 
 their strength in action, or that he can scan the minuter workings 
 of the muscles of the face, which give to the countenance its varied 
 expression. 
 
 The Egyptians utterly ignored the expression of muscular action 
 in their statues; a religious superstitition compelling the physician 
 and the artist to abstain from anatomical dissections of the human 
 frame. The Greeks, on the other hand, made great attainments 
 in the practical knowledge of anatomy; accomplish ir,, this, how- 
 ever, more by observation of the living than by dissection of the 
 dead. For this purpose their artists employed living models; 
 whose nude forms, thrown into every variety of posture, and sub- 
 jected to every kind of muscular tension, were made to serve as 
 copies from which to model. When under the Roman supremacy 
 the dissection, and even the burning to ashes of dead bodies, was 
 approved as religious, Galen wrote at length on anatomy; minutely 
 describing not only the bones and muscles, but also blood-vessels 
 and nerves ; stating his purpose to write a treatise especially for 
 artists. 
 
 The ideas of the ancients as to anatomical expression have been 
 laboriously collected by Winckelmann and Dalloway. The parts in 
 which beauty of design may be shown are the head, hands and 
 feet. A straight profile indicates majesty in man and loveliness in 
 woman. Their axiom founded on the supposed perfection of the 
 tripartite division of the head, as also of the whole form, in which 
 the forehead, the nose and the lips, together with the chin are 
 equal thirds, led Grecian maidens to use a fillet or band in order to 
 raise or bring down the hair to the proportion of beauty ; an idea 
 alluded to by Horace in his Lycoris. 
 
 The eye in colossal statues was deep set and darkly shaded by the 
 brow in order to be the better seen from afar. In Jupiter, Apollo 
 and Juno the upper eyelid is 'iigh arched, indicative of the bold- 
 
16S ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ness assumed by superiors; in Minerva it droops, indicating 
 modesty ; while in Venus the lower lid is raised, giving that lan- 
 guishing expression captivating to lovers. In the old masters the 
 pupil was never marked ; since this is an expression of color not of 
 form. Pindar remarks the narrow eyebrow in Grecian statues, as 
 the Niobe ; now seen also in the women of the Greek Isles. Theoc- 
 ritus alludes to the hair of the two eyebrows meeting in a double 
 arch as a beauty, which, however, the Roman sculptors regarded u 
 blemish. 
 
 The hair y as in Hercules, was represented short, thick and low on 
 the forehead ; while Jove's was bushy like a lion's mane. In woman 
 it was wrought into curled tresses, or in deep wavy lines giving 
 shade and softness ; and the locks behind were gathered into that 
 simple knot admired in every subsequent age as a model of grace. 
 Any artificial head dress, tolerated by the fashion of a day becomes 
 hideous after a few years ; a sad drawback cii the value of old 
 family portraits. 
 
 Ancient and modern taste has been divided as to the beard in 
 statuary. The Egyptian lords were close shaven ; as Herodotus 
 affirms and the countless bas-reliefs and statues, without exception, 
 show ; a custom of court etiquette to which Joseph the Hebrew 
 conformed. Homer, whom Phidias followed, pictures Jupiter as 
 bearded. Virgil, however, makes no mention of this feature; and 
 in all the finer Grecian statues, as those of Apollo and of intellec- 
 tual men, the beard is omitted. Ovid, Horace and Juvenal allude 
 to the beard as a rude relic of their uncultured ancestry, or a mark 
 of pedantry. 
 
 The swelling of the nostrils, as in the Apollo Belvidere, indicates 
 energy. The beauty of the chin is simple roundness ; sometimes, 
 as in the Venus de Medici, with an added slight depression. A 
 dimple either in the cheek or chin is not a beauty in a statue. The 
 small exquisitely curved lips of the Venus de Medici are one of its 
 chief charms. The ear is such a test of masterly workmanship 
 that Winckelmann made it his rule for judging of a genuine antique. 
 The foot and the hand, next to the features of the head, show the 
 true Grecian master in sculpture. 
 
 Lionardo has given the completest collection extant of studies in 
 attitude and expression. Bell has done for art what Cuvier did 
 for science ; having laid the foundation of a system of comparative 
 
METHOD OF EXECUTING STATUES. 109 
 
 anatomy for artists. He thinks that no emotion but that of rage 
 is fully expressed by the features of animals. Carnn orous quad- 
 rupeds exhibit anger by the corrugations of the lips ; the horse by 
 his ears turned back. Courage to a certain extent is exhibited in 
 the horse by his eye and nostrils, and by his ears pricked forward. 
 The attitudes of animals Bell regards more expressive than their 
 features. 
 
 Hay's principles of aesthetic proportions have their most ad- 
 mirable applications in sculpture. In architecture the Greeks em- 
 ployed angles whose sines and tangents corresponded with the 
 lengths of cords producing the tonic, mediant and dominant in 
 music. In statuary they introduced two additional principles, em- 
 ploying eleven angles in all, whose sines and tangents correspond 
 in length to concordant musical cords. The female figure is 
 founded on the right angle ; regarded by Pythagoras and Plato as 
 the perfect angle. The male form shows a scale of angles obtained 
 by a transposition of that on which the female figure is constructed. 
 
 SECT. 8. PRACTICAL EXECUTION OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 The study of his design, and the working up of its details in 
 drawings, is the first labor of the sculptor. If the artist be a scien- 
 tific master, every portion of the rounded form is conceived as 
 bounded by tangent planes ; whose slopes are carefully observed, 
 and the angles of their junctions noted. 
 
 The second work is the moulding in clay of the image elaborated 
 in the drawings. On a framework of wood and iron, with arms 
 for the projecting limbs a dark clay of easy-moulding properties 
 is kneaded with the hand into the general outline of the statue ; 
 when with small scrapers of wood and ivory the form is completely 
 rounded by months of labor. When thoroughly hardened by dry- 
 ing, a mould in sand is made from the clay figure ; in which work- 
 ing models in plaster are cast. 
 
 The Egyptian sculptor built a staging around the granite block 
 to be cut into a statue, and from the sides of this staging the artist 
 laid off the depth into the stone which each workman was to cut. 
 The Greek artist having conceived the position of his statue in the 
 marble block, had kindred methods of directing the workmen. 
 
 Lionardo gives this statement of the methods of sculptors at his 
 day. " To execute a figure in marble, you must first make a model 
 15 H 
 
170 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of it in clay, or plaster, and when it is finished, place it in a squar** 
 case, equally capable of receiving the block of marble intended to 
 be shaped like it. Have some peg-like sticks to pass through 
 holes made in the sides, and all round the case ; push them in till 
 every one touches the model ; marking what remains of the sticks 
 outward with ink, and making a countermark to every stick and 
 its hole, so that you may at pleasure replace them again. Then 
 having taken out the model, and placed the block of marble in its 
 stead, take so much out of it, till all the pegs go in at the same 
 holes to the marks you had made." 
 
 The common method of modern times is to insert in an upright 
 post on a wooden stand sliding arms graduated into minute divi- 
 sions of inches. In a square marked on the floor sufficiently large 
 to allow lines dropped from the extremities of the plaster figure to 
 fall within its limits, the model is placed ; when the sliding arms 
 of the gauge are pushed toward the model -till they touch its ex- 
 treme points. The gauge is then placed before the biock of 
 marble and the stone is cut away until its arms meet the chipped 
 block as they fitted the model. Thus every portion of tne entire 
 figure is brought to its required proportions. 
 
 The genius of the artist conceives his design, elab>/ates it with 
 the pencil, and moulds it in clay. The mere cutting down of the 
 rough stone may be performed by a common mechanic. This work, 
 however, must be hourly presided over by the genius that con- 
 ceived the ideal. No man can be a great artist who is not a man 
 of practical science; since the workmen, literally his "hands,' 
 must be guided by his one mind. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCULPTURE; ILLUSTRATED IN THE EGYPTIAN. 
 
 THE earliest records of the human race, mention Tubal Cain the 
 seventh from Adam as "an instructor of every artificer in brass and 
 iron." The oldest monuments of Egypt present every form of 
 sculpture ; and the most ancient histories of Moses and Herodotus 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 171 
 
 allude to perfected methods of sculpture as practised from time 
 immemorial ; Egypt being the first and chief centre of the art 
 
 SECT. 1. CLASSES OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE AND METHODS OP 
 EGYPTIAN SCULPTORS. 
 
 The Egyptians have left every form of sculpture. The hiero- 
 glyphics are cut into obeliskfe of granite in deep intaglio; whose 
 sharp and clear side lines make the figure of the smallest size per- 
 fectly distinct and even beautiful in its darkness of shade. Sculp- 
 tures in low-relief of animated battle-scenes are cut on the walls of 
 temples in sandstone; the entire walls of " hundred-gated Thebes" 
 being covered with these sculptures. The sculpture in the tombs, 
 sometimes in high-relief, is upon a hard stucco, whose composition 
 has not yet revealed its secret to modern analyzers. The capitals 
 of columns called Osiride present a perfect relief in front ; some- 
 times as at Aboo Simbel having a shaft wrought into a half-statue. 
 Their statues of red or black granite and of a grayish porphyritic 
 limestone, have a massiveness beyond conception wonderful. The 
 single relic at Memphis is sixty feet high in a standing posture ; the 
 \ T ocal Memnon and its brother at Thebes are sixty feet high in a 
 sitting posture ; while one of red granite, now prostrate and 
 shattered, is calculated by Sir Gardner Wilkinson to have weighed 
 over eleven hundred tons. 
 
 The work of executing these colossal statues is illustrated on the 
 walls of the tombs. The stone, first quarried in the granite ledges 
 of Syene, was set up on its lower end, already squared as a base. 
 Stages were erected for the stone-cutters about seven feet above 
 each other quite to the summit of the block. Under a chief artist 
 as guide, hewers, with large picks and heavy mallets, succeeded by 
 smoothers with light chisels and by polishers with rubbers, began at 
 the head and worked downward. 
 
 When completed the finished statue was placed on a strong 
 wooden sledge, which was made to slide on a wooden railway. 
 Drag-ropes were fastened to the sledge at which thousands of men 
 pulled, directed by a superintendent perched in the lap of the 
 statue ; and men with oil, or water, in pots, lubricated the rails 
 before the sledge. These minute processes of the sculptor were, 
 in the latei ages, forgotten in the grand array of force employed in 
 Egyptian art. 
 
172 ATJT CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 2. TIIE ANATOMICAL SKILL DISPLAYED IN EGYPTIAN 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 In Egypt, though there were, as Herodotus states, physicians 
 for the eye, ear, teeth, and for special diseases, the study of human 
 an?,tomy related to external dimensions, not to muscular develop- 
 ment. The stature was well-proportioned, being made seven 
 and one-third measures of the height of the head ; while the hips 
 tvere at the centre of the height. The features are regularly 
 rounded, and the expression is placid ; but the same aspect is given 
 to the Sphynx at Memphis and the Memnon at Thebes, to the king 
 on his throne and the warrior in battle, to the mourner at a funeral 
 and the laborer in the field. 
 
 As there was no contraction of the muscles of the face giving 
 expression to emotion in the Egyptian statue, so there was no 
 variation of posture in the head giving occasion for different ex- 
 pression. In reliefs there is always the same uniform profile view ; 
 and in statues there is no turning of the head, or bending of the 
 neck. The proportionate breadth of the chest and hips of male 
 and female figures is not observed ; the contraction of the loins and 
 the taper of the chest in both being exaggerated. The shoulders, 
 too, aro set off from the body as if they were app^h Jages to the 
 frame. 
 
 The chief defect in Egyptian sculpture is the utter extinction of 
 life in the figures. The erect colossal statues all have the hands 
 and feet straightened down like a corpse laid out for burial. The 
 seated statues have both arms stretched out by the side of the leg; 
 as motionless as those of an old man asleep in his arm-chair. In 
 bas-reliefs the arms and legs of men in every employ, whether 
 vrielding javelins or swords, whips or hammers, whether walking, 
 marching, running or leaping, all have the same stiff, motionless, 
 petrified outline and contour. There is no bending of the neck or 
 contraction of the muscles, no rounding of the joints or projecting 
 of the joint bones from the strain of the muscles. The fine pro- 
 portion of limb and accurate representation of features so often 
 quoted in Asiatic and Egyptian sculpture are but the mechanical 
 working up of a copy ; there could have been no study of living 
 models among the Egyptian sculptors. As there is no life, no 
 
MORAL FEATURES OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 173 
 
 elasticity of bodily frame, so of course there is no thinking soul 
 animating the body in Egyptian sculpture. 
 
 Winckelmann has well suggested that the aim of the Egyptian 
 sculptor was to impress by magnitude, not by expression in his 
 figures. The characteristics enumerated are observed not only in 
 the early and primitive Egyptian sculpture, but also in the ages of 
 genuine development and progress. They mar even the spirited 
 battle-scenes upon the walls of the newer portion of the Temple of 
 Karnac at Thebes ; in which the men and horses have a life and 
 vigor if not a grace worthy of even the Grecian chisel. 
 
 RECT. 3. THE MORAL TONE CHARACTERIZING EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 The lack of anatomical accuracy, or rather vivacity, character- 
 izing Egyptian sculpture, is mainly attributable to the moral spirit 
 of the "wise men" who controlled the artist, repressing his genius. 
 Synesius, a native Egyptian, a pupil of the famed Hypatia, after 
 he became a Christian, stated: "Among the Egyptians the 
 prophets did not allow metal-founders or statuaries to represent 
 the gods, for fear that they would deviate from the rule." As a 
 consequence statues of kings, supposed as deified to assume form? 
 and features like to each other, must be assimilated to the common 
 celestial model ; and hence, too, even in bas-reliefs of ordinary 
 men and animals, the people refused to allow their old favorites to 
 be displaced by novices. The superstitious horror of marring the 
 body of the dead by dissection, lest the soul should thereby suffer, 
 which, even in Greece at the time of Demosthenes, compelled the 
 student of anatomy to hide his dissecting-room in caves of the 
 mountains, had a still greater influence in the land of embalming, 
 
 The mingling of animal and human features in statuary was an 
 error in moral as well as aesthetic judgment. Agassiz has well 
 suggested, that to add the wings of a bird to an ethereal imago of 
 man detracts from, instead of adding to, our conception of angelic 
 exaltation. The metaphors, "he had a lion's courage, an ox's 
 strength, and an eagle's ken," embodied in the cherubim pictured 
 by Ezekiel, as Raphael conceived, could not be represented to the 
 eye. The sculptors of Egypt did not discriminate between meta- 
 phor and figure, between associated symbols and actual combina- 
 tion of inconsistent elements. The Egyptian Sphynx, with a 
 human head thirty feet in altitude, and a lion's body couchant one 
 15* 
 
174 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 huncLed and sixty-three feet long, the Assyrian winged bull with 
 humai head, the crocodile and hawked-headed deities, and kindred 
 monstrosities, rise to the mind of Horace in the very opening of his 
 Ars Poetica as a violation of moral propriety. 
 
 RECT. 4. THE HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE; ITS RUDE NA- 
 TIVE ORIGINALS; ITS ENNOBLEMENT BY SUPERIOR ARTISTS FROM 
 
 ASIA; ITS REFINEMENT FROM GRECIAN INFLUENCE; AND ITS 
 DECLINE UNDER THE ROMAN SWAY. 
 
 The observing tourist on the Nile, or student of the best writer,} 
 on Egyptian art, can readily trace the prominent marks of succes- 
 sive stages .of development in Egyptian sculpture. The age of 
 primitive art in Egypt is very early in man's history ; Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson fixing the founding of Memphis at B. C. 2320, the 
 building of the Pyramid of Cheops at B. C. 2123, and the visit of 
 Abraham to Egypt at B. 0. 1921. The memorials of these four 
 centuries of rude native art are the pyramids and tombs back of 
 Memphis. No hieroglyphics were cut on granite ; but the mon- 
 arch's name was painted in red ochre. The sculptures on tomb 
 walls were rude and simple, the figures in low relief, cut in outline 
 rather than in rounded contour. 
 
 It is a transition to a new world to meet the life-like scenea 
 sculptured on the temples and tombs at Thebes, whose era begins 
 with Osirtasen L, in Joseph's day, about B. C. 1740. During this 
 period, foreign kings and priests of a caste like the Brahmins in 
 India, ruled in Egypt; and Rameses the conqueror brought in 
 foreign artists. Though restrained in choice of subjects and 
 methods by native taste, these* superior masters threw a dignity 
 and variety into their designs and execution as marked as the 
 transition in Greece from Daedalus to Phidias. 
 
 The Greeks under the Ptolemies, at Ombos and the Isle of Phila 
 in Upper Egypt, reared temples truly Egyptian in architecture, yet, 
 Grecian in sculptural finish. Yet later, the temples at Esneh and 
 Dendera, most magnificent remains of Egyptian architectuie, were 
 reared by the Csesars; the excessive profusion of their sculptured 
 decorations bespeaking their Roman spirit. The art of Egypt died 
 out under succeeding Mohammedan rulers. 
 
SCULPTURE OF EASTERN AND WESTERN ASIA. 175 
 
 SECT. 5. THE SCULPTURE OP EASTERN ASIA; THE 
 SCALE OF PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE; INCLUDING THAT OP INDIA, 
 CHINA, POLYNESIA AND CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AMERICA. 
 
 The ancient massive sculpture of Egypt and India and the modern 
 art in China belong to the same family ; as truly as do the jugglers 
 of Cairo, Calcutta and Canton. The chief existing remains in In- 
 dia are two rock-hewn temples at Elephanta and Ellora in the 
 vicinity of Bombay. At Elephanta are colossal statues and bas- 
 reliefs on walls and columns ; chief among which is the celebrated 
 three-headed deity Brahma. At Ellora are rock-hewn tombs ex- 
 tending a mile and a half along a rocky hill-side ; obelisks sixty 
 feet high ; colossal elephants and gigantic statues ; walls covered 
 with bas-reliefs representing every variety of scene, domestic, re- 
 ligious and military ; all belonging to the Egyptian type. 
 
 The Chinese like the Egyptians chose the hardest stone for 
 sculpture. Their porcelain is of the same style of workmanship 
 as the Egyptian vitrified baked clay. Their work in miniature 
 resembles that found in the Egyptian tombs. 
 
 Passing eastward, Humboldt traced a tide of emigration from the 
 shores of Asia past the Pacific isles to the coast of America, finding 
 buildings and sculpture like to those of Egypt among the Aztecs and 
 Mexicans. The carvings on the walls of the palace of Mitla, he 
 says, "offer striking analogies with those of the vases of lower 
 Italy." The pen of Stevens and the pencil of Catherwood have 
 made yet. more striking this likeness to both Egyptian and Chinese 
 types. The whole chain of specimens, half round the globe west- 
 ward, is the degenerate phase of Egyptian sculpture. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE SCULPTURE or WESTERN ASIA, THE ASCENDING 
 
 SCALE OF PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE; INCLUDING THE ARABIAN, 
 HEBREW, ASSYRIAN AND PERSIAN. 
 
 The desert of Sinai is stored with sculptured relics which form 
 the first steps in the ascending scale of Egyptian art. In retired 
 valleys are facades of tombs, with columns and entablatures cut in 
 high relief, Egyptian in origin. Surabeet el-Kh'adhn, southeast of 
 Suez, is a perfect stoie-house of historical tablets erected by Egypt- 
 ian monarchs. 
 
 Passing the desert cf Sinai, at Petra, an advanced style of art is 
 
176 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 found in the rich rock-hewn temple fronts. These sculptures, 
 whose beauties enrapture every tourist, are the first link in a chain 
 that goes winding on through Palestine and Syria, till, circling 
 about, it meets the artistic advancement of the Greek colonies on 
 the west coast of Asia Minor. 
 
 Hebrew sculpture originated during the second and most ad- 
 vanced era of native Egyptian art; and the Hebrew artists, like the 
 Hebrew lawgiver, were "learned in the wisdom of Egypt." The 
 cherubs and candelabra of beaten gold, the form of which latter is 
 preserved on the arch of Titus at Rome and described by Josephus 
 the historian, were types of superior forms attempted in advanced 
 ages of sculpture. Six hundred years after Moses, under Solomon, 
 we read that the chief artist employed in decorating the Hebrew 
 temple was a Tyrian ; whose teachers were brought from Egypt. To 
 the sculptured vessels prepared under Moses, Solomon added two 
 colossal cherubs. The ceiling of the inner sanctuary was carved 
 with palm-trees, cherubs and open flowers. Two pillars in front 
 had capitals wrought with wreaths of lilies and pomegranates. 
 The brazen lavers had reliefs of bulls, lions and eagles ; and the 
 great font stood on twelve brazen oxen. 
 
 In Assyria and Chaldea engraving on rocks was practised in the 
 patriarchal age of Job. Daniel's mention at a later period of the 
 golden statue of the king is illustrated in the gilded colossi now 
 exhumed. The winged bulls uncovered by Layard are kindred 
 to Egyptian designs. Mosaic pavements with figures in intaglio, 
 represent state pageants and battle-scenes, in which there is the 
 Egyptian stiffness of attitude and want of perspective. There is, 
 however, a plumpness of the muscles, a life in the countenances 
 and an action in the postures entirely unlike that seen in Egyptian 
 sculptures. Layard remarks, " The principal distinction between 
 Assyrian and Egyptian art appears to be, that in the one, conven- 
 tional forms were much more strictly adhered to than in the other. 
 .... The Assyrians, less fettered, sought to imitate nature 
 more closely ; as is proved by the constant endeavors to show the 
 muscles, veins and anatomical proportions of the human figure." 
 
 Tn Persia ancient and modern sculpture are distinct. The 
 modern Persians, of the ancient Caucasian stock, are the Protest- 
 ants of Mohammedism; and as such retain the higher idea, be- 
 longiug to their lineage, both of religious truth and of the relation 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 177 
 
 o? art to religion. The sculptures of ancient Persepolis have the 
 muscular development of the Assyrian, with greater delicacy, ease 
 and grace of finish. The men are stout and bearded ; and their 
 close-fitting military coats with capes, indicating a cold climatg, 
 show greater skill in the artist. Comparing the Persian with 
 Assyrian sculpture, Layard says, " They exhibit precisely the same 
 mode of treatment, the same forms, the same peculiarities in the 
 arrangement of the bas-reliefs against the walls, the same entrances 
 formed by gigantic winged animals with human heads, and finally v 
 the same religious emblems. There was no attempt even in later 
 Persian sculpture, found in Asia Minor, to impart sentiment to the 
 features or even to give more than the side view to the face ; though 
 there was a manifest improvement in the disposition of draperies 
 and in the delineation of the human features." 
 
 Of these general relations Layard says; "The Xanthian marbles 
 acquired for this country by Sir Charles Fellows, and now in the 
 British Museum, are remarkable illustrations of the threefold con- 
 nection between Assyria and Persia, Persia and Asia Minor, and 
 Asia Minor and Greece. Were those marbles properly arranged, 
 and placed in chronological order, they would enable even the most 
 superficial observer to trace the gradual progress of art from its 
 primitive rudeness to the most classic conceptions of the Greek 
 sculptor. Not that he would find either style, the pure Assyrian 
 or the Greek, in its greatest perfection ; but he would be able to see 
 how a closer imitation of nature, a gradual refinement of taste and 
 additional study had converted the hard and rigid lines of the 
 Assyrians into the flowing draperies and classic forms of the highest 
 order of art." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CLASSIC SCULPTURE EMBODIED IN THE GRECIAN. 
 
 TIIE language of art given by the Greeks to the world, specially 
 rich in terms for sculpture, indicates their special pre-eminence in 
 this department. Homer's descriptions of the shield of Achilles, 
 
 H* 
 
J78 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of the bowl of Helen, and of the belt of Hercules, intimate its early 
 Krigin. 
 
 Winckelmann, the special student of Grecian sculpture, has 
 (Divided its history into four ages; the rude style prevailing till 
 Phidias; the grand style inaugurated by Phidias; the graceful 
 style of the polished successors of Phidias; and, finally, the imita- 
 tive style of the Grecian decline. The attentive student of ancient 
 Greek and Latin authorities, especially of Pliny, and of modern 
 k critics like Winckelmann, aided by a careful comparison of relics 
 of Grecian sculpture preserved chiefly in the galleries of Italy, will 
 naturally extend this classification. 
 
 SECT. 1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 The characteristics of a people's art are influenced by climate, 
 face of country and native cast of mind. The Egyptians dwelling 
 on a level river bottom, where massiveness and elevation were neces- 
 sary to make their works conspicuous, built and carved every work 
 in colossal proportions ; and living in a climate where there was no 
 rain, they covered the exterior of their edifices with minute and 
 delicate sculptures which the storms of a Grecian winter would 
 have soon obliterated. The Greeks, in a land of hills and plains, 
 could make a temple of low proportions prominent; and could gain 
 a rarer beauty by chastening and sheltering their nicer works. 
 The Egyptians, like all Orientals, counted repose and impassive 
 stolidity the highest attribute of Deity; and nature gave the"m 
 along their river banks the inexpressive granite and sandstone in 
 which to stereotype their stiff deities. The Greeks were all life 
 and animation ; and nature furnished them the almost breathing 
 marble, whose fine texture and pure white surface seemed made to 
 be polished into forms of beauty. It was the meeting of these ex- 
 ternal and internal causes that made the art of these two peoples 
 such counterparts to each other. 
 
 Pliny relates that the Greeks had, first, sculptured vases, candela- 
 bras, decorated columns and furniture. After these came imagines^ 
 or images ; by the Greeks entitled eicones, or likenesses, and by the 
 Romans statuce, or "standing" forms. 
 
 Religious devotion led Greek sculptors first to form deities ; but 
 as these were only heroes of earth, the transition was 1 easy to 
 superior men. At first only emblems distinguished one deity from 
 
THE BOLD STYLE OF DAEDALUS. 179 
 
 anothei ; Jupiter being known by his forked thunderbolt; Nep- 
 tune by his trident or fish spear : and Apollo by his archer's bow. 
 
 In the advance of the art, posture, dress, sex and aesthetic ideas 
 were studied. The natural posture of a single form was standing ; 
 but in groups filling gables, reclining became artistic. Equestrian 
 statues began with Centaurs ; and in bas-reliefs and full form, 
 chariots with riders were cut in stone, or cast in brass. 
 
 To bring out the strength and beauty of the human form nude 
 models were so sought as to occasion Pliny's remark, " The Grecian 
 method is to veil nothing. ' ' Phidias, however, draped his Minerva ; 
 and Cicero remarked, " The fondness of the Romans for martial 
 glory is observed in the fact that we generally see their statues 
 decked in military array." 
 
 From the nude female form, first, Venus, then the Graces were 
 studied ; the Greeks selecting youth for special beauty of form, 
 both in Venus and Apollo. Proceeding farther, the Greeks con- 
 ceived the Amazon, or masculine woman, uniting to the robustness 
 of the male the grace of the female form in Minerva and Diana ; 
 adding as a counterpart the Hermaphrodite, or Mercury- Venus, 
 carving the manly form in lines of feminine delicacy. The centres 
 of sculptural art were in Greece proper, Sicyon and Athens ; in the 
 Eastern Isles, Egina and Rhodes ; and in the Western colonies, 
 Sicily and Etruria. The number of works executed and preserved, 
 as stated by Pliny, is astounding. Lycippus alone made 1500 works. 
 At Rhodes there were no less than 3000 statues, and as many at 
 Athens, Olympus and Delphi. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE BOLD STYLE OF GRECIAN SCULPTURE ; BEGINNING 
 WITH DAEDALUS. 
 
 Three hundred years after Cecrops founded Athens, Daedalus, 
 contemporary with Theseus, about B. C. 1230, began the age of 
 primitive Grecian sculpture, properly called the Bold Style; which 
 rxtended to about B. C. 580, a period of 650 years. 
 
 Universally recognized as leader in Grecian sculpture and archi- 
 tecture in Homer's day, the name daidalia was a synonym for fine 
 carvings. In the age of Augustus no less than nine famed monu- 
 ments of his genius in sculpture were still admired, even by the side 
 of the works of Phidias. Of these the naked Hercules, lost at 
 Rome but preserved in numerous bronze copies, is still a master- 
 
180 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 piece. The figure is nude, and in an attitude of bold advance ; the 
 right arm wields a club, and the left is wrapped in a lion's skin> 
 while the wrinkled countenance, the swollen chest and contracted 
 loins, the strained sinews and bulging muscles, all indicate a rare 
 study of nature in an age of bold conception and of rude execution. 
 
 Daedalus had two classes of followers. One became mere copiers 
 of the themes and manner of their master; while another catching 
 his idea went beyond their leader, attempting the female as well as 
 the male figure. To the former belonged Epeus, the fabricator of 
 the famed colossal wooden horse, regarded as a deity by the 
 Trojans, and therefore manifestly one of a class known to the 
 Greeks and Trojans. 
 
 To the latter must be referred the higher yet rude characteristics 
 illustrated by Winckelmann ; the brow of Jupiter and the curl of 
 his shaggy locks being precisely that of the lion, and the neck of 
 Hercules just that of the bull. To this class also belonged Smilis, 
 who carved a Juno of wood, admired in after times by the sweet 
 poet Callimachus ; and Endseus who made a Minerva, which 
 Pausanias saw at Athens. The female as well as male deities had 
 a bold, advancing attitude, and full muscular development; the 
 female figures, however, being draped in robes hanging in a few 
 straight yet graceful folds. The line of Daedalus closes with 
 Dipoenus and Scyllis, who flourished about B. C. 580 ; whom 
 Pliny mentions as u the first sculptors in marble." 
 
 SECT. 3. THE ATHLETIC STYLE, MATURED BY AGELADAS; STATUES 
 OF VICTORS IN FEATS OF STRENGTH; ILLUSTRATED BY THE 
 
 BOXER AND QUOIT-THROWER. 
 
 As Homer, advancing on Hesiod, pictured heroes in war like 
 Hector and Achilles, so the first sculptors who dared to leave the 
 gods and picture men, chose as ideals men like Hercules, of physi- 
 cal prowess. 
 
 The Olympic games, originated after the heroic age, B. C. 776, 
 led to the athletic style in sculpture. Occurring once in four years 
 and designed to promote skill in feats of strength, beginning 
 with only racing, to which every variety of gymnastics was after- 
 ward added, at the seventh Olympiad, B. C. 748, crowns were 
 awarded the victors, and at a later era statues. At the sixty-fifth 
 celebration the athletic style in sculpture had reached its climax of 
 
THE WORKS OF PHIDIAS. 181 
 
 perfection under Ageladas, the instructor of Phidias. At the sixty- 
 sixth, Phidias himself made the statue of a victor in a chariot race ; 
 and Alcainenes, his pupil and rival, and other sculptors of rarest 
 talent were proud to excel in statues of athletes. 
 
 The aim of the athletic style was to bring out the perfect anat- 
 omy of the human form, when each joint and muscle was strained 
 to the utmost tension in every variety of gymnastic exercise. The 
 figures were ideal, not likenesses of the victors ; they were perfectly 
 nude, showing every portion of the frame ; the beard was cither 
 entirely removed, or cropped short; and every variety of position 
 and expression was studied and copied. The Gladiator, called the 
 Borghese Hero, the work of Agasias of Ephesus, who lived a 
 century later than Ageladas, also the Boxer, the Quoit-thrower, 
 and many kindred works, are masterpieces of this style. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE GRAND STYLE ENNOBLED BY PHIDIAS; MAJESTIC 
 IDEALS OF HERO-WORSHIP IN THE AGE OF GIIKEK CULTURE; 
 ILLUSTRATED IN THE MINERVA AND JOVE OF PHIDIAS. 
 
 Phidias, the great master of this and of all the Grecian ages in 
 sculpture, was born B. C. 500. About B. C. 550 Sicyon, had intro- 
 duced into her common schools practice in modeling ; and Athens 
 soon added the study of plastic art. The instructor of Phidias was 
 Ageladas; Pericles was rebuilding Athens and Socrates teaching 
 philosophy during his mature manhood. Thus a century of art 
 training conspired to develop the master of the grand style in 
 sculpture. 
 
 Though truly original, Phidias owed much to his teacher and his 
 contemporaries, as well as to the people, whose criticisms he in- 
 vited. Cicero says: "Phidias, when he would make a form of 
 Jupiter, or Minerva, did not contemplate anything from which he 
 should draw the likeness ; but in his own mind there was a certain 
 species of select beauty ; gazing on which, and fixed upon it, he 
 directed his art and hand to execute its likeness." 
 
 In Phidias, as in all truly great artists, magnanimity became a 
 mouldin.; power. He loved his art so much that he did all in his 
 power to make others artists ; thus increasing his own skill. AD 
 his pupils breathed into their works the lofty intellectual air caught 
 from their master. 
 
 The greatest of his single works was his Olympian -Jove of 
 '6 
 
182 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ivory and gold, made for the temple of Elis. The image was forty - 
 six feet high, seated upon a throne, bearded, crowned with olive, 
 nude to the cincture, but robed below. In his right hand was a 
 statue of Victory, and in his left a sceptre. The aweing majesty 
 of this figure overpowered men of the noblest and sternest mind. 
 
 The comprehensive work of Phidias was the adorning of the Par- 
 thenon. The colossal Minerva peering through the roof was thirty- 
 five feet high ; the face, neck and breast being of ivory, the robe 
 of gold, and the eyes of precious stones. Another of bronze stood 
 in front of the Parthenon ; whose spear point and helmet crest were 
 \isible to mariners as they doubled the promontory of Sunium. 
 
 In the tympanum of the principal front stood Jove receiving 
 Minerva and the intellectual deities, who came to accept Athens, 
 which Neptune and the rude gods of the sea were surrendering. 
 The high reliefs in the metopes, and the low reliefs under the 
 portico, many of them now in the London Museum, are among the 
 richest treasures of ancient sculpture. 
 
 In the sculpture of the Parthenon, deities are full statues and 
 colossal ; while human figures are of life, or half size, and in relief. 
 The life and grace of the human figure and also of the horses, 
 lions, oxen and even the serpents, are as perfect as man's work can 
 veil be. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE GRACEFUL STYLE ; PERFECTED BY PRAXITELES ; 
 IDEALS OF PHYSICAL BEAUTY ILLUSTRATED IN THE VENUS DE 
 MEDICI, OF INTELLECTUAL GRACE IN THE APOLLO BELVIDERE, 
 AND OF COMPOSITE SYMMETRY IN THE AMAZON AND HERM- 
 APHRODITE. 
 
 Manly grandeur was perfected by Phidias ; and the pupils of 
 Phidias, who shared his genius, sought original excellence in a 
 more delicate grace of outline and a more elaborate finish of detail, 
 belonging to female loveliness. 
 
 Myron, a predecessor of Phidias, had cultivated the graceful 
 style. Quinctilian characterizes his works as "more delicately 
 wrought than those of Calamis ;" and Cicero says, " Although the 
 works of Myron had not yet sufficiently attained to truth, yet they 
 were such as you could not hesitate to call beautiful." 
 
 Praxiteles, chief master in this style, Pliny states, "was specially 
 happy in marble ;" this material allowing delicacy of finish. Hifl 
 
THE VENUS AND APOLLO. 183 
 
 works were deities of ethereal physical mould, "Phryne," the 
 Athenian beauty, and the goddess of sensual love, Venus. The 
 only work of his that now exists, probably, is to be found in the 
 bas-reliefs upon the frieze of the Parthenon. 
 
 The famed Venuses of Praxiteles exist only in the copy by 
 Scopas, the famed Venus de Medici. Praxiteles made two 
 Venuses, one draped, the other nude. The Cnidians bought the 
 latter, reared a little open temple for it, and it became, as Pliny 
 eays, u esteemed before all works in the world;" many making 
 voyages tc Cnidus expressly to see it. Scopas, who lived some- 
 what later, and whose "fame vied with that of Praxiteles," made 
 a kindred work, which is still preserved probably in the Venus de 
 Medici. 
 
 In this work Venus is represented as coming from the bath ; and 
 as if startled by the approach of some one, she is turning her head 
 slightly to one side, her eye is cast upward, as if to avoid meeting 
 the gaze of the intruder, while her right hand is thrown forward to 
 veil her breast, and her left to screen her middle. The artist's ideal 
 is a girl just matured, of sanguine temperament, perfectly alive 
 with the quick sensibility belonging to feminine delicacy ; while 
 every gesture is radiant with the grace of position and movement 
 that attends chaste impulses. 
 
 Ovid extols the grace into which shrinking modesty has thrown 
 her posture ; and also the fascinating roll and the pirtkish lustre 
 of the eye of love in Venus, so in contrast with the yellow tinge of 
 unimpassioned intellect in Minerva. Terence commends her full 
 and gracefully tapered chest ; condemning the mothers who, in his 
 day, sought to enhance their daughters' beauty by "drooped 
 shoulders and a laced waist;" as if they could thus improve on 
 " Nature's good work." Winckelmann observes that the form of 
 Venus is uncommonly slender, her head unusually small, and her 
 foot long ; her height being seven and a-half heads, and less than 
 six measures of her foot. 
 
 In this age youth was selected as the model for beauty ; not only 
 Venus but Apollo being conceived as extremely youthful. The 
 Apollo called Belvidere is an embodiment of intellectual dignity as 
 is Venus of physical grace. It is seven feet in stature ; nude, except 
 the pallium, or small cloak, over the left shoulder and the quiver 
 over the right. A bow is in his right hand ; and his feet and arms 
 
184 AET CRITICISM. 
 
 extended, his Lead thrown slightly back, and his eye distended, all 
 indicate that he has just shot his arrow. The brow, whose facial 
 angle approaches a right angle, is expressive of the highest order of 
 intellect. In the proportions of the Apollo as of the Venus, 
 Winckelraann finds confirmation of the fact that the Grecian laws 
 of symmetry were a principle rather than an arbitrary law. 
 
 The Amazon, perfected by Polyclitus, was an added step in the 
 advance of this style. Of this, Pliny remarks, " The most lauded 
 of Grecian sculptors came into comparison, although born in 
 different ages, when they made Amazons." He adds that one of 
 those made by Polyclitus won the prize over a work of Phidias ; 
 and that it was a statue which artists call a canon or fixed 
 standard of the lineaments of art ; in which he alone of men is 
 judged to have embodied art itself in a work of art. 
 
 The final effort of the graceful style was the Hermaphrodite. 
 The master-work of this kind, now preserved in the Villa Borghese 
 at Rome, and often copied, is that of Polycles. The figure is 
 reclining with the face downward, thus best presenting its rare 
 delicacy of form. The hands Winckelmann characterizes as the 
 most "beautiful of female hands." 
 
 Praxiteles and his school after him introduced the coloring or 
 tinting of their statues ; revived by the English sculptor, Gibson. 
 Its legitimacy is questionable ; since sculpture proper presents form 
 alone, not color. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE HISTORICAL STYLE, DIGNIFIED BY LYSIPPTJS; SCULP- 
 TURED LIKENESSES OF LIVING MEN WITH IDEAL ACCESSORIES; 
 ILLUSTRATED IN BUSTS AND THE STATUES OF ALEXANDER. 
 
 The Hercules of Daedalus, the athlete, the creations of Phidias 
 and Praxiteles were all ideal. It was a distinct and higher effort 
 to cut exact likenesses of living men in marble, making this like- 
 ness, often ill-fitted for the attempt, to beam with an expression 
 most characteristic and even transcending the original. 
 
 Pliny ascribes its origin to the daughter of Dibutiades, a sculptor 
 of Phidias' day, who traced her lover's profile from his shadow on 
 a wall, and got her father to round it out in clay. 
 
 The historic age proper commenced with Alexander the Great ; 
 from whose day correct likenesses of eminent Greeks and Romans 
 were presented. Alexander employed Lysippus the sculptor, 
 
STATUES OF ALEXANDER AND THE LAOCOON. 1&5 
 
 Apelles the painter, and Pyrgoteles the engraver, to copy his fea- 
 tures, Lysippus executing in marble a series of likenesses of 
 Alexander from boyhood to manhood. 
 
 Since in man and woman the head is the work of the artist, 
 busts in sculpture, and portraits in painting, came to be chosen 
 works. Myron and Chares in marble, and Apelles in color, became 
 eminent for executing heads only. 
 
 In Greek a head was called protome, and a bust thorax; in Latin 
 a head cuput, a bust bustum, and a portrait vultutt. The heads of 
 the Roman emperors were cut in white marble ; the breast of col- 
 ored marble being sometimes united to it as a support. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE IMPASSIONED STYLE; INTRODUCED BY SCOPAS, AND 
 CULMINATING IN AGESANDEK J STATUES EMBODYING IDEAS OP 
 PHYSICAL AGONY AND OF MENTAL ANGUISH: ILLUSTRATED IN 
 THE LAOCOON AND THE NIOBE. 
 
 As the different styles of Grecian sculpture overlap and interlace 
 one another in point of time, so they often meet in the same artist. 
 In fact, each class of excellences must be combined to a certain ex- 
 tent in every great master; while, nevertheless, every leading 
 spirit in any sphere will excel in some one line. 
 
 The bold style of Daedalus sought to express energy and daring; 
 the athletic style added the physical power of gymnastic training ; 
 the grand style of Phidias presented a quiet intellectual dignity ; 
 the graceful style of Praxiteles threw a charm of quiet, unimpas- 
 sioned loveliness over the whole figure, especially of woman ; and 
 the historic style gave expression to the characteristic, or ordinarily 
 moving impulse of individual men. It was a yet added departr 
 ment of art when passion, too overwhelming to be anything more 
 than temporary in the sufferer, too unnerving to be endured long 
 even by the beholder, and yet as the tragedy of art having a 
 strange power of fascination over the minds of men, came to be cut 
 in all its truth and life into enduring marble ; giving first to physi- 
 cal torture its scowl of agony, and then to mental anguish its 
 speechless voice of woe. The art maxim of Lysippus, "That 
 Nature herself was to be imitated, not the artist," was the idea 
 leading to the study of the expression of the intensest passions be- 
 trayed in the human countenance. Quinctilian characterized Ly- 
 16 * 
 
186 ART CRITICIKAf. 
 
 sippus' statues as having "natural expression," and Propertiua 
 us "anirnosas" or rnipcunoned, 
 
 Of this style the most expressive specimen i,s the Laocobn and 
 his sons, now preserved in Home. It represents the priest of 
 Apollo, and his two sons, struggling with the two immense 
 serpents from the sea, pictured )>y Virgil after this group in 
 marble,. I'liny aseribcs it to Agesaodei of Rhodes, with his son 
 Athenodorus and his pupil Polydorus, who lived after Alexander. 
 He characterizes it as a *' work to be preferred to all others, both 
 in painting and sculpture;" and a " wonder of the agreement in 
 conception of different minds." Though in detail a work of rarest 
 beauty, the strained muscles arid the contorted features of the 
 KiiMercr.. make it, in its main design, ;m embodiment of the concep- 
 tion of physical agony. 
 
 Next to the Laocobn as a masterpiece in the impassioned style, 
 is the "Niobe," and her dying children; the mournfully pleasing 
 theme Of poet* as the embodiment of menial anguish. It is the 
 fruii.fu! Lydian mother, whose children were struck with death for 
 her irreverent pride at their number and promise, suddenly turned 
 to stone, as if petrilicd in her tearless grief. I'liny says there is 
 doubt "whether Praxiteles or Scopas made it." No sensitive 
 observer can view this statue without carrying throughout life the 
 idea of grief too deep for tears. 
 
 The Toro Farnese and (he Dying Gladiator are admired simply 
 for their anatomy by ancient and modern critics. They have been 
 monuments for many an age of the powers of tragedy in sculpture. 
 
 BECT. 8. THE COLOSSAL STYLE; CULMINATING UNDKU CIIAKKS; TIIK 
 EFFORT TO MAKK OKJANTIC M ASSI VKNKSS TRULY AUTISTIC; IL- 
 LUSTRATED IN THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES. 
 
 Colossal proportions in a statue designed for an elevated position, 
 when skillfully executed, have from the. days of Phidias been specia* 
 tliumphfl of sculpture. All Phidias' grand works were colossal. 
 
 Lysippus, too, made colossal Btatv.es so large that the Romans de- 
 clined to remove them. Of one of these I'liny relates, "Though it 
 CT/uld be moved by the hand, such was (he plan of its balance, it 
 could bo thrown down by no tempests." There stand now over 
 'he portico of St. Mark's in Venice, four horses of most exquisite 
 form, admired alike by artists and amateurs. They were executed 
 
ROMAN SCULPTURE OF GRECIAN OIUUIN. 187 
 
 by Lysippus for a chariot of the win, in hi- native I 1. of 
 Afterward they became (In- H'-i'V of I he I !< of Chio... ih'-n<-r ihey 
 Were borne by ('on-lanfine to lii:- new capital ; tin n<-<- a;-ain by tlio 
 VenetUni to their Island City; thence yet again by Napoleon to 
 Tin is. Returned finally to Venice, they are now called "the 
 traveled ho, 
 
 The famed OdoffOS Of Bbodef, described by I'liny :iiid eril 
 by Cicero, was designed by Chares, the pupil of Ly.-ippus, to adorn 
 the principal port, of bis native; inland. Tin: statue w:i.- aloul one 
 hundred and live feet high, and stood astride the; (rut ranco to tlio 
 beautiful harbor. The si a hie, was 1. In-own down by an Mftlxjllftkf 
 only fifty-Hiz years after il.s erection. I'liny, who :-aw it in niin-, 
 Bayn, "The fingers alone were larger than ordinary statues." 
 
 Mvcn the Unman I'liny calls the coin : i, favoi ile.- ;ifi i-r t his era, 
 works of "audacity." The climax in lh: .ey was reaeli.-d 
 
 by Dinocratcs ; who j)ropoyMl to cut Mt. Athos, on the coast of 
 Macedonia, into a head and bust of Alcxand< r. 
 
 BECT. 9. ROMAN BCULPTUUI: ; I,INKI-:I* WITH TMK <,I:I:-IAW, IN TUB 
 KAKI.Y i-i.iM-i.' i i.D i.n.i .\N, IN TIII: OOLLBOnom 
 
 IN OltKKCK, AND IN Til: .V TASTE CIIAHACTKKI/I N RO- 
 
 MAN SCULPTORS. 
 
 Grecian genius, which had revealed if -elf first in the Asiatic 
 provinces in the days of Homer and Thale.s, appeared, alnm-t, 
 equally early, west of Greece also. The I'dasgi, driven by the 
 Hellenes around tin: head of the Adriatic, M-<-m to have brnii- l.t 
 art into Northern Italy. The faim-d Mtru.-can vases, among the 
 JIM. t exquisite arid best preserved gems of ancient art, were the 
 fruit of their skill in sculpture. 
 
 Arnon;/ the Romans themselves the ascetic principles of Numa, 
 early fixed, checked the rising tendency toward (inri.m idea* 
 Less, however, than two centuries after their execution, about, 
 B. C. 148, the victorious Romans bore ofl' from (J recce her mo*t 
 pri/cd works in sculpture. How little they were prepared to 
 appreciate <l recian art is illu-t rated in Muminitis, who threatened 
 (hi! laborers packing the paintings and sculpture taken fiorn 
 ('orinth. that, if any were injured or lost they would have to 
 nini;,- nilurx. Kven Pliny hiiuscdf exclaim*, "What use can be 
 perceived as derived from them?" 
 
188 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The taste for art cultured by these collections at Rome is 
 alluded to by Horace : 
 
 " Grsecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes 
 Intulit agresti Latio." 
 
 Captured Greece indeed found its victor uncultured ; yet she 
 brought the arts into rustic Italy. Suetonius records the boast of 
 Augustus, "Urbem marmoream se relinquere, quam lateritiam 
 accepisset." The age that had developed a Cicero, a Virgil and 
 a Horace, naturally produced an emperor proud to claim that 
 he left a marble city where he had found a brick one. 
 
 The sculptors of the climactic Roman era were, however, Greeks 
 in name, and probably in race. Of them Pliny only mentions 
 three, and they degenerate. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MODERN SCULPTURE ; PLASTIC ART AS AFFECTED BY CHRISTIAN 
 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 THE plastic arts, declining from the days of Phidias, and for 
 centuries lost, at length arose perfected again in Italy. A chain of 
 causes led first to the deepening gloom and then again to the 
 dawn ; for the laws of aesthetic development operate as steadily as 
 growth in the forest. To trace this progress in the history of 
 Christian Europe is difficult ; yet many links in the chain shine out 
 in the mist of the ages. 
 
 HECT. 1. THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN 
 SCULPTURE ; ILLUSTRATED SPECIALLY IN THE CHANGE OP SUB 
 
 JECTS FOR ART INTRODUCED BY CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It was a great transition in the Grecian and Roman mind when 
 the peerless statues of gods and goddesses from being objects of 
 religious veneration came to be relics of an idolatrous worship 
 which was held as blasphemous. 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE. 189 
 
 In the rise and decline of Grecian sculpture the strength and 
 culture of the religious sentiment was the chief fostering and 
 refining cause. In the transition leading to modern sculpture, no 
 less powerful influences could have wrought the change. 
 
 The spirit in man that leads to science, the tracing of effects to 
 causes, carries the mind at once to theology or the consideration 
 of the first cause ; and material advancement reveals the greater 
 need of moral renovation. The intellectual search for truth as to 
 the Divine Being, first in all the questionings of Socrates and thu 
 reasonings of Plato and Aristotle, is no less the leading theme of 
 philosophic inquiry in every cultured nation and among all studious 
 men. The student of art who overlooks this fundamental element 
 in human nature, no less than the artist who should ignore it, must 
 fail of his end; as truly as would the master-builder win* should 
 deny the law of gravity, and take no account of the crush and 
 thrust of his material. 
 
 The decline of hero-worship wrought a revolution as to the sub- 
 jects of plastic art, especially of sculpture; for, as Winckelmann 
 has intimated, sculpture is the art in which the peculiar spirit 
 distinguishing the ancients from the moderns is most mani!'. -f. 
 The tracing of this change bridges ^ w ^r the chasm that separates 
 the two worlds and ages, that before, and that after Christ. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE CHASTE, THOUGH RUDE STYLE OF SCULPTURE, PREVA- 
 LENT IN THE EARLY AGES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The decline in art following the revolution occasioned by the 
 introduction of the Christian religion, was naturally long in operat- 
 ing. The development of man is as that of the plant, first the 
 blade, then the stalk, then the ear and then the full corn in the ear. 
 In the earliest stage of Christian development the very simplicity 
 of its system won the rarest of Grecian genius ; though it had no 
 pomp to court the wise and noble " after the flesh." 
 
 In tracing the history of sculpture in Christian ages two things 
 must be kept distinct, the patronage of art in itself considered by 
 early Christians, and their opposition to the ancient use of works 
 of art as objects of religious adoration. 
 
 Irenaeus, about A. D. 175, states that the Carpocratians had 
 both statues and pictures of Jesus. Eusebius, about A. D. 325, 
 mentions that not only were images and pictures of Christ of great 
 
190 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 beauty and majesty numerous among Christians, but that lovers 
 of art among the unchristianized Greeks and Romans had obtained 
 statues of Jesus and his apostles, and that they kept them in their 
 houses as art treasures. 
 
 In the same age Christian devices and emblems were common ; 
 such as a ship, or Noah's ark, for salvation ; a dove for the Divine 
 Spirit ; a harp for worship ; the cross, anchor and heart for faith, 
 hope and love. These were carved as ornaments for the person 01 
 as funereal monuments ; and Tertullian mentions embossed figures, 
 as of the lost sheep, stitched by pious mothers on the caps of their 
 boys. Chief among these was the cross ; which to this day retains 
 its superior place as an emblem of the Christian faith. 
 
 In the early Christian ages the images of Jesus in the churches 
 were unobjectionable. When, after Constantine's accession, to be a 
 Christian was to be of the national religion, and the ignorant mis- 
 taking their nature paid religious homage to these works of art, 
 the council held at Illiberis, on the borders of France and Spain, 
 decreed "that pictures ought not to be introduced into the 
 churches, lest that be worshiped and adored which is painted on 
 the walls." A generation later, when this temporary abuse had 
 been corrected, Augustine commended the sculptor's ideals of 
 Christ. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE ARTIFICIAL STYLE AND ILLEGITIMATE USE OP 
 SCULPTURE CHARACTERIZING THE MEDIEVAL AGES OF THB 
 CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 A darker era for art, as well as science and general culture, drew 
 on, when, two or three centuries after Constantine, the Roman 
 Empire and with it the Christian Church, became divided ; and 
 when Gothic rudeness in the West, and Oriental gorgeousness in 
 the East prevailed. 
 
 It had come to be popular to be a Christian ; and designing men 
 pressed into the Church to gain positions of influence and emolu- 
 ment, and out-voted or out-managed the lovers of the truth, beauty 
 and glory of the Christian system. Then men without principle 
 or genius got control of church decorations. The effect was to da- 
 grade art ; the relics of which still linger in Italy, Spain and even 
 France. 
 
 A second and most unfavorable result was the corruption of 
 
RETIVAL OF SCULPTURE IN ITALY. 191 
 
 t^Iigion itself. Our love of beauty and grandeur was given as ita 
 highest end to lead us to the Author of all. ^'hen art is accom- 
 panied by spiritual instruction it is an aid to true devotion ; but 
 when it is made the only teacher it degenerates into idolatry. 
 When this distinction became neglected, statuary and paintings 
 were perverted ; and intelligent and spiritually-minded churchmen 
 preferred that art should be sacrificed, since religion could not be, 
 Dy true men. Yet good men sought to save both art and-spiritual 
 Christianity. 
 
 The Eastern Church rejected carved images, yet retained paint- 
 ings of sacred personages. This distinction led in the Eastern 
 Church to a double influence unfavorable for art, excluding sculp- 
 ture from the land where classic art had reached its perfection, and 
 degrading painting into the lifeless, meaningless objects that now 
 hang upon the walls of Oriental churches. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE MAJESTIC GRANDEUR TO WHICH SCULPTURE AROSE 
 AT THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE, OF LETTERS, OF ART, AND OF 
 RELIGION IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 It was not strange that the age of Wickliffe and Thomas a. Kern- 
 pis, of Luther and Loyola, of Dante and Chaucer, of Copernicus 
 and Columbus, should fall so near that of Lionardo da Vinci and 
 of Michel Angelo. Religion, science, letters and art, all flourish 
 together, in the same country and at the same age, not only be- 
 cause they are fed from the same soil, but because like forest trees 
 they stimulate each other's growth. 
 
 As, however, in Greece it required two centuries and a half to 
 perfect art, so modern sculpture, revived in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, did not reach its climax till the close of tho 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 In the Baptistery of the Cathedral of Pisa stands a large octa- 
 gonal font, executed in marble, with fine bas-reliefs representing 
 Scripture incidents, wrought by Nicolo Pisano, about A. D. 1 250, 
 after natural models ; sacred personages assuming the beauty and 
 life belonging to real men. The churches of the whole surround- 
 ing region now contain relics of the improved sculpture thus 
 introduced. 
 
 When a youth M. Angelo used to stand and gaze upon the bronze 
 doors of the Baptistery of the Cathedral at Florence, and exclaim 
 
192 A.RT CRITICISM. 
 
 that they were "degne d'essere le porte di Paradise," worthy to 
 be the gates of Paradise. Two of these were by Ghiberti, who 
 lived one hundred and fifty years after Pisano. 
 
 About a century and a half later M. Angelo carved his Moses ; 
 whose goat-shaped and horned head has been both compared and 
 contrasted with the lion-browed Jove of Phidias. As Phidias in 
 his Jove, his Minerva, and his Parthenon, embodied three ele- 
 ments of Grecian majesty, so did M. Angelo in his masterpieces in 
 the three departments of sculpture, painting and architecture. 
 Spiritual Religion is speaking in his Moses through Hebrew alle- 
 gory, in his Last Judgment through heathen legend, and in his St. 
 Peter's through climactic Grecian and Roman art. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE EMBODIMENT OF CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT IN FORMS 
 
 OF CLASSIC GRACE, CHARACTERIZING MODERN SCULPTURE IN 
 SOUTHERN EUROPE. 
 
 Like Phidias, Michel Angelo was the grand representative, not 
 only of perfected sculpture, but of revived art. Long before his 
 time Tuscan genius had caught the spirit of the ancient Greeks, 
 and had made it conspire to express the sentiment and advance the 
 culture inherent in the Christian faith. 
 
 A century before M. Angelo, the first school of design, modeled 
 after those of ancient Greece, was transforming Tuscany; two main 
 causes giving it a Grecian cast. 
 
 In 1453 Constantinople was taken by the Turks. The few 
 possessing the art spirit of ancient days sought the old colonial 
 heritage of Etruria. The mingling of these fugitive Greeks among 
 native artists gave a decided tendency to the classic taste already 
 awakened. 
 
 Not long after, the relics of the statues of Grecian gods and 
 heroes, buried beneath the ruins of ancient Rome, were dug up 
 from their graves. Under Pope EugeniusIV., A. D. 1430, only 
 five had been obtained entire. From A. D. 1480 to 1506, a large 
 number, including the group of Laocobn, were rescued, and, de- 
 posited in the Vatican and Farnese Palaces of Rome and the 
 halls of the Medici at Florence. The study of these ancient models, 
 and the ambition to restore the parts of them that were lost, gave 
 a permanent Grecian cast to Italian taste in sculpture. 
 
 Another influence arose from the Platonic club organized by the 
 
CANOVA, AJND ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 193 
 
 Medici, tending to the republication of the Greek classics , tht 
 revival of the spirit of Grecian literature and art, and the harmon- 
 izing of its doctrines with the principles of the Christian faith. 
 
 The artists of that day were not great masters ; as their restora- 
 tion of mutilated antiques shows. The improved schools of the 
 North did not reach Southern Italy ; its style was a profuse orna- 
 ment. In Naples Bernini conceived the unartistic idea of carrying 
 tbo ornamented style of Corregio's painting into sculpture. The 
 JTorentine school, too, became degenerate. The opening of Pom- 
 peii, in 1740, and the treatise on ancient sculpture by Winckel- 
 mann, fanned to a flame the enthusiasm for classic sculpture. 
 Hence obscure churches of Italy now rejoice in perfect gems, 
 Grecian in grace and Christian in theme, the offspring of this re- 
 vived taste ; of which the three veiled statues, Modesty, Vice, 
 the Dead and Christ, in the retired Church of Santa Maria della 
 Pieta, are incomparable masterpieces. 
 
 Prominent in this new era was Canova. Born A. D. 1757, the 
 son of a stone-cutter, in the ninth year of his age he entered the 
 studio of a sculptor at Venice. Having visited Rome, Naples, and 
 the new collections from Pompeii, he established his studio first 
 at Venice. Visiting again Germany and afterward Paris, he re- 
 turned to his native town, where he remained till his death in 1822. 
 
 Canova's works, representatives of modern Italian sculpture, 
 group themselves under three classes; first, classic themes, the 
 promptings of aesthetic cravings ; second, religious studies, the 
 suggestion of higher aspirings after moral excellence ; and third, 
 historical or private subjects, as busts and statues of living men, 
 undertaken from the necessities of livelihood. The capitals of 
 Austria and France have numerous memorials of the latter class 
 from Canova's chisel ; the churches of Italy abound in the second ; 
 and the collections of amateurs in almost every country in Europe 
 have relics of the first class of his works. 
 
 Carving in marble is with the Italian a hereditary pursuit ; and, 
 as among the thousands of workmen in an English or American 
 factory some develop great inventive skill, so among the thousands 
 of common chippers, carvers and polishers of Italian birth, em- 
 ployed on great public works in almost every country, here and 
 there a true artist is called out. 
 
 17 I 
 
194 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE UNION OF SIMPLICITY IN DESIGN, NATURAL BEAUT? 
 OF FORM, AND LIVELINESS OF EXPRESSION DISTINGUISHING 
 SCULPTURE IN NORTHERN EUROPE. 
 
 Though taste for sculpture had its rise in Northern Europe from 
 the visits of Italian artists, yet rude native genius has been re- 
 fined by the classic influences of Southern Europe. 
 
 Even Spain had a native art-taste which Italian refinement only 
 modified. Trained amid Moorish glitter, chastened afterward at 
 Rome, Paul de Cespides raised sculpture in that land of grand 
 id jas to something like dignity. 
 
 The ''Fountain of the Innocents," at Paris, executed by Gougon, 
 and the works of Jacques d'Angouleme, both of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the Caryatides of the Louvre, by Sarrasin at a later day, 
 though French, show nevertheless the influence of classic Italy. 
 In the brilliant era of Louis XIV., Girardon and Puget succeeded 
 by Falconet, gave that yet more marked native type to French 
 sculpture, which won for it the title "La Belle." 
 
 The master in French sculpture was Houdon. Born in 1741, 
 inspired by Winckelmann, in youth he visited the unburied cities of 
 Herculaneum and Pompeii, as also Rome ; during which time he 
 executed his famous statue of St. Bruno, of which Pope Clement 
 XIV. said, " He would speak did not the rule of his order enjoin 
 silence." Returning to Paris he executed busts and statues of 
 public men. At the invitation of Franklin, then at Paris, he 
 visited America in 1785, and took casts for the statue of Wash- 
 ington, now at Richmond, Va., which, when executed, Lafayette 
 declared to be the best likeness obtained of the American patriot. 
 He died in 1828 at the age of eighty-seven years; having passed 
 through the most perilous national vicissitudes in quiet devotion 
 to art. 
 
 In Germany, genius in sculpture, restricted at first by the spirit 
 of the Reformation from religious themes, has been characterized 
 as " excelling in funereal monuments." In the sixteenth century, 
 Peter Vischer's group of the Twelve Apostles led the way to the 
 works of Schliiter, Schadow, Dannecker, Rauch and others; by 
 whom themes of classic and Christian, of national and individual 
 interest, have been ennobled in sculpture. 
 
 In Denmark, Thorwaldsen, born 1772, the son of an Iceland 
 
ENGLISH COLLECTORS AND SCULPTORS. 195 
 
 stone-cutter, sent in youth by the Royal Academy of Copenhagen 
 to Rome, has brought more than regal honor to his native land by 
 his works of classic and Christian sculpture. His Day and Night 
 are gems everywhere popular. The style of Thorwaldsen is bolder 
 and more full of passion and of majesty than that of Canova ; his 
 life-long Roman culture moulding, but not giving original shape to 
 the peculiar type of the sculpture of Northern Europe, as eclectic 
 in culture though independent in themes. 
 
 In Belgium the two brothers, William and Joseph Geef, have 
 during the present generation given fine examples of the perma- 
 nent union of the Christian and classic ideals, which seems a natural 
 suggestion to artists of Northern Europe. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE SCOPE OF SUBJECT AND VIGOR OP CONCEPTION SEEN 
 IN THE EARLY GROWTH OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 
 
 Wide extent of domain, inviting genius to positions of wealth 
 and power, has made England, like Rome, her prototype, a collector, 
 or plunderer, rather than an originator and executor of works of 
 art in painting and sculpture. In the time of Charles the First, 
 about A. D. 1620, the Earl of Arundel brought from Greece those 
 exquisite bas-reliefs, pried out from under the cornices of Grecian 
 temples, and those matchless fragments of ancient statues, which 
 yet adorn the British Museum. Nearly two centuries later, 
 from 1790 to 1812, Lord Elgin, then representing England at 
 Constantinople, made the kindred collection called the Elgin 
 Marbles. 
 
 The early sculptures now found in the English churches were by 
 Italian artists. From the reign of Henry VIII. the spirit of the 
 Reformation for a time yielded to the fallacy of iconoclasm, and 
 art was neglected ; but in the eighteenth century native sculptors 
 appeared in the persons of Banks, Wilton and Bacon. The 
 present century has been as fruitful as the past was barren in the 
 growth of genius for art in England. Flaxman, born in 1755, hav- 
 ing caught in Italy the spirit immortalized on the Etruscan vases, 
 executed his "Illustrations of Homer," which have been admired 
 for their spirit in every counti-y of Europe. Westmacott, born in 
 1774, developed an early taste for ideal creations, which impoverish 
 the purse, though they enrich the genius of the artist. His later 
 labor was devoted almost entirely to statues of eminent men, 
 
196 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Chan trey, born in 1782, having deserted his law studies at twenty 
 years of age, made himself famous by a bust of Home Tooke. 
 His statue of Washington in the State House at Boston is prized 
 by Americans. 
 
 In Wales, Gibson, born A. D. 1791, patronized by William 
 Roscoe and Lord Brougham, trained at Rome by Canova and 
 Thorwaldsen, devoted his early genius to ideals of ancient my- 
 thology, and statues of the living. Independent in spirit, Gibson 
 has ventured on the hazardous attempt of Praxiteles to add tint to 
 marble; his "Victoria" and "Aurora" being slightly tinged, and 
 his "Venus" completely colored. 
 
 The rise of native American sculptors, though recent, is yet 
 comparatively early; appearing as they have in the infancy of the 
 nation, and rapidly advancing to special eminence and excellence. 
 Hopkinson, the racy and trenchant satirist of his times, records : 
 " there came to this country in 1783, immediately at the return of 
 Peace, a certain Robert Edge Pine, parading the title ' Painter to 
 His Majesty. ' ' : Said Pine brought with him a plaster cast of the 
 Venus de Medici ; " but," says Hopkinson, " he kept it very pri- 
 vately, as the manners of the times would not permit the exhibition 
 of such a figure." 
 
 The birth of the new nation, however, was immediately and in 
 all sections of the country succeeded by an ambition for sculpture in 
 its higher forms. The statues of Washington by the foreign artists, 
 Houdon, Canova and Chantrey, show a universally awakened pop- 
 ular demand for statuary; while that of Rush, carved in 1812, 
 at Philadelphia, is a monument of the aspiration for native art 
 aroused by the new national life. 
 
 With A. D. 1830 begins that noble line of native American 
 sculptors which includes the names of Greenough, Clevenger, 
 Crawford, among the dead, and Powers, Brown, Mills, Palmer. 
 Stone, Rogers, Story, Hosmer and others among the living. 
 
 Horace Greenough, born at Boston in 1805, left Cambridge 
 College for Rome at the age of twenty years ; where he made 
 the acquaintance of Thorwaldsen. He established his studio at 
 Florence. His Chanting Cherubs, Medora, Venus Victrix and 
 Abdiel as classic, his Rescue as historic, arid his Washington as 
 ideal portrait, are master works. Greenough 's cast of mind was 
 bold and impulsive; chastened and humanized by a genial urbanity 
 
AMERICAN SCULPTORS AND THEIR WORKS. 197 
 
 and generous sympathy. The slight draping of his Washington 
 has called attention to the fact that Greek sculptors chose the toga 
 for civil and the breast-plate for military heroes, because they were 
 national; and that Phidias robed his Jove, and Lysippus his 
 Alexander. The head of Greenough's Washington is incompara- 
 bly sublime, and in itself will make the artist ever live in the 
 hearts of his countrymen, and in the appreciation of generous 
 critics. His " Venus," too, is of the sweetest loveliness ; and the 
 genius that could excel in such opposite styles, uniting the boldness 
 of Phidias and the grace of Praxiteles, will shine as a rare one in 
 the history of American sculpture. 
 
 Thomas Crawford, born at New York in 1814, trained to wood 
 and stone carving, at twenty-one went to Rome and became a 
 pupil of Thorwaldsen. After years of toil his Orpheus, com- 
 mended by Thorwaldsen and Gibson, was ordered for the Boston 
 Athenseum. His equestrian statue of Washington at Richmond, 
 with the group on the pedestal, begun in 1849, forms the most 
 elaborate composition in bronze in America. His grandest studies 
 were his models for the group in the tympanum of the northeast 
 portico of the United States Capitol, and for the colossal Liberty 
 at the apex of the dome ; works which have been executed by other 
 hands since his death, in 1857. 
 
 Hiram Powers, born in Vermont, in 1805, removed earl}' in life 
 to Ohio. Having acquired skill in modeling, after spending seven 
 years as curator of a museum, he came to Washington City in 
 1835, and gained reputation for his busts. Visiting Italy in 1837, 
 his Eve, modeled in 1838, drew encomiums from Thorwaldsen. 
 In 1839 he conceived his masterpiece, the Greek Slave; which has 
 become the head of a list of kindred works wrought by his chisel. 
 Powers' genius is of the quiet and pensive order, the natural off- 
 spring of his mild, unobtrusive nature ; a trait which manifests 
 itself in the retiring modesty and gentle grace of his female, and 
 in the repose of his masculine forms. 
 
 Henry K. Brown, born in Massachusetts in 1814, began the study 
 of portrait painting ; but a successful attempt to model a ycung 
 lady's head in clay, turned his thoughts to sculpture. After some 
 years, in Italy, he fixed his residence at New York ; which city, as 
 well as Columbia, S. C., is marked with the treasures of his skill 
 
 Clark Mills, born In the State of New York in 1815, went in 
 17 * 
 
198 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 youth as a plasterer, to Charleston, S. C. His superior skill in 
 stucco and the carving of busts led him to modeling in clay. In 
 1848 he received a commission for an equestrian statue of Jackson. 
 His model, prepared from a horse trained to rear and stand poised 
 on his hind feet, was the first specimen of its kind in the history 
 of equestrian statuary. His genius, taking models from nature 
 and learning methods from practical pursuits, has triumphed with- 
 out an instructor in new paths of art. 
 
 Erastus D. Palmer, born in the State of New York in 1817, at 
 the age of twenty-nine years, as a pastime, cut in shell the portrait 
 of his wife. His success led him to cameo carving. Having 
 modeled his own child as an infant Ceres, he devoted himself 
 to sculpture. His carving has that exquisite delicacy acquired 
 in cameo cutting, while his conception is most ethereal in its 
 expression. 
 
 Horatio Stone, reared amid the scenery of the Hudson, devoted 
 for years to landscape-gardening, has given to his countrymen in 
 his Hamilton and Hancock most impressive monitors. A high 
 conception of the spirituality and sacredness of the sculptor's call- 
 ing characterizes his works. 
 
 Rogers, whose bronze doors for the U. S. Capitol have been ad- 
 mired even in Munich, where his castings were made, promises 
 eminence in finished work. Story, Barbee, and others are destined 
 to a high future fame. 
 
 Harriet Hosmer, born in 1831, has commenced a line, most 
 promising, of female sculptors; Gibson, the English sculptor, being 
 her chief teacher. Yinnie Ream is displaying rare genius, yet in 
 its dawn. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE; OR THE COMBINING OF FORMS, WITH THE 
 UNITED ENDS OF UTILITY AND BEAUTY. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE, derived from architekton, a master-builder, is 
 primarily a useful, and only secondarily a fine art. It was naturally 
 the first of arts ; since men require habitations before they demand 
 any added ornaments. Hence some urge that architecture be 
 made the first among the fine arts. In its origin, however, it was 
 not a fine, but a technical art ; simple and rude as was man him- 
 self; i>n art in which animals, guided by instinct alone, have ex- 
 celled Architecture becomes a fine art only when drawing and 
 6culp'"*re add their grace and power to the builder's skill. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OP ARCHITECTURE AS AN ART; AND THE PRINCIPLES 
 CONTROLLING ITS FORMS. 
 
 As a useful art, Architecture began with the origin of man. In 
 Eden man needed no other shelter than the bowers formed bj 
 branching trees and creeping vines. The art of building has kept 
 pace with human advancement in civilization. 
 
 SECT. 1. CIRCUMSTANCES DETERMINING THE STRUCTURE OF PRI- 
 VATE DWELLINGS. 
 
 The material of dwellings has always been dependent on the 
 nature of the country and the wants of mankind. The keeper of 
 
 19H 
 
200 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 flocks, like Jabal and Jacob, lives in a tent made of cloth easily 
 removed. In the mountain regions in and about Palestine, the 
 descendants of Lot, Esau and Israel, in rude times, made abodes 
 in caves ; and Homer says of the Cyclops, " Their abode is on the 
 summits of mountains, and caverns serve them for retreats." The 
 rude aborigines of America made huts of ice and snow in the 
 frigid zone, of mud and bark in the temperate latitudes, and of 
 palm branches and grass in the torrid regions. In the plains 
 of ancient Assyria, they built of brick laid in bitumen, because 
 they had neither stone nor lime ; and in Egypt of limestone, sand- 
 stone and granite, because all these were abundant on their river's 
 brink. 
 
 Two necessities have controlled style of building ; protection from 
 men, and from the elements of nature. Cain, with the fear begot- 
 ten by crime, "built a city ;" and from Job's day dwellers in Asia 
 have built closely walled towns on precipitous hill-tops like ancient 
 Jerusalem. The early Greeks also perched their first citadels on a 
 jutting rock called the Acropolis ; as is seen in ancient Athens and 
 Corinth. Plato argues, '' A city takes its rise from this fact ; that 
 no man can be self-sufficient; since we all have many wants beyond 
 our own powers. Can you imagine any other principle originating 
 the building of cities?" Aristotle, more comprehensive, urges 
 that the inherent love of society for the sake of aiding others, the 
 yearning of men to have power and repute as public benefactors, is 
 the secret of organized society. Aristotle, therefore, and Vitruvius 
 after him, make civil architecture cover all that belongs to the art 
 proper. 
 
 Yet again, climate and shape of country give laws for building. 
 Houses in India are surrounded by open verandahs for shade ; and in 
 volcanic countries they are but one story in height. Swiss cottages 
 have sharp-peaked roofs and projecting eaves to cut and fling aside 
 the falling snow ; and on sunny plains dwellings have flat roofs as 
 promenades in the cool evening breeze. 
 
 Since necessity originates laws of taste, to put a Swiss cottage on 
 an open field, a grotto on a plain, a house with an open verandah 
 in a cold clime, or to build a summer house of brick, or a castellated 
 structure of wood, perverts the idea in which architecture as an art 
 originate*. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN IN ARCHITECTURE. 201 
 
 SECT. 2. THE DEMANDS OF MAN'S SOCIAL NATURE GIVING ORIGIH 
 TO ARCHITECTURE AS AN ART. 
 
 When men combined in society and co-operated to rear a struc- 
 ture for united assembling, one superior mind naturally acquired 
 ascendancy and assumed sway, forming the plan and regulating the 
 many hands employed in the labor of executing the design ; thus 
 originating the office of architect, or chief builder. Regarding 
 military defence its chief end, Plato calls architecture, episteme, a 
 science; saying, "After the science of building had thus arisen," 
 in necessity for common defence, u it separated itself from the 
 other sciences and took the distinctive name architectural." 
 Aristode, confining it to civil structures, makes architecture an art, 
 tcchne. 
 
 Human structures have three ends. Military architecture em- 
 braces the construction of forts, roads and canals ; Herodotus re- 
 stricting the term to this department. Naval architecture relates 
 to structures made to float as habitations, to fly as messengers of 
 commerce, or to sweep the ocean and command continents as 
 moving castles and fortresses. Civil architecture comprises pri- 
 vate dwellings to shelter families, and public halls for purposes of 
 social enjoyment or improvement. 
 
 The leading uses of public buildings grow out of man's material, 
 intellectual and religious wants. The principles that should control 
 their structure, according to Greek architects, are these five ; first, 
 taxis, or order, the proper arrangement of parts before putting 
 them together; second, symmetria, proportion in size; third, 
 euarithmia, harmony in number, and in the adjustment of the parts 
 both in their separate dimensions and in their interlocking junc- 
 tures ; fourth, diathesis, or composition, the disposing of the por- 
 tions of an extended edifice so that they shall be beautiful as a 
 whole ; and fifth, oikonomia, or economy, the securing of the use- 
 ful ends for which the building was erected. Ruskin, in his 
 "Seven Lamps of Architecture,' presents five purposes and 
 seven guides to their accomplishment. The purposes of edifices 
 are: first, "devotional," for religious worship; second, "me- 
 morial," as private and public monuments for the dead; third, 
 "civil," as public edifices for business and recreation; fourth, 
 "military," for defence against armed foes; and fifth, "do- 
 
202 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 mestic," for family abodes. The seven lamps or seven guiding 
 principles that control the architect are these ; first, "Sacrifice," 
 under which the Jewish temple is considered; second, "Truth," 
 which leads to the discussion of the propriety of Gothic drops, 
 frescoed domes -representing the open sky of a hypsethral temple, 
 and the use of iron as material for building; third, "Power," 
 which embraces massiveness as an element of architectural effect; 
 fourth, "Beauty," relating chiefly to architectural decorations; 
 fifth, "Life," the making of an edifice the exponent of living 
 things and of the men who rear it; sixth, "Memory," as monu- 
 ments of history, conservators of old ideas and relics of the past ; 
 seventh, "Obedience," respect for great men and their plans, as 
 opposed to empiricism and striving for novelty. 
 
 Among buildings to promote material ends are markets, the 
 agora of the Greeks and forum of the Latins. The Forum was an 
 elliptical enclosure, surrounded by covered sheds or porticoes two 
 stories in height, with projecting galleries where men of leisure 
 could saunter. The pillars in the Grecian agora were close set ; 
 but in the Roman Forum more open. The lower porticoes were 
 occupied by bankers and tradesmen ; and the upper balconies con- 
 tained seats for spectators of the diversions of the Forum. The 
 Basilica, or Royal Hall, was a rectangular building, with a lofty 
 portico, having inner halls and outer galleries. 
 
 The buildings designed to' meet intellectual wants are of two 
 classes; educational and aesthetic. Those for instruction proper 
 embrace schools, colleges, lecture and lyceum halls, libraries 
 and halls of collections in science and art. In ancient Greece 
 practical instructors, like Socrates, used the stoa, or covered 
 porticoes around the agora; while for select pupils the Academia 
 of Plato, the Lykeion of Aristotle, and the Mouseion of Alex 
 andria were erected. Structures designed to minister to the sensi- 
 bilities were the theatre and the amphitheatre. The amphi- 
 theatres furnished exhibitions addressed only to the eye ; while 
 the theatre, both among the Greeks and the Romans addressed 
 the mind through the ear as well as the eye. The study of acoustic 
 effects, based on mathematical calculations, secured in these im 
 mense areas the requisites for audience-halls. 
 
 The moral ends sought in public structures are two ; civil and 
 religious. The Pnyx for popular oratory, the Areopagus for juJi- 
 
FORMS OF COLUMNAR DECORATION. 203 
 
 cature, and the Acropolis covered with temples to the gods, were 
 alike moral powers. The Capitol of Koine was at once the seat of 
 law and of religion. 
 
 The structures erected for religious ends are temples and tombs. 
 In rude ages, religious worship is held in the open air, under shady 
 trefcs ; alike by ancient Druids and modern Christian worshipers. 
 Afterward Pagan and Jewish temples, Christian churches and 
 Mohammedan mosques were erected in a large enclosure. The 
 Grecian tcmenos or Roman delubrum, with its grove and open 
 field was requisite for the slaughter of bullocks and the smoke of 
 burning flesh ; while the naos or tcmplum, within this enclosure, 
 was the shrine of devotion. From the times of the rearing of 
 Egyptian temples down to the building of Christian churches, 
 sacred architecture will be found to be the central interest in the 
 history of the art; and often entirely to absorb it. 
 
 SECT. 3. PRINCIPLES ORIGINATING AND GIVING FORM TO COLUMNAR 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Columnar appendages to edifices, originating in necessity, came 
 to be the chief field in which genius and skill sought their highest 
 triumphs. As the face in the human portrait, so the fagade in the 
 public building is, as their common derivation indicates, the chief 
 work of the artist. Public and private edifices need projecting 
 porticoes as a shelter from sun and rain ; and these must have 
 columnar supports. 
 
 Vitruvius hints the origin as to material and shape of columns 
 first used. Sections of the trunks of trees, first employed as 
 corner-posts, gave proportions for rude columns suited to, as it was 
 suggested by the kind of tree selected. The bulging stump and 
 projecting branches formed a natural base and capital. The style 
 f columnar decorations has been suggested by favorite plants ; in 
 Egypt, destitute of trees, the water-lily winning the post of honor ; 
 in India the banyan ; in China the palm ; in Greece the shade trees 
 of academic groves ; and in France the monarchs of Northern 
 forests. 
 
 As all structures are built by men for mankind, so the human 
 stature has ever been the naturally chosen modulus for entrance 
 doors and interior elevations. Columns have conformed to this 
 law ; not only true human figures, as the Egyptian Osiride and 
 
204 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Grecian Caryatides directly showing this, but also the general pro- 
 portions of the orders in architecture making it manifest. 
 
 SECT. 4. LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AND NATIONAL PECULIARITIES o* 
 
 .ESTHETIC CULTURE AND MORAL CONVICTIONS, GIVING ORIGIN 
 TO LEADING STYLES IN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The parts of every huilding are the walls, roof, platform and 
 porticoes; the modification of which, through the influence of 
 local, national, aesthetic or moral causes, have led to diversity o^ 
 fctyles and schools in architecture. 
 
 Local circumstances, to a great extent, determine the material 
 of buildings. In a new and wooded country the walls and roof are 
 from necessity of perishable material. In Assyria, destitute of 
 wood and stone, burnt brick was used; in Egypt, abounding m 
 stone and having no rain, stone for temples and unburnt brick for 
 huts were employed ; while in Europe and America iron is becom- 
 ing common. 
 
 The slight showers of Northern Africa and Western Asia allow 
 roofs to be flat for promenades; while from Greece northward 
 through Italy to France the roof pitch constantly increases the 
 steepness. The breadth and height of porticoes decrease with 
 latitude. The temple of Egypt on a plain needed no raised plat- 
 form ; but a Grecian temple on a rounded eminence must have a 
 flight of steps around the depressed border. 
 
 Forms of religious belief and aesthetic culture have had an influ- 
 ence yet more decided. The reptile-worshiping Egyptian made 
 his shrines dismal cells ; but the hero-worshiping Greek reared in 
 their place cheerful open halls. Hebrew and Christian sanctuaries 
 have sought broad, elevated, airy and well-lighted audience-halls, 
 since their services are chiefly addressed to the mind through writ- 
 ten records. Very generally, therefore, the student's cloister is 
 an attachment to their precincts. 
 
EGYPTIAN. OR MASSIVE ARCHITECTURE. 205 
 
 CHATTER II. 
 
 EGYPTIAN, THE TYPE OF ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE , IN WHICH 
 MASSIVENESS IS THE AIM. 
 
 THE ancient relics of Asiatic architecture seem by their massive- 
 ness to have been prompted by the spirit of the men who, just 
 escaped from the deluge, said, "Let us build us a city and a tower 
 whose top may reach unto heaven." The massive was certainly 
 the aim in this early structure; and in less than two centuries 
 it is found transferred to Egypt as its native home. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE USES OF EGYPTIAN STRUCTURES CALLED TEMPLES; 
 GIVING CHARACTER TO THEIR FORMS OF ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 There are two classes of structures in Egypt, whose vastncss in 
 their ruins still fills the world with admiration. The first reared 
 above ground, called temples, answered the three-fold purpose of 
 palaces for royalty, of fortresses in war, and of shrines for religious 
 worship. The second constructed under ground, called tombs, 
 were burial-places for the dead. 
 
 Both the style and design of the Egyptian temples are illustrated 
 in the modern cities of India. In Lucknow, above whose square 
 miles covered with mud hovels massive fortresses, called Bagh, are 
 scattered at distances of from one-half to three-quarters of a mile 
 from each other, a perfect counterpart is seen to the "hundred- 
 gated Thebes," mentioned by Homer. 
 
 On the eastern bank of the Nile stands first the temple of Luxor, 
 covering a quarter of a mile square; and distant from this a mile 
 and a half to the northeast is the temple of Karnak, covering half 
 a mile square. On the western bank, half a mile from the river, 
 is a third temple ; a third of a mile farther, a fourth ; and so on 
 till even a seventh and an eighth are passed. Of these the fifth is 
 the celebrated Memnomum, before whose portal stand the vocal 
 Mcninon and his brother; and the sixth, " Medinet Aboo," famed 
 for the beauty and perfection of the bas-reliefs on its walls. 
 is 
 
206 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 2. GENERAL ARRANGEMENT, THREE ORDERS OF COLUMNS 
 AND CORNICE OF THE EGYPTIAN TEMPLE. 
 
 In the temple of Karnak the largest of the number, the original 
 shriue was reared by a Pharaoh of Joseph's day. The foundations 
 arc of limestone, not disintegrated by moisture. The walls are of 
 sandstone, easily cut by the chisel with the sculptures which cover 
 them. The roof is of immense blocks of sandstone laid across from 
 wall to wall. The interior facing is of granite, which received a 
 polish like that of marble. In front of this first shrine two mas- 
 sive walls, from thirty to forty feet high, form the sides of a hollow 
 square, whose back is the shrine and its front a castellated gateway 
 one hundred feet high, called a pylon, from the Greek pule, a gate.; 
 enclosing an area of three or four acres. Along the sides of this 
 open court is a covered colonnade; and in front of the temple a 
 portico with a double row of columns. Before the pylon towered 
 a pair of lofty obelisks, or of gigantic statues, or of both ; the obe- 
 lisks being of red granite from sixty to one hundred feet in height, 
 and from twelve to fifteen feet square at the base, tapering gradu- 
 ally till near the top, where they terminate in a pyramidal point; 
 and the statues being of red granite or grayish porphyry, and rising 
 sixty feet in a standing or seated posture. 
 
 In the temple of Karnak, covering half a mile square, portion 
 after portion, halls, porticoes, obelisks, enclosing walls and pylons, 
 were added during a period of 1800 years, by Egyptian, Grecian 
 and Roman occupants. In the grand hall of this structure is a 
 forest of columns covering an acre of ground ; two rows of which 
 are twelve feet in diameter, and sixty-six feet in height. Over the 
 entrance passage at the east the roof is formed of blocks of sandstone 
 fire feet in thickness, and thirty feet long, raised thirty feet high, 
 and laid across from wall to wall. A pair of obelisks in front of the 
 grand hall of Karnak measure ninety-two feet in height. 
 
 In Egyptian structures, temple walls and pylons, as well as obe- 
 lisks and pyramids, slope inward from the base to the summit; 
 according to the law of strength giving beauty, and of stability en- 
 suring grace. In this the Egyptians, unlike the Grecians, exag- 
 gerated nature so much as to falsify her law. In Egyptian, as in 
 Grecian columnar orders, three ideas prevailed. These columns 
 were styled by the savans of 1798 according to the model of their 
 
EGYPTIAN COLUMNS AND CORNICE. 207 
 
 capitals, the lotus bud, the lotus flower, and the Osiride or head 
 of Osiris ; but they have been bettei classified by Dr. Walter, the 
 American architect, as the robust, medium and the delicate, cor- 
 responding severally to the three Grecian orders. In the robust 
 the height is about five diameters, in the medium six, and in the 
 slender seven diameters ; though no two specimens agree in every 
 respect. The robust has its shaft sometimes smooth and sculp- 
 tured, but generally reeded arid banded like a bundle of lotus stalks ; 
 its capital a lotus bud either smooth or slightly foliated ; and its 
 base rounded and foliated like a tuber root ; copies of which are 
 Been in Philadelphia and New York prisons. The medium has its 
 shaft plain or sculptured ; its capital has four human faces with 
 cows' ears; while its base is a plain projecting foot-slab. The 
 delicate has its base rounded and foliated as a tuber root, and the 
 capital an inverted bell or open lotus flower, sometimes smooth, 
 sometimes slightly foliated, and sometimes with leaves deeply cu< 
 
 A mixed or coruposite order grew up after the Grecian conquest, 
 the capitals being both Osiride and foliated ; specimens of which 
 are found in the Isle of Philse, at Dendera, at Karnak, and at 
 Apollinopolis. The knowledge of geometrical proportions known 
 to the Egyptian is seen by cutting a horizontal section of one of 
 these columns. The depressions or grooves in the reeded shaft, and 
 the periphery of the capital, are found to be included within a series 
 of overlying squares inscribed in a circle ; showing the nicety with 
 which every part of the surface of the shaft and capital was calcu- 
 lated from the centre of the column. 
 
 The cornice of the Egyptian temples projected one-half its height. 
 [ts lower half is flat ; the upper curves outward, the curve being a 
 quarter cylinder, having one-half the height of the cornice as its 
 radius ; a feature often overlooked in copies after the Egyptian 
 style. A plain fillet or band runs along the top of this curve or 
 cavetto, and an ornamental bead along its base ; the bead extend- 
 ing also down the corners of the pylon in the more finished Egypt- 
 ian structures. The contrast between Egyptian and Grecian art 
 is seen in this ; that while the Greeks employed the more elabor- 
 ate curves of the conic sections, as the ellipse and parabola, in 
 moulding architectural ornaments, the Egyptians u?ed only the 
 er curve of the circle. 
 
208 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE STRUCTURE OF EGYPTIAN TOMBS, THE FACADE OP 
 
 ROCK-HEWN TEMPLES AND THE LABYRINTH. 
 
 The tombs of Egypt are back of the large cities, excavated into 
 the limestone walls of the ravine in which lie the river Nile and its 
 alluvial banks. Large halls were cut with lateral passages and rooms 
 along each passage ; and the walls coated with cement, were then 
 covered with sculptures and paintings representing all the scenes of 
 active business life. The coffins of the dead were placed in a stand- 
 ing posture around the walls, and the chambers successively walled 
 up. The reigning king's name was written in hieroglyphics at the 
 portal. Finally the exterior entrance in the mountain wall was 
 closed by an immense stone, and the desert sand heaped over it. 
 
 In Nubia, above Egypt, where the sandstone allowed it, im- 
 mense temple fronts with columns and architectural ornaments 
 were cut in the solid rock. In the facade of the temple of Aboo 
 Siinbel are statuesque columns, the most beautiful in all Egypt, 
 about sixty feet high. 
 
 The famed Labyrinth, the most remarkable specimen of Egyptian 
 underground architecture, situated about fifty miles above ancient 
 Memphis, consisted of twelve palace-temples above ground, with 
 twelve corresponding tombs below ground; including in all one 
 thousand five hundred rooms. Virgil's picture of the one with a 
 "thousand passages," built in Crete by Daedalus, through whose 
 windings even the artist had to guide himself by a thread, has 
 given a fabulous air to this wonder of Egyptian art. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE OBELISK AND PYRAMID AS TYPES OF THE MASSIVE 
 IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. 
 
 The obelisk in temples and the pyramid among tombs are charac- 
 teristic features of Asiatic architecture. The obelisks placed in 
 pairs before temple entrances are needles of red granite with a baso 
 about one-twelfth of their height, polished to a mirror-like smooth- 
 ness, and covered with hieroglyphics. Of these forty-two were 
 conveyed to Home between the times of Augustus and of Constan- 
 tino ; and Constantinople, Paris and other cities have so followed up 
 the plunder that orhy eight are now left in Egypt ; namely, two at 
 Alexandria, one at Heliopolis, and five at Thebes. The largest 
 remaining are ninety-two feet high, and eight feet in diameter 
 
HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 209 
 
 Of the largest removed, one at Rome is seventy-eight feet, and ona 
 at Paris seventy-six feet high. Those at Thebes are still perfectly 
 mirror-like in polish after the lapse of ages; but Cleopatra's Needle, 
 at Alexandria, is much defaced on the seaward face by the salt 
 spray. The faces of some have a convexity of 3, which prevents 
 a complete shadow on the entire face, and the consequent hiding 
 of the sculptures when the face is shaded. 
 
 The form of the pyramid, like that of the obelisk, represents, as 
 its name intimates, a tongue of flame, the emblem of the spirit 
 ascending. They were a very ancient conception, and laid aside in 
 the advance of the race ; all being completed in the early patriarchal 
 age. The oldest and largest is seven hundred and sixty-four feet 
 square at the base, covering over thirteen acres, and four hundred 
 and eighty feet nine inches in height. The slope of its side, there- 
 fore, is an angle of 51 51'; a steepness of inclination which makes 
 it difficult and even dangerous of ascent. The pyramid stands 
 with its faces due north and south and east and west. The en- 
 trance passage declines at an angle of 27; and as the latitude of 
 the pyramid is about 30, this, with other like indications, have 
 been regarded as an index to the Egyptians' knowledge of astrono- 
 my as well as of geometry. Early historians agree in the statement 
 that the pyramids were designed to be the tombs for kings; while 
 ancient tradition hints a theory, revived by modern savans, that the 
 granite- cased inner vaults were meant to contain standard weights 
 and measures. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE HISTORY OP EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE; THE PERMA- 
 NENT TYPE, MASSIVE IN MATERIAL AND PERMANENT IN ITS 
 RUDE AND SOMBRE CAST; ITS SIMPLE MASSIVE ORIGINALS; ITS 
 ASIATIC GORGEOUSNESS ; ITS GRECIAN REFINEMENT; AND ITS 
 ROMAN GRANDEUR. 
 
 Egyptian architecture, having a long history and well-preserved 
 monuments, furnishes a most striking exhibition of the power of 
 national conceptions in controlling foreign ideas introduced, and of 
 preserving substantial types, while it may be modified in external 
 aspect by an improved civilization. The Egyptian palace-temples 
 and tombs, so well preserved thai the works of different ages are 
 readily recognized under rulers of varied nationalities, never de- 
 parted in plan or principle from the early model. Though entirely 
 
210 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 unlike their own religious shrines, Asiatic wise men and Grecian 
 and Roman conquerors, reared temples having the same flat roof 
 and circular cornice, with porticoes having columns of one of the 
 three Egyptian orders, fronted by immense open courts surrounded 
 by colonnades, and having obelisks and colossal statues standing 
 or seated before their portals, as well as avenues of guarding 
 spli3 r nxes leading to their outer entrances. All the foreign posses-' 
 sors of the land, too, went back to the line of desert mountain rock 
 into which to cut their tombs ; they excavated the branching pas- 
 sages ; they stuccoed and carved the walls ; and they drew pictured 
 and painted scenes of life in a style perfectly Egyptian : denational- 
 izing themselves to become ministers to ruder conceptions. 
 
 The four eras already marked in the history of Egyptian sculp- 
 ture are to be noted in its architecture. The first is the age of rude 
 native taste. The pyramids built of limestone and having cham- 
 bers lined with granite, and the inner shrine of the grand temple 
 at Thebes, with plain octagonal columns of sandstone, are the only 
 monuments of this age. 
 
 The second era was that of Asiatic gorgeousness ; the age of 
 commerce and foreign influence, extending from Osirtasen I., in the 
 days of Joseph, to its culmination under CXsirei and his famed suc- 
 cessors, Reuieses I. to IV. Its matchless monuments are the grand 
 hall of the temple of Karnak, the Remesium and the Memnonium, 
 and the richer tombs of Thebes. Any one of the forest of columns 
 in the grand hall of Karnak, twelve feet in diameter and sixty- 
 six feet high, embodies the idea of the age ; Egyptian massiveness 
 with Asiatic gorgeousness. 
 
 The third or Grecian era, had as its centres Alexandria in the 
 north and Philae at the south. Its grand works at Alexandria 
 were the Pharos, or light-house, the library and museum reared 
 by the Ptolemies. The beautiful temples on the Isle of Philse are 
 its preserved memorials; showing how even Egyptian heaviness 
 was made light and graceful by the touch of Grecian genius. 
 
 The last and Roman era has its two grand monuments in the 
 temples of Dendera and of Esneh. Both are simple shrines, with- 
 out enclosing courts, pylons or obelisks ; but loftier and grander 
 than any earlier covered structure in Egypt. That at Esneh has 
 columns with the lotus capital ; those at Dendera are Osiride ; both 
 nave a screen exquisitely wrought in a sort of lattice running be 
 
ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA AND E. ASIA. 211 
 
 tween the outside row of columns and rising to half their height. 
 The zodiacs on the ceilings of both seem a suggestion of the Julian 
 period in astronomy. The absence of surrounding pylons, obeliska 
 and statues is a feature of the independence of the Roman sway ; 
 while the perfectly Egyptian idea and style of the shrine itself is 
 an interesting comment on Roman policy, which not only recog- 
 nized . but adopted the religion, as well as the local customs and 
 state institutions, of every conquered nation. 
 
 In the single temple of Karnak there is an epitome not only cf 
 all the four eras, but of several stages in some of these eras. The 
 improvement of art is specially conspicuous in the second era, the 
 age from Joseph to the successors of Moses. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE ARCHITECTURE OF INDIA, EASTERN ASIA AND WEST- 
 ERN AMERICA; THE DECLINING PHASE OF THE MASSIVE STYLE. 
 
 As in sculpture so in architecture a resemblance with growing 
 degeneracy can be traced eastward from Egypt through India, 
 China and Polynesia to America. Its ancient relics in Hither India, 
 Polynesia and America, and its modern representatives in Farther 
 India and China, are degenerate specimens of the same style. 
 
 In India the most interesting relics are found at Elephanta and 
 Ellora, already referred to. On the isle of Elephanta the entrance 
 to a rock-hewn temple is sixty feet wide, and eighteen feet high ; 
 the grand hall, one hundred and twenty-three feet wide and one 
 hundred and thirty feet long is cut into the solid rock ; and the 
 walls are covered with sculptures in relief. At Ellora a line of 
 similarly excavated temples run along a mile and a half on a hill- 
 side, most of which are one hundred feet in depth ; while one has 
 a pagoda-like roof cut into the rock ninety-five feet high, differing 
 from the pyramidal roof in being circular. 
 
 In Farther India the pagoda is characteristic ; a steep pyramid in 
 shape, having numerous stories each of less area than the one next 
 lower. The Burmese pagoda, generally square, resembles in general 
 outline the Pyramid of Sakkhara ; its proportionate height being 
 much greater than that of the pyramid. One at Pegu is three 
 hundred and sixty-one feet high, and its base only three hundred 
 and ninety-five feet broad. One at Ava has in the colonnade of 
 its first stage eight hundred and two columns of sandstone, each 
 five feet high. 
 
212 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 In China the bell-shaped flare of the curved roofs, in the style 
 of a tent with pavilioned covering, adds grace to their pyramidal 
 pagodas. To this class belonged the famous porcelain tower of 
 Nanking, finished A. D. 1431. This pagoda, recently destroyed, 
 octagonal in form, and two hundred and thirty-six feet high, was 
 of brick covered with plates of porcelain. From its spire and 
 projecting balconies forty-four bells of sweet tone, suspended by 
 chains, kept up a musical chime as they swung with the wind. 
 
 In the islands of the Pacific are ancient architectural relics in the 
 style of Burmah and Egypt. Among these is a pyramid fifty feet 
 high with a base two hundred and seventy by ninety feet. In 
 Western America, as Mexico and Peru, truncated and terraced 
 pyramids abound ; which Humboldt declares must have been built 
 by a people whose culture was derived from Egypt. That at Cho- 
 lula has a base 1426 feet broad, four times that of Cheops in Egypt, 
 and an altitude of 162 feet. In later times Stephens has described 
 many others. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE ARCHITECTURE OF ARABIA, PALESTINE, SYRIA, ASSY- 
 RIA AND PERSEPOLIS; THE ADVANCING PHASE OF THE MASSFVE 
 STYLE. 
 
 In tracing the progress of the art of architecture, as well a? of 
 sculpture, along the eastern borders of the Mediterranean, the 
 successive influence of several cultured nations is to be carefully 
 discriminated. 
 
 In the peninsula of Mt. Sinai the tombs cut into the mountain 
 sides are Egyptian. At Petra the massive rock-hewn temples with 
 flat or pyramidal roof-peaks show Egyptian mingled with Grecian 
 tuste. Entering Syria, sacred as well as secular history, points to 
 a long history of sacred edifices. Jacob's u pillar," called Bethel, 
 the exemplar in name as well as character of the Celtic "Bothel" 
 at Stonehenge, was succeeded by the temples of Baal in the north 
 and Dagon in the south, of which Lucian says, "The Phoenicians 
 built in the Egyptian style, though the people were of Dorian 
 origin." 
 
 The Hebrew temple of Solomon, reared in an enclosure a quarter 
 of a mile square, was planned by a Phoenician architect. Being 
 ninety feet long, thirty feet broad, and forty-five feet high, having 
 a tower one hundred and eighty feet high and two columns in 
 
ARCHITECTURE OF SYRIA AND W. ASIA. 213 
 
 front, it was manifestly Egyptian in type. The courts surrounding 
 the house, with their porticoes, and the chambers for the college 
 students, arc in keeping with the Egyptian, Indian and Arabian 
 sacred enclosures. The capitals of the two columns, seven and a 
 half feet high decorated with lily- work and pomegranates, and the 
 carvings on the inner walls of palin trees and cherubs, are in keep- 
 ing with the same central model. The reconstructed edifice built 
 by Ezra, B. C. 530, was of the kindred Assyrian order ; while the 
 later structure of Herod, begun B. C. 15, was of the mingled 
 Grecian and Oriental type favorite among the Romans.. 
 
 Baalbek, built by Solomon in the valley between the Lebanon 
 ranges, exhibits the architecture of three ages. The missive 
 foundations of the great temple are of Hebrew origin ; the ruins 
 of three or four porticoes and colonnades are Greek Corinthian ; and 
 a small octagonal temple is of Roman construction, In the founda- 
 tion are stones larger than in any known structure ; three of thoe 
 built into the wall twenty feet above ground being about sixty-four 
 feet long, twelve feet wide, and twelve feet thick. The winged 
 globe with encircling asps sculptured on the walls shows an Egypt- 
 ian influence coming through Tyre. 
 
 A line of cities on the Euphrates and its tributaries, from Baby- 
 lon to Persepolis, reveals a growing transition from Egyptian to 
 Grecian ideas. Fergusson traces the introduction of the Ionic 
 capital and other architectural ornaments from Persia to Asia 
 Minor and thence to Greece. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE; CHARACTERIZED BY MATHEMATICAL 
 
 EXACTNESS IN FORMS AND DELICATE GRACE IN ADORNMENT. 
 
 THE germ of mathematical science, learned by the Greeks as 
 their historians agree in Egypt, was applied with surpassing nicety 
 by Grecian architect! in the construction of their masterpieces. 
 As in sculpture the Greeks secured life and expression, so in 
 
'21 i ART CRITICISM. 
 
 their architectural works they sought a lightness and grace incon- 
 sistent with Egyptian massiveness. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE INFLUENCE OF FACE OF COUNTRY AND MATERIAL IN 
 
 GIVING CHARACTER TO GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The Greeks lived in a mountain region ; their citadels rose on 
 rocky promontories such as the Acropolis of Athens and Corinth ; 
 and their temples, standing unenclosed, required a kindred finish 
 on all sides. Their structures were but one story in elevation, with 
 * low, gently sloping roof, and without-tower or pylon in front. 
 
 The chief charm of the Grecian temple was its gable. The 
 columns of the portico rose to the eaves ; the slope of the roof above 
 was the least possible to allow the shedding of rain ; and the tym- 
 panum or open triangular space at the end of the roof furnished a 
 sheltered niche for finely carved statuary. 
 
 The material for building furnished to Greek architects, white 
 marble of the finest texture, aided the realization of their ideal. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE PERMANENCE AND COMPLETENESS OF GRECIAN 
 COLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Pliny, speaking of the labyrinth of Crete, says that Daedalus ita 
 architect " closely imitated in this structure the celebrated labyrinth 
 of Egypt. ' ' Yet the earliest temples executed by Grecian architects 
 were as distinct in their type as those of the day of Phidias. The 
 beautiful and romantically situated temple of Jupiter Panhellenicos, 
 on the elevated eastern shore of the island of Egina, which com- 
 mands a panoramic view of Greece, built according to Pausanias be- 
 fore the Trojan war, is of the oldest and most massive columnar order. 
 The architectural works of Greece, alike in all their main features, 
 have three distinct orders of columns. These orders, though their 
 names, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, are all found in the same age 
 at Athens, are borrowed from three types of progress in culture ; 
 the purest specimen, the Parthenon, being of the oldest or most 
 massive order. Their ideas and general features are graphically 
 presented by Thomson : 
 
 " First unadorned 
 
 And nobly plain, the manly Dnric rose; 
 
 Th' Ionic then, with decent matron grace 
 
 Her airy pillars heaved; luxuriant, last 
 
 The rich Corinthian spread her wanton Avreath." 
 
GRECIAN 1,'OLUMNAR ARCHITECTURE. 2 IS 
 
 The Doric derived its name from the Grecian colonists of Doris 
 in Asia Minor; whose people surpassed even those of the mother 
 country in art and science. Vitruvius says, "They sought that 
 medium which should make these columns sufficiently strong to 
 sustain the front of the edifice, and at the same time should render 
 them agreeable to the view. In order to do this they took the 
 measure of the foot of man, which is the sixth part of his height ; 
 upon which measure they formed the height of their column." 
 The Ionic column originated among the Ionian inlanders west of 
 Greece. "They sought to introduce a new order of columns by 
 giving to them the proportions of the female figure ; and, that they 
 might be emblematical of female delicacy, the height of the columns 
 was eight times the lowest diameter. Bases also were given them 
 in imitation of sandals, and volutes were sculptured in the capitals, 
 in allusion to the ringlets which fell down on either side of tho 
 face." "And thus," he adds, k 'were two species of orders in- 
 vented ; one representing the strength and simplicity of man, the 
 other the fine proportions and the elegance of woman." 
 
 The Corinthian column, whose proportions vary from eight to ten 
 diameters of the lower part of the shaft, was suggested, as Vitru- 
 vius records, to Callimachus, the compeer of Phidias, under these 
 circumstances : The nurse of a lovely maiden, who had died sud- 
 denly, placed her trinkets in a basket on her grave, covering it with 
 a tile. In the spring an acanthus root beneath the basket shot up 
 its tendrils, wound its leaves around it, and its branches were bout 
 into spirals under the projecting tile. Callimachus passing by the 
 spot, and observing the basket and the beauty of the young foliage 
 entwined about it, adopted it in the columns of edifices at Corinth ; 
 which were thence called Corinthian. 
 
 The three orders of Grecian columns, because of their exhaus- 
 tive analysis, have become comprehensire types for all succeeding 
 aichitectural works. The proportions of the male and female form, 
 like the letters of the alphabet and tones in the musical scale in ail 
 lands, have, in all ages, been observed and fixed. So in the princi- 
 ples of columnar architecture the Grecian artists reached an exhaus- 
 tive analysis which allows no additional type to be conceived. As, 
 however, in language and music there may be new study of details 
 and new arrangement of parts, so in architecture there may be 
 new groupings of previously recognized harmonies, and an intro- 
 
216 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 duction of new emblems selected from the productions of different 
 climes. 
 
 The Greeks themselves have left no two specimens even of the 
 same order alike in all their parts. Thus the Doric or robust order 
 has at Paestum in Italy four diameters as its modulus, and the 
 portico of the Agora at Athens six ; while in the monument of 
 Lysicrates, and the tower of Andromicus, the foliated ornaments 
 of the Corinthian capitals belong to flowers most unlike. As the 
 Egyptian which preceded, so the Roman and Gothic which suc- 
 ceeded, recognized the canon of symmetry established by the 
 Greeks in their orders ; while the revived Grecian of M. Angelo, 
 now a ruling type in modern architecture indicates the decision of 
 great, artists as to the completeness of Grecian analysis. 
 
 This, their own canon, g aided the ablest Grecian builders. Thus 
 in the Parthenon, elevated on the Acropolis, to be seen at such a 
 distance that the finer ornaments would be lost, the Doric was used 
 by Phidias ; while in the sheltered vale below, the temple of Jupi- 
 ter has the slighter and more elaborate Corinthian. The same 
 principle of adaptation has led the architects of the Madeline at 
 Paris and of the Girard College at Philadelphia, both modeled 
 after the Doric Parthenon, to select the elaborate Corinthian capi- 
 tal ; while, too, the architect of the U. S. Capitol has inwrought 
 into the ornaments of Corinthian capitals, the corn of the northern 
 sections, the tobacco of the middle latitudes, and the cotton of the 
 Gulf States. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE ARRANGEMENT OF COLUMNS, WITH THEIR INTER- 
 COLUMNIATIONS, ON WHICH THE DESIGNATION OF STYLES IN GRE- 
 CIAN ARCHITECTURE IS FOUNDED. 
 
 The Greek temple, according to Vitruvius, should have a breadth 
 equal to half its length. Columnar appendages may consist of one 
 or more rows of columns placed in front, in front and rear, or on all 
 sides of the temple ; and they may be differently arranged and be- 
 stowed both as to number and to width of intervening spaces. The 
 word style, from the Greek stylos, a pillar or column, as applied to 
 an edifice, indicates the order of its columnar arrangements. The 
 simplest style is that of the temple in antis, from anti, in which 
 two columns stand in a recess in the gable front. The second, 
 called pro-style, has a portico in front alone ; the third, named 
 
GRECIAN COLUMNAR STYLES. 217 
 
 amphi-style, has a portico at both ends ; and the fourth, termed 
 peri-style, has a colonnade on all sides; these names being suc- 
 cessively derived from the Greek prepositions pro, ampld and peri, 
 with the noun stylos. According, again, to the intervening dis- 
 tances of the columns, called intcrcolumniation, there are five 
 different styles. Tho.se having their columns one and one-half 
 diameters apart are named pycnostyle, or close-set, from pycnos, 
 IJie clenched fist; those two diameters apart systyle, or near-set, 
 from syn together; those two and one-half diameters eustyle, or 
 well-set, from eu, well or beautifully ; those three diameters dia- 
 style, or open-set, from dia, through or between ; and those four 
 diameters areostyle or wide-set, from araios, broad. According, 
 once again, to the number of columns in the front row of the 
 portico, temples were designated tetrastyle, faaxutyfe, octostyle, etc., 
 i. e. four-columned, six-columned, eight-columned, etc. 
 
 The term pteros, a wing, properly applied only to circular build- 
 ings, originating among the Romans, was by them also applied to 
 rectangular buildings, having no wings proper. A temple having 
 a single row of columns on all sides was called monopteral, or 
 single-winged ; one having two rows on all sides was named 
 dipteral or double-winged; and one having one row of columns 
 and a corresponding row of pilasters, or half-columns fastened 
 upon and projecting from the walls, was designated as pseudo* 
 dipteral, or false double-winged. A temple having an open or un- 
 roofed centre was called hypccthral, from hupo, under, and aitli&r, 
 the air. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE SEVERAL PARTS OF THE GREEK TEMPLE, CON- 
 SPIRING TO GIVE GRACE TO GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The three parts of an edifice giving character and expression to 
 its architecture are the columns; the entablature or table capping^ 
 the columns, and the pediment, or roof-angle resting upon the 
 entablature ; to which may be added the platform, or surrounding 
 ground-steps. 
 
 The parts of the column are the base or foot, the shaft or body, 
 and the capital or head. The base of the columns is either square 
 or round, plain or carved. The Doric column has properly no 
 base ; the Ionic and Corinthian base is a rounded and slightly pro- 
 jecting foot. 
 
 19 K 
 
218 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The shaft slants upward in a parabolic curve so slight that, like 
 that of the tree, it denies its reality to the ordinary eye, but yet 
 reveals itself to the searching analysis of the architect's measuring 
 gauge. The modulus of the column, as of all portions of the 
 Grecian temple, Yitruvius teaches, was the radius or half-diameter 
 of the lower part of the shaft ; and this was subdivided into sixty 
 minutes, or equal minute parts. By application of this nice mea- 
 sure to the shaft of the column at different successive heights, 
 passing from the base upward, it will be found to taper not in a 
 straight slope, but in a parabolic curve. 
 
 The fluting of the shaft, the concave of the reed or flute, may be 
 omitted in Doric and Ionic columns ; or they may be fluted only at 
 the top, leaving the exposed space at the bottom guarded against 
 chipping. The flutes of the Doric are made to meet each other, 
 leaving only a sharp intervening edge ; but in the Ionic, they have 
 a sharper curvature, leaving a narrow central band between them. 
 The Corinthian, always fluted, has its grooves separated, as in the 
 Ionic, by fillets or bands. 
 
 The extent to which philosophic study was carried by Grecian 
 architects is illustrated by statements of Vitruvius. " The columns 
 at the angles of buildings should have their diameters enlarged by 
 a fiftieth part, because, being from their situation more immedi- 
 ately contrasted with the light, they hence appear less than the 
 others." " The diminution of the shaft in its taper from the top 
 to the bottom is to be thus regulated. To the eye the diameter of 
 the column diminishes as its height increases ; hence to preserve 
 the same apparent proportion of the diameters it becomes necessary 
 to increase that of the upper portion of the shaft. If, therefore, 
 the height of the shaft be fifteen feet, the upper diameter should 
 be five-sixths of the lower ; if the shaft be from fifteen to twenty 
 feet high, the upper should be eleven-thirteenths of the lower ; if 
 thirty feet high, the proportions should be thirteen-fifteenths ; 
 if from thirty to forty feet high, the diminution should be one- 
 seventh ; if from forty to fifty feet high, the decrease should be 
 one-eighth." " If the width of the temple be more than one-half 
 its length, the proportion should be apparently restored thus. 
 Columns should be placed within and opposed to those between 
 the antae. These should be of correspondent height ; but their 
 diameters should be less in the following proportions: if tho 
 
PARTS OF THE COLUMN AND ARCHITECTURE. 219 
 
 columns in front be eight times their diameter in height, the inner 
 ones should be nine diameters; if the exterior be nine or ten 
 diameters in height, the interior should preserve a proportionate 
 augmentation. The difference in the bulk of the columns will not 
 be apparent, because they will not fce seen contrasted with the light 
 If notwithstanding they should appear too slender, the number of 
 (lutings should be increased. Thus if the columns in front have 
 twenty-four flutes, the inner ones may have twenty-eight, or even 
 thirty-two ; so that what is in fact taken from the bulk may be re- 
 stored by the additional number of flutings. This optical deception 
 arises from the idea of greater magnitude which is impressed by 
 the transit of the visual rays over a greater surface. For if the 
 peripheries of two circles of equal diameter, one of which is fluted 
 and the other not, be measured by a line which is made to be in 
 contact with every point of the peripheries, the length of the lino 
 will not be the same in both cases ; because in one it has been, 
 iiade to touch every point in the concave surfaces of the flutings in 
 the intervals between the fillets. Since this deception therefore 
 may be accomplished, it is allowable to make columns which are in 
 confined situations and little exposed to the light less massive than 
 the others, because their want of bulk may be rendered impercepti- 
 ble by augmenting the number of flutings as circumstances may 
 require." 
 
 The capital, as the column, has properly three divisions of its 
 parts; an upper and a lower tablet and the moulding between. 
 In the Doric capital the lower tablet is wanting; as the base ia 
 wanting in the Doric column. The moulding of the Doric is a 
 plain ovolo ; a curve named from its egg shape, and limited in size 
 to a quadrant, whether the curve be a quarter of a circle, of an 
 ellipse, of a hyperbola, or of a parabola. The ovolo of the Doric 
 moulding has always the curve of a parabola, or hyperbola, never 
 of a circle ; the design being to reflect light to the eye looking from 
 below in the most perfect manner. 
 
 The Ionic moulding consisted of two volutes, or scrolls, repre- 
 senting the curls of hair on each side of the female head ; between 
 which was a band, like the fillet worn on the brow of Grecian 
 women, having as pendants from it two egg-shaped ovals, separated 
 by triangular tongues, these pendants seeming to be the ornaments 
 of jewelry strung upon the fillet. In the original Ionic, as em- 
 
220 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ployed in the Asiatic provinces of Greece, the capital had but two 
 faces, a front and a rear face, while at the side the volutes rounded 
 downward and inward like the smooth-combed puffs behind the 
 curls of female hair; and the capital thus constructed had a finished 
 character because it was always placed between antce or other 
 columns, and never at a corner. In Greece proper, however, 
 where the Ionic column was used in porticoes, it was customary 
 for tho sake of harmony to give its moulding when standing at a 
 corner, a side as well as a front face ; a modification, as we shall 
 see, still farther extended by the Roman architect. 
 
 The moulding of the Corinthian was a bell-shaped basket as a 
 foundation, overlaid with intertwining stalks and leaves of the 
 favorite acanthus, or of some other plant ; as of the fern or the 
 olive. The upper points of the leaves and stalks were represented 
 as bent downward into curls from the resistance of the tablet or 
 tile laid above them. 
 
 Above the columns the entablature is the second study in the 
 Grecian temple. The entablature is to the range of columns what 
 the capital is to the single column ; it is the coping or capping of 
 the entire work. The greater or less elaborateness of its finish was 
 made to correspond with that of the columns in the same edifice. 
 The entablature consists of three parts ; the architrave, frieze and 
 cornice. 
 
 The architrave, from arche and trdbg, or main-beam, is the tim- 
 ber or row of stones laid immediately upon the caps of columns, 
 and uniting them together. It projects slightly in front of the 
 columns, whose capitals are its rests. In the Doric, the architrave 
 is plain; but in the Ionic and Corinthian it is more or less 
 elaborate. 
 
 The frieze, so called from the verb freeze or frizzle, to be con- 
 tracted, is the middle and retired member of the entablature ; cor- 
 responding to the shaft of the column, whose surface is depressed 
 behind its base and capital. The surface of the frieze is divided 
 into compartments, or panels, separated by small squares cut into 
 three perpendicular bars with grooves between, and called triglyphs. 
 One of these is placed over each column, and one or more between 
 the columns ; which squares project in front of the depressed face 
 of the frieze, and represent, according to Vitruvius, the projected 
 ends of rafters in the log cabin after which the Doric crdcr is 
 
THE GRECIAN CORNICE AND PEDIMENT. 221 
 
 modebd. The intervening spaces between the triglyphs are called 
 the metopes, or openings-between. These spaces, originally left 
 open, were afterwards filled with slabs, as in the Parthenon, 
 having sculpture in high-relief. 
 
 The cornice, or corona, is the projecting crown serving as the 
 coping or cap of the entablature. The cornice is divided into its 
 three parts; and these again in elaborate specimens, each into 
 their three subdivisions; this tripartite division of the Greeks 
 being carried into the minutest parts of their work. Underneath 
 the projecting cornice are always to be noted the mutules or square 
 blocks corresponding to the trygliphs over the columns, and having 
 on their face small circular pendants called drops, because repre- 
 senting the rain drops, hanging over the triglyphs whose grooves 
 serve as gutters for their descent. In later periods of the history 
 of architecture modillions and brackets take the place of the 
 mutules and triglyphs. 
 
 Yet above the entablature, as the third characteristic study of 
 Grecian architecture, is the pediment. The base of the pediment 
 is the upper part of the entablature ; the sloping sides of the gable 
 or roof-angle rest upon the cornice, projecting forward even with it 
 and being finished in harmony, if not in perfect uniformity, with 
 the cornice. The central triangular space called the tympanum, or 
 drum, offering a deep and sheltered niche for sculpture, was re- 
 garded as the feature of the Grecian temple, giving it a celestial 
 aspect. Thus Cicero remarks of the Capitol of Rome, " This same 
 roof-peak of the Capitol and of other edifices, not grace, but neces- 
 sity itself constructed. For when the reason of the case had sug- 
 gested, how from each side of the house the water should be made 
 to glide, thus securing utility to the temple, the idea of dignity 
 attached to the roof-peak ; so that if in heaven a capitol should be 
 erected, where rain could not occur, it would seem that it would be 
 regaided as not possessing dignity without a roof-peak." 
 
 An indication of the philosophic spirit that guided the Greek arch- 
 itect is hinted thus bv Vitruvius: "All the members placed above 
 the capitals of the columns, as the architrave, frieze, cornice, tym- 
 panum, etc. , ought to be inclined forward each the twelfth part of 
 its height ; since, if a person looking at the face of an edifice con- 
 ceives that two lines separate from the eye, one of which touches 
 the bottom the other the top of the object of vision, it is certain 
 19* 
 
222 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 that which touches the top is the longer ; and the farther up one 
 line extends, the more it makes the upper part appear to tip back- 
 ward ; so that if the members which form the face of the upper 
 portion are made to lean a little forward, the whole appears to be 
 perfectly upright and plumb." 
 
 The platform, or steps which form the ascent to the Grecian 
 temple, adds greatly to its beauty. Unlike the Egyptian, the floor 
 of the Grecian temple was raised some feet above the ground ; and 
 the broad and easy flight of steps, with their slant as graceful as 
 that of the roof-peak, formed a pedestal on which the fair struc- 
 ture stood. In a prostyle temple these steps went up only at the 
 front ; but in a peristyle structure on all sides. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE PARTHENON AS THE EMBODIMENT OF GRECIAN 
 GENIUS IN ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The Parthenon or temple of Minerva, the virgin patron of 
 Athens, is perhaps the completest, as it was the most finished 
 specimen of Grecian architecture. Standing as it does on the lofty 
 rock of the Acropolis, in a position where it is exposed to the 
 rudest blasts which sweep over the plains of Attica, its low massy 
 Doric columns when seen in the distance, seem to be happily 
 chosen as the order of its architecture ; while its graceful roof, 
 sloping upward at an angle of only 14, allows the hurrying gales 
 only to kiss its gently inclined face. As the observer approaches 
 and climbs to the Acropolis enclosure through the Propylaea 
 suddenly the whole peerless structure in one enchanting view 
 breaks on his gaze. The temple stands about two hundred feet 
 back from the Propylaea, about one hundred feet to the right, and 
 raised some twenty feet above the beholder, presenting its southwest 
 corner ; thus permitting the eye to take in at a glance its entire 
 length, breadth and height. It is now sadly shattered and dilapi- 
 dated, its centre having been torn open by a Venetian bomb, A. D. 
 1687 ; but the large portion yet standing, together with the par- 
 ticular descriptions of such men as Vitruvius who saw it in the 
 days of the first Roman emperor, and of Sir Geo. Wheeler who 
 visited it as late as A. D. 1676, bring all its glory fresh before the- 
 gaze of the modern traveler. 
 
 This peerless model is two hundred and seventeen feet long and 
 ninety-eight and a half feet broad. It is pure Doric ; its columns 
 
THE PARTHENON AS A GRECIAN MODEL. 223 
 
 being six diameters in height, each having twenty flutes, no base, 
 and as a capital-moulding a simple ovolo. It is peristyle having 
 3olumns on all sides ; monopteral, its colonnade being a single row 
 of columns; octo-style, having eight columns in front; pycno-style, 
 the intercolumniations being one and a half diameters; and hypse- 
 thral, its inner shrine opening to the heavens, from whose floor the 
 colossal Minerva lifted her majestic form thirty-eight feet. The 
 architrave was plain and chaste; the metopes filled with the 
 richest sculpture in relief; the cornice rich but not gaudy ; and the 
 tympanum of the pediment ornamented with majestic statuary. 
 Finally the graceful slope of ths low graded steps, ascending on all 
 sides, gave a finished elevation to the entire structure. 
 
 Minute measurements of the Parthenon indicate two funda 
 mental principles. The science which gave proportions requisite 
 to strength and beauty in Grecian structures did not dictate me- 
 chanics' patterns, but hinted principles to save genius from error. 
 
 Again, every line in the stretch of the platform, in the taper of 
 the column, in the sweep of the entablature, is a parabolic curve 
 The centre of the platform on the sides of the temple is elevated 
 twenty inches above the level of the ends of the same range, while 
 the centre of the end range, or of the platform in front and rear of 
 the temple, is correspondency raised ; the effect of which is, in con- 
 formity with the laws of curvilinear perspective already considered, 
 to give to the eye as it courses over the curved surface the impres- 
 sion of greater extent. To adjust the upward taper of the columns, 
 each is made up of twelve separate blocks, whose outer side is aboul 
 one inch thicker than the inner side ; thus offsetting the slope of 
 the platform, and giving the column a graceful slant inward. 
 
 As no tree or man has a fixed measure of dimension, either abso 
 lute or relative, so no two Grecian edifices are modeled one after 
 another ; nor is any one rigidly conformed to any fixed measure. 
 This is strikingly seen in comparing any of the details above given 
 as to the measurements of the Parthenon. 
 
 To describe every particular of the wonderful science entering 
 into the art of the Grecian architect, would be as endless as was 
 the ever-widening study and ever-growing perfection of the artist 
 himself. 
 
 ^ 
 
 BSITT 
 
224 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 6. HISTORY OF GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE TILL ITS DECLINE. 
 
 The history of Grecian architecture, as of sculpture, begins with 
 Daedalus, before the Trojan war. An Athenian by birth, his first 
 great works were a labyrinth and temple in Crete, then under the 
 reign of the famous Minos; a river reservoir, and a mountain- 
 fortress i Sicily; several palaces in Sardinia; and temples of Apollo 
 at Capua and Cannae in Southern Italy. Their names indicate 
 that Egyptian ideas, to a considerable extent, prevailed. 
 
 The next stage is the introduction of the columnar orders. To 
 this age belongs the Panhellenicon, on the island of Egina, and 
 the early Ionic temple of Diana at Ephesus ; the first two orders 
 appearing together. The era of these finished architects is about 
 the first Olympiad or B. C. 776. 
 
 The era of discussion as to the orders is the next advance. 
 Vitruvius mentions Pytheus, who contended that the Doric column 
 was not adapted to sacred edifices, "because deceptions and incon- 
 sistent proportions are executed in this order." Greek architect 
 generally agreed that the Ionic should be employed only in antis, 
 where its face alone was seen; though it was also used in full 
 porticoes. 
 
 The culminating era of the Doric at the rebuilding of Athens 
 about B. C. 450, was the climactic era of Grecian architecture. 
 Phidias was general superintendent, Ictinus and Callicrates chief 
 architects, when, about B. C. 438, the Parthenon, the peerless 
 master- work, was finished. 
 
 The introduction of the Corinthian order, in the age succeeding 
 Phidias, by Callimaehus, a comprehensive genius in art, marks the 
 final stage of the history of Grecian architecture. Though favorite 
 in the provinces, Greece proper, especially Athens, was slow to 
 admit the Corinthian. It was not until about B. C. 175, that the 
 temple of Jupiter Olympus on the plain under the Acropolis was 
 erected after the Corinthian order; while the Choragic Monument, 
 BO exquisite a gem of the same style, was of a still later date. 
 
 The celebrated Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, embodied the 
 history of Grecian architecture. The first rude edifice was Asiatic 
 in style. The second, begun about 776 B. C. , was four hundred 
 and twenty-five feet long, and two hundred and twenty feet 'oroad ; 
 its peripteral portico embraced one hundred and twenty-seven 
 
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE; SPACIOUS, ELEGANT. 225 
 
 columns sixty feet high, each composed of one block of Parian 
 marble with Ionic capitals ; and the whole exterior was enriched 
 with the most costly decorations. When burned by the wretch 
 Herostratus, Alexander, on his Eastern expedition, directed 
 Dinoorates to rebuild it with more than its former magnificence. 
 Restored and made the treasure-house of the gems of art left by 
 such sculptors as Praxiteles and Scopas, and of such painters as 
 Parrhasius and Apelles, it continued even for ages after the 
 Christian era, one of the glories of the world. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE; CHARACTERIZED BY RTATELINESS IN 
 DIMENSIONS AND PROFUSE ELEGANCE IN ORNAMENTATION. 
 
 THE Greeks were ideal, the Romans eminently practical. In 
 sculpture, therefore, the Romans never approached the Greeks. 
 In architecture, whose end is utility, the Romans originated new 
 principles, invented new styles and employed new methods. 
 
 The Roman architects aimed at elaborated strength; not the 
 mere massiveness of the Egyptians. Hence among their earliest 
 as well as latest triumphs in architecture, were military construc- 
 tions such as bridges and aqueducts. 
 
 When the age for added refinement came, their effort at finish 
 showed itself in what Cicero calls "a manly and robust ornament" 
 It added to the light grace of the Grecian columnar capitals greatei 
 strength to sustain a heavier superincumbent weight ; leading 
 naturally to an excess of ornament. This departure from the 
 chasteness of " learned Greece," who gave rules " when to repress 
 and when indulge our flights," led to the style called in the Latin, 
 "elegant." 
 
 These two characteristics, strength and elegance, and their ap- 
 plication by the Romans to different classes of structures reared in 
 their own city and in other climes, through succeeding ages of cul- 
 ture and of decline, hint a natural division of the subject of Roman 
 
 architecture. 
 
 K* 
 
226 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 BECT. 1. THE INTRODUCTION OF CURVED LINES IN GROUNDPLOT 
 AND ELEVATION, GIVING BREADTH AND STATELINESS TO ROMAN 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 In sculpture the Greeks perfected the beauty of the curved line ; 
 while in their rectangular temple fronts they gave such mathematical 
 nicety to straight-line combinations, that Cicero said these could not 
 be improved in heaven itself. The Romans first employed curved 
 lines, not simply as had the Egyptians and Greeks in the orna- 
 ments of capitals and cornices, but also in the groundplot and ele- 
 vation of edifices. The two ends sought were spaciousness and 
 elogance. 
 
 Nearly all the architectural works of the Greeks were temples ; 
 and these had a rectangle for a base. The Pantheon, and the 
 tomb of Marcellus, now the Castle of St. Angelo, still standing at 
 Rome, are specimens of a complete circle as a groundplot; the 
 Coliseum, the most majestic pile in the world, has an entire and 
 perfect ellipse as its base ; while many of the smaller Roman tem- 
 ples are circular, and most of their theatres have a half circle or 
 half ellipse as their ground-outline. 
 
 The Egyptians even under a flat roof and straight lintel, secured 
 breadth of hall and door- way by the immense length of the over- 
 lapping stones which they raised and laid across their side-walls. 
 The Greeks used a sloping roof as a water shed, giving its pitch for 
 beauty's sake the slightest slant possible ; occasioning thus, how- 
 ever, an almost direct outward thrust, to overcome which without 
 outside props they built up inner supporting walls, whose interven- 
 tion allowed a limited breadth of interior. The Romans wished 
 broad gate and door-ways, and lofty spreading roof-elevation, with- 
 out the clumsy Egyptian method of securing the former, and vastly 
 beyond any invented power to attain the latter ; and they dared to 
 use, if they did not invent, the circular arch, by which the former 
 end was accomplished, and the dome by which, for all the world 
 and for all time, the latter aim was realized. 
 
 The Brahmins of India knew the principle of the circular arch ; 
 and understanding the law of its constantly pressing and dislocating 
 lateral thrust, they embodied their objection to its use in larger 
 edifices in the maxim, " the arch never sleeps." All the so-called 
 arches used by the ancient and modern Asiatics, as in pagodas, are 
 
CIRCULAR STRUCTURES : THE ARCH AND DOME. 227 
 
 built after the plan of a boy's cob-house ; by pinning beam after 
 beam in layers above each other. In the circular arch, curved into 
 a half-cylinder, each course of stone rising from the foundation has 
 the outer rim higher than the inner, the upper and lower faces of 
 its blocks lying in planes cutting the axis of the cylinder; and 
 when the keystone is fitted into the apex the several tiers are sus- 
 tained by their own pressure against each other. 
 
 In the dome, again, curved into a hemisphere, while the upper 
 urid lower faces of each course of stones conform to the law of the 
 arch, the side faces lie in planes cutting the axis of the hemisphere 
 at its zenith, perpendicular to its base, each course of stones being 
 supported by the pressure of its faces on each other. As there is 
 in the arch and dome both a downward and outward pressure, 
 there must be in its foundation, both a mass and disposition of 
 material, which shall secure a perpendicular support and a lateral 
 bracing adequate to serve as a counterpoise to the crush and the 
 thrust. The very earliest great architectural works of the Romans 
 show their thorough and practical understanding both of the nice 
 theory, and of the nicer execution essential to this end. 
 
 SECT. 2. MODIFICATIONS OF THE GREEK COLUMNAR ORDERS ; GIV- 
 ING INCREASED PROFUSION OF ELEGANT ORNAMENTATION TO 
 ROMAN EDIFICES. 
 
 The plain walls of a rectangular building have a chaste beauty 
 requiring no ornamentation. The walls of a towering circular 
 edifice, however, require the relief of projecting pilasters or 
 columns ; as is seen in the elaborately ornamented Coliseum. The 
 Roman architects resorted to two modifications of the Grecian 
 styles; the use of pilasters or half columns merely projecting from 
 the exterior wall, instead of complete columns standing out as sup- 
 ports of a portico at some distance from that wall ; and the employ 
 in their elevations of successive stories having columns of different 
 orders. 
 
 The first of these modifications affecting the styles of Greek 
 architecture arose from the fact that a dome-roof must rest 
 directly on the side walls of the edifice and cannot project beyond 
 them so as to cover a portico ; while pilasters or half columns, 
 built into the wall, require only a slightly projecting cornice. To 
 g ve prominence to the entrance, a purely Grecian portico with 
 
228 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 columns, entablature and pediment, was projected in front of a 
 circular edifice, as in the Pantheon. In smaller edifices, like the 
 shrine of Vesta at Rome, the light roof of wood, projecting over the 
 wall, formed a rotunda, sustained by a circlet of delicate Corinthian 
 columns. Behind these columns, both in the Grecian portico and 
 the Roman rotunda, instead of a second row of columns, correspond- 
 ing pilasters were fastened upon the circular wall. Carrying this 
 idea still farther, the walls of rectangular buildings were orna- 
 mented with false pilasters ; mere flat slabs carved with the flutes, 
 the cap and the base of a column fastened to the plain straight 
 wall in place of the rounded half column projected from the circular 
 wall ; as is seen constantly illustrated in every modern European 
 and American city. 
 
 The second modification affected the orders of Grecian columnar 
 architecture. The Grecian temple had only one story, its columns 
 rising to the eaves. The greater elevation of the Roman edifice 
 demanded different stories, each with its own columnar decorations. 
 Grecian taste, revived under M. Angelo, might have taught that 
 the same order of columns should be employed in each story. The 
 Romans, with a less chastened love of simplicity, used different 
 orders of columns at different elevations ; and since the three 
 Grecian orders did not furnish the variety their method demanded, 
 they invented two additional ones. 
 
 The Tuscan order was nothing else than an improved gate-post 
 of the carpenter, boxed and capped. Vitruvius fixed as its height 
 seven diameters; the taper of the shaft one-fourth of its diameter; 
 the base in two parts, the lower one-half the diameter of the shaft in 
 height ; the capital of the same height as the base. The plainness 
 of the Tuscan has made it in modern Roman basement stories, and 
 in Romanesque buildings, the chosen order. The Doric, used by 
 the Romans in arcades allowing only a half column, for uniformity 
 with the other orders had a base. The Ionic, made stouter than 
 the Grecian, having at its corners, front and side, curls clustered 
 and projected 'diagonally, was used sometimes in porticoes, but 
 generally in elevations between the Doric and Corinthian. In the 
 Corinthian, in order that the capital might seem adequate to the 
 heavier weight imposed upon it, the Romans entwined with the 
 Greek leaf decoration strong spike-shaped horns. They also 
 retained a fifth order, the composite; whose capital unites to the 
 
VARIETY IN ROMAN AUCIIITECTUIiK. 229 
 
 volutes of the Ionic the foliate decorations of the Corinthian. In 
 the Coliseum the lower stage is Doric, the second Ionic, the third 
 Corinthian, the fourth Composite. In the facade of one of the 
 older college edifices at Oxford, England, the five orders, with tin 
 Tuwan below, are presented together. 
 
 SECT. 3. VARIED CLASSES OF BUILDINGS AND MODES OP STRUCTURE 
 REQUIRED BY THE CIRCUMSTANCES, CHARACTER AND HABITS OF 
 
 TIIF' EOiVAN PEOPLE. 
 
 The climate of Rome, more inclement than that of Grecian cities, 
 required walls and roofs more enclosed. The Roman Forum had 
 arcades with closely-clustered columns, requiring a modification of 
 its model in the Greek agora. The Roman baths, with their broad 
 arched chambers, required by their climate, were a field for archi- 
 tectural adaptations unknown in Greece. 
 
 The peculiar relations socially of the Roman patricians to the 
 plebeians called for the basilica ; at first a hall in the mansion of 
 the patrician, then a separate edifice. It usually consisted of a 
 central hall two stories high, with wings one story in height, giving 
 double area for the audience room. A row of short strong columns, 
 not obstructing the view and hearing of the auditory, sustained 
 arches in the central wall. In front was a Grecian portico. The 
 basilica thus constructed has become the chosen model for Christian 
 audience-rooms. 
 
 The Roman theatre and amphitheatre, of immense area, and 
 necessarily uncovered, except by small awnings, are, in their vast 
 proportions, monuments of the grandeur of the Roman conception 
 of architectural proportions. 
 
 Many of the Roman temples were of Grecian type, though more 
 adorned ; as is seen in their remains along the Roman Forum. 
 Others were of circular form ; as the temple of Vesta on the Tiber, 
 twelve feet only in diameter, with straight wooden rafters ; and the 
 Pantheon spanned by that wonder of the world, a dome one hun 
 dred and thirty-two feet across at its bass. 
 20 
 
230 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 PECT. 4. HISTORY OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE ; THE CURVILINEAB 
 ETRUSCAN UNDER THE KINGS; THE RECTANGULAR AND COLUM- 
 NAR GRECIAN UNDER THE REPUBLIC AND EARLIER EMPERORS; 
 AND THE ADAPTATION OF BOTH THESE UNDER THE CHRISlfAN 
 EMPERORS, TO NEW RELIGIOUS USES. 
 
 Three periods in the history of architecture at Rome correspond 
 co the three great eras in her political history. The first is the 
 Ktruscan age covering the age of the Roman kings ; having the 
 Greco-Asiatic type of the primitive Romans. The second is the 
 Grecian, age beginning under the Republic, and culminating under 
 the first emperor, the era of Greek columnar ornamentation. The 
 third began with Christian civilization, giving a Roman cast to 
 church architecture. 
 
 The Etruscans, coming from Western Asia to Northern Italy 
 about B. C. 1200, brought in mingled Asiatic and Grecian ideas in 
 sculpture and architecture. Their tombs were circular and arched 
 above ; one at Vulci being two hundred and forty feet in diameter 
 and one hundred and twenty feet in height. Their temples were, 
 as Vitruvius states, of two kinds, circular and rectangular. The 
 rock-hewn amphitheatre of Sutri, in form an ellipse of slight eccen- 
 tricity, has as its diameters two hundred and ninety-five and two 
 hundred and sixty-five feet. 
 
 At the founding of Rome, B. C. 753, the Etruscan builders were 
 employed as architects. The Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer, exe- 
 cuted as early as B. C. 616, extending as a drain from the Forum, 
 or market, to the river Tiber, is fourteen feet in diameter and 
 seven feet in height. The arch is double ; the rows of stones 
 about five feet long and three and a half feet in thickness, though 
 laid without cement, having retained their place for two thousand 
 five hundred years. The Capitol, dedicated about B. C. 507, and 
 the Pantheon, with an exterior diameter of one hundred and 
 forty-four feet, and a dome one hundred and thirty-two feet in 
 breadth and elevation, resting on walls six foet thick, were built 
 about the close of the age of the Roman kings. 
 
 The republic, Grecian in its idea, and having the laws of Solon 
 as its code, invited Grecian taste in architecture. As early as 
 B. C. 500, Greek artists were employed at Rome ; and Grecian 
 culture, growing in the best days of the republic, culminated 
 
HISTORY OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. 23] 
 
 under the first emperor, Augustus, about B. C. 31. A few years 
 later the theatre of Marcellus was built, the portico of the Pan- 
 theon was added, and several of the rectangular temples, whose 
 noble columns now stand along the old Forum, were reared; works 
 whose relics justify the boast of the first emperor, "That he had 
 found the city built of brick, and he left it built of marble." The 
 Coliseum, built under Vespasian, the Arch of Titus, the Basilica 
 and Column of Trajan, Hadrian's temple of Jupiter Olympus, the 
 Arch of Septimius Severus, the Baths of Caracalla, and finally the 
 Basilica of Maxentius, following each other, down to A. D. 306, 
 indicate the sway of Grecian taste under the emperors. The 
 noblest of these was the Coliseum, an elliptical amphitheatre, with 
 its diameters six hundred and twenty, and five hundred and thirteen 
 feet, having an exterior wall elevated to the height of one hundred 
 and fifty-seven feet, adorned with four stages of pilasters, with 
 seats supported by arcades, sloping downward from the wall's 
 giddy height to the arena in the centre, and accommodating one 
 hundred and seven thousand spectators. 
 
 At the introduction of Christianity private houses for a time 
 served as places for religious assembly. The Roman basilica was 
 naturally the first model when structures specially designed for 
 Christian worship were reared. When afterward the religion of 
 Christ became the State religion, temples of the deities, the circu- 
 lar Pantheon and the rectangular temple of Jupiter, were devoted 
 to Christian purposes ; while also special forms adapted to the new 
 faith arose. 
 
 SECT. 5. INFLUENCE OF THE ROMAN CIVIL DOMINATION ON THE 
 STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE ROMAN PROVINCES. 
 
 Rome had no native ideal in sculpture; but it originated masterly 
 types in architecture to extend and transmit. Its influence on 
 religious structures was only modifying, not originating. The 
 Roman idea that every country has its own native deities, led them 
 to build Grecian temples in Greece, and Egyptian in Egypt. On 
 neither of these fixed types in their native home could it do more 
 than add its own idea of ornament. 
 
 In Arabia Petraea, Palestine and Syria, however, true Roman 
 ideas are met. The Roman method permitted Doric and 
 thian pilasters, surmounted by either the Egyptian abac-ua 
 
232 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 pyramid, or the Roman arch. At Jerusalem the golden gateway 
 with its circular arch and Corinthian pilasters, the tombs with 
 Ionic pilasters and pagoda-shaped domes, were executed by Roman 
 artiste, between the times of the Jewish Herod and of the Emperor 
 Hadrian. At Baalbeck the long range of Corinthian columns 
 standing on old Asiatic foundations, reveal even in the rudest en- 
 graving, the influence of the Roman colony, planted by Julius 
 (/sesar and fostered by the Antonines. 
 
 While in Africa Roman influence in architecture was modifjing, 
 and in Asia controlling, in Northern Europe it was originating. 
 In Spain, France, Germany and England, the Roman arch and 
 pilaster still rule in every class of structures. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 SACRED ARCHITECTURE, AS CONTROLLED BY THE SPIRITUAL 
 WORSHIP AND THE PRACTICAL CHARITY OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 FAITH. 
 
 THE progress of Christianity, first among Asiatics, then among 
 Greeks and Romans, strikingly illustrated as it is by the relics of 
 Christian literature, is equally marked by remains of varied styles 
 in sacred architecture. 
 
 Living under the Roman civil sway, proud as some were to 
 claim, "I am a Roman citizen," it was natural that the early 
 Christians should in things not inconsistent with their religious 
 principles follow Roman ideas. The two main characteristics in 
 sacred edifices required by the Christian faith were already asso- 
 ciated in Roman structures ; Ihe securing of a broad ground floor 
 fur large audiences ; and the attaining of lofty elevation expressive 
 of the exalting influence of the Christian faith. Art conceptions 
 alre^d) prevailing in the three distinct regions where Christianity 
 had its early seat, led to three preferred styles of Church Archi- 
 tecture; the Romanesque dominant in Southern Europe; the 
 Byzantine in the East ; and the Gothic in Northern and Western 
 
THE ROMANESQUE IN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE. 233 
 
 Europe. In respect to time four eras are marked ; first, the class- 
 ical from A. D. 100 to 323, during which old forms without 
 special adaptation to new ideas, prevailed ; secoiul, the Roman- 
 esque and Byzantine, from A. D. 323 to 692, during which the 
 rivalries of the Eastern and Western Empires stimulated a rivalry 
 for architectural supremacy in the two branches of the Christian 
 church; third, the Gothic, from A. D. 692 to 1400, beginning with 
 the settlement of the Ostrogoths in Northern Italy ; and fourth, the 
 revived Grecian, commencing with M. Angelo and the incompara- 
 ble St. Peter's at Home. Intervening between the Byzantine and 
 Gothic, the Saracenic or Mohammedan sacred architecture claims 
 notice. Finally the multiform styles introduced by the Reforma- 
 tion in Northern and Western Europe close the history. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE ROMANESQUE STYLE OF CHURCH ARCHITECTURE; 
 FOUNDED ON THAT OF THE ROMAN BASILICA. 
 
 As the modern Greek lan> uage was half a century ago called 
 Romaique, from the modifying influence which Roman conquest 
 and succeeding Italian supremacy had for ages exerted upon the 
 spoken tongue of old Greece, so the Roman cast given to the first 
 Christian sanctuaries, was called in early Christian art Romanesque, 
 to distinguish it from later fixed and finished st} T les. 
 
 Modeled after the basilica, already described, the churches or 
 the Romanesque style, common in Northern Italy, have this 
 general form. In the earliest, built at Rome, the main roof, which 
 in true Roman had a pitch of 45, took a slope of about 25 ; the 
 walls supporting the central roof had a very slight elevation above 
 the shed roof of the wings ; and the exterior was perfectly un- 
 adorned. Northward the roof-slant became steeper, as in the 
 Lombard, till under the Alps it approximated the wedge-shaped 
 roof of the Gothic. As taste suggested, and wealth allowed, the 
 elevation of the central portion over the side wings was increased ; 
 and the unseemly obtuse angle, form'ed between the wall of the 
 upper story and the roof of the wings, was filled in with a shield 
 presenting the form of an immense double scroll. 
 
 At an early day Christian sentiment gave to the groundplot of 
 
 the basilica thi? form of the cross. In the cross, or tree, to wh?",h 
 
 the victim was nailed, the longer portion of the post against whi"h 
 
 the body was hung, below the cross-beam to which tho arms we a 
 
 20* 
 
234 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 fastened. In sculptural and architectural representations, art 
 naturally fixed a rule of definite proportions for the length of these 
 parts; this proportion in the groundplot of a Roman church, 
 established by a canon in the "Apostolic Constitutions," being an 
 equal measure for the projecting head and arms of the cross, and 
 twice that common measure for its foot. As this cross section 
 interfered with the side wings, these were gradually diminished in 
 width; till, lost for a time in the early Gothic, they reappeared in 
 the flying buttresses. The figure of Noah's ark suggested the 
 designation nave, from navis, for the longer portion or body of the 
 church, occupied by the people ; the upper portion, occupied by 
 the priests, was called the choir; and the two arms were named the 
 transept, from the cross-hedge or screen separating them. 
 
 Tertullian, in the second century, mentions superb church edi- 
 fices, which, as works of art, won Greeks to the Christian faith. 
 Under Diocletian, a magnificent Christian sanctuary stood nigh the 
 emperor's palace in Nicomedia, riv ding it in architectural merit. 
 Early in the fourth century, no less than forty church edifices at 
 Home claimed esteem for Christian art. The Basilica or Roman- 
 esque style had elements which made it worthy of perpetuation in 
 Northern Italy. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE BYZANTINE STYLE OF CHURCH ARCHITECTURE; HAV 
 ING THE GREEK CROSS FOR ITS GROUNDPLOT, AND THE ROMAN 
 DOME FOR ITS ELEVATION. 
 
 The Romanesque or Basilica, first used in Christian sanctuaries, 
 gave one of the two Christian ideas, breadth but not elevation. 
 The Roman Pantheon embodied both ; and, transferred by Con- 
 Btantine to his new city on the Bosphoms, the dome became 
 glorious in the church edifices of the East. 
 
 The outward thrust of the hemispherical dome, met in the Pan- 
 theon by the extreme thickness and mere massiveness of the circu- 
 lar walls, was sustained in the Byzantine church by eight bracing 
 walls meeting in four right angles at the intersection of the nave 
 and transept. Greek symmetry suggested that the concentring 
 arms of this cross thus supporting the dome should be of the same 
 measure ; the nave being made equal in length to the choir and 
 arms of the transept. 
 
 Constantine employed this style at his capital, and his 
 
BYZANTINE CHURCH EDIFICES. 235 
 
 Helena in Palestine. Its noblest monuments now existing belong 
 to the era two hundred years later. The mosque el-Aksa on the 
 south of the temple area at Jerusalem, a structure two hundred 
 and eighty by one hundred and ninety feet, reared and dedicated 
 to Sophia, or Wisdom, by Justinian, about A. D. 529, preserved 
 by the Mohammedan conqueror of the city about A. D. 685, and 
 consecrated as a Mohammedan mosque, is to this day reverenced 
 alike by Christian and Mohammedan. 
 
 The magnificent mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople, whose 
 splendor led to the boast of Justinian, the builder, Nenflwsa se 
 Salomon, "I have surpassed thee, Solomon," consecrated as a 
 Christian church, A. D. 527, was, at the taking of Constantinople 
 by the Turks, A. D. 1453, made a Mohammedan mosque. The 
 length of each section of the cross is two hundred and sixty-nine 
 feet, the breadth one hundred and forty-three feet, the diameter 
 df the dome one hundred and fifteen feet, and its apex one hundred 
 and eighty feet above the floor. The edifice is of brick, the inside 
 walls are ceiled with marble, and the floor is inlaid with variegated 
 marble tesserae. Around the walls runs a gallery supported by 
 forty columns, eight of white porphyry from the Temple of the 
 Sun at Rome, eight others of serpentine, from the Temple of 
 Diana at Ephesus, and twenty-four of Egyptian red granite. The 
 interior of the dome was carved and painted in the richest style of 
 the times with Christian themes ; all of which were covered with 
 stucco by the Mohammedan proprietors. 
 
 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, towering over 
 the western foot of the northern mountain ridge called Millo bv the 
 Hebrews, and Akra by the Greeks, covering the jutting rock 
 called Golgotha in the Hebrew, Jcram'on in the Greek, calvarium 
 in Latin, and skull in English, and also the valley where was an 
 ancient "garden," embodies the history of the style of architecture 
 to which it belongs. On the site thus hallowed, marked from 
 the age of Titus to Hadrian by the northern wall of Zion, then 
 till Constantine by Hadrian's temple to Venus, Helena, the Chris- 
 tian empress, about one hundred and fifty years after Hadrian, 
 reared a small chapel over the tomb, and a large Basilica on 
 Golgotha; which existed till destroyed, A. D. 614, by Chosroes, 
 the Peisian. Rebuilt on the plan of Helena, respected by Omai 
 at the Mohan? medan conquest of Jerusalem, A. D. 686, they stood 
 
236 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 till razed by a new invader, A. D. 1010. Byzantine art now 
 triumphed over Roman, and instead of two Romanesque struc- 
 tures, one immense domed structure arose, finished by the Cru- 
 saders A. D. 1099; which is still standing, about three hundred 
 feet long, by two hundred wide, covering the entire garden, em- 
 bracing thirteen chapels, the chief of which are over Golgotha and 
 the tomb. The Byzantine of the East was the preferred and con- 
 trolling form with Western Christians at Jerusalem ; who went 
 home to rear churches of a far different style among their Gothio 
 ancestry, and amid their native mountains. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE GOTHIC STYLE OF CHTJKCH ARCHITECTURE ; CHA- 
 EACTERIZED BY STEEPNESS OF ROOF WITH BRACING BUTTRESSES, 
 
 AND BY POINTED SPIRES AND WINDOWS FOR ORNAMENT. 
 
 While the Byzantine style was rising in the East, the Roman 
 Basilica, even in its Italian home, was for two causes declining. 
 First, genius was attracted from Rome to the new capital ; second, 
 a new race of men, the Goths, independent in sentiment, resisting 
 invasion of their own native customs and taste, but taking on a 
 moulding influence from Roman culture, gradually developed a 
 new type of architecture which reacted across the Alps. 
 
 The elementary features and essential principles of architecture, 
 belonging to every age and every school, have been, with exhaustive 
 analysis, applied to the Gothic by M. Viollet le Due, the present 
 chief architect of the French government. These elements are 
 the walls and roof, whose strength and pitch are controlled by 
 climate ; the doors, windows and columns, whose measure is taken 
 from man, for whose convenience and to whose dimensions they 
 must be adapted ; and the sculptured decorations of interior and 
 exterior, whose types have been drawn from the two fields of hu- 
 man and Divine workmanship, the geometric and arborescent. 
 
 A pencil sketch may indicate how the roof, beginning with the 
 level Egyptian has grown into the low Grecian, the medium 
 Roman, the steeper Lombard, and finally the sharp-peaked Gothic. 
 This latter, beginning with the Swiss cottages of the Alps, is traced 
 to the inclement north through Switzerland, Germany, France 
 and England. The support of this steep roof called for a modifica- 
 tio i of the circular Roman arch ; and the high-pointed arch, probably 
 unstudied at first, reached a perfection which bears the test oi the 
 
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURF AND ITS HISTORY. 237 
 
 most rigid mathematical analysis. The Gothic arch is made up of 
 two arcs of a circle, each having its lower end resting upon a side 
 wall, while the two upper extremities lean against each other at 
 the apex. The downward and lateral pressure of the circular arch 
 may be reduced to two resultants, one on each side, lying in the 
 direction of chords of 60 passing through the extremities of the 
 diameter ; while that of the Gothic arch lies in the direction of 
 the chord of two-thirds of the arc forming either of the two sides. 
 To sustain the Roman arch, whose outward thrust is in a line de- 
 parting at an angle of 60 outside of the wall, requires great solidity 
 in the wall, or a strong outside bracing. The lateral thrust of the 
 Gothic roof is less than the llomau ; but its downward pressure is 
 greater because of its great height. 
 
 The much criticised suggestion of Warburton, that the idea of 
 Gothic architecture was derived from the intertwining of the 
 boughs of forest trees forming natural arches, M. Viollet le Due haj 
 no hesitation in announcing as to the interior decorations. Indeed 
 the Gothic architects show a profound study of embryologic types 
 as well as of floral, orchard and forest varieties in their arborescent 
 ornaments. Even the curves of re-entering arches called trefoil and 
 cinq foil seem in their very name to assert this analogy. 
 
 Gothic architecture never prevailed south of Milan ; whose 
 cathedral mingles Grecian window-caps and statues with Gothic 
 ideas. Working northward, the Gothic pervaded Switzerland, 
 Germany, France and England. 
 
 In England there have been three eras in the history of Gothic. 
 The pointed Gothic arch was an angle very acute ; the pure Gothic 
 was fixed at 60 ; and the Tudor, going to an opposite extreme, used 
 an obtuse-angled arch. Dalloway has compared the first with the 
 Doric, the second with the Ionic and Corinthian, and the thir 1 
 with the Composite in Roman architecture. 
 
 The earliest style was the "pointed," called in its extreme the 
 " lancet." It was the arch of a window cut under the sharp roof 
 of a Swiss cottage. Introduced into both England and France 
 under Stephen, the last of the Normans, about A. D. 1150, it pre- 
 vailed about a century. The thick side walls made the entrance 
 seem a deep, cave-like recess. The door was very low; at each side 
 were very narrow windows called in the Italian lanceola, or lancet ; 
 and above the door one much wider. The pinnacles, already 
 
238 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 existing in Norman architecture, were repeated in the early 
 Gothic. 
 
 The second or pure Gothic, prevailed from ahout A. 1). 1240 to 
 \. D. 1380, till the reign of Henry IV. The angle of the roof and 
 of the arch was 60 ; buttresses were projected, supporting flying 
 buttresses; brackets were added under the cornice for relief ; and 
 pinnacles were raised above the buttresses, having niches often for 
 statues. The walls consequently were made less thick, the door- 
 way was higher and the entrance-way less deeply recessed ; the 
 windows had greater width ; the mullions, or bars between the 
 panes, were broad and delicately fluted like columns ; and trilobe 
 and rose windows were introduced. The columns of the interior, 
 also, as well as the archings, were lighter and more airy. 
 
 The third style, called "obtuse'' from the angle of its arch, and 
 "florid" from the superfluous ornament heaped upon it, began to 
 prevail about A. D. 1380, ran into the Tudor about A. D. 1420, 
 and held sway till A. D. 1550. It depressed the Gothic arch and 
 tntroduced projecting portals over the doors ; it divided the 
 windows by horizontal transoms, made the mullions elaborate with 
 carvings, and pierced their paneled hoods with tracery-work ; 
 while it divided the area of the windows into trefoils and quatre- 
 foils, and inserted in them armorial bearings. Finally, in the 
 Tudor proper, it introduced projecting bay-windows, corresponding 
 to the projecting portals. 
 
 Along the Rhine the Cathedral of Freiburg is one of the purest 
 specimens of a single Gothic spire; that of Strasburg has two 
 towers, the loftiest of which is four hundred and sixty-six feet in 
 height ; and that of Cologne, finished after six centuries, is the 
 grandest in design. The old Cathedrals of Aix la-Chapelle, of 
 P^ris and Rheims, are most expressive of the gloomy sentiment to 
 which this style of church architecture may be adapted. The 
 ceiling of the Chapel of Henry the Eighth in Westminster Abbey, 
 London is a perfect wonder of science and art ; the laws of press- 
 ure in the arches by which its pendants are supported being now 
 an inextricable puzzle. 
 
THE SARACENIC, MOORISH AND ARABESQUE. 239 
 
 SECT. 4. THE SARACENIC, OB STYLE OF MOHAMMEDAN SACRED 
 ARCHITECTURE; HAVING THE HEBREW GROUNDPLOT AND TUB 
 BYKANTINE ELEVATION. 
 
 The Saracenic style of architecture prevailing in Western Asia, 
 Northern Africa, Spain and European Turkey is a striking illus- 
 tration of the mingling of Hebrew and Christian ideas introduced 
 by Mohammed into the Koran, to commend his religion as the re- 
 stored primitive worship of the patriarch Abraham. The first 
 sacred structure worthy of mention erected by the followers of 
 Mohammed was reared on the very spot where the Hebrew tern 
 pie had stood, and conformed strictly to its groundplot. Its archi- 
 tect had on the south of that same area the Byzantine church of 
 Justinian as a model ; and only varied from it by filling up the four 
 entering angles of the Greek cross, so as to form an octagon. il 
 edifice. 
 
 The mosque has always around it the open court-yard of trie 
 Egyptian and Hebrew temple. It grafted the conical pago.Ia 
 spires of India upon the Roman dome ; and added tall towers, like 
 the Chinese in form, called minarets. Into the arches of the gate- 
 ways and surrounding colonnades the features of the Roman arcade 
 were introduced; whose arches afterward assumed the pointed 
 form like the Gothic. In the Saracenic, too, the mitre and aoorn- 
 shaped arches, afterward used in Gothic architecture, received 
 their highest perfection of form. The suggestion is not without 
 foundation that the perfected Gothic borrowed many of its features 
 from the Saracenic between the age of Charlemagne and the close 
 of the Crusades. 
 
 In the later and more elaborately ornamented style, called 
 "Moorish," ranges of arches of horse-shoe form are introduced 
 into the parapets and balcony railings ; sometimes merely cut in 
 wood, sometimes also built in brick and stone. At the era of 
 the advanced culture of the Moors in Spain, a style called 
 "Arabesque" because of its Arab origin, grew up, which loaded 
 the Saracenic arch with an excess of ornamentation, illustrated in 
 tie Alhambra, and akin to the embossed work now bearing thai 
 name. 
 
240 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE REVIVED GRECIAN STYLE IN SACRED CHRISTIAN 
 ARCHITECTURE; HAVING THE LATIN CROSS AS ITS GROUNDPLOT, 
 THE BYZANTINE DOME AS ITS ELEVATION AND THE PURE GRE- 
 CIAN ORDERS IN ITS COLUMNAR DECORATIONS. 
 
 The pure Grecian columnar orders, first modified by the 
 Romans, then successively displaced in Byzantine, Gothic and 
 S-iracenic structures, were as truly forgotten as was Grecian art in 
 sculpture. A series of progressive steps led on to its revival with 
 entirely new applications in the St. Peter's of M. Angelo. 
 
 The merchants of Venice and Pisa, borrowing from the East, 
 mingled Saracenic and Byzantine elements and embodied them in 
 sacred structures. St. Mark's in Venice, begun A. D. 976, has a 
 Byzantine groundplot and dome ; and the Cathedral of Pisa grafts 
 these features on a Roman Basilica. 
 
 The merchants of Florence, determined to outrival both their 
 sister cities, secured in 1294 a plan of a basilica five hundred feet 
 long, three hundred and six feet across the transept, and one hun- 
 dred and fifty-three feet in elevation. Through the death of the 
 architect the work failed for four generations ; until a young artist, 
 Bruneschelli, had the daring not only to attempt the work before 
 planned, but to erect over it a dome like the Pantheon in grandeur. 
 For months the city authorities spurned the young artist as a 
 visionary ; but, yielding, Bruneschelli completed a dome one hun- 
 dred and thirty-eight feet and six inches in diameter, one hundred 
 and thirty-three feet and three inches in height, and three hundred 
 and eighty-seven feet in elevation. When yet a child M. Angelo 
 studied this work ; and at seventy-two years of age he surpassed it 
 in St. Peter's. This dome rests on a drum or circular wall, built 
 on immense piers, with concentric arches spanning the openings 
 below leading into the nave, choir and transept, and is braced out- 
 side by abutting arches springing from the drum to the walls. 
 
 The Cathedral of Florence was scarcely finished when, in 1450, 
 the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome began, as Gibbon says, "the 
 most glorious structure that has ever been applied to the use of 
 religion." In honor of St. Peter, who, from the baptism of Cor- 
 nelius, A. D. 43, to his death, A. D. 68, a period of twenty-five 
 years, was, as Jerome says, eminent at Rome, the spot north west 
 and outside of the ancient city where he was crucified was covered 
 
241 
 
 by his friends with a small oratorio. This, Constantine, A. D. 306, 
 caused to be replaced by a basilica ; which stood, occasionally reno- 
 vated, for twelve hundred years. The foundations of the new 
 church were laid A. D. 1506 ; eight years after which the original 
 architect, Bramante, died. 
 
 About A. D. 1540, Michel Angelo, then in his seventy-second 
 /ear, was called to undertake the work from which other artists 
 shrank. He enlarged Bramante's plan, adding to the transept so 
 as to make the form a Greek cross, and giving strength to the 
 piers supporting the dome, uttering the memorable declaration, 
 "I will hang the Pantheon in the air." M. Angelo died A. D. 
 1563, when the drum was ready for the dome. Succeeding archi- 
 tects extended the nave, restoring the form of the Roman cross. 
 In 16126, the structure was dedicated ; the circular colonnade being 
 added forty years later. 
 
 The length of this immense edifice is six hundred and thirteen 
 and a half feet ; its breadth through the transept is four hundred 
 and forty-six and a half feet, and the height of the ceiling is one 
 hundred and fifty-two and a half feet. The exterior breadth of the 
 dome is one hundred and ninety-five and a half feet ; its interior 
 one hundred and thirty-nine and a quarter feet ; the height of its 
 apex is four hundred and five feet, and the elevation of the top of 
 the cross four hundred and forty-eight feet. It covers two hundred 
 and forty thousand square feet, or about five and a half acres of 
 ground; a village of mechanics live on its roof; and the ball 
 accommodates eight persons. Its original cost was nearly $47,- 
 000,000 ; the annual expenditure for its care is about $30,000. 
 
 As Byron intimates, at first "its grandeur overwhelms not;" he- 
 cause every part is equally colossal, and, like Niagara, each detail 
 must be viewed alone before the whole can be appreciated. Its 
 true beauty is the feature called "Revived Grecian," the employ 
 at every stage in the exterior of the same order of columns. 
 
 St. Paul's in London, built by Sir Christopher Wren, from A. D. 
 1666 to 1696, has a length of five hundred feet, a width of two 
 hundred and eighty-six feet, and a height to the top of the cross 
 of four hundred and four feet. The impression of vastness is 
 greater than in St. Peter's, since the interior is less obstructed 
 by columns, galleries and chapels. In the Pantheon at Paris, in 
 form a Roman cross with Corinthian porticoes, the nave is three 
 21 L 
 
242 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 hundred and two feet, the transept two hundred and fifty-five feet 
 long, and the dome two hundred and sixty-eight feet high. In 
 England and America this style has been much more copied in 
 secular than in sacred edifices. 
 
 . 6. THE MODIFICATIONS OF FORM AND STYLE IN CHURCH 
 EDIFICES SUGGESTED IN THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The spread of Christianity, gaining sway purely by the moral 
 onviction it awakens, has been like the growth of a tree, by 
 stages. The early Christians, energetic in their spiritual work, 
 had little time or means to devote to sacred art. In the progress 
 of Christian culture under Constantine and Chrysostom. Justinian 
 and Augustine, Charlemagne and Alcuinus, Leo and M. Angelo, 
 the four styles of sacred architecture mentioned arose ; the spirit 
 of centralization culminating in St. Peter's. The spirit of the 
 .Reformation, associated with that intense sentiment of personal 
 independence belonging to the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, forbade 
 the concentration of interests and material resources in a few grand 
 edifices. At the same time this independence has led to great 
 variety in selection of styles for church edifices. 
 
 In Switzerland the prevailing type is Gothic, often rude ; the 
 Cathedral of Geneva illustrating the early, and that of Constance 
 the later type. The Cathedrals of Zurich and Schaffhausen are 
 Romanesque ; while at Basle, near Germany, the Cathedral, 
 though Gothic in general, is without the range of classified art. 
 In Germany basilicas are met iii old cities; the Cathedrals of 
 Vienna and Freiburg are Gothic ; while in Protestant Germany no 
 Fettled taste has yet been developed. 
 
 In France, the oldest churches are Romanesque ; the finest 
 Cathedrals, as of Paris and Rheims, are Gothic; while French 
 love of change may be traced in the Romanesque of St. Germain 
 de Pro's, the early pointed Gothic of Notre Dame, the medium 
 Gothic of St. Severin and St. Germain 1'Auxerrois, the latter florid 
 Gothic of St. Gervais and St. Merri, the revived Grecian of St. 
 Eustache and St. Etienne du Mont; Palladio's Italian, or the 
 Elizabethan of St. Paul et St. Louis, and the Louis Quatorze 
 of the Yal de Grace, and Hopital des Invalides. The religious 
 spirit of the French Revolution expressed itself in the u Pantheon," 
 or temple of all gods; and its speedy return under Napoleon to 
 
MODERN CIVIL ARCHITECTURE. 213 
 
 the Roman faith and Grecian culture culminated in the Made 
 leine, uniting the idea of the chaste Minerva and the reformed 
 Magdalen. 
 
 In England and America, the united stimulus of religious free- 
 dom and of princely wealth, guided by general culture and religious 
 enlightenment, has called forth special devotion to church archi- 
 tecture. The cathedrals of England present a complete history 
 of the Gothic. London alone has the noblest Gothic in West- 
 minster Abbey, the grandest Byzantine in St. Paul's, and the most 
 perfect union of the Grecian columnar edifice with the Gothic spire 
 in St. Martin's and St. Pancras'. America, pre-eminently rich in 
 its variety, furnishes in almost every city specimens of the Basilica, 
 Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic, Norman, Saxon, and even of the 
 amphitheatre styles. The favorite type is a sort of Roman Gothic ; 
 an edifice with a gable front, a Grecian entrance portico, side 
 pilasters, and a central spire ; while the interior, with side galleries, 
 resembles the basilica. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SECULAR ARCHITECTURE AS INFLUENCED BY THE SOCIAL ANB 
 INTELLECTUAL, THE CIVIL AND DOMESTIC WANTS INDUCED BY 
 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 WHILE Christianity influencing man's religious nature has led to 
 new forms in sacred structures, its precepts, arousing to social and 
 intellectual life, have prompted to improved secular edifices. 
 Even under Christianity a special charm has clustered about 
 castles and fortresses reared for defence from evil men. On the 
 other hand, the Christian faith, seeking to forestall evil or alleviate 
 its consequences, has prompted special provision for the education 
 of the young, for the relief of the suffering, and for the restraint 
 of the vicious. Yet again, Christian truth, making civil govern- 
 ment a more cherished interest of the people, has led to new adap- 
 tations in structures requisite for its assemblies. Finally, Christian 
 
244 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 grace, furnishing security to individual wealth, has given to private 
 dwellings a new character for sumptuousness and artistic merit. 
 
 The classes of buildings thus suggested may be grouped thus : 
 first. Castellated, second, Capitoline, third, Conventual, and 
 fourth, Villa and Cottage styles. 
 
 SECT. 1. CASTELLATED STYLES; AS A MODEL FOR PALATIAL 
 RESIDENCES. 
 
 The spirit of civil independence, carried to an excess, studded 
 Germany, France and England with feudal castles. As in the 
 infancy of Asiatic civilization, Canaanite and Hebrew tribes under 
 petty dukes and chiefs crowned the hill-tops east of the Mediter- 
 ranean with rude fortresses whose character is still a study, so the 
 early history of Northern Europe has left its monuments on the 
 "castled crags" of the Rhine, and along the cliffs of English and 
 Scotch Highlands. 
 
 These castles belong to civil architecture, since, when inadequate 
 as military defences, they became palatial residences. Reared by 
 German and Saxon nobles, their walls were built of coarse stone, 
 with a Roman circular arch over the gateways and loop-hole 
 windows. Dalloway ascribes the improvement of architecture in 
 England to ' ' the security of edifices for religious purposes, and the 
 insecurity of structures for social uses," and divides its progress 
 into three distinct eras ; the first from Egbert to Alfred, A. D. 598 
 to 872 ; the second from Alfred to Canute and Harold, A. D. 1036; 
 and the third to the Norman conquest, A. D. 1066. The Saxon 
 improvements were chiefly Roman pilasters at the sides and 
 ftoman arches over the heads of gates and windows. 
 
 The Normans made the arches over gateways and windows of 
 broad, semi-elliptical form, and crowned the wall with a battle- 
 ment. In these, as in the Saxon improvements, there were three 
 stages ; first, from William the Conqueror to Stephen, A. D. 1050 
 to 1154 ; second, from Edward I. and II., A. D. 1272 to 1327 ; and 
 third, from Edward III. , A. D. 1 327 to 1377. The Norman castles 
 in the first age were either square and elevated, or circular and 
 low ; and as improved beyond the Saxon by Edward I. during the 
 Crusades, they had complete columns for Roman pilasters, more 
 ornamented capitals and arches, sculptured panels in the walls, 
 towers and battlements projecting over the walls, and ceilings 
 
ENGLISH CASTELLATED ARCHITECTURE. 245 
 
 vaulted instead of flat. The Norman differed from the Gothic in 
 having no exterior pediments or pinnacles, and no interior ribs or 
 fretwork on the ceiling. The four castles in Wales erected by 
 Edward I., including Caernarvon, Conway and Harlech, remain as 
 monuments of this style. 
 
 The Norman improvements of English castles prepared them for 
 residences. The widened doorways and windows, the projecting 
 corner towers and the interior arcade balconies, furnished facilities 
 for a family residence ; the tower of London becoming the court 
 residence of the Norman kings, from A. D. 10G6 to 1135. Under 
 the Plantagenets, from Henry II., A. D. 1154, to Richard III., A. 
 D. 1483, the Norman improvements consisted of an enlargement 
 and adornment of the Saxon structure. Under Edward I. exterior 
 changes better adapting castles for defence, and under Edward 
 III., about A. D. 1350, most important interior arrangements 
 fitting them for sumptuous abodes, were made. The extension of 
 the outer fortress-walls enlarged the inner court; large Gothic 
 windows, made double or treble, to give increased light and air, 
 opened from high-vaulted halls into the court; and projecting 
 galleries and corridors with arcade arches afforded an open prome- 
 nade and an airy lounge. The castles of Windsor, Kenilworth 
 and Alnwick belong to this age. 
 
 The accession of the Tudors under Henry VII, A. D. 1485, 
 originated the style, having three eras, called the "Tudor proper" 
 of Henry VII., the " perfected Tudor" of Henry VIII. , and the 
 u Elizabethan ;" to which, after Elizabeth, was added the " Louis 
 Quatorze." Introduced about 1450 in Northern France by the 
 Duke of Burgundy, later into England, the Tudor prevailed for two 
 centuries. It aimed to furnish halls spacious and with high ceil- 
 ings, while it added an exterior breadth and elevation that should 
 be in harmony. It added to the exterior small octagonal towers 
 with mitre-shaped cupolas, skirted underneath with fringes of 
 rich crotchets borrowed from Saracenic minarets ; also intervening 
 turrets tipped with spires and gilded vanes, copied from the 
 pointed Gothic ; and finally bay or angle windows, serving as in- 
 viting side look-outs and reliefs to the blank castle wall. Rich- 
 mond, in Surrey, built under Henry VII. , illustrates this style. 
 
 Henry VIII., breaking off, A. D. 1509, from the Roman Church 
 and excluding foreign artists, invited the genius of the Eastern 
 21* 
 
246 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Church to add its ornamentation to the Norman Gothic. The 
 gateways hecame lofty and crowned with the broad, semi-elliptical, 
 obtuse-pointed arch ; whose directly lateral thrust forbids its use 
 except in an extended and massive wall Embossed panels, with 
 reliefs in wood or terra cotta, were inserted in the broad doors and 
 Wank side-walls. The windows, increased in breadth and height, 
 were relieved by a dividing transom, and a miniature battlement 
 called "crenellated." The chimneys were clustered, raised to the 
 height of towers, and ornamented with an embattled cornice ; and 
 a notched parapet ran above the wall. 
 
 After Henry VIII., Holbein, the painter, and Inigo Jones, the 
 architect, restored Italian culture and classic forms, especially in 
 architecture. Born in 1572, Jones studied his art in Italy, brought 
 home in 1613 Palladio's new treatise on architecture, and, till his 
 death in 1652, fostered the taste for that mingled Grecian and 
 Gothic, Roman and Tudor style, called "Elizabethan ;" which, be- 
 gun when the English nobles under Henry VIII. returned, rich in 
 treasure and in new ideas, from their conquests in Northern France, 
 was stimulated by the genius of such men as Shakespeare and 
 Raleigh, and prevailed, including the reign of Elizabeth from 
 1558 to 1603, more than a century. 
 
 The castles of the " perfected Tudor" style had grand halls, with 
 high pitched rafters of unpainted oak and chestnut, supported by 
 brackets ; at the end opening into the court large bay-windows 
 adorned with armorial bearings ; and on its sides wide galleries, 
 having broad cornices lined with oak, and adorned with carved 
 tablets, scrolls, escutcheons and grotesque figures in high relief. 
 The Elizabethan introduced inside classic or grotesque figures, 
 rectangular for curved and scroll panels, and outside, Roman 
 porticoes with classic columns ; leaving, however, many Gothic 
 features. 
 
 In the "Louis Quatorze," prevailing in his reign, A. D. 1643 
 to 1715, the classic superseded the Gothic, introducing a basement 
 truly Roman, with circular arches and square pilasters ; a main 
 story with Roman porticoes, pediments, corridors and columns; 
 adding the scroll-work of the Tudor, sometimes the pinnacles of 
 the Gothic, and as a crowning feature the double-slope roof, now 
 gracefully curved, of the French architect, Mansard. It was an 
 easy transition from this style to the classic Roman-Grecian 
 
AMERICAN CAPITOLINE ARCHITECTURE. 247 
 
 prevailing in France, England and America. In London this 
 history may be traced in the Gothic of Guildhall, the plain 
 Gothic with Tudor battlements of Westminster Hall, the Tudor of 
 St. James' Palace, the Roman Ionic and Corinthian of the Trea- 
 sury and Whitehall, and the almost pure Grecian of Cumberland 
 Terrace and Buckingham Palace. 
 
 While palatial edifices in Western Europe were thus modified, 
 those of Italy at Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Venice retained the 
 Roman arcade style ; sometimes modified by Saracenic tracery- 
 work. The Palace of the Grand Duke at Florence, built by Arnolfo 
 in 1298, and the Farnese Palace at Rome, by M. Angelo, are true 
 Roman. As a specimen of the influence of Saracenic taste, grafted 
 upon a Roman foundation, the Palazzo del Commune, built at 
 Piacenza, about A. D. 1281, has Saracenic corridors with arches 
 of oval horse-shoe form. 
 
 SECT. 2. CAPITOLINE STYLES FOR STATE-HOUSES AND HALLS OF 
 LEGISLATION. 
 
 In monarchical and aristocratic governments, castles or palaces 
 are the natural residences of hereditary rulers. In representative 
 governments edifices accommodating large deliberative assemblies 
 must be provided. Halls designed for speakers occupying every 
 portion of an audience-room must differ in construction from 
 churches and theatres in which the speakers occupy one position. 
 
 At Athens the people met in the basin west of Mars-hill ; at 
 Rome the comitia assembled in the Forum or Campus Martius ; 
 always in the open air. In France, Germany and England, covered 
 halls for even popular gatherings have been sought. The old 
 Palais de Justice at Paris was Elizabethan in style ; the present 
 Palais du Corps Legislatif, under Republican influence, has a 
 Grecian fagade. In England the popular element reared West- 
 minster Hall, two hundred and seventy feet long, seventy-four wide, 
 and ninety high, now Tudor in its fagade; in which Richard II. 
 feasted ten thousand guests, and where the early Parliaments of 
 England met. In comparatively recent times the gorgeous new 
 Parliament Houses have been elaborated in the most florid Gothic 
 style. 
 
 In the North American Republic, made up of many States, a 
 style of public buildings has arisen properly designated Capitoline. 
 
248 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 As at Rome the names "Capitol" or head and "State-House," 
 are significant. A few States, as Virginia, have selected the 
 Grecian temple, the model apparently of the Roman Capitol, as 
 alluded to by Cicero ; but generally the Roman basilica, crowned 
 with a dome and adorned with a Grecian entrance, has been 
 preferred. 
 
 The National Capitol at Washington, D. C., first built by B. H. 
 Latrobe of Baltimore, but reconstructed by T. U. Walter of Phila- 
 delphia, was originally three hundred and fifty-two feet and four 
 inches long, one hundred and twenty-one feet and six inches broad, 
 with a dome ninety-six feet in diameter and one hundred and forty- 
 five feet high. It is now seven hundred and fifty-one feet and four 
 inches in length, three hundred and twenty-four feet in extreme 
 breadth, covering one hundred and fifty-three thousand one hundred 
 and twelve square feet ; the summit of the dome above the pave- 
 ment being two hundred and eighty seven feet and five inches. Its 
 basement is Roman, its porticoes the purest Grecian Corinthian, 
 its dome Byzantine, and its exterior columnar ornamentation the 
 revived Grecian of M. Angelo. In the old interior the columns 
 are Doric in the basement, and Ionic in the second stage ; but in 
 the new portions the columns within, as without, are pure Corin- 
 thian. The artist, in true adherence to the Greek's idea, has 
 allowed each sister State to twine her own favorites, leaf and 
 flower, about the clustered capitals. 
 
 SECT. 3. CONVENTUAL, INCLUDING COLLEGE, HOTEL, HOSPITAL AND 
 PRISON STYLES ; DESIGNED AS CONGREGATED HOMES FOR THE 
 
 EDUCATION OF YOUTH, THE ACCOMMODATION OF TRAVELERS, THE 
 CARE OF THE INFIRM AND THE RESTRAINT OF THE VICIOUS. 
 
 While men devoted to the defence and regulation of society 
 congregate in castles and palaces, the young, the traveler, the sick, 
 the vicijus, are gathered in colleges, hotels, hospitals and prisons. 
 Under the early influence of Christianity the name "Conventual" 
 was given to the style of architecture appropriate to buildings de- 
 signed to supply these ends ; convents being the chief schools, inns 
 and hospitals. 
 
 The Hebrew, Mohammedan and probably Egyptian colleges 
 were gathered in rooms clustered under colonnades surrounding 
 the inner courtyard of temples and mosques; after whi^h the 
 
HOSPITALS. HOTELS AND PRISON'S. 249 
 
 cloisters of ancient Christian churches were modeled. Among the 
 ancient Greeks, Socrates had no school building ; Plato was favored 
 to use the groves and porticoes of the country-seat of Academus ; 
 Aristotle was a peripatetic in the fields, or sought shelter when 
 necessary in the temple of Lyceean Apollo ; while the Stoic Zeno 
 loitered under the stoa or porticoes of the Agora. The later Gre- 
 cian schools at Athens, Pergamos, Tarsus and Alexandria, seem to 
 have gathered in rooms connected with temples; while the 
 Romans had Grecian teachers and temples. 
 
 In Christian lands convents became early the seats of learning. 
 In the East these are castle-like structures, with high, blank un- 
 adorned exterior walls, and a large open court and garden within. 
 In later days they became plain brick, edifices, providing in the 
 simplest form the needed rooms. In the revival of art, college 
 structures in Europe became more elaborate, taking the character- 
 istics of the early Saxon, Roman, pointed Gothic, Norman, Tudor, 
 or revived Grecian ; the castellated style seeming most appropriate. 
 
 Hotels designed for travelers or associated families, naturally 
 taking the form of a hollow square, were, in early ages, like convents 
 mere castles with plain walls. As leading ornaments of modern 
 towns, hotels have usually a Roman basement, with a facade vaiy- 
 ing from plain Grecian Doric to exuberant Louis Quatorze. 
 
 Hospitals proper, for the diseased, the maimed and wounded, 
 yet more permanent asylums for the insane, the indigent, the dis- 
 abled, deaf-mutes and blind, are specially the offspring of Christian 
 civilization. The Greeks and Romans had houses of entertain- 
 ment called Xenodocheia or Hospitalia ; but neither corresponded 
 to the modern hospital. The first hospital proper met in history is 
 a Christian provision for the poor pilgrims of Jerusalem, erected 
 in Constan tine's day. During the Crusades the famed Hospital at 
 Jerusalem was a new feature in military history. About the same 
 time hospitals at different points grew up on the route of Christian 
 pilgrims, fostered by Christian women, commended by Jerome; as 
 that of Fabiola at Rome, another at Constantinople, and others 
 in Asia Minor planted by Paula. Yet later they are found in North- 
 orn Europe; the famed "Hospices" in the passes of the Alps, 
 being specially noteworthy. All these took the character of con- 
 vents ; their design requiring openness of structure and airiness of 
 location. The plain Norman, the more adorned Tudor, or, as in 
 
 L* 
 
250 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 tne hospital for invalids at Paris, the Byzantine is adapted to their 
 object. 
 
 Even prisons as architectural works are the product of Christian 
 civilization. The ancient prison was a cell dreadful to the occupant. 
 The prison vaults of ancient Jerusalem, the Mamertine cave-prison 
 at Rome, and the Black-hole at Calcutta, as compared with prison 
 edifices in modern Christian countries, indicate how pure religion 
 is the moving stimulus even of the spirit of art. Not until the 
 present century has the idea of reforming the vicious, suggesting 
 palaces of the most adorned castellated style as penitentiaries, 
 begun actually to adorn cities with such structures as the Egyptian, 
 *.he Norman, the Gothic prisons, now found in Philadelphia and 
 New York. 
 
 SECT. 4. VII/LA AND COTTAGE STYLES DESIGNED AS PRIVATE RESI- 
 DENCES, SUBURBAN RETREATS AND COUNTRY RESIDENCES. 
 
 The mass of mankind in cities and country live in cabins and 
 garrets ; and even princely wealth cannot in cities secure sufficient 
 breadth for the highest architectural art in private residences. In 
 suburban villas, wealth and taste united find ample scope for 
 artistic skill. 
 
 Among Asiatics there are no country residences ; all living in 
 closely-walled towns on hill-tops ; while for miles around no abode 
 for man is seen except the shepherd's tent. The huts of the poor 
 are without windows, and even the mansions of the wealthy are in 
 narrow alle3 r s. A blank wall two or three stories high faces the 
 street ; a low portal leads into a cave-like passage-way ; and a side 
 door opens into a broad unroofed courtyard. The lower story is 
 occupied by stables and servants' rooms, and for storage. On the 
 second floor, the family abode, large windows screened by lattices 
 project into the court ; over which an awning is drawn. The roof, 
 coated with gravel-cement, has a slight slope, furnishing a prome- 
 nade in pleasant weather and a water-shed for rain. At its centre 
 is often a "summer parlor," open at the sides. 
 
 Grecian and Roman city-mansions were deeper but not wider 
 than Asiatic. The entrance door was set back, leaving an outside 
 vestibule. The court within called aide in Greek, atrium in Latin, 
 was covered, except a central opening, by rooms above ; whose floors 
 were supported by rows of short columns. Around this court were 
 
ROMAN AND ITALIAN VILLAS. 251 
 
 offices and other rooms for men ; and back of it was another court 
 similarly disposed for women. The roof gathered the rains into a 
 cistern in the centre of the court ; whose floor was paved in mosaic 
 and its centre adorned with a small fountain and miniature statuary, 
 illustrated in the descriptions of Cicero and Pliny and in unburied 
 Pompeii. The slant of the Grecian and Roman roofs forbade 
 promenades on the house-top ; but the security of private property 
 allowed suburban retreats. The German habit, however, of build- 
 ing p'rivate houses in the country wherever a cool spring, a shady 
 grove, or a pleasant vale invited, was unknown in Italy, and a sur- 
 prise to the historian Tacitus. 
 
 The Romans, unlike the Greeks in fondness for variety, excelled 
 in suburban retreats ; the hills about Rome for ten or twelve miles, 
 and towns thirty or forty miles distant, being dotted with villas 
 described by Cicero, Vitruvius and Pliny. These were of two 
 classes. The villa urbana was near the city, and modeled like a 
 town residence except that it had side, as well as front, balconies 
 and porticoes. The villa rmtica, distant from the city, was a farm 
 mansion ; having cellar for servants, an erflastuhun or night lock- 
 up for convicts hired out as laborers, cellars for wine and oil, and 
 extensive stalls for horses and other domestic animals; the details 
 of whose grouping belong to Landscape Gardening. 
 
 The modern " Italian villa" is, in groundplot, the old Roman; 
 its style of architecture being that mingling of Roman and Gothic 
 perfected by Palladio, called in England " Elizabethan." It has a 
 straight roof without parapet above, but with brackets underneath, 
 clustered chimneys and an entrance tower at one side, also arcade- 
 balconies and bay-windows. The "French Chateau" is substan- 
 tially the "Louis Quatorze," with roof of double pitch, without 
 towers or battlements; and it is adapted to a city, as the "Italian 
 villa" is to a suburban residence. The "Swiss cottage" has a 
 steep projecting roof, with no exterior colonnade ; and it is adapted 
 to a hill-side. The "verandah" of India is a square house, with 
 low roof, and a wide circling piazza ; and is appropriate to a lawn 
 having a sunny exposure. The "kiosk," or Turkish summer- 
 house, is octagonal with mitre-shaped roof and latticed sides ; and 
 is appropriate only as an arbor. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 PAINTING J THE ADDING OF COLOR TO FORM. _ 
 
 THUS far form alone, aside from color, has been considered. In 
 drawing, light and shade require the employ of only white and 
 black ; in sculpture every work is of the hue of its material ; and 
 in architecture, color is always secondary, generally accidental, and 
 only occasionally artistic. 
 
 Painting follows drawing, sculpture and architecture ; first, be- 
 cause it requires an acquaintance with all other arts ; and second, 
 because to accurate execution in them all painting must add just 
 color to form. Lionardo, said "A painter ought to be well in- 
 structed in perspective, to be a master of anatomy, and also to be a 
 good architect ;" perspective being the final attainment in drawing, 
 and anatomy in sculpture. In order to success in landscape paint- 
 ing a knowledge of gardening is equally essential. 
 
 In fact painting is the "art of arts;" for drawing is a part of 
 the painter's work ; and while sculpture and architecture actually 
 make forms, painting, without making them, must present them to 
 the eye. The blind man's judgment was just, when having felt first 
 a statue, and then a painting of the same figure, he remarked, "If 
 this flat surface looks like that round one, then this is the greater 
 art." 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 THE ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF COLORS. 
 
 NOT only the general student, but also the practical artist, is 
 called to regard, first, the analysis and synthesis of colors in them- 
 selves; and second, the combination of colors existing in nature 
 252 
 
ELEMENTARY AND COMPOUND COLORS. 25J5 
 
 His main subsequent toil is to gain the power of copying existing 
 colors, and of conceiving and executing new hues, shades and tints. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE SIMPLE OR ELEMENTARY COLORS. 
 
 The pure rays of the sun's light are white; retaining this hue 
 oven when reflected from polished black iron. Substances reflect- 
 ing none of the sun's rays, really unseen, seem black ; the color of 
 darkness, where we see nothing. Substances between black and 
 white in color, reflect a part only of the light. White is the com- 
 bination, black the absence of all colors; their mixture \sgray; 
 and these three are in art called neutral, or negative colors. 
 
 From the earliest times the decomposition of sunlight into 
 varied colors by passing through ice or amber, and in the rainbow, 
 was observed. The Chaldean and Indian philosophers counted 
 seven distinct colors. The Greeks, Pythagoras and Aristotle, re- 
 garded color "superficial," dependent on the reflection of light ; 
 and the rainbow as "solar rays reflected by vapor." Sir Isaac 
 Newton's practical division of the colors of the prismatic spectrum 
 into seven red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet were, 
 by Sir David Brewster, reduced to three, yellow, red and blue ; ex- 
 periments showing that all other colors are compounded of these 
 three ; which are hence called essential, or, as opposed to negative, 
 positive colors. The important fact thus established, so far as 
 painting is concerned, is, that all hues, shades and tints, in coloring 
 are to be attained by admixture of the three elementarj 7 colors ; 
 while at the same time these three are so intermixed in nature, as 
 in the solar spectrum, that in none of his pigments can the artist 
 expect to find, as he could not with truth to nature, employ any 
 pure elementary color. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE ARTIFICIAL OR COMPOUND COLOK. 
 
 The simplest admixture of colors, that of black and white, pro- 
 duces the variety of which Sir Isaac Newton remarks, "These 
 gray and dun colors may be also produced by mixing whites and 
 blacks." The history of language from the time Hesiod applied 
 the term " graiai" to the "fair-cheeked Greek women," as well 
 as the demands of analysis in art, require that a distinction be 
 made between gray, a combination of simple black and white, and 
 tjrey, an admixture into which blue arid its compounds enter. 
 22 
 
254 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The positives, blue, red and yellow, are found to have fixed pro 
 portions essential to beauty in the compounds formed by them ; 
 that law requiring for yellow three, for red five, and for blue eight 
 With, reference to their proportionate admixtures, yellow, red and 
 blue, are called primary colors; and these proportions their 
 " equivalents." 
 
 The union of primaries in their proportions forms secondaries : 
 the three being orange from red and yellow, green from yellow and 
 blue, purple from red and blue. The equivalent of each secondary 
 is the sum of the equivalents of its elements ; of orange eight, of 
 green eleven, and of purple thirteen. The admixture of the 
 secondaries in their proportions forms three tertiaries; citrine 
 from green and orange, russet from orange and purple, and olive 
 from purple and green. These proportionate admixtures are 
 called pure colors. Their combinations in indefinite proportions 
 give the dirty or impure colors ; which, as to their effect in nature, 
 are called semi-neutrals. 
 
 In the practice of the art of painting, it is important to note this 
 order of the colors. Yellow, next to white,' mixed with it gives the 
 faint hue straw-color; it is the ruling element in the tertiary 
 citrine, and enters largely into buff, bay, tawny, tan, dan, dun, 
 drab, chestnut, roan, sorrel, hazel, auburn, Isabella, fawn and 
 feuille morte. Red, the central color, is a leading element in 
 orange and scarlet, in purple and crimson ; it controls in russet ; 
 it enters largely into man-one, puce, murrey, morello, mordore, 
 pompadour; and is found also in browns. Blue, the primary 
 nearest black, regarded by Lionardo from observation as a mixture 
 of white and black, abounds in the green of the earth's covering; 
 it is the ruling element in olive ; and it enters largely into the 
 semi-neutral greys, as slate and lead colors. 
 
 Among the secondaries, orange, when inclined to red, gives 
 scarlet, poppy, coquilicot; and when tending to yellow is gold. 
 Green, the central secondary, tending to yellow is pea-green, and 
 to blue is bottle-green ; while in every land foliage is called green 
 from the lightest poplar to the darkest fir, from the greenish 
 yellow of Italy and Mexico to the blue-black of Ireland and 
 Greenland. Purple, tho extreme secondary on the dark side, 
 when tending toward red is rose, when towaid blue is lilac or 
 violet, and when toward black is indigo. 
 
COMPLEMENTARY AND CONTRASTED COLORS. 255 
 
 Among the tcrtiaries citrine having most yellow, and least blue, 
 succeeds first to the green of summer as autumn comes on. 
 Russet, the central tertiary, follows citrine in autumn tints. 
 Olive, the darkest of the tertiaries, prevails in foliage designated 
 as greenish, in sky characterized as greyish, and in earth styled 
 ashen. 
 
 The semi-neutrals, into which black enters, are of three classes ; 
 brown, maroon, and grey. Brown, an indefinite class of colors 
 in which yellow predominates, including yellow-browns, red- 
 browns, orange-browns, purple-browns, but no blue-browns, em- 
 braces, also, dun, hazel and auburn. Marrone, or maroon, in- 
 cluding a class of impure colors in which the red predominates, 
 derives its name from the color of the wine of ancient Maronea, 
 resembling claret, and is applied to the copper-colored mixed breeds 
 of Central America. Grey embraces a class of impure colors in 
 which blue predominates; including blue, olive, green, purple, but 
 no yellow or red greys ; a distinction of special importance in 
 studying the grey tints of cloud, earth and water. 
 
 Black, in admixture with colors, does not alter the hue ; it only 
 deepens the shade. 
 
 No painter in ancient or modern times has passed beyond the 
 rudiments of his art without knowledge of, and careful attention 
 to this analysis of pigments and of the law of their harmonious 
 admixtures. The knowledge of the Greeks, who so excelled in 
 this art at his day, is thus alluded to by Aristotle : "The many 
 other colors besides white and black are multiplied in number by 
 proportionate admixtures ; for they can be formed by uniting them 
 together in the ratio of two to three, of three to four, and of other 
 numbers. Other colors, however, are formed by admixture with- 
 out ratio; having a disproportionate amount of some and an 
 absence of other elements." No one can successfully trace the 
 history of painting, from the glaring yellow, crimson and blue of 
 the ancient Egyptians, till the consummation of the art of coloring 
 in the mellow tints of Raphael and Guido, without a careful pre- 
 liminary study of the analysis of colors. 
 
 SECT. 3. COMPLEMENTARY AND CONTRASTED COLORS. 
 Colors in proportionate admixture, by their very name, "pure,'' 
 indicate that man's nature is formed to prefer them. Aristotle 
 
256 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 observes, "the colors most accurately proportionate in their ad- 
 mixture, as purple and light-red, are the most delightful colors." 
 That we are equally made to prefer complementary and contrasted 
 colors is seen in the variety sought in dress among all mankind; 
 and in the hues of sky, cloud, earth, foliage, flowers, insects, birds 
 and animals ordained by the Creator. 
 
 The complement of a color is that which it lacks of being pure 
 white ; the complement of yellow being a due proportion of red 
 and blue ; the complement of orange a due proportion of green and 
 purple. The study of complementary colors in its lower applica- 
 tions has a relation to scenic and decorative painting ; but its pro- 
 foundest analysis has been sought in the Gobelin tapestry works 
 at Paris as well as by the ablest artists in different ages. 
 
 That we are made for this law of complementary colors, nature 
 without and within us both attest. The blue sky is so compen> 
 sated by the complementary yellow and red on the earth, that few 
 blue flowers, and those chiefly poisonous, are found; while the 
 glowing crimson of the evening sunset in the West is set off by a 
 greenish grey in the East. If, again, the eye has been fixed on a 
 red wafer, when suddenly turned to a white page it sees a circular 
 spot of a bluish-green color, the complement of the red; the health 
 of the organs of vision, as well as the demands of our intellectual 
 nature, requiring compensation in colors. 
 
 Colors in contrast, when their differences are not precisely com- 
 plementary, are pleasing; the principle of compensation, however, 
 both in nature and art, being the foundation of the pleasure thence 
 derived. The purple flower has generally a centre of yellow, 
 the purple inclining to blue or red as the yellow tends to orange or 
 green ; while in the few flowers that are blue, the centre is orange. 
 Green, as central, is in accord with almost all the colors of nature ; 
 while citrine the first, and russet the second tint of autumn, follow- 
 ing green, keep up the contrasts making the harmonies of nature. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HUES AND TINTS; AND THE 
 
 NATURE AND LAWS OF TONE AND OF HARMONY IN COLORI1TO. 
 
 In nature there is no marked line separating between colors, 
 complementary or contrasted. In the rainbow one color shades off 
 imperceptibly into another, and sunset reflections from sky, cloud, 
 earth and water, are so th^wn upon each o'her in the glow of 
 
HUES AND TINTS, TONE AND HATIMONV. 257 
 
 evening twilight that language lacks words by which to depict their 
 varied and ever-changing aspects. The terms shades, hues and 
 tints, indicate variations in the coloring of single objects; and 
 tone, expression, harmony characterize special effects of coloring 
 as a whole. 
 
 The word hue designates the proportion of any one color enter- 
 ing into an admixture ; shade the degree of darkness or light given 
 to that color; and tint the overlaying of a foreign hue thrown 
 upon the principal color. The color blue has as its shades, dark, 
 medium and light ; as its hues, indigo, violet and azure ; while we 
 speak of the rosy tint of morning, the purple tint of evening, and 
 the brown tint of autumn cast on the distant blue hills. Shade is 
 varied by adding black or white to the principal color ; hue by in- 
 creasing the proportion of any one of the elementary colors ; while 
 tints are laid upon hues already executed, by rapid and light 
 touches of the artist's brush tinged with a contrasted color. 
 
 The terms tone and harmony as applied to painting, are borrowed 
 from the kindred art of music. Tone expresses, literally used, the 
 adaptation of sound to sentiment ; as when we say of a piece of 
 music, "Its tone is grave, and it should be performed in a sub- 
 dued tone of voice. ' ' Physicians, using the term figuratively, speak 
 of "the tone of the vital organs." Raphael Mengs, to illustrate 
 its use in painting, alludes to the common statement that the 
 Italian artists, using the warm colors yellow and red, the Germans 
 cold blue and black, Caravaggio sober grey and brown, and 
 Rubens gorgeous orange rose and purple, have respectively a 
 lively, severe, gay and sombre "tone." Ruskin embraces har- 
 mony in tone; making it consist in "the just relation of the 
 shading of all the parts to the chief figure," and " the just color- 
 ing of the lights and shadows in their relation to each other." 
 
 While tone relates to the aesthetic impression made by a picture 
 taken as a whole, "harmony" relates properly to the artistic rela- 
 tion of the parts to each other, separately regarded. Mengs, 
 treating at length upon harmony as he does upon tone, says: 
 "The artist will observe that by harmony we designate what the 
 Italians call accord. As accord or harmony in music produces 
 an agreeable effect on the auditory nerves, so does harmony in 
 painting on the optic nerves." As to the method of securing 
 harmony, he says, "The lighter colors have more effect, because 
 22* 
 
258 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 they produce quicker vibrations upon the organs of vision." "The 
 purest and most glaring colors, as possessing more strength than 
 the pale ones, must be used in principal figures. The use of either 
 white or black has a tendency to subdue and diminish the power 
 of the pure or primary colors ; while the latter also darkens all 
 these colors. ' ' Rembrandt secured the finest gradation and thus 
 harmony, by simple black ; and Boccacio by pure white ; the effect 
 being kindred to that produced in music by a single instrument as 
 the violin, or one voice in a solo. 
 
 Even in interior views, hues are varied without, end by in-door 
 and out-door lights, by bright sunshine and dense clouds; as well as 
 by the reflected tints of morning and evening, of daylight and 
 twilight. When any one of these myriad phases of light is chosen 
 by the artist, he must retain the recollection of each separate hue 
 and tint belonging to that selected moment, and preserve each 
 variety throughout his entire work ; for thus alone can harmony be 
 attained. 
 
 It is in landscape, however, that the principles of harmony have 
 their special application. Ruskin thinks that the chief superiority 
 of modern over ancient painters is their attaining the two requisites 
 of tone described by him. His numerous suggestions as to the 
 method of executing the varied shadings of refracting and reflecting 
 media, his nice discriminations between the hues, tints and shades 
 of light as they stream through clouds, glance from water, and rest 
 on the soil, his pencil- tracings of outlines in foliage, cloud, and 
 even of granite boulders, group themselves under the topics here 
 considered. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES AS TO THE EMPLOY OF COLORS IN 
 PAINTING. 
 
 As in drawing, so in painting, the pupil proceeds from the 
 simpler to the more abstruse principles of his art. Among the 
 higher aims in coloring are the securing of special aesthetic effect* 
 
MINUTE STUDY OF COLORS IN NATURE. 259 
 
 by colors; the attaining of "aerial perspective;" and finally ic 
 landscape, the blending of shades, hues and tints in distant 
 prospects. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE COLORS OF OBJECTS IN NATURE TO BE COPIED is 
 PAINTING. 
 
 The analysis of colors in themselves prepares the eye to trace 
 their distribution in nature. Ancient philosophers and poets aided 
 painters in minute observation of minor distinctions ; Aristotle 
 asking. " Why have white men and white horses for the most part 
 azure jyes?" and Ovid in his Metamorphoses, alluding to the 
 ** blue ' hue of nymphs floating " in the sea." 
 
 The snow is white, the sky blue, and the grass green ; but upon 
 these are reflected a thousand differing shades, hues and tints ; of 
 which the ordinary observer is not really aware, though he looks 
 directiy upon them. The painter must learn not simply the cha- 
 racteristic features, but the peculiar shades of colors. The farmei 
 calls foliage green, and soil brown ; yet he has no distinct words to 
 represent the distinct hues which he would blame the painter for 
 overlf oking. The mariner never separates the white foam on the 
 wave--.rest, the light pea- green of its head, the deep blue of its 
 body, and the dense black of its foot ; but the artist must analyze 
 and copy them all, or he can never satisfy his sea-bred critic. The 
 hunter, the drover, the hostler, never have thought of the nice 
 varieties of color in fur; but the artist must understand every 
 varied hue, and never paint two animals alike. The mountaineer 
 who never saw a painting is quickest to note if the artist has 
 caught the rosy tint of morning on the mountain peak, the slaty 
 grey of its rocky pinnacles, the lively blue of its sunlit slopes, the 
 sombre of its shaded gorges, and the deep green skirting of its base. 
 The artist must have seen all that other men in varied pursuits ever 
 look upon ; and must besides have mastered the secret methods by 
 which all he has seen is to be reproduced. 
 
 The painting of a basket of fruit or flowers gives the range of 
 livelier colors; and a bunch of autumn leaves furnishes a series of 
 soberer shades. The study for an hour of any single landscape, or 
 a rapt gazing at the shifting tints of a waning twilight, indicates 
 that the range for this observation is inexhaustible. 
 
 Two Centuries before Newton analyzed colors, Lionardo, the art- 
 
260 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 teacher, thus wrote: "One painter ought never to imitate the 
 manner of any other ; because in that case he cannot be called the 
 child of Nature, but the grandchild. To have recourse to Nature, 
 which is replete with such abundance of objects, is always better 
 than to go to the productions of old masters, who learned everything 
 from her." His three hundred and sixty-five chapters are mainly 
 hints for the successful study of Nature. He teaches the distinc- 
 tion between transparent and opaque colors ; the former showing, 
 the latter hiding opposite colors beneath them ; and he illustrates 
 their effect by colored glasses held between the eye and landscape, 
 as also by the influence of smoke, which before a black chimney is 
 bluish, but in the air is a reddish brown. Red on blue lake be 
 comes violet ; yellow upon blue is green ; while to be pure, each 
 transparent color should be laid upon a white ground. Red rays 
 reflected on a red object give lustre to its hue ; while the cutting 
 off of the sun's light darkens any color. 
 
 The thorough student may find in the pages of Lionardo, 
 Ruskin, Leslie and kindred authors, an exhaustless mine of sug- 
 gestions as to methods of studying the tints of Nature. The 
 works themselves, however, from which they borrowed all their 
 hints, are the learners' true field. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE RELATION OF COLOR TO FORM; AND THE DEMANDS 
 OF ANATOMY AND GENERAL SYMMETRY IN PAINTING. 
 
 Shading with black crayon gives a less distinct impression of 
 solidity than colored shades furnish. The sun's disc is more com- 
 plete when seen through haze than in a clear atmosphere ; and a 
 snow-capped mountain top, or chalky cliff, is less distinct in the 
 clear noonday sunlight than when set off by evening tints. 
 
 A painted portrait ought to present truth even in form more 
 fully than a crayon drawing, an engraving, or a photograph ; for 
 though these may give the perfect outlines of form, while no skill of 
 art can attain like truth in coloring, yet if the coloring be that of 
 a master, it will enhance the vividness with which form strikes the 
 eye. Two causes contribute to the definiteness which color gives 
 to our impression of form. First, the idea of substance is more 
 vividly presented when color is added to a form ; for while spectres 
 are always conceived as white or colorless, the very idea of color in 
 cheek or mantle would be conceived as an attribute of a real being. 
 
COLOR PRESENTING FORM, MODIFYING SHADE. 261 
 
 Second, as shade alone indicates the projection of the dimension 
 perpendicular to the line of vision, and as color alone even without 
 shade gives the impression of substance, when these two, as in a 
 painting, unite, the impression of form is enhanced by the combined 
 address to the eye of shade and color. 
 
 The pupil in drawing and sculpture, having only form to repre- 
 sent, may study the human figure in plaster casts alone ; but the 
 painter must have as his model the human form itself, or some 
 former master's work founded upon such a study. Colored shadeti 
 alone assure the beholder of the correct anatomy of figures. 
 
 The great painters of ancient and modern times have studied 
 flesh-color and its shades with special care. Parrliasius and 
 Apelles painted from living nude models; the former indifferent 
 to the piercing shrieks of the captive old man on the rack as ho 
 sought to catch the hues, now flushed, now livid, of dying agony ; the 
 latter insensible to the blush of shrinking modesty iu his lovely 
 maiden captive, while he only thought of transferring the tint.s of 
 that blush to his canvas. Lionardo mentions: "Black drapery 
 will make the flesh of the human figure appear whiter than it 
 really is ; white will make it appear darker ; while yellow will 
 render flesh more highly colored, and red paler than it is." Van- 
 dyke following this hint chose black velvet as the dress of a lady 
 whose complexion he wished to make of a tint specially delicate. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE RELATION OF COLOR TO LIGHT AND SHADE, AND THE 
 EXECUTION OF CHIAROSCURO IN PAINTING. 
 
 Color brings out form, and heightens its effect in landscape as 
 well as in portrait. The half shade which, gives a delightful soft- 
 ness to objects in the distance at noonday becomes enchanting 
 when, at sunset, this delicateness takes on the richest coloring. 
 The landscape painter, therefore, must study chiaroscuro in respect 
 to coloring as well as to shading. Though observed and com- 
 mented upon by the ancient Greeks, yet color in chiaroscuro wa& 
 first analyzed by Lionardo ; it attained impressive majesty in 
 Michel Angelo, and magical life in Correggio ; three artists of the 
 same age. 
 
 Lionardo conceived the idea of concentrating the chief iadiance 
 upon the central figure, gradually diminishing the light upon 
 remoter objects. The effect of colored shades may be seen by 
 
202 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 placing a light blue cylinder between a black and a white wall 
 To execute the gradation of shade thus produced on the cylinder, 
 three parts of black and one of blue must be taken to begin the 
 dark side of the cylinder, blue being constantly added to this mix- 
 ture, until it alone is used to complete the semi-circle. Numberless 
 nints are given by Lionardo: "The shadow of every white body 
 must have a tinge of blue, which it receives from the air. When 
 one white body terminates on another of the same color, as may be 
 seen by holding one sheet of white paper a little before another, 
 there is an edge of shade cast by the foremost upon the hinder 
 sheet, which makes it stand out from it. In general, a light- 
 colored object before a light background looks darker than it is ; 
 while the same object before a dark background looks lighter than 
 its natural shade. ' ' 
 
 Germany, England and America have added to the teachings of 
 the Italian school. The poet Goethe was remarkable for his per- 
 sonal observations and instructions as to the means of making 
 varied colors meet and blend with each other. Fuseli regards 
 Lionardo' s study of colored reflexes as the climactic work of the 
 revival of art. He pronounces the head of Jesus in the Last 
 Supper of Lionardo, from which as a centre the light is made to 
 radiate, the first, as it is one of the most finished masterpieces of 
 chiaroscuro ; he characterizes the boat of Charon, the centre of M. 
 Angelo's Last Judgment, as the perfection to which Lionardo' s 
 teaching led the bold genius of his pupil ; and he counts the en- 
 trancing fascination of Correggio's sky the most perfect illusion of 
 modern art. Ruskin dwells on the distinction between in-door and 
 out-door sunlight, and between the action of clear white sunlight in 
 bringing out local tints, and that of the light of a clouded sky in 
 modifying local hues. Leslie, though an ardent admirer of 
 Raphael, places him low in the rank of colorists, because he did 
 not study and practice the art of chiaroscuro as developed by his 
 contemporary, Lionardo. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE RELATION OF COLOR TO PERSPECTIVE ; AND AERIAI, 
 EFFECTS IN PAINTING. 
 
 Opaque-colored objects reflecting colored lights and shades make 
 the study of chiaroscuro difficult. Besides this, however, trans- 
 parent air throws on every distant object the tinge of its own blue, 
 
AERIAL MODIFICATIONS OF COLOR. 263 
 
 making aerial perspective an added study. Like chiaroscuro the 
 attainment of aerial effects in painting seems to be a triumph of 
 modern art. Yet the Greeks had knowledge of the theory of aerial 
 perspective, as is manifest from the following language of Socrates: 
 ''A magnitude seen at a distance is not the same as when seen 
 near to us. Objects strike our eyes in different ways according to 
 the modium through which we see them. Our senses are deceived 
 by color, and this deception is transferred"* to the mind. The art 
 of painting, taking advantage of our liability to this deception, 
 does not hesitate to practise enchantment and to dazzle our eyes." 
 
 Lionardo, after treating of "Linear Perspective," considers "The 
 Perspective of Colors." The lighter a color is in nature, the darker 
 it will appear when removed to a distance ; but with dark colors it 
 is the reverse, since the blue of the atmosphere lightens colors 
 darker than azure, and darkens colors lighter than itself. Ilcnoe 
 the foot of a column or distant mountain appears less distinct, 
 and farther off, than its top. Colors seen on a level with the eye 
 change more than when seen from an elevated height ; the air 
 being denser in its lower strata. 
 
 Lionardo illustrates the distinction between linear and aerial 
 perspective by their effects. " A thick air renders the outline of 
 an object undetermined and confused, and makes it appear larger 
 than it is, because the linear perspective does not diminish the 
 angle which conveys the object to the eye. The aerial perspective 
 carries it farther off; so that the one removes it from the eye 
 while the other preserves its magnitude. 
 
 Ruskin argues: "It is not tint, but depth and softness that 
 represent distance. A mountain near is green or gray ; afar off 
 it is purple. A yellow box is soft yellow at a distance. Distance 
 alone only softens colors." 
 
 SECT. 5. THE RELATION OF COLOR TO HUMAN SENSIBILITIES; AND 
 THE ADDRESS Or VARIED EMOTIONS BY PAINTING. 
 
 Colors, both in nature and art, affect the sensibilities; poets 
 appeal to this law ; but it is the artist's office so to analyze both 
 these effects and their causes as to be able to copy the special 
 hues which produce special impressions. 
 
 The dark colors in general are expressive of gloom, and the light 
 of cheerfulness. Black is the garb of mourning ; and iii nature 
 
264 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the storm cloud, the darkening eve, instinctively beget gloom. 
 White, the emblem of joy in bridal robes, the symbol of peace 
 and purity in priests' vestments, speaks at a child's burial of 
 innocence prevailing over corruption. Man's out-door toil makes 
 the graver colors fittest for his garb ; while for woman's in-door 
 adornment the gayer hues seem essential. 
 
 The dicta of fashion sometimes overcome the teachings of true 
 culture. Fuseli remarks, "Glare is always the first feature of a 
 savage or infant taste." Yet European, and even English taste 
 clings to gold and scarlet as the dress appropriate to royalty and the 
 court ; and it doubts the legitimacy of the American use of black as 
 the garb appropriate to civic ceremony and social festivity. It 
 certainly is a mark of semi-civilization when the Oriental chieftain 
 flaunts woman's gaudy colors in his robe and turban ; and there 
 must be a lack in true culture when the gorgeous coloring of 
 Rubens is preferred to the quiet tints of Lionardo. There is a 
 speechless power in the sunny glow on the " glistering white" of 
 the robes of Jesus, of Moses, and of Elijah, in " Raphael's Trans- 
 figuration;" in the dreary "blackness of darkness" shrouding the 
 condemned in Angelo's "Last Judgment;" and in the soft and 
 mellow evening radiance falling on the faces of Jesus and the 
 "beloved disciple," in Lionardo's "Last Supper;" and they sub- 
 due every beholder to the sentiment of each scene. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE RELATION OF COLOR TO DESIGN, AND ITS SPECIAL 
 
 APPLICATIONS IN PAINTING. 
 
 Painting, like sculpture, is an in-door adornment; being excluded 
 from the field of out-door art, such as funeral or civic monuments 
 and landscape ornamentation. It has, however, its own field of 
 design, from which sculpture is excluded. An altar-piece, or a 
 mural tablet may be sculptured ; but the broad field of historical 
 illustration, the boundless expanse of landscape representation, and 
 the pervasive panorama of wall and ceiling decoration which may 
 bring the life of an age and nation into a single chamber, belongs 
 to painting alone. 
 
 A higher order, also, as well as a wider field of design can be 
 sought in painting. An engraving fails in its effect unless the 
 engraver has the genius to give to his work those speaking touches 
 which go beyond the mere enunciation of form, and Burnish an 
 
FAINTING THE SPECIAL ART OF DESIGN. 20 5 
 
 expression kindred to that of color. Guizot, probably extreme in 
 his view, thinks that sculpture can only express strength and 
 beauty in objects at rest ; leaving the whole field of action in art 
 as the peculiar province of painting. 
 
 The work of conception with the sculptor ends when his model is 
 complete; and a common marble carver might cut an Apollo 
 Bolvidere from the cast before him. No artist ungifted and un- 
 c;iltured in design, however, could copy in Guide's Crucifixion the 
 hues of cloud and tints of flesh ; in which the light struggling with 
 tho darkness throws its uncertain gleam now on the radiant form of 
 the sufferer and now on the shifting mist around. In invention 
 the sculptor directly executes dimensions viewed obliquely, while 
 the painter, by a skillful gradation of colored shades on the retiring 
 limb, foreshortens it. In composition, again, so few figures can enter 
 into even a bas-relief, that the Greeks seem never to have used the 
 word except for the groupings of painting. Yet, again, exprrssion 
 is pre-eminently the province of the painter ; for, from the day 
 Apelles made the arm of Alexander seem even to a Cicero to 
 stretch forth from the canvas, painting has been the art that has 
 seemed able to impart actual life to its creations. 
 
 In fact, in ancient as well as in modern treatises on design, the 
 full import of the term forbids its employ except when painting 
 is the subject considered ; as appears in Leonardo's summary of 
 design. "The first thing to be regarded is the relief; that the 
 central figure from which the light is cut off by those on the sides 
 have the deepest shades around it. The second is that the order 
 and disposition of the figures be accommodated to the subject. 
 The third is that the figures be alive to the occasion, with expres- 
 sions suited to their attitudes." 
 23 J 
 
266 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MATERIALS AND SPECIAL METHODS OF USING THEM IN 001 oR,- 
 INO J AND CONSEQUENT CLASSIFICATION OF AGES, STYLES AND 
 SCHOOLS IN PAINTING. 
 
 TIIF history of painting indicates that the hinging principles on 
 which classification of ages and of schools turns, relate to pigments 
 or coloring materials, vehicles or mixing agents, tablets or sub- 
 stances on which colors are laid, subjects or themes to be repre- 
 sented, objects or the purposes for which paintings are designed, 
 and styles or the special manner of execution practised by different 
 schools and by rival artists. 
 
 SECT. 1. PIGMENTS; OR MATERIALS USED AS COLORS. 
 
 As outlines, cut with a hard, sharp pencil into the material on 
 which the picture was to be drawn, such as wax, stone or copper 
 plate, were the germs of sculpture, so drawing executed with a 
 soft pencil of adhesive texture, such as crayon, charcoal or chalk, 
 which left a line of its own substance on the material, was the first 
 stage of painting. These primitive pictures were called skiagram* 
 by the Greeks, because they were drawn in shade ; which were 
 followed by monochromatic pictures, or those executed in one coloi 
 with simple ochres or vegetable tints. In the climactic age of 
 painting in Greece, a large number of different pigments were 
 tested and either adopted or rejected as experience developed their 
 merit. 
 
 Pigments have been classified according to color, as blacks an-i 
 whites, reds, yellows and blues, alike by Pliny and by modern 
 writers. The nicer analysis of a cultured age classifies coloring 
 materials according to their chemical elements, as vegetable and 
 mineral ; the latter being subdivided into earthy and metallic. 
 
 Modern chemistry has enlarged the number of articles used as 
 paints ; it has led to a knowledge of the elements of which com- 
 pounds are made ; it has enabled the philosophic artist to effect 
 new combinations, to form new theoretical conclusions as to the 
 durability of different pigments, and to enlarge the list of varying 
 
PIGMENTS ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 shades, hues and tints; yet the same natural and artificial colors 
 which by practice the ancients found to be the best are still re- 
 tained, and are generally acknowledged to be superior. The fol- 
 lowing, as examples, now employed in China and India, maj be 
 historically traced through the Middle Ages to Greece and Rome, 
 and thence to Assyria and Egypt. Among vegetable pigments 
 the English madder, a bright red extracted from the root of a 
 plant, is the ruhia tinctoria of the Romans, and the erulhra of the 
 Greeks; among earthy the ochre is the Greek ochros, (pale opposrd 
 by Aristotle in complexions to eruthros ruddy), a term applied to 
 earths of various dull colors, all produced by that common coloring 
 ingredient of fertile soils, the oxide of iron ; and among mixed 
 pigments, lake is the Indian word EOCGO, a designation of the com- 
 bination by boiling of vegetable tinctures with clays. Besides 
 these, Lin ton has shown that of forty-two metallic pigments 
 mentioned by Pliny and other ancient writers, thirty-one are now 
 employed by painters. 
 
 Chemists, who have analyzed Egyptian pigments under the 
 direction of Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Assyrian under Dr. 
 Layard, have arrived at the following conclusions. The blues all 
 appear to be oxides of copper. The reds were three ; one brown- 
 ish, an iron oxide; another brick-red, an earth tinctured with 
 iron; a third scarlet, a madder, the vegetable coccus. The 
 yellows were ochres on grounds, and vegetable on cloths. The 
 greens were blue glass mixed with ochres ; or a vegetable yellow 
 mixed with copper-blue. For blacks, calcined bones, lees of wine, 
 asphaltum or burnt pitch, charcoal and soot were used ; and for 
 whites, a very pure chalk, lime and gypsum. The unbroken his- 
 tory of pigments is illustrated in the "vermillion" me itioned by 
 Hebrew writers; ancient translations compared with Strabo, 
 Dioscorides and Pliny, showing that the Chaldee shashur of India 
 is the miltos of the Greek, and the sinopis of the Latin. 
 
 The study of the nature of pigments was in ancient as in modern 
 times an experimental science ; as is seen in the allusions of Greek 
 and Latin writers from Herodotus to Pliny. Thus Hippocrates, 
 about B. C. 420, remarks that "the writings of physicians, or 
 physicists, had less regard to medicine than to arts of design." 
 
 The works of Pliny and of Galen show how, from every land and 
 nation, Grecian and Roman artists sought new materials for color- 
 
268 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ing. The celebrated Byzantine manuscript, discovered among the 
 monks, of Mt. Athos, indicates how genius as well as learning 
 lingered in the cloister, enamored of the charms of art. Even 
 after all the advances made by the great masters, Vasari mentions 
 Raphael's delight that the Pope had appointed "an aged friar" 
 to assist him in the decorations of St. Peter, because he expected 
 to "learn some secrets of the art from so experienced an as- 
 sociate." 
 
 The ambition of modern painters to secure improved pigments, 
 rivaling the ardor of men in the Middle Ages in search of the 
 philosopher's stone, has proved, as Eastlake's investigations show, 
 that the thorough study of the writers on Greek painting points 
 out the paths which have been most thoroughly searched through, 
 and those which invite farther scrutiny. 
 
 SECT. 2. VEHICLES AND VARNISHES ; OR MATERIALS USED FOR 
 SPREADING COLORS AND GIVING THEM CLEARNESS, BRILLIANCE 
 AND DURABILITY. 
 
 Pigments, chiefly in a solid form, must be converted into a semi- 
 fluid condition in order that they may be spread; and, as the art has 
 advanced, the search for fit vehicles, or carriers of colors, has been 
 as earnest as for worthy pigments. The first and essential quality 
 in a vehicle is ease of flow and smoothness of spread, as opposed to 
 daubing and pasting, in laying on colors ; a second and important 
 characteristic is adhesiveness to the ground on which they are laid, 
 and consistency with themselves, so that they shall not scale or 
 crumble ; while a third and desirable property is lucidness and 
 transparency, the vehicle not covering so as to hide the color, but 
 giving its own sparkling lustre to the dull metallic or earthy pig- 
 ment which it allows to be seen through itself. 
 
 Water, the natural and universal solvent, was universally first 
 selected in rude ages for mixing paints. It is the simple liquid 
 which the child and savage use ; it was the only solvent employed 
 by ancient Egyptian and Grecian painters even when considerably 
 advanced in art ; it has always proved the only vehicle proper for 
 fresco painting ; and to this day painting in water colors is an im- 
 portant branch of the finished art. 
 
 Water dries rapidly, so that by its employ the perishing flower 
 may be completely copied ere the special hue and fresh brill' ance 
 
26 ( j 
 
 of its prime are gone. Pure water being only a vehicle, and 
 evaporating completely, has no tendency to change the hue of 
 pigments. All water, however, is liable to be affected by acids or 
 alkalies, taken on from the air or earth ; and hence in the advance 
 of art filtered rain water or distilled spring water has been 
 sought. Water colors, too, are easily removed; a quality most un- 
 desirable in permanent works; though very convenient in designs 
 to be changed ; as was illustrated when Apelles placed his paint- 
 ings in the window of his stud}', seeking from the criticism <>f 
 passers-by hints for their improvement; as also was amusingly ex- 
 emplified in Buffulmacco, so called from his fondness for buffoonery, 
 who loved to provoke the horror of pious ecclesiastics by painting 
 in water colors on altar-pieces, a bear's cub in the arms of the 
 Virgin, or St. Luke blowing the ink out of his pen. 
 
 The first improvement on water as a vehicle was the adding of 
 a glutinous vegetable substance, or gelatinous animal gum to the 
 water to temper, or give it consistency ; called temperata in classic, 
 tempera in mediaeval, and dtstemperata in modern Latin. In 
 piodern distemper any glutinous substance which will make the 
 colors laid on adhere to the ground and cohere in their own layers, 
 either gums or glues, either vegetable juices as wine, vinegar and 
 fig juice, or animal liquors as the white of eggs, the scrum of 
 blood and cow's milk, have been employed. 
 
 Pliny mentions a great variety of preparations of gums, resins, 
 oils and mixtures with milk, honey, fig-juice, ete., employed by 
 Greek artists ; referring to Egyptian varieties of many of them as 
 especially valuable. At the revival of art in Italy, Cimabiic 
 restored the tempera of the Greeks; and in Italy honey, and in 
 Germany "the parings of parchments boiled in water," traira- 
 canth, arabic, or ammoniac gums and isinglass, also albumen, 
 serum and milk, have been used for admixtures. To give ad- 
 hesion in painting on ivory or glass, animal gall, borax, or a inil>i 
 alkali is employed. 
 
 Though gums and glues thus used in the mixing of paints gave 
 to pigments coherence in themselves and adherence to grounds, 
 they did not furnish transparence to the colors floating in the 
 vehicle, nor a varnished gloss and protection to the surface of the 
 picture. The Divine painter of the broad face of Nature hinted a 
 supply for this la ?k in the wax which coats the upper surface of 
 23* 
 
2iO ART CRITICISM. 
 
 leaves, giving them a smooth polish to res^t dampness, and a gloss 
 to furnish them lustre. 
 
 The use of wax, keros in Greek, cera in Latin, as a vehicle for mix- 
 ing pigments, originated, at a very early day, with the painters of the 
 prows of vessels ; who observed how the sun's heat caused the wax 
 used in caulking ships to flow over the painted surface, and to give 
 a firm and glossy surface. Three methods grew up in the progress 
 of the art ; in the first, the pigment was plastered upon the ground 
 with a scraper called rabdion; in the second, the method afterward 
 called niello^ it was laid in engraved lines cut into the ground, and 
 impressed with an iron graver called kestron ; and in the third it 
 was spread, as with other vehicles, by the brush called pemcillum. 
 When laid on by either of these methods, a heated iron was held 
 over the surface to burn in the pigment; this finishing process 
 giving the name encaustic^ from the Greek enkaio, to this style of 
 painting. Its discovery was to the Greeks what oil-painting was 
 to moderns ; Lycippus, the predecessor of Apelles, writing upon 
 his wax-paintings instead of the epoiese, or fecit, of ordinary artists, 
 the word enckause, burnt it. The advantages of encaustic painting 
 were, the distinctness of hue caused by the floating arid consequent 
 glistening of the particles of pigment in the dissolved wax; and the 
 protection of the color from the action of moisture and from fric- 
 tion in cleaning the surface. Horace and other Roman critics 
 extol the masters in this art; Chrysostom, the great preacher, 
 practised it as an accomplishment; the Byzantine painters con' 
 dime it to this day ; and the Venetians surrendered it only for a 
 superior invention. 
 
 The chief disadvantages of wax as a vehicle and varnish were its 
 extreme gloss and consequent excess of reflection, which prevented 
 the painting being seen to advantage except in one light ; its stiff- 
 ness and consequent exposure to crack from bending of the ground ; 
 and especially the want of an easy flow, which might allow the 
 particles of different pigments so to intermix as to give gradation 
 of hues. Another vehicle, eagerly and perseveringly sought by 
 able artists, was at length found in oil; the history of whose use 
 in painting Eastlake has traced back into Grecian and even Egyp- 
 tian history. Vasari records the discovery of John Van Eyck, 
 A. D. 1410; who, after numerous experiments, found that linseed 
 ftnl walnut oil were more dryin/r than any others, that ''hey gave a 
 
SURFACES FOR PAINTINGS. 271 
 
 firm consistence to colors mixed with them, allowed their blending 
 better than tempera, lit them up with a radiant gloss-like varnish. 
 and protected the ground from damp. Van Eyck's secret afterward 
 spread to Italy and thence to all Europe. Scientific masters like 
 Lionardo, perfected the use of oil; introducing gums, turpentine, 
 alcohol and other ingredients to hasten its drying. 
 
 The last requisite in painting was a varnish whose smooth polish 
 should at once protect and beautify the colors employed. The 
 Egyptians gave to sculpture, even in coarse granite, a polish ?uch 
 that its lustre still mirrors the sunlight. Grecian statuaries not 
 only gave to ivory and marble the most exquisite polish, but 
 Praxiteles even added a varnish to increase their finish. Painted 
 Egyptian sarcophagi still show the varnish laid upon them. 
 Praxiteles and Apelles spent years in search of a varnish at once 
 firm arid transparent, which, as Pliny's word circumlitin implies, 
 gave a projection of the figure from the canvas. Gum dissolved in 
 oil by the ancients, and in turpentine by the moderns, has always 
 been the main constituent of varnishes ; Indian lac in every age 
 being in use. 
 
 SECT. 3. GROUNDS; OK SURFACES ON WHICH PAINTINGS ARE 
 EXECUTED. 
 
 The American Indian daubs bright colors on his buffalo robe, on 
 his buckskin moccasins, and even upon his face, arms and breast ; 
 the Ethiopian adorns baskets and trinkets with colors; the grounds 
 on which painting is first executed being articles of personal 
 adornment. 
 
 As art became perfected, paintings were classified, virtually 
 according to their grounds, into miniature, wall and easel. Ivory 
 became the chosen material for the former; a stucco of lime for the 
 second ; and wood and afterward linen for the third. 
 
 Miniatures are so called from minium, red lead, first used as a 
 flesh color in small portraits. The outline was scratched upon ivory 
 with a sharp pencil, then traced in carmine, or crimson. In the 
 Middle Ages parchment served as a ground for miniatures painted 
 in tempera ; especially in limning or the adorning of manuscripts. 
 The name vignette was given to small heads wrought into the deli- 
 cate vine borders of manuscript pages. 
 
 Wall-painting in Egyptian tombs and Assyrian palaces was exe- 
 
272 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 cuted on a cement which received the nicest touches of the chisel, 
 and was a firm ground for rich coloring. The principal ingredient 
 of this cement, as the ancient Chaldee and Greek words show, was 
 lime. Pliny mentions that in preparing stuccoed walls for paint- 
 ing, the lime, chalk or gypsum was beaten in a mortar and mixed 
 with gum-water or milk. In marshy ground a first coat of brick- 
 dust was laid on to arrest dampness. Pliny mentions what pig- 
 ments were not affected by the lime of the ground. The walls of 
 houses at Pompeii show the extent to which among the Romans 
 this art was carried. 
 
 Ancient wall-painting seems to have been in secco, or on dry 
 plaster. In/resco-painting, of modern origin, pigments are laid on 
 when the mortar is fresh ; the colors sinking in so as to resist the 
 wear of time and of frequent cleaning. As in fresco the painter's 
 work must be executed in sections, no more space being prepared 
 than the artist can finish at a sitting, to prevent the junctures of 
 the work of succeeding days from showing it is a study with 
 artists to have the lines of each day's work fall in the shades, 
 where the darker colors hide them. Some have supposed that the 
 walls of ancient Pompeii show these junctures ; indicating that 
 secco-fresco, or the wetting of a dry wall already prepared, was 
 practised by Greek painters. 
 
 Cimabue, reviving the art, painted dry walls in tempera ; Giotto 
 employed intonacco, or painting first on a lower then on an upper 
 coat of cement; while Orvieto, a successor of Giotto, A. D. 1390, 
 seems to have been the first to use fresco proper. Lionardo's 
 chief works were in fresco ; and M. Angelo admired it as "large- 
 hearted." 
 
 For easel-pieces wood and canvas have been used as grounds 
 alike in Egyptian, Grecian, Byzantine and Italian art. The quali- 
 ties requisite in a tablet are "durability, infrangibility and inflexi- 
 bility." Metallic tablets expand too much by heat; parchment 
 bends easily; and both thus cause paintings to crack. Wood and 
 canvas best meet the three requisites. 
 
 The ordinary Egyptian coffins were of wood, covered with a thi<;k 
 paint. A cheaper coffin was made of layers of linen cloth, united 
 by intervening coats of lime-cement about one-fourth of an inch in 
 thickness, the surface being covered with paintings. So common 
 Was wood for grounds that the Latin word tabula became a 
 
SUBJECTS OF PAINTING. 27ft 
 
 Bynonym for easel pictures; machina being the name for easel. 
 Canvas or linen cloth wus used by the Greek painters; Pliny 
 speaking of a linteum pictum of Parrhasius ; and mentioning that 
 "Nero had ordered a colossal painting of himself one hundred and 
 twenty feet high to be executed in linteo," or on canvas. 
 
 SECT. 4. SUBJECTS OP PAINTING; THE OBJECTS IN NATURE AND 
 THEMES IN THOUGHT OR HISTORY SUSCEPTIBLE OF BEING REP- 
 RESENTED BY THE PAINTER. 
 
 The mind of man derives pleasure from things perceived by the 
 senses, from ideas conceived in the understanding and images 
 framed by the imagination, and from remembrances recalled and 
 reproduced by memory. In the youth of an individual or of a 
 nation things are the objects of thought and effort; in the maturity 
 of a man or a people ideas are the study and the employ of human 
 reason ; while old age, be it that of an individual or of society, 
 lives in the memories of the past. From these three fields of 
 human thought, emotion and action, the artist must select his sub- 
 jects ; and in these three departments the spirit of art in every age 
 and nation has shown progress. 
 
 The child draws simple objects such as houses; while the 
 genius of a Giotto or West may sketch a sheep or a babe. The 
 savage and half-civilized paint single objects; the American Indian, 
 coloring the objects themselves ; the Egyptian laying colors on 
 pencil drawings of objects; and the artists of the Middle Ages 
 illuminating manuscripts with vignettes. 
 
 In the age when thought begins, the idea of a Deity and of duty 
 seems to arise; and the first effort of art is to carve and paint 
 images of gods ; the progress of this first stage of development 
 culminating in ancient Egypt in pictured deities covering walls and 
 tablets. Advancing intelligence, analyzing distinct attributes, has 
 at length made not only the marble of Phidias, but the pigments* 
 of Apelles create a Jove that seems to speak from his pedestal, and 
 to hurl his thunderbolt from the canvas. In this stage different 
 tendencies in human thought lead to new varieties of subjects for 
 the brush. From gods, painters have passed to men, ennobled by 
 various classes of qualities and illustrious in different spheres. In 
 this field Egyptian grossness and Chinese stolidity, Greek philoso- 
 phy and Christian faith, have shown in human subjects chosen fof 
 
 M* 
 
274 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 tli 3 brush, the type of their own intellectual ad vai. cement. The 
 last stage in this line of progress has been landscape painting ; in 
 which the highest science as to mathematical realities and optical 
 illusions, causing mountains to tower, clouds to float, and water to 
 ripple and foam, has made the artist's power seem magical. 
 
 Memories of the past have furnished painters their richest 
 themes, and have filled picture galleries with their choicest gemp. 
 First came family portraits ; which, presenting the features of an 
 individual in his quiet life, but perpetuate a simple memory. 
 Then, when the painter seeks to embody some elevated sentiment 
 by fixing some characteristic expression, the superior range of 
 subjects called "historic" is reached; the highest to which the 
 Grecian painters aspired. Under Christian civilization the inimit- 
 able moral beauty pictured in the lives of Old Testament " friends 
 of God," and the unapproachable spiritual grandeur everywhere 
 manifested in the life of Christ, has furnished a fertility and fasci- 
 nation in subjects touched by the genius of modern art bejwid the 
 conceptions of the ancients; the variety of themes called "scrip- 
 tural illustrations," developed by artists during the last eighteen 
 centuries, being the most remarkable, as it is the all-pervading 
 characteristic of modern painting. The height of human concep- 
 tion in exalted forms was perhaps reached when Lionardo, almost 
 despairing of ever realizing his ideal of the countenance of Jesus, 
 for weeks now roamed the crowded streets of Milan, and then sat 
 for hours absorbed in efforts of imagination. When to this perfec- 
 tion of form attained in sacred themes by the Italian masters shall 
 be added, what has never yet been fully attempted, truth to land- 
 scape views in the Holy Land, a new if not the climactic subject 
 for the painter will have been reached. 
 
 SP:CT. 5. THE USES OF PAINTING; THE ENDS SOUGHT BY PAINTERS, 
 
 AND THE CLASSES OF WORKS DESIGNED FOR DIFFERENT EFFECTS. 
 
 Human wants, individual, social and religious, existing in the 
 early history of individuals and of nations, and calling for works 
 of art when men are yet rude in their conceptions and coarse in 
 execution, increase their demands as mankind refine in culture. 
 In this progress three stages in the uses of painting are to be 
 observed. 
 
 The demand for personal ornaments makes the fieM fov works of 
 
THE USES OF PAINTING. 276 
 
 art of limited extent and perfection. Even the religion of men, in 
 this lowest type of humanity, seems to be an individual interc.-t , 
 showing itself unsatisfied with the idea of a spiritual being every- 
 where present, or even of a common and public deity far off in 
 some distant temple ; and seeking an embodiment of a supernatu- 
 ral power in some shrine in the family dwelling, or some image 
 worn about the person. 
 
 The second stage, when the mind takes in the broader relation 
 of a state or nation, is in nothing more marked than in the demand 
 for new works in the department of painting. When the Egyp- 
 tians, after two centuries of tribal life, reared the Pyramids, wlu-n 
 the Hebrews sought a capital and temple, when Greeks, Romans, 
 Arabs, Franks and Saxons attained civil union, then a new type of 
 painting and new uses for this climactic art arose. 
 
 The architectural age of a nation calls for paintings of two 
 classes; columnar decorations, and fresco, including panel and 
 ceiling paintings. In Egypt, when architecture became truly an 
 art, the columns of temples and the walls of tombs began to be 
 covered with the rarest variety of painted objects and scenes. The 
 Athenians, at the era of Pericles, sent as far as the Isle of Rhodes 
 for painters competent to execute the wall paintings worthy of the 
 Parthenon ; while the Romans, yet rude, brought painters from 
 Greece to fresco the walls of their Capitol at the early date of its 
 erection. The history of church architecture is 3*et more signifi- 
 cant; commencing with rudely-colored altar-pieces in the Western, 
 and stiff though gorgeous pictures in the Eastern Church ; ma- 
 turing in frescoes, till under Raphael, Lionardo and Correggio, the 
 walls of churches seemed to re-enact the scenes of Christian history, 
 and their ceilings to open Heaven with its ethereal inhabitants, 
 and finally, when oil-painting came to rival fresco, making tin? 
 punels of churches, picture galleries of historic and sacred themes. 
 
 The highest advance in the art of painting is the age of "easel" 
 or "cabinet" pieces, denominated by the ancients "tablet" paint- 
 ings. When walls are all covered with frescoes, and temple 
 niches and panels are filled with wall paintings proper, the spirit 
 of art-creation is not exhausted, but is nerved for yet higher de- 
 signs and efforts. Science, philosophy and literature, still ad- 
 vancing, present new subjects for embodiment, and improved taste 
 demands more perfect execution in painting. Works of every 
 
276 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 variety, fruit pieces, animal sketches, portraits, historical pieces, 
 Scripture incidents, landscape, fill wide halls and long galleries. 
 For this end Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Apelles and Protogonea 
 stretched their canvas and smoothed their wooden tablets, giving 
 the last glory to Grecian art. So now this climactic era of the 
 painter's skill rules in the collections of the Vatican at liome, of 
 the Pitti Palace at Florence, of the Louvre at Paris, and of the 
 National Gallery at London. 
 
 SECT. 6. STYLES OF PAINTING; THE METHODS OF COLORING CHA- 
 RACTERIZING DIFFERENT AGES AND NATIONS, AND ORIGINATING 
 DIFFERENT SCHOOLS AMONG PAINTERS. 
 
 The Asiatic, as represented by the ancient Egyptians and by the 
 modern Chinese, never has attained to the higher principles of the 
 art of painting, such as perspective in drawing and gradation in 
 coloring. The European, as seen in the ancient Greek and modern 
 Italian, has, from his first essays, recognized the laws of excellence, 
 and after long practice has reached perfection in execution. Thus 
 ages in design and execution are marked. Even in Egyptian 
 painting eras of improvement are visible ; in Greece no comparison 
 could be made between the early essays of the hero painters and 
 the finished ideals of Apelles ; and in the history of Christian art 
 no transformation could be greater than that in painting from the 
 age of Cimabue to Raphael. Yet, again, in the last stages of the 
 art, schools of painting have arisen ; determined by the mental cast 
 and consequent taste of the people of different sections and of the 
 artists of different sects in the same country and at the same age. 
 
 The causes of these differences are various. Progress in paint- 
 ing has depended in part on the materials employed. Pliny marks 
 the era between the monochromatic painters and those who, like 
 Apelles, used four or more colors. Yet more as to the vehicles em- 
 ployed, water-color sketching, the clear and open lines of fresco, or 
 the deep round moulding of oil-painting, artists have separated 
 into classes and schools; Raphael, M. Angelo and Lionardo, with 
 all their great skill in oil-painting yet loving the free scope, the 
 quick execution and the striking effects of fresco. 
 
 In Asiatic painting there has been no division of schools. The 
 earliest division in Greece, the Hellenic or Greek proper, and the 
 Asiatic or provincial, was made after painting had been recognized 
 
AGES AND SCHOOLS IN PAINT1XG. 277 
 
 as a sister art with sculpture and architecture ; the freedom in con- 
 ception, and adherence to nature in execution, peculiar to the Greek 
 coming in this art into most marked contrast with the stereotyped 
 and trammeled spirit of the Asiatic. The second division, that of 
 the Athenian and Sicyonic schools, arose from the commm-ial and 
 literary spirit of Athens, in contrast with the rural aristocratic con- 
 servatism prevailing at Sicyon. A double tendency widened the 
 breach between the two schools : the taste of the people leading 
 them to patronize their preferred style; while artists from distant 
 provinces, according to their cast of mind, were drawn to one or the 
 other of the two centres. 
 
 In the Augustan age three distinct schools again arose, nearly 
 akin to the three Grecian schools just mentioned ; namely, the 
 Byzantine, the Grecian and the Etruscan. The Byzantine retained 
 the stiffness in form and gorgeousness in color belonging to the old 
 Asiatic school. The Greek proper aspired after the grace amid the 
 departed glory of their native land ; seeking to be masters in ideal 
 and spiritual themes. The Etruscan, Grecian in spirit and Roman 
 in patronage, uniting the ideal and practical, inaugurated a natural 
 school ; adhering to truth in form and color, and adding life and 
 expression. 
 
 In modern times Italy alone has developed numerous divisions 
 and sub-divisions of schools ; as the Florentine, the first to return 
 to nature as a model ; the Venetian devoted to color, the Roman 
 to form, the Lombard to expression, each with its sub-divisions , 
 then the Neapolitan borrowing from all; the Bolognese Eclectic; 
 and the Spanish, of the same cast with the Neapolitan, but moie 
 sombre in tone. All these leading schools devoted themselves 
 almost exclusively to Christian themes; the Florentine taking 
 living men and women as models for apostles and saints; the, 
 Paduan substituting classic forms in place of traditional or living 
 personages; and the Sienese guarding the ecclesiastic tradition? 
 both as to form and color. 
 
 In Northern Europe the Flemish, living under i. vky murky yet 
 healthful, among a people cheerful almost to levity, pictured cheei- 
 ful home and sportive pot-house scenes in dingy smoky rooms ; 
 while the German blended Dutch cheerfulness with classic grace 
 and Italian brightness. In the French school among a people 
 fickle and mercurial, genius is seen ever on the wing; taking a start 
 24 
 
278 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 with Giotto, and again from Lionardo, yet never guided by a steady 
 fixedness of aim for generations. In England the influence of a 
 cosmopolitan life, with the old Roman yearning after a broad do- 
 main, has bred artists persevering and steady, but over-conserva- 
 tive ; like the Romans, too, more ready to accumulate by power 
 and fortune than to create by patient native toil. Finally in 
 America among a people made up of all nationalities, and gather- 
 ing artists from every country in Europe, no decided national style, 
 except in distant mountain scenery, has yet been established. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ASIATIC PAINTING; RUDIMENTARY COLORING DEVOID OF TRUE 
 ART IN FORM AND SHADING. 
 
 As in sculpture and architecture, so in painting, the Asiatics 
 have been true to the traditions of their fathers. As instructors of 
 Africans, quick in rudimentary conceptions, docile as learners, and 
 untiring in application, Asiatic masters taught in Egypt. In India, 
 Persia and the Greek provinces, they gave a spring to minds more 
 active than their own ; the pupil advancing most after being sepa- 
 rated from his teacher. The study of this field requires, first, a 
 survey of rudimentary painting ; second, a notice of Egyptian 
 painting as the type of its class ; third, a glance at the declining 
 phase of this order of art as we turn eastward ; and fourth, a refer- 
 ence to the westward advance, opening into the grand vista of the 
 Grecian art. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE RUDIMENTARY STAGES IN THE EARLY HISTORY OP 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 The childhood of an individual is illustrative of the childhood of 
 the human race. In Asiatic painting tjie germs of the art are 
 readily traced. 
 
 A child's first effort at painting is a mere laying of color upon 
 some object. The simple, uncompounded colors, red, yellow and 
 
EGYPTIAN CdLORINO AND ITS CHARACTKIU8TICS. 279 
 
 blue, are his first delight. The Asiatic painter has retained per- 
 manently this first characteristic of rudimentary painting 
 
 The second stage is entered when desire for contrast introduce* 
 more colors than one into the same picture. In this essay no idea 
 of propriety has been conceived; for a tree is painted red, a cow 
 blue, a hat yellow, without regard to the color which each object 
 really has in nature and should have in art. This stage, again, be- 
 comes permanent in rudimentary art. 
 
 A third stage is reached when the idea of distinctive colors 
 arises ; though only approximate in its conceptions and partial in 
 its applications. For the human countenance, peculiar in its hue, 
 an approximation is sought in the color red ; the whole face, lips, 
 cheeks, forehead, having no gradation from the ruby-red of fle*h- 
 tint proper to the white of the eye. This germ of the idea of pro- 
 priety in color, influencing the artist's choice of colors only in parts 
 of his work, such as blue for a coat, and red or yellow for a vest or 
 trowsers, becomes a permanent one in Asiatic paiiitin.i:. 
 
 The last stage of advance in rudimentary painting lias been a 
 simple increase in the number of pigments. The Egyptians used 
 six different colors ; the Japanese employ a greater variety. These 
 varied colors were not graded admixtures; but the}' were substances 
 found colored in nature, and used as found ; having no definiteness 
 of hue, and incapable of representing nature. Gradation of hues, 
 secured by the continual addition to the fundamental color of a 
 lighter or darker pigment, is never seen in Asiatic coloring, 
 
 SECT. 2. EGYPTIAN PAINTING; THE TYPE OF SIMPLE COLORING, 
 
 WITHOUT PERSPECTIVE, SHADING OR PROPRIETY OF HUES. 
 
 The abundant relics of Egyptian paintings, executed centuries 
 before those of the Greeks, surviving them for ages, preserved by 
 the peculiar dryness of the climate, have given a rare opportunity 
 for the study of the methods of those ancient artists. 
 
 Asiatic influence on painting in Egypt is alluded to by Pliny, 
 who states that " Gyges the Lydian introduced painting into 
 Egypt;" and he adds, " the Egyptians affirm that it was invented 
 among themselves six thousand years before it passed over into 
 Greece;" which he regaids "a vain boast." 
 
 Pliny alludes to Egyptian varieties of ochres and metallic pig- 
 ments used by the Greek painters ; while also he describes theii 
 
280 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 mode of painting on silver, and of fixing colors in dyeing. Wilkin- 
 son states "That the Egyptians possessed considerable knowledge 
 of the metallic oxides is evident from the nature of the colors ap- 
 plied to their glass and porcelain. They were even acquainted 
 with the influence of acids upon colors ; being able in the process 
 of dyeing or staining cloth, to bring about changes in the hues by 
 the same process adopted in our own cotton works." Egyptian 
 artists painted statues and columns; they laid metallic pigments on 
 pottery and mouldings in clay to be burned in ; and their frescoes 
 covered walls and coffins coated with a lime cement. 
 
 The general characteristics of Egyptian painting are expressed in 
 Pliny's picture of the rudimentary art just cited ; he himself say- 
 ing of the art in Egypt, " such it continues even now." Upon an 
 outline drawing, destitute of shading, Egyptian painters laid their 
 six colors with ungraded hue. They gave, however, a definite, if 
 not accurate hue ; distinguishing most perfectly the dark African, 
 the brown Asiatic, and the straw-colored superior race of the North. 
 Wheat is recognized loy its reddish and barley by its gray tint ; 
 while gold and other metals are distinct in hue. 
 
 The fixed type they maintained in their art is thus commended 
 by Plato in his "Laws:" "The art we have proposed for the edu- 
 cation of youth was known long ago to the Egyptians. This peo- 
 ple, having fixed by statute what forms and what music should be 
 licensed, they had them represented in their temples. Nor was it 
 lawful for painters or other inventive artists to make the least de- 
 viation from the authorized standard. Upon careful examination, 
 indeed, it will be found that the pictures and the statues made by 
 this people ten thousand years ago are neither an advance upon, 
 nor inferior to those which they now execute." 
 
 SECT. 3. THE PAINTING OF EASTERN ASIA ; THE DECLINING PHASE 
 
 OF RUDIMENTARY COLORING. 
 
 Eastward from Egypt, painting, like sculpture and architecture, 
 preserves its primitive type. In China most of the painting 
 abund&Lt in every mart, is of two of the classes already mentioned 
 as found in Egypt. Wall painting has less place in this northern 
 climate. Most of the Chinese painting is executed upon paper, 
 cloth, glass or porcelain. The colors used are chiefly vegetable, 
 sometimes ochre, with water as a vehicle. The ground often lacks 
 
PAINTING OF EAST;-: i IN' AND WESTERN ASIA. 281 
 
 the consistency essential to prevent the spreading of the pigments 
 Costume differs in hue ; but there is no variation in expression, 
 nor gradation of tint in flesh or any other color. 
 
 The Japanese painters have learned the rudiments of admixture 
 and gradation in colors, of perspective and of chiaroscuro. In 
 addition to black, white, red, yellow and blue, they employ th 
 intermediate hues, crimson, scarlet, pink, rose, purple, saffron, 
 purple-maroon, light and dark blues, and also various shades of 
 brown. In their landscape views, rivers with groups of men in 
 front, boats on the stream, and trees and mountains on the oppo- 
 site side, are sketched with manifest though not accurate diminu- 
 tion from distance. They have mastered also the first principles 
 of aerial effects, painting clouds in the evening twilight, below of a 
 pink, and above of a purple tinge ; water near the shore, of a 
 saffron, and farther off of a maroon or brown tint. In neither 
 clouds, water or flesh tints, however, is there any gradation proper. 
 
 The smaller isles of the Pacific and the coast of America, with a 
 population evidently Asiatic, present only the rudest attempts at 
 coloring. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE PAINTING OF WESTERN ASIA ; THE ADVANCING PHASE 
 OF RUDIMENTARY COLORING. 
 
 A line of improving art in painting may be traced northward 
 through Arabia and Syria, which yet lives in the unburied monu- 
 ments of Assyria ; having relics also in Persia and Asia Minor. 
 All these show a progress advancing in perfection toward Greece. 
 The style of coloring now met in this region is no index to its past 
 character; since Greece itself has for ages followed the Asiatic 
 type, 
 
 In Hebrew painting there are three eras ; that of Moses or the 
 Egyptian, that of Solomon or the Phoenician, and that of Herod 
 or the Roman. In the first age not only the simple colors, red and 
 blue, but also scarlet and purple, were employed ; but the pig- 
 ments used were, as Josephus states, chiefly vegetable. In the 
 second era, Hebrew, like Grecian and Italian art, had introduced 
 mosaic inlaid with "glistening stones of varied colors." In this 
 age, too, wall painting existed ; ceilings being " painted with ver- 
 milion." In the third or Homan era no painting proper is found 
 24* 
 
282 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 in the sacred temple ; but the curtains were adorned with "purple 
 flowers." 
 
 In Assyria the palace of the ancient Medo-Persian king was 
 adorned with curtains "white, green and blue, fastened by cords 
 of purple ;" and had " a pavement of red and blue and white and 
 black marble. ' ' Layard says, ' ' The only colors first used by the 
 Assyrians were probably blue, red, yellow, black and white." 
 "These colors alone were used in the painted ornaments of the 
 upper chambers of Nimroud." " The tints formed by their com- 
 binations may have been introduced at a later period." "The 
 Assyrian red exceeds in brilliancy that of Egypt." "It nearly 
 approaches to vermilion on the sculptures of Khorsabad ; and has 
 a bright crimson or lake tint on those of Nimroud." At this day, 
 he adds, "Dyes of the finest qualities, particularly reds and greens, 
 which even European ingenuity has not been able to equal, are 
 obtained by the inhabitants of Koordistan from flowers and herbs 
 growing abundantly in their mountains." 
 
 Statues, also, were colored by Assyrian artists. Layard remarks, 
 " No trace of paint except in the eyes and on the hair has yet been 
 found on the human body in Assyrian sculpture ; ' ' and he adds, 
 " On the colossal lions and bulls, forming the entrances to temples, 
 color only remains in the eyes ; the pupils having been painted 
 black and the rest filled with a thick white pigment." 
 
 Wall painting also was introduced into Jerusalem from Assyria ; 
 the Hebrew prophet, Ezekiel, mentioning "idols and men por- 
 trayed on the wall, after the manner of the Babylonians of 
 Chaldea." 
 
 Layard also states of Assyrian palaces, "The ceilings were 
 divided into square compartments painted with flowers or the 
 figures of animals." A method apparently peculiar is alluded to 
 by Diodorus, who states that " the figures of men and of animals 
 seen on the walls of the palace of Semiramis at Babylon, were 
 painted on the bricks before they were put in the furnace." 
 
 The advance of the Persians in this art, indicated by their supe- 
 rior work now met at Constantinople, may be traced to Homer's 
 day among this Northern race. Pliny, the chief historian of 
 ancient art, to confirm the very early and Arian origin of painting, 
 appeals to Homer's mention of several varieties of the art existing 
 among the Greeks and Trojans at the time of the siege of Troy. 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING; ITS CHARACTERISTICS. 283 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GRECIAN PAINTING; NATURAL COLOR UNITED TO IDEAL FORM. 
 
 THE Greeks, having attained ideal form in sculpture, united thia 
 is painting with true naturalness in color. 
 
 To analyze the history of painting among the ancient Greeks is 
 difficult for three reasons. First, the relics of Ancient Grecian 
 painting, unlike their sculpture and architecture, have nearly all 
 perished; and it is only from scattered allusions by Plato and 
 Aristotle, Cicero and Horace, Pliny and Pausanias, that material 
 for such an analysis can be gained. Second, the technical terms 
 employed by these authors, illustrated in sculpture and architec- 
 ture by the works themselves, are unexplained in painting. Third, 
 while able critics like Winckelmann have thoroughly classified 
 works of Grecian sculpture and architecture, no kindred analysis in 
 the department of Grecian painting has been furnished to modern 
 students. 
 
 Pliny thus indicates the progress of the art in Greece: "The art 
 of painting was discovered, some say at Sicyon, others among the 
 Corinthians ; all affirm that it began with the mere shadow of a 
 man around which lines were drawn. The second stage was in 
 single colors called monochromatoji. At length art invented light 
 and shade ; the employ of different colors, alternating with each 
 other, producing this effect. Afterward again there was added 
 lustre ; this being another thing than light ; which, since it is be- 
 tween light and shade, they called tonos ; while they named the 
 commingling of colors armoge" These steps of progress, are, 
 first, shading in colors ; second, the conjunction and inter-blending 
 of hues ; and third, gradation of lights or chiaroscuro, producing 
 tone and harmony. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF GRECIAN PAINTING, DURING 
 
 THE AGES OF THE GREEK LYRIC AND EPIC. 
 
 This period covers about seven hundred years ; from the fall of 
 Troy, about B. C. 1184, to the restoration of ihe Athenian 
 Democracy, B. C. 510. Tt began with Euchir, the beautiful- 
 
284 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 handed; whom Aristotle mentions as a near relative of Daedalus. 
 A century later, about B. C. 1068, four eminent painters grew up 
 as rivals ; to three of whom, Philocletes, and Cleanthes and Crato, has 
 been attributed the origin of drawing in outline; while two of them 
 were painters of merit. The first was an Egyptian, the latter two 
 were native Greeks, one born at Corinth, the other at the rival city 
 Sicyon. The paintings of Cleanthes in the temple of Diana in Elis, 
 Strabo says, were admired in the Augustan age ; and they were 
 quoted yet later by Greek sophists and Christian apologists as 
 indices of the religious spirit of the early Greeks. A century later, 
 in the ballad age, Ardices of Corinth and Telephones of Sicyon 
 were rivals for the invention of rudimentary shading; which 
 invention Pliny regarded an era in the history of painting. 
 
 Next followed improvement in coloring ; the mixing of colors for 
 gradation of hues being introduced by four artists. Cleophantus, 
 a Corinthian, about B. C. 655, used "ground earthenware" as a 
 flesh color. Yet later, Eumarus, the earliest painter mentioned at 
 Athens, "was the first to make a distinction of sex in painting." 
 
 The last step in rudimentary Grecian painting was the executing 
 of likenesses; Leon painting a portrait of Sappho, who flourished 
 about B. C. 600. 
 
 While noting this progress of the art in Greece proper, Pliny 
 remarks of an eminent painter who flourished about B. C. 720, in 
 the Greek provinces of Asia Minor: "Surprise need not be felt afe 
 the dignity to which this art so early attained in Greece, when the 
 picture of the battle of the people of Magnesia, in Lydia, against 
 the Cimmerian barbarians, executed by Bularchus the painter, was 
 purchased for its weight in gold by Candaules the king of Lydia." 
 
 SECT. 2. THE ADVANCING DEVELOPMENT OF GRECIAN PAINTING 
 UNDER AGLAOPHO AND DAMOPIIILUS IN THE AGE OF THE GREEK 
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 In the united progress of poetry and plastic art in Greece, the 
 drama had more influence than the lyric and epic. In the sixty- 
 first Olympiad, or about B. C. 535, Thespis first introduced science 
 representations into Athens; .^Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripide 
 succeeded; and for more than a century Athenian genius was de 
 voted to the histrionic art. 
 
 A double influence was exerted by this new bent of the Athenian 
 
GRECIAN SCENE PAINTING AND PORTRAIT. 285 
 
 mind; the people demanded finely executed scenic representations, 
 and a taste for large and extended paintings, to be seen at a dis- 
 tance, was awakened ; which led on to fresco or wall painting. A 
 cluster of artists arose who developed both these department.? ; (he 
 artists in higher walks being the leaders, the scenic painters but 
 imitators. 
 
 The great early master in easel studies, or in historical subjects 
 associated with higher portrait, was Aglaopho, contemporary with 
 /Eschylus ; who, with his son Aristopho, painted the heroes of 
 Troy. Cimon, of the same age, attempted portraits at oblique or 
 quarter views, to bring out characteristic beauties of form. Allu- 
 ding to the excellences of Aglaopho and his son Polygnotus, 
 Quinctilian says that their " uncompounded color so captivates the 
 minds that study it, that those almost rude first steps, as it were, 
 in the future art are preferred to the greater masters who lived 
 after them on account of a certain natural yearning we have to 
 learn originating elements." 
 
 Wall painting was introduced about B. C. 493, from Greece into 
 Rome, by Damophilus and Gorgasus, eminent in both stucco- 
 moulding and coloring ; who adorned the temple of Ceres in the 
 Circus Maximus at Rome with both these arts. 
 
 At this era, during the age of Grecian supremacy in Southern 
 Italy, at the home of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, there ap- 
 jeared an eminent wall painter named Sillax ; whose frescoes be- 
 came famous. 
 
 Meanwhile artists devoted to scenographia, or scenic decoration 
 proper, nourished; tnen, as now, employing gaudy "uncom- 
 pounded colors," without finished gradation or blending of tiues; 
 of one of whom, Serapio, Pliny says, "having proved unsuccessful 
 at portrait-painting, he turned his hand to scenic painting, in 
 which he attained eminence." Among others of this class the 
 daughter of Cratinus was eminent ; to whose lewd "comic scenes" 
 the able Christian Father, Clement of Alexandria, allude? with 
 disapprobation. 
 
286 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT 3. THE RECOGNITION OF PAINTING AS A SISTER ART UNDER 
 MICON AND POLYGNOTUS IN THE AGE OF PERFECTED SCULPTURE 
 AND ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The age of perfected sculpture and architecture covering the 
 lives of Pericles and Phidias, from about B. C. 500 to B. C. 430. 
 exerted a direct influence on painting. From stage decoration the 
 decoration of works of architecture became the absorbing end of 
 this art. Historic paintings, as rich in color and expression as th; 
 genius devoted to that art could make them, began to cover tlu 
 inner walls of the Propylgea, of the Poicile and of other porticoe' 
 about the Acropolis and Agora of Athens. Mathematical science, 
 perfected by Pythagoras, was now directed to the fixing of propor- 
 tions in forms ; chemical knowledge was devoted to the improve- 
 ment of pigments ; and the germ of the study of proportion in 
 colored hues and shades is indicated by the azure backgrounds 
 introduced into marble niches for statues, to set off their virgin 
 whiteness. Pliny remarks that the picture of the battle of Mar- 
 athon, painted on the Poicile, illustrated how far " the use of color 
 had improved," and to what an extent " the art was perfected." 
 
 The first artist of this age, Micon, painted on the Poicile and in 
 the temple of Theseus, legendary themes. With Panaenus, the 
 cousin of Phidias, he attempted a theme of recent history, the 
 battle of Marathon, on the Poicile; in which having the inde- 
 pendence to paint the Persians of larger stature than the Greeks, 
 lie was fined by the fickle democracy of Athens. 
 
 Polygnotus, born in the island of Thasos, was brought to Athens 
 by Cimon, the Athenian General, to adorn the new temple of The- 
 seus. Afterward he was employed by Pericles. Of his style, Pliny 
 records, "He first painted women with transparent dress, and orna- 
 mented their heads with parti-colored turbans ; and he added very 
 much to the art of painting since he introduced the partial opening 
 of the mouth so as to show the teeth." Aristotle ranks Polygnotus 
 among ethical painters ; thus alluding to the intellectual cast of his 
 ideals : " Polygnotus painted objects superior to nature." 
 
 Panaenus, the cousin of Phidias, who himself began his career as 
 a painter, introduced an improved method in fresco ; washing 
 *' the plastered wall with milk and saffron. " Of his works, Strabo 
 relates "Paianus, the painter, worked much with Phidias, being 
 
GRECIAN PAINTING AND AERIAL COLORING. "281 
 
 his brother and fellow-laborer in the finishing of his carved work, 
 by decorationg it with colors, and especially by painting drapery." 
 Aglaopho the second, nephew of Polygnotus, won that encomium 
 of Cicero "that no lover of art would wish to have him other than 
 he was." Athensenus, the sophist, with a spice of irony, mentions 
 a picture of his in flattery of the young Athenian demagogue ; in 
 which was " seen Nemea seated, and upon her knees Alcibiadea 
 himself, more delicate in features than any woman." 
 
 SECT. 4. THE FIRST JRECEIVED SCHOOLS OF GRECIAN PAINTING, 
 UNDER APOLLODORUS AND EUPOMPUS, IN THE AGE OF GREKK 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Plastic art having reached its climax, and filled Athens with the 
 choicest works in sculpture and architecture, Socrates, born B. C. 
 470, trained as a sculptor, turned the Athenian mind to philosophy, 
 already ennobled by Thales and Pythagoras. Under Plato, born 
 B. C. 430, ideal philosophy, fitted to the genius of the Greek peo- 
 ple, began to exert a controlling influence over the creations of art. 
 
 Discussions in philosophy originating rival schools, artists follow- 
 ing the thinking men of their time, sought, according to their bent, 
 to excel in the ideal, or in the natural ; while many aspired to be 
 teachers of art. 
 
 Among leading teachers appearing at this era was Evenor, "the 
 father and preceptor of the painter Parrhasius," author of an "ex- 
 position hastening to the lights of art." Next came the resplen- 
 dent Apollodorus, of whom Pliny records: "He first introduced 
 the method of expressing splendor in sky," and was " the first of 
 men to discover the mixture of pigments and gradation of shade." 
 He excelled in "skiagraphy" or "shadow-painting," in which 
 there is "contrasted aspect in color;" as opposed to "sceno- 
 graplry," or scenic painting, which has no sky, and no alternation 
 of light and shade. Fuseli says of Apollodorus: "He originated 
 local color and tone ; not light and shade in themselves considered ; 
 but as regulated by the medium which tinges both. . . . This was 
 the element in the ancient armoge, that imperceptible transition, 
 which without opacity, confusion or hardness, unites local color, 
 demi-tint, shade and reflexes." 
 
 The great analytic teacher of this and of all ages in Grecian art 
 was Eupompus, who taught Pamphilus, the preceptor of Apelles; 
 
288 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 these three artists being leaders in the three climactic ages of 
 Grecian painting. Pliny says of him : " So great was the authority 
 of this artist that he divided painting into three schools ; whereas 
 before him there were two only, called the Grecian and the Asiatic. 
 On his account, he being a native of Sicyon, the Grecian was by 
 popular assent divided, so that three were established ; the Ionic, 
 the Sicyonic and the Attic." The Tonic was the old Asiatic; the 
 philosophic spirit of the age of Eupornpus having led to analytic 
 instead of national names, by which to designate different styles in 
 art. Eupornpus taught Lysippus the sculptor, "that nature her- 
 self was to be imitated, not any artist." So perfectly absorbed was 
 he in his work as teacher, that only one work of his is referred to 
 by any ancient author. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE PERFECTING OP GRECIAN PAINTING UNDER ZEUXIS 
 AND PARRHASIUS IN THE AGE OF GRECIAN ORATORY. 
 
 The era of the decline of the Grecian republics called forth 
 j^Eschines and Demosthenes ; and two classes of influences on art 
 were thus called into exercise. The demand for practical oratory 
 revived the popular taste for histrionic art, the orators resorting to 
 rhetoricians and actors for training in elocution; and a style of 
 painting hence originated corresponding to the "dramatic" of 
 modern Florence. 
 
 In Greece as in other lands the age of the written drama was 
 not the era of superior acting. JEschylus, like Shakspeare, 
 waited long for a Garrick worthily to enact his conceptions. Two 
 centuries after their dramas had immortalized Greece, the orator 
 Lycurgus secured a decree of the Athenian people that authentic 
 copies of the tragedies of ^Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides should 
 be deposited in the public archives. 
 
 As the influence of the dramatic age had been felt on the paint- 
 ers of that era, so the double stimulus of the age of oratory and of 
 the histrionic art in two respects led to improved painting ; first, 
 giving added culture to artists, and second, suggesting new themes 
 for the pencil. The inspiring appeals of Demosthenes to the 
 works of art wrought in the times of Pericles, recording the deeds 
 of the heroes of Marathon, roused artists as well as warriors ; and 
 the portrait of the orator Lycurgus in the glow of action bj 
 Ismenius was a new attempt in art. 
 
ZEUXIS AND PARRHASIUS. 289 
 
 Under Philip of Macedon, when at Athens the theoretical phi- 
 losophy of Plato was yielding to the practical logic of Aristotle, 
 Pamphilus, a Macedonian was teaching art; whom Pliny char- 
 acterizes as "first in the art of painting to be learned in all that 
 liberal art, especially in the science of numbers and of geometric 
 measurements ; without which he declared that art could not be 
 perfected." His terms of tuition, a ten years' course, and "a 
 talent" or about $1000 as a fee, indicate his eminence. " By his 
 iniuence," following up the idea of Eumolpus of Sicyon, who 
 nearly two centuries earlier had introduced the study of drawing 
 and moulding into common school education, "the plan was 
 effected, first at Sicyon, then in all Greece, that boys of free birth 
 should be taught before all things complete drawing, including 
 painting on box-wood." Pliny adds : " Pamphilus caused that the 
 art should be received into the first rank of liberal arts." 
 
 The second great master, Zeuxis, came from Magna Graecia, the 
 western province. His works were in still life; such as fruit and 
 domestic scenes. In a contest with him, Parrhasius presented a 
 curtain, and Zeuxis a cluster of grapes. When the birds pecked at 
 his canvas, assured that he was victor, Zeuxis called on Parrhasius 
 to remove his curtain and show his painting. Aware of his decep- 
 tion ' ' He yielded the palm with ingenuous modesty, since he had 
 deceived the birds, but Parrhasius the artist himself." 
 
 Pliny states that in his female figures Zeuxis " gave undue size 
 to heads and joints." Quinctilian says: "Zeuxis gave more ful- 
 ness to the members of the body ; preferring it broader and more 
 close-set; and, as it is thought, he followed Homer in this, to 
 whom the most robust form, even in females, was favorite." 
 Italian artists would censure with Pliny, and German commend 
 with Quinctilian this plumpness of figure. Of his methods Pliny 
 records: " He painted also monochromata in white." 
 
 Parrhasius, grand master in the impassioned style, is thus char- 
 acterized by Pliny : "He first gave symmetry in painting, liveli- 
 ness of expression, elegance to the hair, grace to the mouth ; by 
 the confession of artists having won the palm in terminating lines. 
 This is the highest perfection in painting. For to paint bodies 
 and the central parts of objects is indeed a great work ; but one in 
 which many have attained eminence. To execute the extremities 
 of figures, and to round in the terminal line, is rarely discovered in 
 25 N 
 
290 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the success of art. For the extremity itself ought to enfold itself; 
 and so terminate that it shall project other parts behind itself, and 
 also show what is concealed." Pliny adds, indicating how ex- 
 cellences are carried to excess: "Nevertheless he seemed to fall 
 below himself in bringing out the central parts of his figures." 
 
 Parrhasius became an authority in painting; leaving "speci- 
 mens of his drawings on boards and parchments which made him," 
 Quinctilian says, "the founder of laws; because other artists, as if 
 I >y necessity, follow his models." "He painted," Pliny relates, 
 "an assembly of the Athenians," showing "varied expressions; 
 the angry man, the unjust, the inconstant, as well as the yielding, 
 the humane, the sympathizing, the high-minded, the conceited, 
 the cringing, the overbearing, the shrinking; and all these expres- 
 sions equally vivid." 
 
 Excessive vanity led him to vaunt himself to be "prince of art,'* 
 and that "art was consummated by himself." Like too many men 
 of genius Parrhasius gave way to degrading appetites and unmanly 
 passions, painting " libidinous scenes on small tablets." Four cen- 
 turies afterward under the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, these licen- 
 tious works were exerting their corrupting influence. Seneca, 
 father of the moralist, censures his inhumanity in his great work ; 
 stating that "when Philip sold the captured Olynthians, Parrha- 
 sius bought one old man among them, brought him to Athens, 
 tortured him on the rack, and from him as a model painted Pro- 
 metheus. The old Olynthian died under the torture ; the artist 
 deposited the picture in the temple of Minerva ; and he is accused 
 of having thus defamed religion." 
 
 Euphranor in this age was eminent for richness of color, and 
 especially the softness and naturalness of his flesh-colors. He 
 wrote a book on "Symmetry," which became a standard among 
 sculptors; adding one on "Colors" equally authoritative with 
 painters. Pliny and Plutarch regarded his Theseus superior to 
 that of Parrhasius ; he himself boasting, " that of Parrhasius was 
 rose-color, but his own was real flesh." Of his Twelve Deities 
 Valerius Maximus says: "He set forth Neptune in the most 
 transcendent colors of majesty possible ; having still to represent 
 Jove yet more august. But every power of thought being ex- 
 hausted upon the superior work, his after efforts were not able to 
 rise to the point which he sought. to attain." 
 
CULMINATION OF PAINTING UNDER ALEXANDER. 291 
 
 A single picture of Timanthes is eulogized in like terms by 
 Cicero, Valerius Maxinms, Quinctilian and Pliny. The scene is 
 the sacrifice of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, to appease 
 offended Diana. Quirictilian's comment is: "In elaborating an 
 oration there are things which either ought not to be presented 
 filainly, or cannot on account of their dignity be expressed. Thus 
 fimanthus, when in his Immolation of Iphigenia he had painted 
 Ohalcas sad, Ulysses more sad, and had added to Menelaus the 
 highest expression which art could effect, the range of human 
 affections being exhausted, not finding in what worthy manner he 
 ixmld express the countenance of the father, he veiled his bead and 
 left each beholder to form his own conceptions of it." 
 
 Among others eminent in this age was that Nicias; "concerning 
 whom" Pliny says, "Praxiteles spoke when being asked which of 
 his own works in marble he most approved, he replied, * Those to 
 which Nicias has given his touch;' so much did he attribute to 
 his shade-tint." 
 
 SECT. 6. THE CULMINATING ERA OF GRECIAN PAINTING UNDER 
 ITS GREATEST MASTERS, APELLES AND PROTOGENES, IN THE AOH 
 OF THE POLITICAL UNITY OF GREECE UNDER ALEXANDER THE 
 
 GREAT. 
 
 Under Alexander, the fresh and vigorous genius of Macedou, 
 meeting the cultured refinement of Athens, Sicyon and Corinth, 
 called forth the great practical teachers in science and art, Aristotle 
 and Pamphilus. The ambition of the young Alexander, not only 
 to be first of all the Grecian race as a military leader, but also as a 
 fosterer of science and art, awakened the aspiration to show him- 
 self worthy to have such a city as Athens in all its glory brought 
 under his sway. 
 
 The galaxy of masters in four departments of art, Dinocrates in 
 architecture, Lysippus in sculpture, Pyrgoteles in engraving, was 
 completed by Apelles, so unrivaled for ages that painting was called 
 " The Apellean Art." Pliny mentions of this group: "Dinocratca 
 laid out Alexandria when Alexander was founding it in Egypt; 
 and this same emperor issued an edict that no other than Apellea 
 should paint himself; none but Pyrgoteles engrave his likeness, 
 and none but Lysippus cast his form in bronze ; which arts these 
 men have made illustrious." 
 
292 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 In this age experimental science had perfected form in sculpture 
 and had improved pigments and vehicles in coloring ; while exact 
 science had given the last power in perspective and grouping. Yet 
 more at this era the true method of studying nature was realized 
 under the teachings of Aristotle ; and its employ by artists secured 
 wonderful success in aerial effects. To this that great philosopher, 
 teaching and writing in this age, refers, when, having alluded to skill 
 in proportionate ad mixture of colors as " one method by which spe- 
 cial hues are produced," he adds, " but another method is to make 
 colors appear through each other ; which painters employ when 
 they place a second color over one more vivid ; as when for exam- 
 ple, they would make an object apparent in water or in a dense 
 atmosphere ; as too in nature the sun in itself appears to be white ; 
 but through a dense atmosphere, or through smoke seems to be 
 red." 
 
 Two causes conspired to the superiority of Apelles ; his untiring 
 industry and the new methods which his studied efforts to aid 
 other artists, and also the criticisms he invited from the common 
 people suggested. As a specimen of his diligence, Pliny states : 
 "He singly transmitted to his successors more improvements in 
 painting than all other artists combined ; he also brought together 
 in published volumes what might serve for instruction in its 
 theory." " He -never spent a day so occupied that he could not 
 practise his art by drawing a line ; which habit of his passed into 
 a pro verb." In his disinterestedness, "he yielded the palm to 
 Melanthius in grouping, and to Asclepiodorus in proportion ; ad- 
 miring the latter in symmetry." Pliny relates at length how he 
 taught the people of Rhodes to appreciate Protogenes. Having 
 on his first visit inquired of the modest artist for how much he 
 would sell his pictures, he circulated the report that he had bought 
 them for the enormous sum of fifty talents, or about $45,000, and 
 intended to sell them at a profit ; when the Rhodians bought them 
 at his price, thus giving at once fortune and fame to their obscure 
 townsman. 
 
 Apelles used to expose his finished pictures in the window of his 
 gtudio, and avail himself of the suggestions of passers-by. Pliny 
 relates that "being censured by a cobbler because in some sandals 
 he had made one stitch more inside than outside, when the same 
 man on the next day, boastful on account of the correction tho 
 
APELLES AND PROTOGENE8. 2P3 
 
 artist had made on his former suggestion, caviled about the 
 ankle, Apelles indignant stuck up this notice, 'Ne sutor supra 
 crepidam judicaret, Let not the cobbler criticize above the 
 sandal;' which also passed into a proverb." Pliny adds: "His 
 society was very attractive to Alexander the Great, who often came 
 into his shop. But, when Alexander gave opinions as to many 
 things of which he was ignorant, Apelles courteously advised him 
 to silence ; saying that the boys who ground his paints were laugh- 
 ing at him. So great of right was his authority toward a king." 
 " When he had ordered that one of his concubines, a special favor- 
 ite of his own, Campaspe by name, should be painted naked by 
 Apelles on account of his admiration of her form, when it became 
 apparent that Apelles had fallen in love with her, he gave her to 
 him as a present." 
 
 Among special methods invented by Apelles, " of great profit to 
 others devoted to art," was the bringing out and softening of his 
 colors with a minutely thin coating of black pigment, which no one 
 succeeded in imitating. Apelles was remarkable for accuracy in 
 likenesses and for skill in securing the best views. In painting 
 King Antigonus, who had lost an eye, "he made the view oblique, 
 so that what was wanting in his face seemed rather the necessary 
 lack in the picture." He painted Hercules with his back toward 
 the beholders; in which "this most difficult result was obtained; 
 he showed his face more truly than if it were a front view." His 
 skill in aerial effects is thus recorded: "He painted what cannot 
 be painted, sheet-lightning, chain-lightning and heat-lightning." 
 To two of his Venuses, preserved at Rome, one injured and the 
 other unfinished, which no artist of any succeeding age was able to 
 touch, Pliny and Cicero allude; the latter making one of them the 
 turn of a sweetly sad sentiment. 
 
 Next to Apelles in this age of great artists was Piotogeneis, 
 whose excellences were the exouisite delicateness of his lines and 
 the body he gave to his color ; both of which made his labor slow 
 and the number of his finished works few. 
 
 Born in Rhodes, in his youth a ship- painter, he was brought cur 
 by Apelles. Having heard of his merit, Apelles visited Rhodes to 
 seek him out, called at hiss studio, and learning that he was out, 
 drew a fine colored line on a picture he was painting. Protogenes 
 returning exclaimed, "Apelles has come!" then drawing a yet 
 25* 
 
204 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Qner line in another color at its side he concealed himself, when, as 
 he had promised, Apelles again called. Irritated at being refused 
 a second time an interview, and piqued at being excelled, Apelles 
 drew a third line yet finer, between the two, and hastily left. Pro- 
 togenes hurried after him ; and a friendship began that made Pro- 
 togenes in fortune and fame second only to his benefactor. 
 
 Drawn to Athens, Protogenes painted frescoes on the porticoes 
 of the Acropolis, yet waiting for a master-hand. Aristotle admired 
 Protogenes' finished art; he painted "the mother of the philoso- 
 pher ;" and he was urged by him to attempt a work half-real, half- 
 ideal, "the deeds of Alexander the Great." Pliny adds, "The 
 impulses of his spirit and his peculiar bent in art impelled him the 
 more to these works." Protogenes began this work, executing 
 " reliefs in bronze ;" probably designing a column similar to those 
 of Trajan and of Napoleon, executed the one four, the latter twenty 
 centuries later. 
 
 Returning to Rhodes in later years, his "lalysus," described by 
 Pliny, affords an epitome of the Grecian artist's life-labor. "When 
 painting it he lived on boiled pulse, since this diet would sustain at 
 once hunger and thirst, lest he should dim his perceptions by too 
 great delicacy in food. He laid on four thicknesses of color as a 
 protection against injury and age ; so that the lower coat might 
 succeed when the upper gave way." In it he sought to represent 
 the foam issuing from the mouth of a panting dog. When, "des- 
 pite his torturing anxiety of mind, though often he had wiped off 
 the paint and had changed his brush," it still "seemed to be 
 painted, not to be born from the mouth. At last enraged at art, 
 he struck his sponge on the place, from it replaced the colors taken 
 off just as he had desired, and fortune created nature in the pic- 
 ture." Only ten finished works of Protogenes are mentioned by 
 ancient admirers of art ; this fact explaining the allusions of Quinc- 
 tilian, Petronius and Pliny to the excessive labor bestowed on his 
 works. 
 
 To this age belonged Aristides, who in expression excelled 
 Apelles. Pliny records: "He first painted i assion, expressing 
 those emotions of men which the Greek call efhe ; or violent affec- 
 tions." One of his master-pieces admired by Alexander, was a 
 picture of a battle in which " a child is creeping to the breast of its 
 mother dying of a wound, while the mother is understood to 
 
THE DECLINE OF GRECIAN PAINTING. 295 
 
 perceive it and to fear that it may lap blood, her milk being dried 
 up." 
 
 In this age Pausias of Sicyon perfected the art of enamel paint 
 ing. His power of contrasting and grouping was acquired from a 
 flower girl whom he loved; "by imitating whose work he advanced 
 that art to the employ of a most numerous variety of flowers,' 
 His power in foreshortening, shading and transparence is described 
 by Pliny and Pausanias. " When he wished as the chief thing to 
 show the length of the ox, he painted him with his head, not his 
 side, toward the beholder, fully representing his size in both 
 dimensions." " While all painters made of a glistening white the 
 parts which they wish to appear prominent, and finished with 
 black, he made the whole ox of a dark color, and gave body to the 
 shade from itself; thus with great art representing all portions pro- 
 jecting forward in due proportion and in a bent form as if solid ;" 
 evidently introducing the light from behind the object. In a cele- 
 brated picture of his, "wine is flowing from a goblet, the goblet is 
 of transparent material, and the face of a woman is seen through 
 it." Of this era, too, was Nicias; whose teaching as to composi- 
 tion has already been quoted. 
 
 This culminating era was the age of writers on art. Apellcs in 
 his gathered volumes was the leader in this department. Mel.m- 
 thius also, among others, wrote a treatise on painting ; of which 
 Pliny made extended use in his history. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE DECLINING PERIOD OF GRECIAN PAINTING IN THE 
 
 DECLINE OF GREEK POLITICAL SUPREMACY AND OF GREEK CUL- 
 TURE. 
 
 Political domination awakens in a conquered nation a prejudice 
 against the culture which gives the ruler superiority. Among the 
 selfish and tyrannical successors of Alexander, only the Ptolemies 
 of Egypt preserved the love of culture belonging to the true Greek 
 The history of Grecian painting, after Alexander, shows a steady 
 though fluctuating decline, like the fading of a sunset sky, radiant 
 at moments with scattered lines of rarest beauty ; while, however, 
 the gray is fast consuming the gold. 
 
 During this era, succeeding the ideal Plato and comprehensive 
 Aristotle, the sensual philosophy of Epicurus was antagonistic to the 
 spirit of true art. Yet the Eclectic schools of Athens, Pergamod 
 
 *y 
 
 RUNIVEESITlfl 
 
 V.C41 ,&puUL J 
 
296 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Tarsus and Alexandria gave to Greek genius in every department 
 after Alexander's, and even after Christ's day, a congenial home. 
 The appreciation, too, of Grecian art shown by the early Human 
 conquerors under the Republic, as well as by the first emperors, 
 who not only transported to Rome works of ancient art, but invited 
 Grecian artists as their teachers, acted against the tendency to de- 
 generacy. 
 
 The first stage of decline manifested itself in the abuse of the 
 imagination ; the phantasia of Plato. The second cause of cor- 
 ruption arose from Roman fondness for decoration. An arrest of 
 these degenerative tendencies acted for a time when Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus was enriching the Museum of Alexandria with collec- 
 tions of literature and art, and the poet Aratus, a man of broad 
 and refined general culture, was acting as his agent in gathering 
 up in Greece the works of the best masters. Nealees, a special 
 friend of Aratus, restored injured pictures of the old masters 
 bought for Ptolemy's Museum. His skill in invention was 
 shown in a picture of a naval battle on the Nile ; whose breadth 
 "like to a sea," was indicated "by the device of a little donkey 
 drinking on the shore and a crocodile lying in wait for it." 
 
 A century of decline succeeded to the age of Aratus and of Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus; revived at the Roman conquest of Greece, B. C. 168, 
 by Paulus ^Emilius ; who, appropriating to himself nothing but 
 the library of the usurper Perseus, was ambitious that the spirit 
 of Grecian art should become the public treasure and renovator of 
 the Roman people. The two lights of this age were Heraclides 
 and Metrodorus; the latter " a painter and a philosopher," whom, 
 when Lucius Paulus desired from the Athenians to send to him a 
 most approved philosopher to educate boys, and also a painter to 
 furnish decorations for his triumph, the Athenians chose as most 
 eminent in each of the desired qualifications. The decline of 
 fresco under Augustus alluded to by Vitruvius as stupid and 
 libidinous, finds abundant illustration in the frescoed walls of Pom- 
 peii, now unburied. 
 
 The last in the line of the Greek painters proper was a Byzantine 
 employed by Julius Csesar at Rome, noted for his Ajax and Medea. 
 Pliny, however, crowds into the close of his brief history the names 
 of several artists, whom he groups in the last or declining age ; his 
 remark about them being, "Up to this point the chief leaders in 
 
ERAS IN ROMAN PAINTING. 297 
 
 each kind of the art having been presented, those next to the first 
 will not be passed over in silence." He closes his history with the 
 mention, "Women also painted," adding five names. Of these 
 we observe that nearly all are daughters of painters, who from 
 their fathers caught their devotion to art ; their themes are gene- 
 rally ideal and religious ; and they attained a grade of eminenco 
 which led Pliny to place them among painters of the lower rank. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ROMAN AND MEDIEVAL PAINTING ; CHARACTERIZED BY ARTI- 
 FICIAL COLOR AS AN ADJUNCT AND ORNAMENT OP ARCHITEC- 
 TURAL FORMS. 
 
 AMONG the Romans painting was a mere adjunct of Architec- 
 ture. Not only were walls and ceilings adorned with fresco on 
 plaster, and with encaustic enameling on wood; but, Pliny says, 
 "we begin even to paint stone." On the door-posts of private 
 houses portraits of deceased ancestors in stucco took the place of 
 statuary in marble and bronze preferred by Grecian taste. 
 
 It constituted a new era when, at the conquest of Greece, the 
 cabinet paintings of the great Grecian masters were brought to the 
 Roman capital. Pliny's memoir is studded with the frequent men- 
 tion that such a painting executed by Zeuxis or Parrhasius, by 
 Apelles or Protogenes, and even by earlier artists, were in this or 
 that temple at Rome, either still seen or burned in the destruction 
 of the edifices. 
 
 These collections from Greece awoke in a few Roman minds an 
 ambition to rival these works of the Greek masters. Some of 
 these Cicero found occasion to commend ; but in general their 
 genius produced only works of an inferior cast. 
 
 While Pliny was writing, a new spirit was coming over thousands 
 of the Roman people ; a quiet leaven, beginning in the insignificant 
 Christian gatherings which Trajan directed this literary favorite of 
 his to watch as novelties, was spreading its influence, destined to 
 mould art in the two centres. Rome and Constantinople. 
 
 N * 
 
298 -ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The eras in the history of Roman painting take their character 
 from the series of events thus noted. 
 
 SECT. 1. COLLECTION or GREEK PAINTINGS AND EMPLOY OF GKEEX 
 
 PAINTERS AT ROME. 
 
 A line of Grecian painters, beginning with the two who adorned 
 the first capitol, is found at Rome during the ages of the Kingdom 
 and of the Republic. One of the best was Eumselus ; and the last 
 Hilarius who nourished about A. D. 364. 
 
 The Romans, however, were eminently collectors of cabinet or 
 easel paintings. About B. C. 167 jEnrilius conquered Macedon, 
 enriched by Alexander's influence with the best works of the 
 Greek painters ; and these movable paintings transmitted to 
 Rome, whetted the appetite for a more extensive plunder. About 
 twenty years later, Mummius, having subdued Achaia, bore off 
 countless stores of statues and paintings. At a later period these 
 were gathered in public repositories such as libraries and picture- 
 galleries. Of these Pliny beautifully remarks: " In libraries are 
 reverentially preserved not only true likenesses of the men whose 
 immortal spirits are still speaking in the same places, but also 
 human desire produces portraits not historically preserved, as hap- 
 pens in the case of Homer." Pollio, a consul under Augustus, 
 began these collections, while Agrippa, who built the magnificent 
 portico. of the Pantheon, recommended to his countrymen "that 
 the works of art they had gathered should be devoted to public 
 use ; and that to this end they should be placed in public reposi- 
 tories for the improvement of those who devoted themselves to the 
 pursuit of art, as also for the pleasure and admiration of all.'' 
 
 SECT. 2. NATIVE ROMAN PAINTERS AND THEIR PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 As to the antiquity of Roman painting Pliny records : "There 
 are in existence in the sacred structures of Ardea, paintings that 
 are more ancient than the city of Rome. Among the Romans 
 honor at an early period attached to this art. ' ' Of the source of 
 this devotion, having mentioned that art in other nations declined 
 u because as there were no images of souls, those of bodies were 
 neglected," Pliny adds: "On the other hand, among our ances- 
 tors in the doorways might be seen not the works of foreign artists. 
 
LATER ROMAN AND EARLY CHRISTIAN PAINTING. 299 
 
 either in bronze or marble, but busts in wax with curved borders 
 drawn around these images and painted portraits. " 
 
 Akin to these ovals at doorways were the painted shields called 
 clypeus from the Greek glypheos, with the portrait of the owner in 
 the centre, after the manner of the Carthaginian captured from 
 Hasdrubal ; these decorated shields naturally suggesting the oval 
 form for a class of cabinet paintings. 
 
 As early as B. C. 300, the chief of the noble family of the FabiL 
 illustrious for generations under the title "Pictores" or Painters, 
 decorated the temple of Safety at Rome. After the Fabian family, 
 Roman painters of less merit succeeded. An interesting instance 
 is mentioned of a mute, son of a man of consular rank, whom 
 " Messala the orator thought should be taught painting; which 
 the Emperor Augustus approved. The boy, having greatly ad- 
 vanced in this art, died." 
 
 Under Nero flourished three painters of native birth ; under 
 Vespasian, Pinus, and Mallius noted for his scurrility as well as 
 ability ; and under Trajan, Turpilius, a Roman knight, a native of 
 Venice, of whom Pliny records, "his beautiful works are to this 
 day extant at Verona. He painted with his left hand ; which is 
 related of no one before him." 
 
 SECT. 3. ROMAN TASTE IN PAINTING CHARACTERIZING EARLY 
 CHRISTIAN ART. 
 
 In the early Christian church the ecclesiastical power of Rome 
 gave to taste in art the same direction which the Roman civil 
 power had inspired. The characteristics of early Christian paint- 
 ing may be gathered, first from the relics of this age preserved at 
 Rome : and, second, from the writings of Christian fathers who 
 allude to the paintings and artists of their times. 
 
 A succession of Greek painters, flourishing from about A. D. 100 
 to 350, is alluded to and criticised by Greek scholars and Christian 
 fathers in terms so kindred that it is manifest appreciation of tru<^ 
 art formed one of the peculiar characteristics of early Christianity. 
 Thus Tertullian in the third century, in a controversy on the Stoic 
 philosophy with Hermogencs, a Greek poet and artist, is not only 
 most courteous in argument, but highly complimentary to the artist. 
 
 Very early, artists themselves Christians, and painting Christian 
 themes, are met. The eras of this Christian art are differently 
 
300 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 marked by critical writers. Kugler, borrowing from architecture, 
 styles the painting of this age "Romanesque." Mrs. Jameson, 
 followed by Lady Eastlake, distinguishes between paintings of 
 supernatural scenes, adapted to inspire religious awe, and natural 
 scenes in the life of Christ and his apostles. Jarves styles the age 
 of symbols and ideals of the supernatural theological; and thn age 
 when models for Scripture themes could be chosen from among 
 living men historical. 
 
 The development of Christian painting makes prominent these 
 four elements and ages. First, the symbolic; simple signs of ideas 
 and instruments depicting an office ; practised by Christian artists 
 for three or four centuries. Second, the mystical ; the representa^ 
 tion of supernatural beings ; a style culminating in the Byzantine 
 church, and fixed to this day ; ruling also in the Western church 
 with occasional intervals during eight or nine centuries, till the 
 revival in Italian painting. Third, the ascetic; natural personages 
 in an unnatural state of dejection or exhilaration, a style originating 
 in Italy, holding sway till the age of Raphael and finding its conge- 
 nial and permanent home among the Spanish painters. Fourth, 
 the historical ; in which incidents in the lives of the patriarchs and 
 of Jesus find natural representation ; an era commencing with the 
 great masters of Italy and becoming the very life of Christian art 
 in modern Europe. All these styles had a germ nurtured in the 
 field of Roman painting. 
 
 Kugler makes the earliest period of Christian painting end with 
 the invasion of Rome by the Lombards in the sixth century. He 
 classifies its subjects and objects in five groups ; first, emblems pro- 
 per, such as the cross, the anchor, etc. ; second, funeral inscriptions 
 and symbols ; third, paintings of Christ's features or form ; fourth, 
 miniatures of eminent Christian men ; fifth, mosaics, beginning in 
 the fourth century with the decoration of walls instead of pavements. 
 These divisions are made on diverse grounds ; the first relating to 
 objects colored , the second to the location and use of the painting 
 designed ; the third to subjects represented ; the fourth to the size 
 of the works executed ; and the fifth to material employed. The 
 consideration of the first and last of these groups belongs to the 
 subject of decorative art ; the second third and fourth are tho 
 painting proper of this age. 
 
 The Catacombs of Rome, like the tombs of Egypt, are the per- 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN PAINTING. 301 
 
 manent gallery of early works in Christian painting. About sixty 
 of these ancient burial-places remain ; the most interesting of 
 which are on the old Appian Way. The themes relate to the 
 Christian's trials and rewards; among the former Adam and the 
 serpent, Moses smiting the rock, Daniel among the lions, the three 
 children in the furnace and Jonah in his arbor ; among the latter 
 Adam and Eve in Eden, Noah and his dove, Moses at Sinai, 
 Elijah ascending, the Good Shepherd and the raising of Lazarus. 
 
 A head of Christ illustrates the artistic execution of these paint 
 ings. The face is oval, the nose straight, the eyebrows arched, the 
 forehead high and smooth, the hair parted on the forehead and 
 hanging in long curls on the shoulders, the beard thin, short and 
 divided, the expression mild and serious, the age between thirty 
 and forty years. These artists never represented the Divine 
 Being but in a symbol, such as a finger pointing from a cloud ; 
 and they placed no nimbus, or circle of light, about any head but 
 that of Jesus. They represented historic scenes of the Old and 
 New Testaments with the naturalness of true life ; borrowing from 
 classic art such models for ideals as Mercuiy and Orpheus. 
 
 At an early period a tradition prevailed that Luke, like other 
 Greek physicians of his day, was a painter. Irenacus, who lived as 
 near to Christ's apostles as we do to Washington, attests that 
 pictures of Christ were found in the hands of lovers of art, as well 
 as of Christian believers. As Origen, Clement of Alexandria and 
 Tertullian in the next generation intimate, at first these represen- 
 tations, corresponding with the sad history of the Christian Church, 
 embodied the image of the " Man of Sorrows." When, however, 
 under Constantine, Christians were the happy instead of the un- 
 fortunate of earth, then, as Jerome and Eusebius state, artists 
 made Jesus the reflex of their own changed aspect, painting him 
 as " the one altogether lovely." A generation yet later, so intelli- 
 gent and devout a man as Augustine, alluding to the pictures of 
 Christ then multiplied as "varied in expression and composed after 
 innumerable conceptions," argues that all these are legitimate and 
 true, since they give the ideal best suited to aid the mind of each 
 student of his character. In the early days of the Church no 
 thought is hinted that pictures of Christ, in ideal representations, 
 were anything else than contributions of art to general culture, and 
 an aid to tho study of Christian truth. 
 
 2*5 
 
302 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 When, however, thousands who had been trained to \\orship 
 images of Grecian deities nominally avowed themselves Christians, 
 the paintings, then frequent in churches, naturally became objects 
 of religious reverence, leading to restrictive canons. The fact that 
 the churches at this era were filled with paintings liable thus to 
 abuse is the strongest possible testimony as to the purity, as well as 
 to the extent, of the culture of this art among the early Christians. 
 
 tiECT. 4. THE BYZANTINE STYLE OF PAINTING ; RIGID IN OUTLINE 
 AND EXCESSIVE IN COLORING J PERMANENTLY ESTABLISHED IN 
 THE EASTERN CHURCH. 
 
 As Christianity came from the East and the first Christian Em- 
 peror established a new capital on the borders of Asia, it was 
 natural that Asiatic ideas in art should influence even the Greek. 
 The style of painting, Asiatic in caste, though Christian in send 
 ment, called Byzantine, which began at the Eastern capital in the 
 fourth century after Christ, had characteristics both of form and 
 color which live on the walls of Greek churches to this day. 
 
 In form the Byzantine designed only single figures, and hence had 
 no perspective ; it did not attempt portrait; and it had no back- 
 ground or shadow giving projection to the figure. In the posture 
 of the head there is a rigid stiffness without any expression ; the 
 cheeks are lank and corpse-like ; the body is thin and lifeless ; and 
 the dress is stiff as with starch, having no flowing grace. Restricted 
 to sacred persons, the Byzantine represented Christ on the cross as 
 sinking, his head hanging, his knees relaxed and his body swayed 
 to one side ; while the Italians always in the crucifixion pictured 
 Jesus vigorous with life, erect and victor over suffering. 
 
 In color the Byzantine painters are yet more Asiatic. They use 
 the pure colors without gradation of shade or hue ; flesh color is 
 cherry-red, with no variation for forehead, cheek, neck or hand ; 
 and dress is glaring yellow or blue, pink or purple. Though the 
 colors are laid on with thickness, they have no transparence ; and 
 though the polish is perfect, it is the burnish of metal, not the irra- 
 diation of color reflexes. The striking peculiarity of the Byzan- 
 tin( is the golden background forming the halo-relief to sacred 
 \ieads. Only occasionally, in the age of Constantine, and later, as 
 to the tenth century, did genius assert its sway in this style. 
 
 The differing positions taken by the Eastern and Western 
 
BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE PAINTING. 303 
 
 churches as to images and pictures in sanctuaries gave the leader- 
 ship to Byzantine art. In the age of Constantine, at a council of 
 the Western Church held at Illibcris in the south of France, a 
 town then decayed but rebuilt by Constantine in honor of his 
 mother, a decree was adopted to the effect, "that pictures ought 
 not tc be in the church, lest what is painted on the walls should be 
 superstitiously reverenced and worshiped." A reaction naturally 
 followed ; and about A. D. 590, Gregory the Great, wrote, "Paint- 
 ings ought to be retained in the churches, in order that those igno- 
 rant of letters may as it were, read by looking on the walls what 
 they are not able to read in the manuscripts." 
 
 Meanwhile in the Eastern Church painting became even more 
 cherished from the order of Justinian, A. D. 692, forbidding images. 
 The rich coloring of the Byzantine spread westward, and became a 
 fundamental characteristic of the subsequent Venetian school. 
 During ten centuries Greek ecclesiastics of culture, as Chrysostom, 
 the Demosthenes of the Grecian pulpit, were "devoted to encaustio 
 painting." Down to this day the chief seat of this art has been 
 the promontory of Mt. Athos ; on which no less than twenty-two 
 convents, occupied by over four thousand monks, are consecrated to 
 the art so much in demand in the Greek Church. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE ROMANESQUE, OR RUDE NATIVE STYLE OF PAINTING 
 LONG PREDOMINANT IN NORTHERN ITALY. 
 
 The demand in the Western Church for sculpture made form 
 rather than color to be the aim of Roman painters. As dis- 
 tinguished from the Byzantine, the style called Romanesque was 
 statuesque in form ; while in color it introduced a subdued and 
 lack-lustre tone, the cloudy gray of a time-worn marble statue, 
 rather than the gaudy sky-blue, crimson and purple of an Oriental 
 grandee. 
 
 The seats of this style were Rome and Parma, the Umbrian 
 valleys and Lombardy. In Umbria it was rigid in outline and 
 lifeless in color ; while in Lombardy it became more truly a copy- 
 ing of nature. Under Charlemagne it reached its highest stage of 
 development ; specimens of which improved style are preserved at 
 Rome, Paris and Munich. 
 
 Its gems in Italy were the fine old mosaics now met in the most 
 %ncient churches, executed between the fifth and ninth centuries. 
 
304 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 Usually located in the arches of the choir back of the altar, they 
 represent Christ with an expression placid and gentle, and his gar- 
 ments hanging in plain folds. The excellence both in outline and 
 coloring of these mosaics, which could not perish with time, is a 
 testimony to the merit of painting proper, which must have 
 decayed. 
 
 Prevailing until the eleventh century, the Romanesque was first 
 modified by the introduction of the Byzantine style of coloring into 
 Venice ; then, finally superseded by a return to the method of 
 drawing from nature in Florence, Padua, Milan and other cities 
 where there was special freedom of thought in science, philosophy 
 and religion. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RISE OF MODERN PAINTING IN SOUTHERN EUROPE, INCLUP- 
 ING ITALY AND SPAIN; PRE-EMINENTLY RELIGIOUS IN ITS 
 THEMES, CLASSIC IN FORMS, AND SPECIALLY CHARACTERIZE!? 
 BY PERFECTION OF LIGHTS IN COLORING. 
 
 IN modern painting, more than irt literature, the progress of 
 Christian thought is to be traced. For centuries only symbols, then 
 portraiture, at first placid, next ascetic, again sensuous, and finally 
 natural, were leading on to higher art. 
 
 The new spring given to science and philosophy in the eighth 
 ;md ninth centuries under Alfred of England and Charlemagne of 
 France, showed fruit from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. 
 In England, Roger Bacon in science, Chaucer in letters and Wick- 
 liflfc in religious inquiry, opened the door for Lord Bacon and 
 Newton, Shakespeare and Milton, and the lights of the Anglicar 
 Church ; in France and Germany, Copernicus and Tycho Brabe 
 Rabelais, and Thomas Aquinas led on to Descartes and Leibnitz, to 
 Luther and Pascal. In Italy, the land pre-eminent in art, Colum- 
 bus and Galileo, Lorenzo and Machiavelli, Dante and Petrarch, 
 Savonarola and Leo X. were products of the age of Giotto and 
 
KISE OF MODERN ITALIAN PAINTING. 305 
 
 Brunelleschi ; opening the way for Lionardo, Raphael and M. 
 Angelo. 
 
 In the progress of painting in Italy from the twelfth to the 
 eighteenth centuries, native temperament distinguished the Tus- 
 can of Grecian descent from the Umbrian of Italian lineage ; com- 
 merce with the East made the Venetian most unlike to the agri- 
 cultural Sienese; and the republican Florentine and the hierarchical 
 Roman, the scholastic Paduari and the romantic Neapolitan neces- 
 sarily belonged to different schools in art. The cosmopolitan and 
 comprehensive leaders, Giotto, the originator, and Lionardo, Ra- 
 phael and M. Angelo, the finished masters, influenced all the 
 Italian schools. Five leading divisions are recognized : the Tus- 
 can, Roman, Bolognese, Venetian and Lombard; and as sub- 
 divisions in the Tuscan, the schools of Florence, Siena and Pisa ; 
 in the Roman, the Roman proper and the Neapolitan; in the 
 Lombard, the schools of Milan, of Parma, of Mantua, of Cremona 
 and of Verona; to which some would add those of Genoa and 
 Piedmont. A classification founded upon periods of historical de- 
 velopment and predominance of methods, may be more serviceable 
 to the ordinary student. 
 
 Italian painters have had three leading characteristics. Their 
 themes have been pre-eminently Christian ; in form the classic has 
 been preferred ; while in coloring, including the rich, deep twilight 
 hues of the Venetian, the pale, hazy morning shades of the Um- 
 brian, and the clear, bright noonday radiance of the Florentine, all 
 in keeping with the transparence of their sky, they have excelled 
 in light and brilliant colors. 
 
 To trace these features of Italian painting as they began with 
 Cimabue, gained ascendancy under Giotto, and developed to per- 
 fection of expression in the Tuscan, of form in the Paduan, and 
 of color in the Venetian schools, as they were combined in 
 the three great masters modifying through their influence all the 
 schools, and controlling even the mystic Neapolitan and super- 
 stitious Spanish schools, as they were revived aspiring to a union 
 of excellences in the Eclectic and ambitious of a new youth in the 
 Natural schools, and finally as they declined till their light went 
 out for generations, will be the instructive history of this chapter. 
 26* 
 
306 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 RECT. 1. THE EARLY REACTION OF THE LOVE OP NATURE AND OF 
 
 GENIUS IN ART AGAINST FORMALISM AND DOGMATISM IN NORTH- 
 ERN ITALY. 
 
 In the age called Romanesque, from the fifth to the twelfth cen- 
 turies, painting was assimilated to the style of church architecture. 
 Occasional artists, as Giovanni, about A. D. 960, and Petrolino, 
 A. D. 1110, executed frescoes still admired at Rome by the side 
 of later works. Yet later the celebrated Monk Bernhard, alluding 
 about A. D. 1125, to the paintings on convent walls representing 
 "pagan and sensual subjects," indicates that a corrupted classic 
 taste was prevailing. 
 
 In the early part of the thirteenth century the arched panel pic- 
 tures of the Romanesque churches at Pisa, Lucca, Siena and 
 Florence, began to display an improving taste. These new artists 
 drew portaits of saints, not emaciated and cadaverous like corpses, 
 according to the Latin method ; nor as painted puppets decked for 
 a show, after the Byzantine style ; but as beings of flesh and blood, 
 ' ' men of like passions with us all. ' ' 
 
 The leader in this formative era, Cimabue, was the originator of 
 the natural school. Vasari, the historian of Italian art, says of 
 Cimabue's portrait of St. Francis, "He drew that which was a new 
 thing in those times from nature as though he knew her the best 
 model." In the fields and crowded streets, he sought models 
 which he studiously copied ; and he established a school of draw- 
 ing which became the germ of modern academies of art. 
 
 The faults of Cimabue's style were emaciation and stiffness in his 
 figures ; which faults, transmitted to his pupils, are illustrated in 
 the celebrated Beatrice of Dante. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE NATURAL STYLE ESTABLISHED UNDER GIOTTO, AND 
 
 THE RISE OF DISTINCT SCHOOLS UNDER ITS INFLUENCE. 
 
 As Cimabue was riding one day into the country, he saw a shep- 
 herd boy reclining on the ground, engaged in drawing with a bit of 
 elate on a smooth stone, while his flock browsed around. Alight- 
 ing and looking at the boy's picture, Cimabue found that he had 
 executed a most natural and admirable likeness of a sheep standing 
 nigh him. The marks of superior genius in the boy, now only 
 twelve years of age were so manifest that the artist prevailed OD 
 
GIOTTO; THE KEVIVED NATURAL STYLE. 307 
 
 his father, but an humble peasant, to allow him to take him with 
 him to Florence and train him in his school of drawing and color- 
 ing. His proficiency appeared when one day he painted a fly on a 
 half-finished picture of his master, so life-like that on his return he 
 brushed his hand over the shrewd boy's work to drive the supposed 
 intruder away. 
 
 The age was prepared for an independent leader ; the Domini- 
 cans, the conservators of art, as the Benedictines were of literature, 
 being eager for improvement ; while the political disputes of the 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines led Rome to court the good-will of North- 
 ern Italy. Giotto, like Apelles, was laborious and courteous ; he 
 traveled south to Naples, then north to Piedmont, and over the 
 Alps into France ; seeking out everywhere the best artists, inquiring 
 into their methods and explaining his own. His good nature ex- 
 tended even to brutes ; a pig who threw him down in a gala-dress 
 receiving this laughing address: "You are quite right, brute. I, 
 who have gained so much by your bristles, have never given you 
 even a dish of soup." This equanimity carried Giotto through the 
 political conflicts of his day, preserving the good-will of all parties 
 as a man who could best serve his country by entire devotion to his 
 profession. 
 
 The style of Giotto had its faults as well as its excellences. His 
 excellences were, conformity to nature in attitudes, dramatic energy 
 in expression, and effective grouping. His St. Francis in attitudes, 
 his Dante in enthusiastic expression, his Last Supper in grouping, 
 and his allegorical paintings in the Campo Santo of Pisa in dra- 
 matic power, are his master works. Like other leading artists, 
 Giotto was a comprehensive genius; excelling in drawing, sculp- 
 ture, architecture, painting, music and poetry. When Pope Bene- 
 dict IX. sent to him to furnish a plan for a new church. Giotto, 
 pausing a moment in his work, took a pencil, with a sweep of his 
 hand drew a perfect circle, and handing this to the messengers, 
 told them to bear it back to the Holy Father as his reply. Tho 
 Pope construed aright this testimonial to his general power, and 
 employed the artist in his proposed work. 
 
 Giotto executed fresco, tempera, mosaic and miniature ; making 
 great improvements in materials and methods. M. Angelo" used 
 to study with admiration his preserved works, and his frescoes re- 
 sently uncovered at Pisa have opened even in modern days a uew 
 
308 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 field of art study. Giotto left at Florence not le?*s than one hun- 
 dred pupils. In Naples he formed, with Simone, an undying 
 friendship, greatly to the advancement of Neapolitan art. A gen- 
 eration after his death his method was introduced into Milan and 
 Venice. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE TUSCAN SCHOOLS; THE DRAMATIC OF FLORENCE AND 
 
 THE CONTEMPLATIVE OF SIENA. 
 
 The influence of Giotto was greatest in his native Tuscany ; two 
 classes being roused by his spirit; the commercial class of Florence, 
 cosmopolitan in character, and moved by the dramatic action ac- 
 companying passion ; and the quiet, thoughtful, agricultural peo- 
 ple of the valleys about Siena, who loved the contemplative and 
 nature in still life. 
 
 The secular spirit of the Florentines is seen in the following de- 
 cree appointing Arnolfo as the architect of their magnificent cathe- 
 dral: "Whereas the chief aim of a people of illustrious origin 
 should be to act in such a way that from its seen works every one 
 should recognize its wise and magnanimous councils;" following 
 which preamble is the order to restore the edifice, u in the style of 
 the greatest magnificence which it is possible for human genius to 
 conceive." 
 
 When, on the other hand, Duccio of Siena was called to execute 
 his celebrated altar-piece, he pledged himself in his contract, dated 
 October 9, 1308, "I will execute it according to my best ability and 
 as the Lord shall grant me skill." In the decree passed A. D. 
 1438, concerning the architect of their Cathedral, the proviso ia 
 inserted, " no one even suspected of immorality shall be eligible." 
 
 These two Tuscan schools of painting, existing before Giotto's 
 day, though taking their cast from his influence, true to the spirit 
 of their ancestry, resorted like the ancient Greek to the ever-vary- 
 ing field of nature itself. Since, however, the fields of nature seen 
 by the Florentine and the Sienese were most unlike, the Florentine 
 style was dramatic, the Sienese contemplative. The themes of 
 both were religious ; but the Florentine sought to make sacred 
 scenes stirring and splendid, while the Sienese sought to render his 
 pictures a sermon full of solemn thought ; one gave a lively cheer- 
 fulness, the other a grave and even sombre hue to the real saints 
 he depicted. In the Florentine school, Spinello Aretino, bor-i 
 
THE FLORENTINE AND SIENESE SCHOOLS. 309 
 
 A. JX 1308, more bold and less tender than Giotto, gave the im 
 passioned action of the drama to Florentine painting. Associated 
 with him, as a sort of counterpart, was Buffulmaco; so fond of the 
 sportive that sacred themes could not put restraint on his wit. 
 
 Orcagna, born A. D. 1329, under the influence of the perfected 
 sculpture of Ghiberti, attained a sublimity of action which made 
 him the precursor of M. Angelo. As the feminine counterpart of 
 the masculine Orcagna, Angelico, born A. D. 1387, added as a 
 new element, intense earnestness of manner and unearthly ethereal- 
 ness of mould. There is a bewitching fascination about his frescoes 
 of the Madonna which never fades from the memory when once 
 viewed. 
 
 Massacio, born A. D. 1402, having studied architectural per- 
 spective under Brunelleschi, became noted for scientific accuracy 
 of form. He drew from nude figures, both male and female ; as 
 did also Ghirlandaio, born 1449, the teacher of M. Angelo; whose 
 servant women even are princesses in mien and bearing. From 
 him the Florentine school caught this, its last characteristic feature. 
 
 In Siena, a hundred years before Cimabue, a fraternity of arti.-t.s 
 chiefly sculptors existed, out of which grew the order of St. Luke, 
 whose bond of agreement had this preamble: ''Since we are 
 teachers to ignorant men," and "since in God every perfection is 
 eminently united," "we will in our work earnestly ask the aid of 
 the Divine grace." 
 
 Among this fraternity in the age of Giotto was Simone Martini, 
 born 1284; whose style under Giotto's teaching was transformed 
 into that natural sweet expression which became a leading type in 
 the established Sienese school. After Sirnone was Ambrogio, born 
 1265 ; in whose greatest work, "The Career of a Franciscan Mis- 
 sionary," the picturing of a terrific hurricane, with lightning and 
 hail, anticipated the most difficult attempt of later landscape 
 painters. In its decline the Sienese was lost for a time in the 
 Umbriar school. 
 
310 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE SCHOOL OF PADUA DISTINGUISHED BY CLASSIC FOHMS, 
 THE DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED SCHOOL OF VERONA AND FERRARA, 
 AND THE INDIRECTLY CONNECTED SCHOOLS OF MILAN, BOLOGNA, 
 MODENA AND PARMA. 
 
 Iii tire broad long valley between the Alps and the Apennines, 
 embracing all Northern Italy, are four cities, Padua, Verona, 
 Mantua and Milan, and four small States, Ferrara, Bologna, Mo- 
 dcna and Parma, closely associated in the history of art. 
 
 The special pride of Padua was its University, exalted by tho 
 genius of Galileo about the close of the sixteenth century. The 
 tendency of science is to precision in form, and under its shadow 
 artists strive after geometrical and anatomical exactness. 
 
 Giotto visited Padua, and his principle that nature should be 
 made the painter's model, led Guarcento, about A. D. 1350, to 
 add to the special study of form the dramatic expression of the 
 Florentine school and the brilliant coloring of the Venetian. 
 
 The great master who fixed the style of the Paduan school was 
 Squarcione, born A. D. 1396. Regarding the ancient Grecian 
 models as a truer type for imitation than living men, since they 
 were ideals founded on the real, he traveled as far as Greece, col- 
 lected specimens of the antique, made numerous drawings, and, re- 
 turning, established an academy of design, into which not less than 
 one hundred pupils were gathered. His teaching cultivated a 
 classic style and a preference for mythological themes ; giving an 
 excellent training to young sculptors, but leading in painting to 
 statue-like forms ghostly in aspect. 
 
 At Mantua, about a generation after Squarcione, Mantegna, 
 called the successor of Squarcione in the Paduan school, improved 
 on his style, giving grander and fuller proportions to his figures, 
 and a greater richness to their drapery. His best works, now at 
 Paris and at Hampton Court, England, exhibit elegance as well as 
 breadth of design. 
 
 At Verona and at Ferrara a double influence was exerted ; the 
 Venetian school prompting brilliance of coloring, and the Paduan 
 inspiring grace in form among its artists. Even Milan in the ex- 
 treme west adopted the Paduan model ; a tendency which at a 
 later period invited Lionardo, the most thoroughly Grecian of tho 
 great masters. 
 
THE SCHOOLS OP PADUA AND VENICE. 311 
 
 The cla >sic spirit was yet more marked at Bologna ; da Gubbio, 
 a contemporary of Dante and Giotto, being ranked by Raphael 
 between Perugino of Umbria and Bellini of Venice. During 
 the youth of Lionardo, Melozzo was the recognized head of the 
 style of ceiling painting, called by Italian artists u Sotto-in-su ;" 
 or below-in-above ; in which figures are represented ascending erect, 
 with their feet toward the beholder, the most difficult of fore- 
 shortening. The schools of Modena and Parma were unimport- 
 ant until the age of Correggio. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE SCHOOL OF VENICE; DEVOTED TO THE ATTAINMENT 
 OF RICHNESS AND BRILLIANCE OF COLORING. 
 
 Through the trade which had enriched in turn the Egyptians, 
 Greeks and Romans, the Venetians gained a taste for Oriental art. 
 In architecture the Saracenic-Byzantine, and in painting the rich 
 coloring of the Byzantine became favorite. Under the influence of 
 a more refined culture, gold, crimson and azure, softened into the 
 darker but even richer purple and maroon. The habits of the 
 people revelling at night in the subdued glare of torch-light on 
 the water, cultivated a fondness for that bewitching fascination of 
 dim outline in gorgeous shade which is the prevailing cast of 
 Venetian painting. 
 
 While that early taste came from the East, its improved culture 
 was derived from Germany. Commercial intercourse, political 
 affiliation and kindred love for festivities and parades, tended to 
 this latter association. Antonio, a pupil of Giotto, attempted in 
 vain to supplant the Byzantine ; the clear outline and transparent 
 color of the Florentine not commending itself to either people 01 
 artists. The dark shading, however, of the German, and the 
 cheerfulness of the Dutch, introduced by Giovanni Alamanus, or 
 John the German, early in the fourteenth century, became nation- 
 alized among the lagoons of the island city. Gentile da Fabriano, 
 born A. D. 1370. highly dramatic in his themes and in the posture 
 and expression of his figures, yet rich and even gay in coloring and 
 fascinating in aerial effects, became an authority not only at Venice, 
 but also at Rome ; M. Angelo, a century and a half later, regard- 
 ing him as a prophet of the future ; saying that " Gentile's works 
 as well as his name were his autobiography." 
 
 The Venetian school attained superior rank when about A. D. 
 
312 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 1450, oil was introduced as a vehicle. At an early period the Ve- 
 netian painters had followed the Greek method, of laying on their 
 canvas first a dark background, adding next their darker shades, and 
 then making their lighter hues and tints superficial ; the use of wax 
 as a vehicle giving a partial transparence which allowed the under- 
 lying colors to show through and modify those above them. The 
 revived Italian and Flemish method made the foundation-color 
 light ; riiiee, with a gummy vehicle having little transparence, an 
 underlying white gave relief and softness to darker colors above. 
 The use of oil permitted a return to the Greek method, allowed by 
 its transparence, depth and blending of overlying colors, and giv- 
 ing the soft, dark shade and indistinctness of outline preferred at 
 Venice. From this era dates the superior success of the Venetian 
 school ; the Florentine being averse to the sluggish flow and 
 labored kneading peculiar to oil as well as to the darkness of shades 
 produced by it. The themes of Venetian artists still called for a 
 quiet dignity; even their scripture personages being merchant 
 princes. 
 
 Bellini, born A. D. 1501, the great master of this school, excelled 
 in architectural backgrounds ; a feature natural to a city having no 
 streets or suburbs adorned with foliage. This influence, associated 
 with the "alluring color at Venice," begun by Gentile and per- 
 fected by Titian, Fuseli thinks, led the way to landscape painting ; 
 since it demonstrated the methods of securing its two leading char- 
 acteristics, "the harmony due to balance of colors," and the 
 1 'breadth of local tints." 
 
 SECT. 6. THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL OF CENTRAL, AND THE NEAPOLITAN 
 OF SOUTHERN ITALY; FORMAL IN STYLE AND MYSTIC IN RELIG- 
 IOUS SPIRIT. 
 
 In common with the North the style of painting prevalent in 
 central and southern Italy was in drawing formal as opposed to 
 natural, and in design mystic as contrasted with the practical. Two 
 causes contributed to maintain these characteristics. As in Egypt 
 BO at Rome, the Orthodox models for religious themes being fixed, 
 a radical revolution alone could produce the requisite change. The 
 old Latin, as opposed to the Byzantine, prevailed ; destitute of ana- 
 tomical correctness in expression, and lacking both body and dis- 
 tinctness in color. The Roman people, moreover, unlike the com- 
 
THE UMBRIAN AND NEAPOLITAN SCHOOLS. 313 
 
 mercial and adventurous inhabitants of Pisa, Florence and Venice, 
 never w^nt abroad to borrow ideas from other nations. 
 
 The spirit of mystery, fostered during the crusades, had its spe- 
 cial seat in the retired valley of Umbria, north of Home ; whose 
 people, Pliny states, were regarded the aboriginal tribe of Italy ; 
 the Greek colonists of Etruria calling them Ombrioi, as remnants 
 of the antediluvian race. This ancestral tradition, making them 
 special objects of Divine interposition, fostered by their seclusion, 
 made Umbria the natural home of the ascetic and mystic brother- 
 hood of the Franciscans. The art-spirit of this order invited visits 
 from Cimabue and Giotto : and subsequently three currents of in- 
 fluence modified the school ; one from Florence, leading to the study 
 of nature's models; a second, through Ancona, introducing Vene- 
 tian taste in coloring ; and a third, through Urbino, prompting to 
 themes of the supernatural. 
 
 Tho head of the Umbrian or early Roman school was Piero, of 
 the Franciscan brotherhood, born A. D. 1400. Trained at 
 Florence ; settling first at Perugia, on the Tuscan or western side 
 of the Tiber, he afterward crossed into Umbria. He excelled in 
 the three features of the natural style introduced by Giotto: per- 
 spective, foreshortening and the securing of breadth between his 
 figures. Among his pupils, the precursors and instructors of the 
 great masters, were Luca, who in his "Last Judgment" anticipated 
 M. Angelo ; Antonio, noted for his dissections and anatomical ex- 
 actness in drawing ; and Verrochio, who had as his pupils Lio- 
 nardo, the first of the three great masters, Perugino, the teacher 
 of Raphael, and Lorenzo di Credi, one of the chief lights in the 
 future of the Umbrian school. 
 
 Perugino, so called from his native town, born A. D. 1446, 
 trained first in Umbria then at Florence, was devoted entirely to 
 religious themes ; his early works being of the ascetic Umbrian 
 type ; those of his mature years of the secular Florentine cast, 
 while some works of his later life were wanton and vulgar. 
 
 The most finished and pure of the school was Lorenzo di Credi, 
 born 1459. Opposed to Perugino' s wantonness, he rejected the 
 nude entirely ; taking as the moral law of his art this sentiment of 
 the reformer, Savonarola: " Creatures are beautiful in proportion 
 as they participate in and approximate to the beauty of the Crea- 
 tor ; and perfection of form is relative to beauty of mind. Bring 
 27 
 
314 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 hither two wo;;*en equally perfect in person ; let one be a saint and 
 the other a sinner ; you shall find that the saint will be more gene- 
 rally loved than the sinner, and that on her all eyes will be 
 directed." The sweetest of the galaxy of Umbrian painters, was 
 Francesco Francia, born 1450; the congenial companion, the 
 virtual master and afterward the friendly rival of Raphael. 
 
 The Neapolitan, from the earliest times associated with the 
 ] Ionian school, shared with it the influence of the Florentine. 
 Tnmaso de Stefani, contemporary with Cimabue, and Simone with 
 Giotto, caught the spirit of the revived natural style. In the 
 fifteenth century Antonio Solario, and Antonello da Messina, the 
 introducer of oil as a vehicle, gave character to the art of Southern 
 Italy. The characteristic style of this school was established by 
 Andrea Sabbatine, a pupil of Raphael, and a true Umbrian , its 
 chief features being an unearthly calm, devoid of passion in forms, 
 and a faint ethereal hue in coloring. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE AGE OF THE THREE GREAT MASTERS, LIONARDO DA 
 VINCI, MICHEL ANGELO AND RAPHAEL SANZIO. 
 
 As in Greece Phidias and Apelles were produced after ages of 
 development, so the three great masters in Italian painting ap- 
 peared after two centuries of the continued impulse given by 
 Giotto. In themselves paragons of industry, they excelled because 
 they entered the field at an era when Italian intellect had in every 
 department of human pursuit reached its acme. 
 
 Lionardo, called da Vinci, from a small town near Florence, 
 where he was born A. D. 1442, placed at an early age under the 
 tuition of Verocchio, after some months showed his power in 
 painting by an angel in this artist's Baptism of Christ ; which led 
 Verocchio to throw down his brush in chagrin, "that a child 
 should so excel him." 
 
 Lionardo was noted for personal beauty and strength ; he mas- 
 tered the abstruse laws of the mathematics, anatomy, optics, 
 chemistry and mechanics as they applied to art ; and became a 
 voluminous writer in varied science, as well as a skillful musician 
 and poet. In drawing, his industry knew no limit; his pocket 
 sketch-book receiving daily new contributions from his rambles 
 and reveries. In sculpture his nude Leda is admired for its chaste 
 expression and exquisite symmetry, especially in the head. At the 
 
LIONARDO DA VIXCI AND M. ANGELO. 315 
 
 age of thirty-one he was at the same time head of the civil 
 engineers building at Milan the aqueduct so famed ; and also 
 planning the fresco of "The Lord's Supper," perhaps the highest 
 work of Christian art. 
 
 The character and method of the great artist were illustrated 
 whon the prior of the convent on whose wall it was executed com- 
 plained to the Duke of his dilatoriness. Lionardo wrote to the 
 Duke that he was u still in want of two heads." One of these, the 
 Saviour's, he " could not hope to find on earth." For the second, 
 that of Judas, he said he " would make diligent search ; and, if he 
 could not do better after this effort, there would still remain to him 
 the head of the impertinent and annoying prior." Lionardo 
 represents Jesus in the act of saying, " One of you shall betray 
 me." On his right sits, first, grieving John; second, suspicious 
 Judas, clutching the bag; third, impulsive Peter, reaching bc'liiml 
 Judas to whisper to John ; fourth, cautious Andrew, with both 
 hands raised ; fifth, stern James the Less, pressing Peter forward 
 in his inquiry; and sixth, guileless Bartholomew, standing and 
 leaning on the table. On Christ's left is, first, doubting Thomas, 
 appealingly raising his finger ; second, conscientious James the 
 Greater, starting back ; third, anxious Philip, laying his hand on 
 his breast ; fourth, astute Matthew, informing the two disciples 
 beyond him of Christ's remark ; fifth, tragic Thaddeus, passion- 
 ately gesticulating; and sixth, nervous Simon, listening to Matthew. 
 
 Spending his life between Florence and Milan, dying at last near 
 Paris, Lionardo accepted few public contracts. His characteristic 
 excellences were his delicate taste in design, the anatomical correct- 
 ness of his drawing, the faultless gradation of colors in shade and 
 tint which made him the father of chiaroscuro, and the labored 
 finish of every part of his work. Lionardo was pre-eminently tho 
 scholar-artist ; the monuments of his perfected genius being few, 
 but models for all time. 
 
 Michel Angelo Buonarotti, of noble parentage, born A. D. 1474, 
 was trained by Ghirlandaio, from fourteen to seventeen years of 
 age, in drawing and coloring. At this era the Medici were 
 collecting exhumed statues, and sculpture was the love of 
 Angelo's boyliDod. He contended against the critics that the 
 moderns could equal the ancients. To test his principles he exe- 
 cuted a statue, broke off and hid one arm, and had the statue 
 
31(3 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 buried ; his gardener pretending afterward that he had found an 
 antique. When his opponents were sufficiently committed in its 
 praise, Angelo brought out the arm ; showing that the two were 
 made by the same, and that a modern hand. 
 
 Devoting himself for a time to this art, Pope Julius insisted on 
 employing him to fresco the ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel in tie 
 Vatican Palace ; and in twenty months his series of matchless con- 
 ceptions were finished. Never had such unearthly scenes, chaos 
 and restored earth, Paradise and infernal gloom, been made so 
 real. The impatient Pope insisted again and again on the tempo- 
 rary removal of the scaffolding that he might anticipate the effect 
 of the completed works; while Raphael, then in his prime at 
 thirty years of age, was in ecstasies of unselfish admiration, and 
 exclaimed that "he thanked God he was born in the time of 
 Michel Angelo Buonarotti !" 
 
 The end opposite the entrance was reserved for the Last Judg- 
 ment. For twenty years Angelo was employed on varied works ; 
 when he began this master-piece, devoting to it only hours of 
 choice leisure. Paul III. criticised the nudity of the figures; with- 
 out effect on the high-spirited master, for forty years acknowledged 
 monarch in the kingdom of art. The master of ceremonies an- 
 noyed him ; but the next day he found his unmistakable portrait 
 borne by one of the lost in the infernal regions, with asses' ears on 
 his head and a serpent twined about his body. The Pope be- 
 sought the despot in art to relieve his victim ; but he replied to 
 this effect, "Your Holiness may release a man from purgatory but 
 not from the lower prison-house." 
 
 The special characteristics of M. Angelo as an artist were the 
 grandeur and boldness of his conception, which made him seek the 
 majestic in sculpture, the grand in architecture, and in painting 
 the awful. He was impatient of the restraint and labored knead- 
 ing of oil, and preferred fresco ; in which he could lay on his colors 
 at a dash of the brush. He was overbearing toward rivals, and 
 terribly severe on disparaging censors ; yet he was genial and gen- 
 erous to appreciative critics and to aspiring pupils. 
 
 The third of the galaxy of great masters, Raphael Sanzio, born 
 A D. 1483, was early trained by his father, an indifferent painter; 
 from twelve to twenty he was under Perugino, and practised his 
 art for some time i' Perugia, following the stiff ascetic style of the 
 
RAPHAEL AND IIT8 CHARACTERISTICS. 317 
 
 Umbrian school. At twenty-one lie visited Florence ; when a new 
 world opened to him in the cartoons of Lionardo and M. Angelo. 
 Self-reliant, in three years he painted about thirty altarpieces; 
 executing most of the portraits and Madonnas which now make 
 his fame. 
 
 At twenty-five Raphael was called to Rome. In Umbria he had 
 surpassed his master in the dreamy supernatural ; and at Florence 
 he had rivaled Lionardo in naturalness of expression and in ex- 
 quisite moulding. At Rome, studying the nude, he caught the 
 energy and breadth of M. Angelo, adding to it a classic grace ; 
 and in this third and climactic style his manly genius and womanly 
 heart so won on M. Angelo that the aged master commended Ra- 
 phael to the Pope as his superior in his special art. The frescoes 
 known as the " Stanze" or chambers of Raphael, in the Vatican 
 palace, were commenced while M. Angelo was painting the ceiling 
 of the Sixtine Chapel ; and "The School of Athens," the admira- 
 tion of critics and artists of succeeding generations, shows the pro- 
 gress of the maturing artist. 
 
 From this time private orders crowded upon Raphael ; and he 
 became the head of a school, whose master-spirits he employed to 
 work up his designs. His sketches and unfinished drawings, after 
 his early death at thirty-seven, more valuable without color than if 
 finished by his pupils, are among his choicest works. Though not, 
 like Lionardo and Angelo, a master in sculpture and architecture, 
 in painting Raphael perfected one department after another, con- 
 ceiving his ideal from real scenes. His method he thus explained 
 to a friend : "To paint a figure truly beautiful it might be neces- 
 sary that I should see many beautiful forms ; but I avail myself 
 also of certain ideas that come into my mind." He exemplified 
 this statement when he drew on a barrel-head the exquisite form 
 of a peasant mother and her child, the model for his Madonna 
 dell a Seggiola. 
 
 As Mrs. Jameison and others have well urged, Raphael was purt> 
 in morals. The rise together of three men like Lionardo, Angelo 
 and Raphael, all comprehensive masters and all capable of such 
 labor and attaining such skill because none of their powers were 
 weakened and wasted by sensual indulgence, indicates that no 
 artist, however great in genius, can be a leading master, unless, as 
 Cicero declared of the orator, " he be a good man." 
 27* 
 
318 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 RECT. 8. THE SCHOOLS OF NORTHERN ITALY AS INFLUENCED Bt 
 
 LION AR DO, AND OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN ITALY BY M. ANOELO 
 AND RAPHAEL. 
 
 The superiority of the three great masters was only the culmina- 
 tion of an improvement that had been steadily progressing for two 
 centuries. The Florentine had reached a standard which could 
 only receive a finishing touch ; the Umbrian, which had succeeded 
 to the Sienese, through Lorenzo had felt Lionardo's influence; 
 while the schools of Northern and Southern Europe, especially of 
 Venice, more out of the centre of gradual advance, were in a con- 
 dition to receive a new and decided forward impulse. 
 
 The influence exerted by the three masters was widely dissimilar. 
 Lionardo, quiet and scholarly, gave a higher intelligence and a 
 more finished execution to artists already able, and awakens! a 
 general spirit of culture among the artists of Italy, France, and 
 even of Spain and Germany. At Milan a school of finished artists 
 arose like Luini and Oggione, who followed his style ; while at 
 Paris he left a marked impress on French painting. Michel 
 Angelo, a man of towering genius rather than of labored culture, 
 would not condescend to take pupils ; yet he had imitators beyond 
 even professed instructors. His grandeur of design and intense 
 action aroused to new life the waning dramatic school of Florence, 
 and broke in upon the stereotyped pomp of the Venetian school, 
 leading Titian, Giorgione and Tintoretto to make M. Angelo' s 
 drawing underlie their gorgeous coloring. Raphael, learning from 
 every master by intuition, and unable to teach the principles of his 
 own success, since he could not himself analyze them, attracted 
 pupils of genius kindred to his own, who by intuition like his 
 caught his style. In the Florentine school, Fra Bartolomeo, in 
 the Venetian, Fra Sebastiano, and in the Sienese, Francesco Francia 
 admired and copied his method. At Rome kindred spirits were 
 employed by him in working up his designs, who after his death 
 established the Roman school ; while at Naples one of his pupils 
 became the head of the modern Neapolitan school. 
 
 Commencing at the North, five centres illustrate this influence. 
 Correggio, born at a little town of the same name, after studying a 
 short time at Mantua met some works of Lionardo and Raphael ; 
 When, inspired by the industry of the one and the intuition of the 
 
THE IMPROVED VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 other, he exclaimed while looking at one of Raphael's master- 
 pieces, "Anch' io son pittore!" "I also am a painter." His 
 excellences were, breadth of view between his figures, a peculiar 
 power of gradation in light and shade, united to M. Angelo's form, 
 Raphael's expressiveness and Titian's hue. Self-educated, he 
 went to Parma, and left those monuments of genius which have 
 given that little city an undying fame. His easel-pieces at Parma 
 and Rome have a fascination beyond Raphael's; wh: ! e his frescoes 
 in (he convent and cathedral of Parma seem like the very opening 
 of heaven, so transparent is the sky, so sweet are the cherabs and 
 so seraphic the saints floating above. 
 
 In the Tuscan school Fra Bartolomeo attained Lionardo's fin- 
 ished conception ; Raphael drew him from his seclusion ; and his 
 nude St. Sebastian stamped him as an original and able Florentine. 
 With less judgment most Tuscan painters chose M. Angelo as their 
 model ; and unable to apprehend his spirit verified the remark of 
 Fuseli, that " M. Angelo lived to see his style perverted in the 
 Tuscan as well as in the Venetian school." 
 
 In the Venetian school the influence of the three great masters 
 is most seen. Prior to this age the Venetian painters, absorbed 
 wholly in study of color, designed nothing beyond "fine old Vene- 
 tian gentlemen." The genius of M. Angelo and of Raphael 
 awakened other ideas of men and of women ; and led to the grand 
 action of the former, and the expressive loveliness of the latter. 
 Giorgione, born 1477, trained under Bellini, the last of the old 
 Venetian masters, studied Lionardo's works and attempted his 
 boldness of outline, action and expression, adding also his grading 
 of colors; introducing an entirely new style of Venetian painting. 
 
 Tiziano, born also A. D. 1477, becoming intimate with Giorgione, 
 caught the impulse of his genius, and at his early death finished 
 his pictures left incomplete. His first success was in portrait ; his 
 happy choice of attitudes, freshness of expression, and finish of 
 features making him a favorite with royal sitters. Visiting Rome, 
 M. Angelo brought to view Titian's failure in forms; exclaiming, 
 " What a pity that Titian does not draw as well as he paints !" and 
 declaring "Titian would have been the first painter in the world 
 had he only been early grounded in correct drawing." Improving 
 on this criticism, Titian devoted himself to landscape ; attaining 
 in ideal background what Kugler calls "the glorification of earthly 
 
320 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 existence; 1 ' adding also real scenery, prompting Fuseli's declara- 
 tion, "Landscape, whether it be considered as the transcript of a 
 spot, or the rich combination of congenial objects, or as the scene 
 of a phenomenon, dates its origin from him." 
 
 Titian's fault, jealousy of rivalship, made Jacopo Robusti ; called 
 "Tintoretto," or the little dyer, from his father's occupation. 
 Horn A. D. 1512, entering at an early age Titian's studio, he was 
 soon dismissed with the master's stinging remark, "That he would 
 never make anything but a dauber. ' ' Conscious of genius, Tinto- 
 retto by self-culture attained such success that he dared to write 
 over his door, "Ildesegno di Michel Angelo ; il colorito di Tizi- 
 ano;" "the drawing of Michel Angelo, the coloring of Titian. " 
 He studied perspective and foreshortening by suspending plaster- 
 cast models and drawing them in varied positions ; and he attained 
 chiaroscuro by suspending those same models at night and painting 
 their shadows cast by lamplight on a richly-colored background. 
 With an imagination almost rampant in design, especially in com- 
 position, retaining the gorgeous Venetian coloring and adding his 
 new power in drawing and shading, Tintoret fascinated the lively 
 and fantastic Venetian people. His Paradise fills the largest can- 
 vas ever covered, being eighty-four feet three inches broad and 
 thirty-four feet high. Though painting in oil, he worked so rapidly 
 that he was called "II furioso Tintoretto." Of his fertile inven- 
 tion his admirer Ruskin, says, "There is not the commonest object 
 to which he will not attach a range of suggestiveness almost limit- 
 less ; nor a stone, leaf or a shadow, nor anything so small, but he 
 will give it meaning and oracular voice." 
 
 The last leader in the Venetian school was Paul, called Veronese 
 from his native city Verona. Born A. D. 1528, he studied at 
 Venice the works of Titian and Tintoret, and united some of their 
 improvements to the old Venetian ideas. In place of their open 
 sky, he returned to architectural backgrounds. His immense can- 
 vas, picturing incidents in Jesus' life with Oriental gorgeousness, 
 mark the decline of the Venetian school. 
 
 From Rome, Giulio, called Romano, the virtual head of the new or 
 Roman school, four years after Raphael's death removed to 
 Mantua. Withdrawn from his master's chastening influence, he 
 adopted a style of coarse elegance, akin to that of the ancient 
 Roman; ;uid found a host of followers to perpetuate thip perverted 
 
THE EARLY SPANISH SCHOOLS. 321 
 
 modern Roman school. At Bologna three followers of Raphael, 
 Primaticcio, Tibaldi and Nicolo dell' Abate, prepared the way foi 
 the Eclectic school. The other pupils of Raphael gave character 
 to the Neapolitan school; Penni, the first, dying just as his influ- 
 ence was established ; Sabbatini, its virtual head, introducing the 
 natural drawing and winning sweetness of his master; while Poli- 
 doro Caldara fell into the later and easily perverted style of Ra- 
 phael's pupils, a copying of the antique in form with an ill-asso- 
 ciated pieturesqueness in grouping. 
 
 SECT. 9. THE SPANISH SCHOOLS; FORMAL AND MYSTIC IN STYLE; 
 HISTORICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH THE SCHOOL OP SOUTHERN AND 
 CENTRAL ITALY; CULMINATING IN VELASQUEZ AND MURILLO OP 
 
 SEVILLE. 
 
 In Spain the demands of religion raised up native artists in 
 every age ; but it required the later power of Spanish nationality 
 to give dignity to Spanish art. It was under Charles V. and 
 Philip II., who in their long reigns, from 1516 to 1598, were de- 
 voted to art as well as to general progress, that artists like Velas- 
 quez and Murillo arose, that Madrid was made the national capital, 
 and the first stone laid in the Escurial, destined to be the receptacle 
 for generations of the best works of Spanish artists. 
 
 Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velasquez, himself a painter and 
 author of a history of Spanish painting, is a living embodiment of 
 the spirit of Spanish art. Praising the idea of drawing from 
 nature, he yet boasts of his authority from the Holy Inquisition 
 to visit the studios of artists, galleries of paintings and printshops, 
 and to see that nothing not in accordance with the rules of the 
 Catholic- faith should appear in the representations made by artists 
 of sacred subjects. Condemning the nude, he criticised with a 
 double-pointed logic M. Angelo's license in his Last Judgment, in 
 picturing "the angels without wings and the saints without 
 clothes;" adding, "although the former do not possess the one 
 and the latter will not have the other, yet since angels without 
 wings are not known to us, and our eyes do not allow us to see the 
 Baints without clothes, as we shall hereafter, there can be no doubt 
 that this representation is improper. ' ' Finally warning his brother 
 artists of even that advanced day, he cites i case of a painter sub- 
 jected to a severe penance for painting the blessed Virgin "with a 
 
 * 
 
322 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 hooped peUicoat, a pointed spencer, a saffron-colored head-dress, 
 pantalettes and a fringed doublet." 
 
 In its early history the Gothic or Romanesque prevailed in the 
 North of Spain, and the Byzantine among the Moors of the South ; 
 Baragossa being the seat of the former, Seville of the latter, while 
 Valencia was intermediate. 
 
 The Cathedral of Saragossa, decorated by Torrento, illustrated 
 the style prior to Giotto ; Gothic influence prevailing in Spain as 
 in Northern Italy. At a later period German artists added natural- 
 ness in drawing, the sombre Spanish cast still prevailing ; of which 
 Bermudez, a Spanish writer on art, says, "The coloring is not so 
 bright as that of the old German painters ; but there is in it a sort 
 of softness like in effect to a veil thrown over their pictures." Yet 
 later an Italian spirit prevailed at Saragossa. 
 
 The school of Aragon and Castile proper began with Pedro de 
 Aponte, under Ferdinand and Isabella, when, in 1479, the seat of 
 the court was removed to Castile. Charles V., a little later, 
 brought the best Italian artists to Castile, he himself having be- 
 come enamored of the style of Titian. The Escurial Palace at 
 Madrid is now rich with Titian's finest works. The pride of this 
 school was Morales, born about A. D. 1500; called "the divine" 
 because of the ethereal aspect of his suffering Jesus and " Madon- 
 nas dolorosas." Pacheco compares his rich and mellow coloring to 
 that of Correggio ; styling the expression of his Christ a " sublime 
 spirit of self-sacrifice and resigned love." The truly religious 
 painters of Spain, and the school of old Aragon and Castile, closed 
 with Morales. 
 
 At Valencia, an ancient seaport, whose cathedral stands on the site 
 of a Roman temple to Diana and of a Moorish mosque, Byzantine 
 and Venetian influence prevailed until Joanes, born A. D. 1523, 
 introduced into religious themes the natural style, akin to Ra- 
 phael's. After him followed Navarette, born A. D. 1 526, called ' ' El 
 Mudo," the deaf-mute ; another illustration that a special gift for 
 plastic art is bestowed on the deaf, as a special gift for music on 
 the blind. Having studied under Titian, he was employed by 
 Philip II. His fondness for drollery is shown in the order as to 
 gome of his sacred pieces obtained by the Inquisitors: "the artist 
 shall not introduce any dog or cat, or other unbecoming figure ; 
 but all shall be saints, or such a* incite to devot'Dn." When 
 
VELASQUEZ AND MURILLO. 
 
 Titian's Last Supper, painted for the refectory of the Escurial, waa 
 found too large and Philip ordered it to be cut to fit the space 
 El Mudo by signs begged the king to spare it and place it else- 
 where ; pledging himself in six months to make a perfect copy of 
 the requisite proportions, or to lose his head if he failed. Among 
 the able artists of this school was a Greek called "El Greco." 
 The most noted was Ribalta ; who, stung by his master's repulse 
 on asking the hand of his daughter, went to Italy for some years, 
 returned, and in his master's absence, painted a hasty sketch on 
 his easel. The old man coming home gazed at the painting with 
 admiration, and exclaimed to his daughter, "That is the man I 
 would have you marry ; and not that dauber Ribalta !" 
 
 At Seville, Pedro Campaiia, born at Brussels A. D. 1503, but 
 educated in Italy, executed a Descent from the Cross, whose two 
 Spanish characteristics are illustrated, by Murillo gazing at it for 
 hours and exclaiming, "lam waiting till these men have taken 
 down our Lord!" and by Pacheco who said, "One would be 
 afraid to be alone with it in a gloomy chapel." Luis de Vargas, 
 born 1602, forming in Italy a love for the natural, was the real 
 founder of the improved school of Seville; an almost Raphael-like 
 loveliness characterizing many of his figures. In Pablo de Ces- 
 pedes, born 1538, the Spanish Correggio, this school culminated. 
 Having acquired in Italy the method of Correggio, he engrafted its 
 features upon Spanish art. Pacheco calls him "one of the best 
 colorists in Spain ;" and says, "The school of Andalusia owe to 
 him the fine tone of their flesh tint." Roelos, born about A. D. 
 1560, was in design and color the Spanish Tintoret. In his St. 
 Anne he pictured youthful Mary in a rose-colored tunic and a blue 
 mantle studded with gilt stars, with a cat and dog and basket of 
 playthings near her. Next came Pacheco, born about A. D. 1579, 
 more of a critic than an artist, but a good teacher. With him 
 flourished Turbaran, born A. D. 1598, who painted from nature 
 and excelled in drapery ; and whom Philip IV. complimented 
 with the title " Pintor del Rey y Re3 r de los pintores," "Painter 
 of the King and King of the painters." 
 
 Diego Velasquez, born A. D. 1599, a youth of bold and inde- 
 pendent genius, entering the studio of Pacheco, found the gentl* 
 rules of the academy the easy bridle his free spirit needed. At the 
 age of about twenty he hjd originated improved methods; train- 
 
324 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ing a boy to act as a model in postures and expression, and sketch- 
 ing from him heads in charcoal on white or blue ground and paint- 
 ing in colors. 
 
 In 1628 Rubens visited Madrid, met Velasquez and gave him 
 hints. The next year he visited Italy and studied Tintoret at 
 Venice, and M. Angelo and Raphael at Rome. Returning, Philip 
 IV. gave him a studio in his palace, in which he would sit for 
 hours to see him work. In 1648 he employed him to visit Italy 
 and purchase paintings for the Escurial Palace ; and during this 
 excursion he executed his famed portrait of Pope Innocent X. In 
 1656 he painted his masterpiece, "The Theology of Art," noted 
 especially for its linear and aerial perspective ; with which the king 
 was so delighted that taking up a brush, he painted upon the 
 artist's breast in the picture the cross of St. lago, the highest 
 honor in his gift. 
 
 Bartolome Esteban Murillo, the second of the two great Spanish 
 masters, was to Velasquez, both in friendly intercourse and in style 
 of art, what Raphael was to M. Angelo. Born at Seville, A. D. 
 1616, he learned to execute coarse sketches for the country-people 
 at fairs. Hearing of Vandyke's visit to Madrid, he painted a large 
 number of cheap pictures for traders to the American colonies ; which 
 realized the sum needed for his tour. These are now treasured 
 in many an old church in Spanish South America. Received with 
 great kindness by Velasquez at Madrid, Murillo was permitted to 
 copy the best paintings of Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, Ribera and 
 Velasquez ; when, returning to Seville, he spent the remainder of 
 his life a self-taught artist. 
 
 Like Raphael, Murillo passed through three different stylos; the 
 first entitled u frio," or cold ; the second "calido," or warm ; the 
 third "vaporoso," or misty. The first, practised about three 
 years, was vigorous in design but coarse in color and finish. At 
 thirty-two Murillo married an Andalusian lady of rank and fortune; 
 which marriage gave a new character to his mode of life and equally 
 to his style. His vigorous drawing was softened by a polished 
 finish, which continued for ten or twelve years. In 1658 he 
 planned an art academy ; in whose atmosphere the vigor of his 
 youth returned, and freed him from the trammels of artificial 
 society imposed by his marriage. To the bold design and vigorous 
 drawing of his first were united the finir bed coloring and sweet grao<j 
 
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF THE CAKRACCI. 325 
 
 of his second style ; while over both was thrown by his genius a 
 dreamy mist of fascinating attractiveness. 
 
 Murillo's works were almost numberless. Like Raphael's, his 
 paintings were preferred to those of his more scientific rivals ; for 
 while Velasquez was beyond rivalry in all the higher walks of art, 
 Murillo's scenes of social life and themes of sentiment were more 
 winning. War, too, gave a wide dispersion to the works of 
 Murillo; and though a critic like Ruskin may protest against the 
 comparatively high rank assigned to Murillo in France, England, 
 Germany and even Russia, and call him a "base" artist, his style 
 will always be a favorite with popular observers. 
 
 SECT. 10. THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA, IMITATIVE THOUGH 
 SELECT; ESTABLISHED BY THE CARRACCI, ADORNED BY DOMEJTC- 
 CHINO AND GUI DO, CLOSING WITH CARLO DOLCE. 
 
 Kugler argues that when the culminating and climactic period 
 of art has been reached in any country nothing else than a decline 
 can be expected. In Spain the reaction, after the two great 
 masters who could not be rivaled, was immediate and almost com- 
 plete. In Italy the decline took another turn. 
 
 As in Greece men of genius turned to a new field when any one 
 was exhausted, the epic, lyric and dramatic in literature, and archi- 
 tecture, sculpture and painting in art, successively culminating and 
 declining, so was it with successive styles and schools of painting in 
 Italy. When decline began, two classes of minds struggled against 
 the downward tendency ; the Eclectic school of the Carracci, and 
 the Naturalistic school of Caravaggio. These schools had a merit, 
 and their history an instruction worthy of special consideration. 
 
 While in every school of Italy, except Venice, the followers of 
 Lionardo, Angelo and Raphael were becoming mere copyists, at 
 Bologna, Lodovico Carracci, born A. D. 1555, became possessed 
 with the idea, that, since the great masters had perfected painting 
 each in one line, the way to improve art was to select and combine 
 their several excellences. Two nephews, Agostino, self-taught, 
 and Annibale, a student of varied styles, united with him in estab- 
 lishing a school at Bologna ; which received the derisive sobriquet 
 of Jncamminati, or, Walkers in leading strings. Lodovico, popu- 
 lar and impressive, was the presiding head; Agostino, theoretia 
 and analytic, was the chief teacher of principles; and Annibale, 
 
 28 
 
326 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ready and skillful with the pencil and brush, was the practical illus- 
 trator of the system. The models of the school were set forth by 
 Agostino in fourteen lines of Italian verse ; including ' ' the drawing 
 of Rome, the action and shading of Venice, the dignity in coloring 
 of Lombardy, the terrible energy of M. Angelo, the true natural 
 of Titian, the sovereign purity of Correggio, the exact symmetry 
 of Raphael, the decorum and foundation color of Tibaldi, the in- 
 vention of the learned Primaticcio, the grace of Parniigiano ;" while 
 Nicolo, an imitator of Raphael, was made the model of all excel- 
 lences. 
 
 The finished works of Lodovico were few, and excelled only in 
 certain details. The two principal works of Agostino show the 
 labored effort of a theoretic teacher to be true in every respect to 
 his principle. Annibale's numerous paintings display excellences 
 of the great masters, but have an artificial aspect akin to a theatri- 
 cal style in public speaking. The great merit of Annibale is the 
 landscape background in his historical pieces. 
 
 English critics have appreciated the Eclectic school more highly 
 than have the German. Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote : "Style in 
 painting is the same as in writing ; a power over materials whether 
 words or colors by which conception or sentiment is conveyed. 
 And in this Lodovico Carracci, I mean in his best works, appears 
 to me to approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected breadth 
 of light and shadow, the simplicity of coloring, which, holding its 
 proper rank, does not draw aside the least part of the attention 
 from the subject, and the solemn effect of that twilight which 
 eeems diffused over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with 
 grave and dignified subjects better than the more artificial brilliancy 
 of sunshine which enlightens the pictures of Titian." Of Anni- 
 bale's "Descent from tlie Cross," John Bell says: "The drawing 
 of the figure of our Saviour is at once the most learned in point of 
 anatomy and the truest to nature of any that I have ever seen." 
 
 In the Eclectic School pupils excelled their masters. Zampien, 
 called Domenichino, born A. D. 1581, developed a style of artless 
 loveliness in drawing and coloring so akin to that of Raphael that 
 Poussin ranked him next to that master. Albani, born A. D. 
 1578, attained a peculiar finish in style; his themes, such as 
 Venus and the Graces, gaining him personal admirers and pupils. 
 In his old age a deeper sentiment possessed him. aixl lii,^ themea 
 
GUERCINO AND GUJDO. 327 
 
 became Christian. The star of this school was Guido Reni, born 
 A. D. 1570. To natural vigor in drawing he added that joyous- 
 ness of expression which characterizes his principal works. In hia 
 "Aurora" the impression of swift motion in the galloping steeds, 
 the rolling wheels, the torch of Lucifer blown back, and the for- 
 ward strain of Aurora in her chariot, fascinates the beholder as if 
 the scene were real. In his last days Guido painted rapidly for 
 money ; taking on a third style, often devoid of sentiment and un- 
 finished in execution, while yet his instinctive conception of beauti- 
 ful forms gave a charm to his works. 
 
 Next after Guido, Barbieri, called Guercino or Squinter, held 
 the palm at Bologna, despite his defective sight. Like Raphael 
 and Guido, he developed three different styles at different periods 
 of life ; a fact which had a natural cause. Youth of genius both 
 as writers, speakers and artists, develop an unstudied power, at- 
 tractive for its naturalness and impressive from its energy ; but 
 which does not bear too frequent repetition. Such minds, finding 
 themselves soon outstripped by mere plodders whose every effort is 
 an advance, either sink into listless inaction, or nerve themselves to 
 the thorough study and practice of a second or manhood style. 
 Returning success and consciousness of increasing power invites to 
 princely expenditure ; and a rapid instead of finished execution is 
 demanded. Guercino, like Raphael and Guido, began with a style 
 of unchastened vigor ; as he advanced he sought the finished cul- 
 ture of established schools ; and when overburdened with pecuni- 
 ary demands, he became unfinished in execution. Guercino's first 
 style was an exaggerated natural, violent in action and crude in 
 execution ; his second adds to vigor in drawing and harmony in 
 coloring, a masterly power of light and shade, giving such a relief 
 to his figures, that they seem separated from all behind and sus- 
 pended in the air; a power which gained him the title of the 
 "Magician." His third style, like Guido's, lacks distinctness in 
 aim, and has a soulless beauty ffhich speaks only to the eye of 
 sense. 
 
 While Eclecticism had its chief seat at Bologna, its spirit 
 pervaded Italy. Fifty years before the Carracci lived, Giulio 
 Campi, of Cremona, a pupil of Giulio Romano, aimed to combine 
 t-he excellences of Raphael and Correggio. At Milan, Procaccini, 
 ed seated at Bologna, founded a school, mingling the grace of Par- 
 
ART CRITICISM. 
 
 uiigiano and the breadth of Correggio ; Crespi being its ornament 
 At Rome, Baroccio attempted a similar method ; but his effort 
 died with him from the violent opposition of his associate artists. 
 
 At Florence, even during the life of M. Angelo, a degeneracy had 
 begun. Vasari, while embalming for all time the memory of the 
 great artist, discloses how unconscious of its decline inferiority is. 
 "We," says he, "paint six pictures in a year, while the earlier 
 masters took six years to one picture ; and yet these pictures are 
 much more perfectly executed than those of the early school by the 
 most distinguished masters." Certainly a reform was needed 
 when such a statement could come from a Florentine. The Eclec- 
 tic Florentine began with Cigoli, born A. D. 1559, admired for hia 
 attractive warmth in coloring ; and it was adorned by Allori, noted 
 for his Judith and Holofcrnes, Empoli, who reproduced Venetian 
 princes, set off with Florentine lights, and Rosselli, who with his 
 pupils gave to portraits a life-like freshness. The favorite master, 
 with whom the eclectic spirit expired in Italy, was Carlo, called 
 Dolce. Born at Florence, A. D. 1616, he early painted a St. 
 John, and a portrait of his mother, which brought out the fascina- 
 tion of his developing style. Adopted by the Medici family, he 
 painted single figures and heads ; chiefly Magdalenes and Madon- 
 nas, whose winning sweetness of expression gave him his name. 
 Dolce had but one style, as he had but one ideal ; and his nume- 
 rous works are each admired where it is a separate treasure. 
 Being, however, all reproductions of the same type and easily 
 copied, Dolce's daughter Agnese became his most efficient aid in 
 working up his designs. 
 
 SECT. 11. THE REACTIONARY NATURAL SCHOOL PRECEDING THE DE- 
 CLINE OF ITALIAN ART; ORIGINATING WITH CARAVAGGIO, AND 
 ADORNED BY SALVATOR ROSA. 
 
 The aspiration for originality, leading artists to nature for new 
 themes and methods, became as much bound by the rules of the 
 Eclectic as of partial schools. The tendency to mere imitation 
 culminating in Carlo Dolce, led to the Reactionary Natural school. 
 
 M. Angeli Amerighi. called Caravaggio, from the town where, 
 A. D. ] 569, he was born, in youth a paint-grinder for an artist at 
 Milan, studied at Venice the works of Giorgionc. Being of a pas- 
 sionate temper and dissolute in habits, he commenced a wandering 
 
THi: NATURAL SCHOOL OF CARAVAGGIO. 329 
 
 life, and adopted a style of painting in keeping. He painted, in- 
 deed, from nature ; but chiefly scenes of passion and lust met in 
 the dens of infamy, seldom seen and scarcely dreamed of by the 
 mass of virtuous society; such as Schiller's early literary fancies. 
 In themes of a religious cast, his style was most inappropriate ; 
 Kuglcr saying of his fc ' Entombment of Christ/' " it is too like the 
 funeral ceremony of a gypsy chief." 
 
 Caravaggio had numerous imitators, as Vouet and Valentin of 
 France, and Corenzio, a Greek ; but the special seat of his school 
 was at Naples, where its way had already been prepared. Shortly 
 after Raphael's death, one of his pupils, Polidoro Caldara, at first 
 an imitator of his master, going to Naples, broke suddenly into a 
 style quite opposite ; his designs being pictures of passion in excess 
 and his coloring in deep brown hues, grand but gloomy. Ribera, 
 called "Lo Spagnoletto," the little Spaniard, born A. D. 1593, a 
 pupil of Caravaggio, became the leading spirit in his school, spend- 
 ing forty years at Naples. Most of his works are scenes of horror, 
 such as martyrdoms and executions. 
 
 The school closed, as it began, with a wild adventurer. Salvator 
 Rosa, born near Naples, A. D. 1615, at eighteen made an art-tour 
 to the mountain dens of banditti. Returning, he was drawn to the 
 school of Ribera. Visiting Rome at twenty, he assumed the three- 
 fold character of actor, musician and painter. During a political 
 revolution at Naples he joined the insurgents, fled to Florence, and 
 finally settled at Rome, where he remained till his death. In his 
 "Conspiracy of Catiline" the figures are Neapolitan insurgents. 
 His head of a warrior, fearfully gloomy, is a specimen of his power 
 in dark portraiture. His landscapes are true works of genius; 
 dark, dismal mountain ravines and forests, with a lonely hermit or 
 robber band in the gloom. 
 
 Art in its childhood effort imitates its teacher instead of nature ; 
 in youth it discards too much the bonds of authority ; brought back 
 in manhood to system again, it works too much like the man of 
 settled and driving business, ever in the same rut ; until the son 
 fails where the father succeeded. The natural style prompting 
 genius in its early aspirings, is only the first stage in the true 
 artist's progress. Its early effort under Giotto was an advance; 
 but its reflection of the long line of successful teachers was a de- 
 cline. The school of the naturalists, though noble in its aspiring 
 
 28 * 
 
330 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 was composed of men like Byron and Shelley in poetry; whose fiery 
 spirits burnt rapidly to the socket the candle of their existence, and 
 then left the world all the darker for their having shone in it. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ADVANCE OP MODERN PAINTING IN CENTRAL EUROPE; IN- 
 CLUDING GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, HOLLAND AND 
 
 PRANCE; EMINENTLY SECULAR IN SUBJECTS, NATURAL IN 
 
 STYLE AND CHARACTERIZED BY PERFECTION OF SHADES IN 
 COLORING. 
 
 IN Germany as in Italy, commerce introduced art and led to its 
 advance. In the days of Cimabue the Hanse Towns were leagued 
 to protect the trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, between 
 Venice and Oleron ; and when Albrecht Diirer, the founder of the 
 German school, visited Venice, it was to paint his St. Bartholo- 
 mew for an association of German merchants. 
 
 In the revival of art in Italy ancient masterpieces checked inde- 
 pendent study; and the controlling influence of a dominant Church 
 made religion the chief theme of art. The Germans had no ancient 
 glories in art to check the untrammeled aspirings of nature, nor any 
 hereditary religious associations to guard the tendency to secular 
 subjects. Yet more, the German sky in the centre as well as the 
 lowlands, wore a sober graj^ which made utterly impossible the con- 
 ception of the clear transparence of an Italian daylight and the 
 gorgeous glare and curtained purple of Venetian night-shades. 
 These three peculiarities distinguish the German from Italian 
 painting. 
 
 The order of location mainly, but in part also the order of time 
 leads to the notice, first, of the schools of Germany ; then of the 
 Netherlands or of the Flemish race ; next of the Dutch in modern 
 Holland ; and finally of the schools of France ; all of which were 
 associated with the old German Empire. 
 
EARLY GERMAN PAINTERS; DURER. 331 
 
 SECT. 1. THE RUDIMENTARY HISTORY OF PAINTING IN GERMANY TO 
 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The works of the first native German artists exhibit the stiff 
 angular drawing of the Romanesque rather than the rounded con- 
 tour of the Byzantine, and the cold gray tints of the West instead 
 of the warm hues and glittering gold pigment of the East. About 
 half a century after Giotto, appeared Wilhelm, of Cologne ; four 
 of whose paintings are at Cologne and four at Munich. The latter 
 are groups of saints and apostles painted in Gothic niches ; three 
 of which have a golden Byzantine, and the fourth a dark back- 
 ground. Wilhelm established a school of art ; in which Meister 
 Stephan succeeded him, whose altar-pieces, executed A. D. 1410, 
 in the cathedral of Cologne, and a picture of St. Veronica in the 
 Pinacothek of Munich, are among the finest relics of ancient art 
 Wilhelm 's school was celebrated for a century. 
 
 Early in the fifteenth century schools of art existed in West- 
 phalia and Nuremburg ; the former the precursor of the Flemish 
 schools, the latter culminating at Munich in Bavaria. In the line 
 of Nuremburg painters were the family called Schongauer from 
 the beauty of their style ; under one of whom, in 1492, Diirer 
 studied. The most eminent before Diirer was Michael Wohlge- 
 muth, born A. D. 1434 ; his early and efficient teacher. Four of 
 his pictures at Munich, a Nativity, Crucifixion, Deposition and 
 Resurrection, show that religious themes prevailed. Of them 
 Lord Lindsay remarks, that though uncouth in general design, 
 attitude and drapery, there is a heavenly expression about the 
 countenance of Jesus. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIVE GERMAN SCHOOL 
 UNDER AI/BRECHT DURER AND HANS HOLBEIN. 
 
 Albrecht Diirer, in English Albert Durer, born at Nuremburg, 
 A. D. 1471, at fifteen years entered a studio; and spent four years 
 under Michael Wohlgemuth. At twenty-one he went to Germany 
 and the Netherlands; and studied for a time under the Schon- 
 gauers. At twenty-four he settled at Nuremburg as an engraver 
 and a painter ; soon attaining the highest reputation with the Em- 
 peror Maximilian I. One day, as Diirer was tracing on a wall in 
 the palace one of his designs, the ladder slipped. The Emperor 
 
ART CRITICISM. 
 
 beckoned one of his suite to hold it ; and when he hesitated the 
 Emperor himself held it till the drawing was completed. When 
 finished he conferred a title of nobility on the artist ; saying : 
 "Know that this painter is already more than a noble by his 
 talent. I can easily make a peasant a nobleman ; but with all my 
 power I should never be able to make a nobleman such an artist as 
 AlbrechtDiirer." 
 
 At thirty-five Diirer visited Italy. At Venice he painted St. 
 Bartholomew ; at Bologna he studied perspective ; at Florence he 
 made the acquaintance of Raphael ; but he returned home the 
 next year with no characteristic of his style essentially modified. 
 His faults were an excess of the dramatic and of fancy in compo- 
 sition, a stiffness in drawing, and a lack of breadth affecting his 
 perspective. Most of his studies were Scripture themes. He be- 
 came an adherent of the Reformers, and painted the portraits of 
 their leaders. In Christian themes he rejected the classic, and was 
 sometimes too independent in his creations. 
 
 In 1520, at the mature age of forty-nine, Diirer made a second 
 visit of four years to the Netherlands ; spending some time with 
 Lucas of Leyden. On his^ return his style was subdued to sober 
 simplicity; Melancthon stating that Diirer confessed to him he 
 had gained new conceptions of the simple spiritual majesty belong- 
 ing to sacred themes. Diirer' s female associations, especially his 
 marriage, proved unhappy. This seems to have worn upon his 
 sensitive spirit ; and he died at the age of fifty-seven years. 
 
 Contemporary with Diirer. was Lucas Cranach, court painter to 
 three electors of Saxony, accompanying the first to Palestine. His 
 style had less of grandeur and more of grace and simplicity than 
 Diirer' s. He delighted in the anachronism of introducing Luther 
 and his associates into scenes such as the Crucifixion and the Last 
 Supper ; a fault opposed to the professed spirit of the Reforma- 
 tion. Altdorfer, a pupil of Diirer, perverted his master's style by 
 romantic associations clustered about secular and sacred themes. 
 
 Hans Holbein, born 1495, belongs to the early English rathor 
 than the German school 
 
OVERBECK, R. MENGS, CORNELIUS, LESSING. 333 
 
 SECT. 3. THE REVIVAL AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN- 
 TURY OF THE IDEAL HISTORIC BY CORNELIUS; OF THE FORMAL 
 AND MYSTIC STYLE BY OVERBECK J AND OF THE NATURAL STYLE 
 BY THE DUSSELDORF SCHOOL. 
 
 The religious reformation of the fifteenth century had men of 
 extreme views among its leaders; it was continued by men of 
 calmer spirit ; while many opposed it by a reactionary movement 
 Art in Germany, subjected to this reaction, showed three tenden- 
 cies ; first, the rationalistic, founded on extreme independence of 
 thought ; second, the conservative, leading to a return to old eccle- 
 siastical associations; third, the intermediate, retaining what was 
 valuable in the past, and adapting it to the new spirit of progress. 
 
 Though Diirer's visit to Italy and intimate acquaintance with 
 Raphael wrought no change in the vigorous but unclassic drawing 
 peculiar to German art, yet Melancthon's scholarship chastened his 
 method. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the impulse 
 to general culture given by Niebuhr, and the two Schlegels, was 
 communicated to artists. The return to ancient authority led some 
 to the standard of Roman ecclesiastical art, and others to the Gre- 
 cian classic ; while at a later period the school of Lessing became 
 devoted to the real in contrast with the ideal, and allied to the Re- 
 formed rather than the Roman Church. 
 
 Early in this period appeared Raphael Mengs ; cosmopolitan in 
 nationality, encyclopedic in learning, and eclectic in art-methods. 
 Born A. D. 1728, in Bohemia, early promoted to be royal professor 
 in his native country, appointed painter to the king of Spain in 
 1761, and head of the Academy of Florence in 1769, he acquired 
 extended reputation as a teacher and writer, inaugurating a new 
 era. 
 
 Peter von Cornelius, born in 1787, at Dusseldorf, caught at first 
 the style of Rubens ; but at nineteen he revealed a fondness for the 
 style of Raphael in fresco, assuming the bold, free, open method 
 of drawing which fresco encourages. Going to Rome in 1810, as 
 leader of an artistic German brotherhood he established a European 
 reputation as the restorer of fresco painting. Becoming in 1819 
 4 he head of the Dusseldorf Gallery, in ten years Cornelius wrought 
 an entire revolution in that school ; during four subsequent years 
 he reorganized the efficient ^academy of Munich ; after which he 
 
334 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 ispent some years at Koine and Berlin. His illustrations of thb 
 ^ibelungen Lied, the Iliad of Germany, though classic in spirit, 
 are so thoroughly national that they are the delight of the com- 
 mon people. As the restorer of the ideal historic in fresco, Cor- 
 nelius is the great master of Modern Germany. 
 
 Friederich Overbeck, born A. D. 1789, at Liibeck, studied at 
 Vienna and Rome, and imbibed at first the classic spirit of Corne- 
 lius, Schadow and others. At twenty-five he united with the 
 Roman Church, and devoted himself to religious themes ; his style 
 assuming the dreamy mystic cast peculiar to his own spirit. 
 
 Unaer Karl Lessing, born 1808, the independent German style 
 of Purer, Protestant in themes and characterized by bold natural 
 ness and nationality in drawing and accessories, has been revived. 
 After studying at Berlin, he entered the Dusseldorf Academy, thn 
 under iSchadow, who had succeeded Cornelius ; from whom he 
 borrowed a style ideal and classic. At twenty-four he departed en- 
 tirely from his master ; selecting themes of the intensest modem 
 interest, throwing into them energy and passion. Lessing's 
 methods lack the grace in outline and the mellowness in hues, be- 
 longing to the Dusseldorf school in historic themes ; but in land- 
 scape he is a perfect master of local hues and shadows. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FLEMISH SCHOOL BY n. 
 
 AND J. VAN EYCK ; CHARACTERIZED BY LIFELIKE NATURALNESS 
 AND LABORED COLORING. 
 
 In the Lowland commercial towns of old Flanders, now in the 
 kingdom of Belgium, the spirit of art early manifested an independ- 
 ent development; the Flemish schools being established during 
 the age when the schools of Northern Italy were taking form. 
 
 Hubert Van Eyck, born A. D. 1366, and John or Jan, his abler 
 brother, about A. D. 1370, were sons of a painter of the Byzantine 
 type. With their sister Margaret, also an artist, the brothers 
 settled at Bruges ; and at Ghent united in an altar-piece embracing 
 three hundred figures ; which work, painted in sections, is now 
 divided between the Berlin Museum, the Gallery of the Louvre at 
 Paris, and the Cathedral at Ghent. Hubert and Margaret died 
 early; but John lived long, honored with official position. The 
 Van Eycks were masters in landscape ; John, especially, excelling 
 in aerial perspective. It was to John's persevering efforts to find 
 
FLEMISH PAINTERS; VAN EYCK AND RUBENS. 335 
 
 an improved method of giving transparency to atmospheric effects 
 uiat the world became indebted for the method of employing oil as 
 a vehicle in mixing pigments. The characteristic of Flemish land- 
 scape, a dark shading admirable in twilight scenes, the natural sug- 
 gestion of their murky lowland sky, is departed from by John in 
 his grand work ; as Humboldt in his "Cosmos" intimates. The 
 Latin epitaph on his tomb describes his power: "He painted 
 breathing forms, and covered the earth's surface with flowery vege- 
 tation, perfecting every work to very life." 
 
 The style of J. Van Eyck was transmitted for more than a cen- 
 tury; Roger of Bruges, becoming a noted teacher; Hans Hemling, 
 a soldier-artist, painting chiefly altar-pieces ; while Jan Mabuse, 
 contemporary with A. Diirer, found his way to England under 
 Henry VIII., and painted portraits at court. 
 
 The spirit of the Flemish school appeared at Antwerp in Quentin 
 Matsys, whose genius in art was roused by admiration of a young 
 lady above his condition in life ; and at Leyden, in Lucas, whose 
 sober naturalness influenced Diirer more than the grace of 
 Raphael. 
 
 At a later period Michael Coxies, a Flemish pupil of Raphael, 
 sought to incorporate his methods with the Flemish ; when its 
 glory declined, quicker than the Italian schools where Raphael's 
 imitators had influence. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE CULMINATING ERA OF THE FLEMISH SCHOOL UNDER 
 RUBENS; DISTINGUISHED BY BOLDNESS OF INVENTION AND RICH- 
 NESS OF COLORING. 
 
 The people of the Lowlands, fond of rustic fetes, and accustomed 
 to a murky sky, could not appreciate at once Italian methods. A 
 master who could lead the popular taste into a new channel must 
 unite boldness in invention and skill in execution. 
 
 Peter Paul Rubens, born in 1577, at Cologne, was, when a child, 
 carried to Antwerp. By his mother's solicitation at thirteen he 
 was allowed to study painting. At twenty-three he visited Italy. 
 At Venice he studied Paul Veronese and Tintoret, and as Fuseli 
 says, "compounded the splendor of the former and the glow of 
 the latter. ' ' Sent to Spain as ambassador of the Duke of Mantua, 
 he won at Madrid royal patronage in portraits. Returning to Italy, 
 he studied Raphael and M. Angelo at Florence, Bologna and 
 
336 ART CRITICISJf. 
 
 Rome ; where his Flemish cast, modified by Italian study, gave 
 him numerous orders. Subsequently visiting Milan and Genoa. 
 he returned and settled as court-painter at Antwerp, his early 
 home. Marrying A. D. 1609, he lived in elegance ; and excepting 
 visits in 1620 to Paris to decorate the palace of the Luxemburg, in 
 1628 as ambassador to Spain, and in 1629 to England, he steadily 
 pursued his profession at home till his death in 1640. 
 
 Rubens united the natural life in drawing of the Flemish school 
 with the gorgeous coloring of the Venetians, and the harmony of 
 fights of the three great masters of Italy. His invention was 
 boundless ; scenes, sacred, historical and domestic, landscape, ani- 
 mal and human subjects, being equally mastered. He had industry 
 and system, rising early, attending church, drawing alone till break- 
 fast, then meeting his pupils. Those skillful in special subjects, 
 animal or human, flowers or fruit, landscape or sky, he employed 
 on his own works ; overseeing and directing the work of numerous 
 hands. Many of his fourteen hundred paintings were thus exe- 
 cuted. Skilled as a collector, he sold to the Duke of Buckingham, 
 in England, his first gathering. In making up a second he patron- 
 ized young artists of promise ; giving Yandyke his first reputation. 
 
 Jacob Jordaens, born at Antwerp A. D. 1594, employed as a 
 pupil and worker by Rubens on small pieces, succeeding in low 
 sportive scenes, began an independent and sometimes antag- 
 onistic career. He lived to a great age, wrought with industry 
 und rare inventive skill ; but devoted his powers largely to gross 
 subjects. 
 
 Anthony Yan Dyck, afterwards Sir Anthony Yandyke, born at 
 Antwerp, A. D. 1599, was at sixteen a pupil of Rubens. His 
 genius was first brought out by an effort to relieve the anxiety of a 
 fellow-pupil who had brushed against a freshly-painted arm ; young 
 Anthony restoring the injured painting so perfectly that their mas- 
 ter, not discovering the change, called his pupils' attention next 
 day to the arm as a happy effort of his own brush. At the age of 
 twenty, he went to Italy ; at Yenice studied the coloring of Titian 
 and Paul Veronese, and modified the Flemish cold hues by the rich 
 and mellow Italian tints. Returning after seven years to Antwerp, 
 for five years he industriously employed his brush on portraits and 
 altar-pieces. Invited by Charles I. to England in 1632, ten years 
 of eminently successful toil, attended by a sumptuous style of living, 
 
THE DUTCH SCHOOLS OF REMBRANDT. 337 
 
 undermined the artist's constitution and brought him to an un- 
 timely grave. 
 
 In the Belgian school, successor to the Flemish, Gustavus Wap- 
 pers, born 1803, imbibing the taste of the later French school, has 
 devoted himself to modern scenes of Belgian and French history 
 wrought in the gorgeous fete style. Louis Gaillait, born 1810, is 
 alsc one of the ablest modern historic painters. 
 
 HEC r. 6. THE DUTCH SCHOOLS ; THE EXAGGERATED NATURAL STYLE 
 
 ORIGINATING WITH REMBRANDT; THE LOW LIFE OR "OEXKK" 
 WITH THE BREUGHELS; AND THE PASTORAL LANDSCAPE FAVOR- 
 ITE WITH THE DUTCH MASTERS. 
 
 The effort to represent the ludicrous and grotesque, in itself a 
 genuine aspiration to copy Nature in real scenes among the happy 
 though uncouth laboring people, an aspiration dignified in the early 
 efforts of Apelles and Lionardo, became the pervading genius of 
 the Dutch masters, when, led by Rembrandt, they separated from 
 the Flemish school. 
 
 Paul Gerritz Rembrandt, born on the Rhine near Leyden, A. D. 
 1606, the son of a miller, having studied art at Amsterdam, at 
 twenty made his father's mill his studio. The sale of one of his 
 pictures for one hundred florins led him to make Amsterdam his 
 residence. Marrying into a family of low rank, his associates were 
 the common people met at the ale-house ; where he learned to copy 
 the grotesque attitudes and uncouth habiliments of his jocose com- 
 panions. A rapid composer, he executed historical and scriptural 
 pieces, portraits, and especially mirthful scenes of low life, intro- 
 ducing the attributes of this style even into sacred themes. His 
 magical skill in chiaroscuro, learned in the badly-lighted garret of 
 his father's mill, made him as Fuseli says, "a meteor in art." 
 Rembrandt left able pupils; among whom Gerard Dow, too 
 labored to be popular, in portrait wearying his sitters by his slow- 
 ness, delighted in domestic scenes, where his power in grouping 
 and shading could be displayed. 
 
 Jan Breughel, born A. D. 1510, preceding Rembrandt, though 
 fond of village, gipsy and bandit scenes, remained associated with 
 Flemish artists. His two sons, Jan, born in 1565, and Peter, in 
 1569, were influenced by Rembrandt. The elder, called "Velvet 
 Breughel" from his soft touches in coloring, after a tour in Italy, 
 29 P 
 
J38 ABT CRITICISM. 
 
 became eminent as a colorist of landscape backgrounds. The 
 younger, called "Hell Breughel," from his fondness for witches, 
 sorcerers, robbers and devils, gave encouragement to an extrava- 
 gance in picturing the darker features of human nature ; which, 
 added to the coarseness in form encouraged by Rembrandt, tended 
 to a degeneracy in the Dutch school. 
 
 A happier tendency began with David Teniers. Born A. D. 
 1610, trained under his father of the Dutch comic school, after- 
 ward attempting unsuccessfully the graver style of Rubens, at 
 thirty Teniers entered on that fascinating style of genre or home 
 scenes which he pursued till he was eighty. His methods have 
 been minutely scanned. In essaying a graver manner he made his 
 ground of a dark-brown ; but in his new style he changed this to a 
 silvery light-gray, and later to a tremulous yellow-brown. Upon a 
 ground prepared with chalk or plaster, he first scumbled tints of brown 
 or pearly gray ; second, sketched the figures and chief accessories, 
 and third, the principal shadows in bistre ; fourth, threw in the half 
 tones with delicacy and labored transparency; fifth, worked up the 
 prominent figures, giving them a thick body of color to indicate 
 solidity; and finally, sixth, added sparkling touches and glaring 
 tints. Teniers was patronized by the Spanish and Swedish courts; 
 he painted about one thousand pictures, whose value varies from 
 one thousand to ten thousand dollars each ; and many able masters 
 became his followers. Teniers is the link between the Flemish and 
 Dutch schools. 
 
 Besides genre or home scenes the Dutch school has been eminent 
 in pastoral landscape, with the accessories of animal, bird, fruit 
 and flower painting. Both Cuyp and Ruysdael in wild, native 
 scenery, excelled in ideal landscape ; W. Vander Velde in marine 
 views ; Wouvermanns in hunting scenes ; Snyders in animals ; and 
 Van Huysum in fruit and flower-pieces. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE NATIVE FRENCH SCHOOL; 
 ITS MODIFICATION UNDER GIOTTO AND LIONARDO J THE CLASSIC 
 
 STYLE OF POUSSIN AND THE LANDSCAPE OF CLAUDE, IN TFE 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The French people, mediate between the North and the South, 
 possessing the physical hardihood of the German and the passion- 
 ate impulse of the Italian, borrowing much from intercourse with 
 
EARLY FRENCH PAINTERS; POUSS1N AND CLAUDE. 339 
 
 and employment of the artists of other countries, have had in every 
 age native arti.sts of great independence in their methods. The 
 eras of their civil and commercial advancement mark very nearly 
 the stages of progress in the history of French painting. 
 
 Under Charlemagne French painting was associated with the 
 German ; the missal illumination of the day, Byzantine in coloring, 
 showing in the drawing of figures a native French vivacity. Flem- 
 ish artists afterwards wrought in the North ; a brief visit of Giotto 
 to the South introduced naturalness in design ; and an impulse he- 
 gan which culminated under Louis XL, A. D. 1461, the era called 
 the "Renaissance." The consolidation of the French nationality 
 and the extension of French commerce gave greater comprehen- 
 siveness to French artists. Jean Fouquet, court-painter to Louis 
 XL, excelled in animal and human figures in repose, though not 
 in action and expression, and also in perspective and chiaroscuro. 
 Reve, of Anjou, followed Van Dyke ; this age being but prelimi- 
 nary. 
 
 The French school proper opened, A. D. 1515 to 1547, under 
 Francis I. , whose conquests in Italy brought Lionardo and other 
 Italian artists, as well as valuable art collections, to the French 
 capital. Its founder, J. Cousin, born A. D. 1462, by his writings 
 awakened the French people to love of art; and his "Last Judg- 
 ment," now in the Louvre, shows that the French people appreciate 
 the serious as well as the frivolous. Vouet, born A. D. 1582, aim- 
 ing at the rude vigor of Caravaggio, softened by the sweetness of 
 Guido, increased the tendency French genius in art was taking. 
 
 The first great master of the French school was Nicolas Pous.-in. 
 Born 1594, deriving his early idea of expression and grouping from 
 engravings of Raphael and Romano, at the age of thirty he went to 
 Rome, where Marino introduced him to Cardinal Barbarini with the 
 expression, "Vederete un giovan che a la furia del diavolo," "Be- 
 hold a young man who has the furor of the devil." For six years 
 he studied Titian and Raphael, and devoted himself to drawing 
 from antique sculpture ; the latter most modifying his native 
 French style. His themes were chiefly historical, both civil and 
 sacred ; his composition shows extended learning ; in attitude and 
 expression his designs have French vivacity ; while in coloring his 
 method was intermediate between the dark Flemish -and the light 
 Italian. Fuseli says : " Poussin painted basso-relievo ;" but Rey- 
 
340 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 nolds attributes to him, despite his faults, these three excellences: 
 " correct drawing, forcible expression and just character." 
 
 The counterpart of Poussin was Claude Lorraine, born A. D. 
 V600. Sent by his brother in early youth to Italy, he studied 
 architectural drawing at Naples and landscape coloring at Rome. 
 Making a tour through Northern Italy and visiting his home on 
 the Rhine, he returned and spent, his long life at Rome. His 
 themes were landscapes, pastoral and classic. He spent months 
 studying architecture in the cities and scenery in the mountains of 
 Italy. He often sat whole days and even nights intently watching 
 every change in the aspect of the sky and earth ; preferring the 
 hours of morning and evening twilight. He made his ground color 
 a light gray ; laying on warm colors thinly for the distant semi- 
 transparent half-tints; and giving a full body to the principal 
 lights and prominent figures. The bewitching illusion of his 
 atmospheric effects gives him universal popular favor. In draw- 
 ing, however, he was defective ; sensible of which, he would either 
 employ another artist to work up the figures, or with his peculiar 
 suavity he would humorously remark to purchasers that he charged 
 for the landscape and threw in the figures. 
 
 SECT. 8. THE OPERATIC STYLE OF LE BRUN UNDER LOUIS xiv. ; 
 
 THE FETE STYLE OF WATTEAU UNDER LOUIS XV. ; THE TEMPO- 
 RARY REACTION OF THE NATURAL STYLE OF J. VERNET, GREUZE 
 
 AND OTHERS; THE GROSS TRAGIC STYLE OF DAVID DURING THE 
 REVOLUTION; AND THE RESTORATION OF THE NATURAL STYLE 
 UNDER DE LA ROCHE AND H. VERNET. 
 
 Under Louis XIV., whose long reign extended from 1643 to 
 1715, the military power of France was extended by conquests in 
 Spain and Flanders ; its widening commerce led to the incorpora- 
 tion of a French East India Company ; and its advancing culture 
 suggested the establishment of the since celebrated Academies 
 of Belles Lettres, Inscriptions and of Science. Painting in this 
 era took character from the style of architecture called Louis 
 Quatorze. 
 
 Charles le Brun, a companion of Poussin in Italy, called to 
 adorn the extensive walls of the palace of Versailles, revealed a 
 style like that of Louis himself, forced by the spirit of his age to an 
 artificial grandeur, and to act a part on a stage .of fictitious eleva- 
 
LE BRUN, WATTEAU AND VERNET. 341 
 
 lion ; as is seen in his series called the Life of Alexander. His 
 Scripture themes are natural and truly expressive; and of his 
 family portraits, Schlegel remarks: "A painter, essentially a 
 mannerist, though really a man of genius, may in single works 
 attain the highest excellence, if he be only forcibly driven from his 
 ordinary style;" a remark suggesting a most important principle 
 of criticism both in art and literature. 
 
 In the age of Louis XV. commerce reached China ; the manu- 
 facture of silk, porcelain and of tapestry was largely introduced ; 
 the Jesuits were meeting such men as Voltaire ; and the leading 
 spirit in art was Watteau. In him religious themes proper were 
 superseded by scenes at festivals. Horace Walpole hinted that the 
 artificial style of Watteau was really an excessive imitation of the 
 natural around him ; his figures being fac-similes of the conven- 
 tional society in which the artist lived, and the stiff trees and walks 
 of his backgrounds being copies of the clipped and squared land- 
 scape then in vogue about Paris. Reynolds recommended "atten- 
 tion to the works of Watteau for their excellence in the florid style 
 of coloring." A degeneracy in such a style was the natural result ; 
 culminating in the wanton Boucher, of whom even Diderot writes: 
 " I am bold to say that this artist in reality knows not what grace 
 is ; that he has never known what truth is ; that all ideas of deli- 
 cacy, purity, innocence or simplicity have become entirely strange 
 to him ; that he has never for one moment seen nature. The de- 
 basement of taste, of color, of composition, of character, of expres- 
 sion, and of drawing has followed step by step on that of morals." 
 
 During the era of Louis XVI., men of true genius in science, 
 philosophy and art, numerous and worthy, retired to the pure 
 retreat of quiet academic shades. Among the artists Claude 
 Joseph Vernet, born 1714, the second in the line of four genera- 
 tions devoted to painting, first instructed by his father Antoine 
 Vernet, at eighteen went to Rome. The study of Salvator Rosa 
 led him to love marine views. After twenty years of devoted dili- 
 gence he ranked as the best landscape painter of his age. Invited 
 to Paris by Louis XV., in the midst of a terrific storm he insisted 
 upon being lashed to the mast, that he might study the features of 
 thft sea in a tempest. Ten or twelve years were devoted to those 
 fifteen grand masterpieces, the views of the principal ports of 
 France. Nearly every one of his two hundred or more landscape 
 29* 
 
312 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 views have been copied in engravings and published in different 
 countries of Europe. 
 
 Greuze, born A. D. 1726, became a master in an entirely different 
 department. The sweet grace of two of his early domestic scenes, 
 "The Father explaining the Scriptures to his Children," and 
 "The Paralytic Father," led the French Academy to suspend 
 their rule requiring a* historic painting for admission ; and to re- 
 ceive Greuze for his success in "genre." His paintings numbered 
 about one hundred and seventy-five. Waagen, the German critic, 
 compares him to Sterne, and adds: "The natural characteristics of 
 France are seized by Greuze with the same success as those of 
 England by Wilkie." 
 
 David, born in 1748, is a monument of the power of adaptation 
 characteristic of true genius. Having at the age of twenty-seven 
 partaken of the general enthusiasm for the antique, he devoted 
 himself to classic themes ; his " Horatii " making him a favorite with 
 Louis XVI. During the Revolution his pictures of ' ' Tullia ' * com- 
 mended him to the school of Robespierre. Under Napoleon his 
 "Leonidas" and "Crossing of the Alps," familiar in the engraved 
 copy, added to his popularity ; and even in the retirement of age, 
 still master of the situation, his "Wrath of Achilles" and "Mars 
 discerned by Venus," proved themes for the times. Among his 
 pupils, Gros, born A. D. 1771, merely modernized his severely 
 classic style by employing his method on themes of contempora- 
 neous history. His "St. Genevieve protecting the French Mon- 
 archy," brought him one hundred and fifty thousand francs and 
 the title of baron. 
 
 At the restoration, three schools, the product of the times, divided 
 popular favor. De la Croix, born 1799, characterized by brilliance 
 of color, opposed to the sober hues of the classic, sketching in 
 Morocco every variety of gay costume, employed then to decorate 
 the Bourbon palace, was the head of the Romantic school. De la 
 Roche, born 1797, a master in drawing, design and coloring, and 
 excelling in almost every department, winning popular esteem by 
 his scenes in English and French history and his portraits of 
 Guizot, Thiers and Lamartine, enshrined in the heart of Christian 
 sentiment by his head of Jesus, became head of a French Eclectic 
 school. Horace Vernet, fourth in the line of family artists, 
 born 1789, spending two years in the army to learn details essential 
 
EARLY ENGLISH PAINTING. 343 
 
 to his art, devoted himself to picturing the rapid military successes 
 of his country. Honored equally by Napoleon I., the Bourbons, 
 Charles X., Louis Philippe and Napoleon III., less gorgeous than 
 De la Croix, less dreamy than De la Roche, he is the head of the 
 modern French Historic school. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LATE DEVELOPMENT OP MODERN PAINTING IN ENGLAND AND 
 AMERICA ; COMPREHENSIVE IN SUBJECT AND AIM, AS WELL AS 
 IN THE NATIONALITY OP ITS ARTISTS ; NATIVE IN CONCEPTION, 
 BUT CULTURED IN STYLE. 
 
 ENGLAND has been late in developing native genius in art ; her 
 Shakespeare being in advance of her sculptors and painters, as 
 Homer antedated Phidias and Apelles. The English, too, like the 
 Romans, sturdy in practical pursuits, have been contented with 
 imported rather than with native art. The Americans, besides 
 partaking of the national traits of their mother-land, have had a 
 new land and nation to mould. Both England and America have 
 thus opened an inviting field to artists of foreign culture ; whose 
 influence has awakened the germs of a peculiarly vigorous native 
 art. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE EARLY ENGLISH TASTE IN PAINTING AS DEVELOP*^ 
 FIRST BY ITALIAN AND LATER BY FLEMISH ARTISTS. 
 
 As in architecture so in painting, Roman vied early with Saxon 
 taste in England ; then Italian religious and German secular artists 
 succeeded ; till native masters were called out. 
 
 The oldest English portraits and altar-pieces are on wood and in 
 the stiff Lombard method of drawing. Improved Italian art was 
 late in being appreciated. When Francis I. had brought Lionardo 
 to Paiis, Henry VIII. was trying, though unsuccessfully, to bring 
 both Raphael and Titian to London. At this period, from religious 
 reasons, artists began to be looked for from another quarter than 
 Italy. Under Henry VIII., John of Mabuse, a Flemish artist, 
 came as a youth to England and became portrait painter for tho 
 
344 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 court. He also executed altar-pieces, which drew Albert Diirer to 
 England to examine them. About 1527 Holbein, influenced by 
 Erasmus, the scholarly Dutch Reformer, coming to England, be- 
 came a precursor of the English school proper, established two 
 centuries later. From Henry VIII. to Mary, Holbein was honored 
 as an artist, leaving such pupils as Sir Anthony More. Holbein's 
 ch ief success was in portrait ; the expression and relief of his dark 
 backgrounds being chief excellences. His exquisite skill in en- 
 graving, seen in his "Dance of Death," awakened in England a 
 germ of native art afterward to be matured. 
 
 Under Elizabeth architecture, and under James I. and Charles 
 T. painting began their native history. About 1622 the Duke of 
 Buckingham established a gallery, purchasing the entire collection 
 of Rubens. Charles I. took lessons in drawing and oil painting. 
 In 1629 Flanders sent Rubens as ambassador to England; whom 
 Charles received with enthusiasm, and for his fine painting of 
 "Peace and War," conferred on the artist the order of knight- 
 hood. In 1632 Vandyke, invited by Charles, was appointed court- 
 painter, soon knighted, and pensioned for life. The touching emo- 
 tion of his Scripture themes, and the fascinating animation of his 
 portraits, formed an English taste. 
 
 While the sojourn of three Flemish masters, and common sky, 
 habits and cast of mind made the English and Flemish taste in art 
 correspond, the collections of the Duke of Buckingham and of 
 Charles I. kept alive a love for Italian art. The vandalism of the 
 Revolution scattered these treasures ; and a decline in art followed, 
 whose repressing influence was felt during the reign of four success* 
 ive sovereigns of the house of Stuart. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE EARLY NATIVE ENGLISH MASTERS, BEGINNING WITH 
 
 HOGARTH ; THE FIRST ENGLISH SCHOOLS ORIGINATING WITH SIB 
 
 J. REYNOLDS IN PORTRAIT AND GAINSBOROUGH IN LANDSCAPE. 
 
 The dawn of native English art was gradual. Nicolas Hilliard, 
 
 born A. D. 1547, limner to Queen Elizabeth, excelled in miniature 
 
 portraits. In the next generation Isaac Oliver and his son Peter 
 
 were eminent, the former as a miniature painter in oil and water, 
 
 the latter as a copyist of larger paintings. Wm. Dobson, born 
 
 A. D. 1610, made court-painter at Vandyke's death, whose style 
 
 and self-culture wou for him the title of the English Tintoret, 
 
IIOGAU'IH, REYNOLDS AND GAINSBOROUGH. 345 
 
 might have proved, but for his early death, the father of English 
 painting. 
 
 Wra. Hogarth won this honor. Born A. D. 1697, noted when a 
 boy for the drawings covering his school-books, employed as en- 
 graver by a silversmith, at twenty-one years he began to attend 
 lectures on art, and to draw from life at the London Academy. 
 Devoting himself for some years to portrait painting, engraving 
 became his master art. His style in satire, or mingled tragic and 
 comic, led Walpole to pronounce him *'no painter;" while Charles 
 Lamb regarded him the true type of an English artist; remarking, 
 "Other pictures we look at, Hogarth's prints we read." His 
 "Analysis of Beauty," published A. D. 1753, has many practical 
 suggestions of value, though faulty in its leading principle. His 
 familiar portrait, a hale, jovial, somewhat haughty English face, 
 with his favorite dog perched by his side, is suggestive of his plice 
 in English art ; the rude but powerful genius who broke loose from 
 the trammels of mere Flemish and Italian copyists, and by his peu 
 and brush originated an English school. 
 
 The recognized founders of English portrait and landscape 
 reached the maturity of their powers while Hogarth was still 
 living. Sir Joshua Reynolds, born 1723, educated in a school kept 
 by his father, at eighteen years placed in the studio of a portrait 
 painter, after two years' study and six years' practice studied in 
 Italy Venetian coloring and Correggio's transparence. At thirty- 
 one, returning to London, he secured rank as the best of English 
 colorists ; though the neglect of his early training left an abiding 
 defect in his drawing. Social in disposition, literary in his tastes, 
 he shone in the galaxy of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith and Garrick ; 
 the English club reviving the associations of ancient Greece and 
 modern Tuscany. Devoted chiefly to portraits, he found time for 
 historical and devotional themes; his "Holy Family" and his 
 "Kneeling Samuel" being familiar in thousands of Christian 
 households. Masterly as were the effects he sometimes attained in 
 coloring, Reynolds declared that the results he achieved were but 
 chances ; that he knew no science of coloring ; a fact confirmed by 
 the fading of some of his newly-tried pigments. 
 
 Thomas Gainsborough, born A. D. 1727, at ten years of age was 
 remarkable for capacity in drawing, and at twelve had learned 
 coloring. He ^arly obtained proficiency in portrait, but over- 
 
 P* 
 
316 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 shadowed by Reynolds, his retiring nature found rarer delight in 
 landscape. True English scenery first smiled on canvas at hia 
 umch. 
 
 Contemporary with these leaders were other able artists ; Rich- 
 ard Wilson in landscape, John Opie, called the "Cornish wonder," 
 in portrait, and James Northcote, more eminent as an author. In 
 addition to these native artists Ireland gave Barry, sent as a genius 
 by Burke to London, whose " Victors of Olympia" Canova said 
 he would have traveled as far as England to see ; while Switzerland 
 furnished the Italian Fuseli, who has done much for the just criti- 
 cism of art. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE ENGLISH SCHOOLS, MASTERS AND CRITICS IN PAINT- 
 ING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 During the last half century in England ideas of former ages and 
 schools have been revived; the extreme natural of the Pre- 
 llaphaelites, and the value of oil as a vehicle, have been newly 
 tested ; portrait, low-life, history and especially landscape, have 
 received comprehensive study ; while artists and amateurs have 
 employed the pen equally with the pencil to advance national art. 
 
 In portrait Sir Thomas Lawrence, whom George III. appointed 
 court-painter, was employed by the princes of .Europe to paint the 
 portraits of the generals prominent at the battle of Waterloo. Sir 
 Henry Raeburn, born at Edinburgh, has left portraits of Sir Walter 
 Scott and other Scotsmen eminent in literature, philosophy and 
 politics, which are treasures in history as they are gems in art. 
 
 In historic fiction Etty has won the reputation of being the best 
 of English colorists; his Cleopatra, radiant in nude loveliness, 
 heightened by the contrast of the gorgeous equipage around her, 
 beginning his fame. Sir David Wilkie, of Scotland, the leading 
 artist of the age in "genre," or low-life, will live as long as the 
 remembrance of his " Sir Walter Scott" and "Chelsea Pensioners." 
 S^.othard, the illustrator of the English poets, noted for richness 
 and exhaustless fertility of invention, constantly rambling in the 
 fields, not only with his pencil to sketch the form of every striking 
 grace in the bend of stalk or tendril, but also with his box of colors 
 to copy every new variety of rich hue in insect or flower, is prince 
 in this humble walk of loveliness. 
 
 Joseph M. W. Turner, born 1775, at five years of age beginning 
 
TURNER, LANDSEER AND LIVING PAINTERS. 347 
 
 to draw and paint in water-colors, showed early a skill in the man- 
 agement of his lights from which his future success in landscape 
 was predicted. His style was first modeled after Wilson and 
 Gainsborough. A visit to France, the study of Claude, and a foot 
 journey through Switzerland, gave him an independent style of 
 truth to nature in sky and cloud, in foliage and in water, surpassing 
 perhaps the attainment of any other artist, ancient or modern. His 
 later style, founded on the idea of sketching only what the eye sees 
 in one line without turning it, giving vivid distinctness to a narrow 
 tunnel-like vista, encircling this with a cloudy indistinct rim, and 
 leaving the corners of his canvas a perfect blank, though eulogized 
 by his panegyrist Ruskin, is regarded by most critics as a degene- 
 racy from the true ideal of his prime. 
 
 After Turner followed Constable, especially successful in transient 
 aspects of landscape, such as dew on foliage, and falling rain ; 
 Morland, who excelled in portraying domestic animals, especially 
 the pig; Collins eminent for coast-views of fishermen and their 
 families ; and Charles L. Eastlake, the most thoroughly cultured 
 of English artists, an able master in Scripture and classic themes, 
 as well as a profound critic. Most admired of all is Edwin Land- 
 Beer, whose father, when he was a child, led him into the pastures 
 to copy the form and study the color of different animals in varied 
 positions. At sixteen he executed the famous St. Bernard dogs 
 rescuing a traveler from the snow ; and his fame culminated in a 
 succession of landscape sketches relating to the chase and the 
 habits of wild animals, which have made him the most popular 
 because the most life-like of delineators. 
 
 The English school in "Water Colors," established about 1750, 
 by Sandby, adorned by Turner and Prout in architectural views 
 and Fielding in wooded scenery, sought at first the peculiar fresh- 
 ness and clearness of hues afforded by water as a vehicle ; which, 
 as we have seen, led M. Angelo to prefer fresco to oil coloring. A 
 later method inaugurated by W. H. Hunt, born A. D. 1827, and 
 an association called the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," proposes 
 a return to the themes as well as the style introduced by Giotto ; 
 its subjects being either religious or exhibitions of high virtue ; and 
 its methods of drawing and coloring being derived from direct study 
 of nature. 
 
 The progress of art in England has been especially influenced by 
 
348 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 critical writers; LordKames and Burke, belonging to the school of 
 Locke and Reid, and Alison to that of Berkeley. The more prac 
 tical works of Hogarth, Fuseli, Reynolds, Hay, Eastlake, Ruskin 
 and Jamieson show that critical judgment is in advance of prac- 
 tical execution. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PAINTING PRIOR TO THE WAR 
 OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE; WITH ITS CHIEF MASTERS, WEST 
 AND COPLEY. 
 
 The rise and progress of painting in the United States of America, 
 while colonies of Great Britain, was specially associated with that 
 of the mother-country. In 1728, John Smibert, accompanying 
 Dean Berkeley to Rhode Island and seeming to partake the enthu- 
 siasm of Berkeley's famous stanzas, beginning, "Westward the 
 star of Empire takes its flight," became eminent at Boston as a 
 portrait painter. Other foreign artists aided in the development 
 of a native taste in Wollaston and Blackburn, in Copley and 
 Trumbull. 
 
 Portraits of eminent men were first in demand ; Robert Edge 
 Pyne, M. du Cimitiere, Joseph Wright and other foreign artists, 
 receiving sittings from Washington when no native artist had yet 
 been developed. 
 
 Benjamin West, born at Springfield, Pennsylvania, A. D. 1738, 
 was, when a child, fond of drawing and painting ; his brush being 
 of his own manufacture from the hair of a cat, and his colors some 
 red and yellow ochre obtained of the neighboring Indians, and 
 indigo given him by his mother. At seven years he surprised his 
 mother, a Friend in religious profession, by a drawing of the babe in 
 the cradle. Sent before he was sixteen to Philadelphia to study 
 art, his early religious connections were severed ; and at twenty- two 
 some New York merchants sent him to Italy; where, in three 
 years, he was elected a member of the Art Academies of Florence, 
 Bologna and Parma. Settling in England in 1763, for fifty-five 
 years, until his death in 1820, West practised his art in London; 
 leaving about four hundred finished works, many of large size. 
 His themes were ancient, modern and sacred history. In his 
 "Death of Wolfe," breaking over the scruples of Reynolds, and 
 picturing English heroes in their national costume, he formed an 
 era in British art. West's color, a monotone us reddish brown, is 
 
WKST, COPLKV, STl'AKT AND Tlil M1JULL. 3 19 
 
 faulty; but his correct drawing, chaste design, and admiraUe 
 grouping have ranked him as a master. Though Kugli.sh in hi* 
 predilections, West, in respect for his countrymen, declined the 
 order of knighthood, when, in 1792, he succeeded Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy. 
 
 John Singleton Copley, born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1737, 
 sent at twenty-two to the Royal Academy at London, attracted 
 special notice by his coloring. In Italy he studied the styles of 
 Corrcggio and Titian. Devoting himself at London to Engli.-h 
 history, his "Death of Chatham" won him esteem with the 
 British public, though a memorial of his country's defender. Cop- 
 ley had West's correct drawing; he fell short of him in design; 
 but excelled him in brilliance of coloring. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE AMERICAN PAINTERS OF THE HALF CENTURY SUC- 
 CEEDING THE ERA OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Immediately after American Independence, the spirit of the 
 South, ardent and refined, that of the North, bold and inventive, 
 and that of the Middle regions, staid and allied to the past, seemed 
 to call for a native art in history, domestic scenes and landscape. 
 The plain modern costume introduced by West was demanded by 
 the American habits and character ; while the wild forest scenery 
 of the New Continent, especially in the gorgeous dress of autumn, 
 opened an entirely new field in nature for the artist's stud}'. The 
 Northern, Southern, Middle and Western States, all combined to 
 supply this national demand. 
 
 Gilbert Charles Stuart, born at Narragansett, Rhode Island, in 
 1756, having received earty instruction from a Scotch painter, went 
 to London in 1778, where West became his teacher. In 1781 he 
 developed such power in portrait that George III., Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds and Louis XVI. sat for him. Returning to America in 
 1 793, he executed that master work, the head of Washington, of 
 which he afterward made several copies. Living till 1828, the 
 zreat men of two generations in the American republic have been 
 j reserved in memory by his art. Stuart excelled in seizing the 
 characteristic expression, and in the life-like freshness and glow of 
 nis flesh color. The head was always his chief study ; the drapery 
 he often left unfinished, or threw it into deep shade to give greater 
 prominence to the strong light on the features. 
 30 
 
350 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 John Trumbull, born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, was led 
 by the paintings of Smibert and Copley to devote himself to art. 
 Entering the American army at nineteen, his skill in drawing in- 
 fluenced Washington to appoint him one of his aids. In May 1780 
 he sailed for France, went to London and became a pupil of West. 
 Shortly after the war he painted "The Battle of Bunker Hill," 
 and "The Death of Montgomery ;" which subjects not altogether 
 suiting the English taste, he painted "The Sortie at Gibraltar," 
 whose exhibition gave him a wide reputation as excelling in battle 
 scenes. Returning to America in 1789, he devoted his life till his 
 death at New York in 1843, chiefly to portraits. In 1817, he began 
 the four historic pieces in the rotunda of the National Capitol. 
 The Trumbull gallery of Yale College contains fifty-seven of his 
 pictures. The figures in Trumbull' s pictures have more merit than 
 the backgrounds ; their chief value being the correctness of the 
 portraits introduced. 
 
 Edward G. Malbone, born at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1777, 
 learning his art from watching the work of scene-painters, at seven- 
 teen began miniature painting at Providence ; whence in 1796 he 
 removed to Boston. With Washington Allston, he went in 1800 
 to Charleston, South Carolina; after which he visited London and 
 several American cities. Allston, his admirer, speaks of his por- 
 traits as " elevating the character without impairing the likeness." 
 
 Samuel Finley Breese Morse, afterward famous as the inventor 
 of the electric telegraph, born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, A. D. 
 1791, after graduating in 1810 at Yale College, went to London to 
 study art under West ; where he modeled a dying Hercules which 
 won the gold medal at the Adelphi Exhibition in 181 3. Returning 
 home in 1815, he aided in the organization of the "National 
 Academy of Design," in New York ; spent some years in Europe , 
 became a professor in the University of New York ; and having 
 done much for the general advancement of art, devoted himself to 
 his great work as inventor of the electric telegraph. Among other 
 New England artists, Chester Harding, Alvan Fisher and Gilbert 
 Stuart Newton, adorned their profession in the early part of the 
 present century. 
 
 In the Middle States, Charles Wilson Peale, born in Chester, 
 Maryland, 1741, having received some instruction at home, went in 
 1770 to Englund. Returning, he painted portraits chiefly at Phila 
 
PEALE. VANDERLYN, LESLIE AND ALSTON. 351 
 
 delphia. He contributed much to the advancement of art by the 
 establishment of a museum and the founding of the Pennsylvania 
 Academy of the Fine Arts. Rembrandt Peale, son of the former, 
 born 1778, at 'eight years was skilled in drawing, and at eight.cn 
 years was engaged in portrait painting at Charleston, South 
 Carolina. In 1801 he went to London and studied under W;>t, 
 then to Paris. Returning in 1809, he settled in Philadelphia. 
 Portrait was his chief field ; as also of his cousins, Sarah and Ann. 
 
 John Vanderlyn, born at Kingston. New York, 1776, at sixteen 
 years began study under Stuart, and in 1796, under the patronage 
 of Aaron Burr, went to Paris. His " Marius at Carthage" won 
 the gold medal at Paris in 1808, and an encomium from Napoleon. 
 In 1815 Vanderlyn settled in New York. His "Landing of 
 Columbus," in the Capitol at Washington, is one of his best 
 works. 
 
 Asher Brown Durand, born in Jefferson, New Jersey, in 1796, by 
 his famed engraving of Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, 
 was brought into public notice. In 1835, abandoning engraving, 
 he began to paint portraits, then devoted himself to historic 
 themes, and then to ideal and natural landscape. He excels in 
 idyllic expression, and is distinguished for truth in color and tone. 
 
 Charles Robert Leslie, born in 1794, residing from early child- 
 hood in Philadelphia, at nineteen visited England and studied 
 under West and Allston. Choosing the humorous writers of Eng- 
 land and the Continent for his study, his scenes from Shakspearc 
 and Sterne, Cervantes and Moliere, gave him a wide popularity. 
 His composition is expressive, and his execution elaborate in finish. 
 
 Henry Inman, born in Utica, New York, A. D. 1801, trained to 
 portrait painting for seven years, after an eminent practice visited 
 England in 1844, where he painted the portraits of Macnulay, 
 Chalmers and Wordsworth ; sketching also in landscape Words- 
 worth's favorite haunt, " R} T dal Water. " A series of historical 
 works for the U. S. Capitol was left unfinished at his decease, in 
 1846. 
 
 Washington Allston, born at Waccamaw, South Carolina, in 
 1779, fond of art in childhood, associated at college and after his 
 graduation with Malbone, first gave his genius its bent in sketch- 
 ing comic and tragic scenes, especially pictures of bandits in wild 
 caves. Going with Malbone to London in 1801, he studied three 
 
352 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 years under West, then spent some months in the galleries of tlrs 
 Louvre at Paris, thence again repaired to Rome, where he became 
 intimate with Coleridge, the poet, and Thorwaldsen, the sculptor, 
 remaining four years. At London his early Scripture themes pro 
 cured him princely patronage, revealing exalted imagination. Re- 
 curning in 1818 to Boston, religious themes occupied him for twelve 
 years ; his method being subdued by the chastening of age and 
 experience. A design conceived in 1817 as a great life-work, 
 "Belshazzar's Feast," led him to decline filling a panel in the 
 National Capitol with a historic picture. On Saturday night, July 
 9, 1843, after a week of constant toil on this work, and an even- 
 ing of pleasant converse with his family and friends, he suddenly 
 and gently fell asleep in death. The unfinished picture, now in 
 the Boston Athenaeum, is a monument symbolic of its author's 
 life ; glowing with unearthly loftiness of sentiment, the effort at 
 whose utterance exhausted the spirit that sought to give it form. 
 
 After Allston, Sully and Ffaser brought credit to the State of 
 South Carolina. Thomas Sully, born in England, A. D. 1783, 
 brought at nine years to Charleston, S. C., at twenty settled in 
 Richmond, Va., as a portrait painter, and six years later re- 
 moved to Philadelphia. His u Washington Crossing the Dela- 
 ware " is a gem of his leisure. On a visit to England he painted 
 a portrait of Victoria. 
 
 Thomas Cole, born in England in 1801, in 1819 was brought to 
 Steubenville, Ohio. An acquaintance with an itinerant portrait 
 painter led him, with colors and implements of his own manufac- 
 ture, to attempt landscape sketching. At twenty-one, after a tour 
 on foot of about two years amid the bold scenery about Pittsburg, 
 he came to Philadelphia as a landscape painter. Proceeding to 
 New York in 1825, Trumbull and others recognized him as one of 
 Nature's great masters. Here he originated the American school 
 in landscape. Rambling for weeks among the Highlands, and ex 
 tending his tours even to Niagara and the White Mountains, he 
 sketched the varied forms and hues with a simplicity and truth, 
 with a living expressiveness in outline, and a naturalness of color 
 that captivated every beholder. Attempting ideal themes, as the 
 " Garden of Eden," the popular taste preferred his home scenes. 
 In 1829, Cole visited London and painted there two years; and in 
 1831, roamed in Italy till its sublime mountains and magic atmos- 
 
COLE, AND FEATURES OF AMERICAN PAINTING. 353 
 
 phere were photographed on his memory. Returning to New 
 Fork in 1832, he executed five large pictures, styled "The Course 
 of Empire," for Lyman Reed, of New York ; adding those gems 
 the "Dream of Arcadia" and " Voyage of Life. " In 1841, re- 
 visiting Italy and Sicily, he attempted a succession of views, which 
 hastened his death in 1848. His last works, like those of most 
 men of ripest genius, assumed a religious turn. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN NATIONALITY AND 
 CHRISTIANITY, AS DEVELOPED IN A COMi'K KM KNSI VE TYPE AND 
 ELEVATED STYLE OF NATIVE ART IN PAINTING. 
 
 As in the African colonies of Phoenicia, and the Asiatic colonies 
 of Greece, the highest national energy in science, art and litera- 
 ture, was developed, so the first emigrants from Spain, France, 
 Germany, Holland and Great Britain to America, were the more 
 energetic, not only of the middle or civilizing, but also of the noble 
 or ruling classes in European society. Their civil government ancf 
 their religious associations have taken, as a natural consequence, a 
 peculiarly independent east ; which necessarily has reacted upon 
 the style of their art. 
 
 The artists of America, German and Italian, English and 
 native, have shown the peculiarities of their nationalities; the Ger- 
 man revolutionary, the Italian conservative in political and religious 
 tendencies; the English less distinctive in caste. American scholars 
 and artists naturally tend to comprehensive views, and to a con- 
 servative course in both politics and religion ; the reflex of which 
 spirit is taking form in their works of art. 
 
 Without invidious comparison, a few artists must be named as 
 examples of classes. As copies from old masters, Paul Baize's 
 " School of Athens," and some of J. K. Fisher's later Venetian 
 masters, have long been admired. In portrait every leading city 
 has its favorite artists. In aboriginal history Stanley's Indian 
 portraits are invaluable ; while in American history proper Weir's 
 " Embarkation of the Pilgrims," and Walker's "Battle of Cha- 
 pultepec," are links in a series. In genre, Huntington has won 
 praise. In higher passion, Rothermel is showing decided genius ; 
 his " Paul before Agrippa," being, unlike Raphael's ideal, true to 
 tradition; while his "Christian Martyrs in the Coliseum," in 
 architectural background, in the action of the picture, in the ex- 
 an * 
 
354 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 pression of the chief figures, and in the aerial effects, is a master- 
 work. Fresco is attaining in Brumidi a worthy American 
 character. 
 
 In landscape, especially in distant aerial effects, American artista 
 have originated a distinct school. While Leutze has recast Vene- 
 tian sky, a class of artists have caught the mantle of Cole in 
 American scenery. The twilight landscapes of Weber are fairy- 
 like in aerial and ground tints; the sky of Church's "Cotopaxi," 
 "Heart of the Andes," and "Niagara," is as rare in art as the sub- 
 jects of his sketches are in nature ; and Bierstadt's master- works, 
 uniting both these fields, have established a new school in the 
 history of coloring. 
 
 The lack of the religious element in the designs of American 
 artists is calling forth frequent comment. Allston, drawn by his 
 early affliction to religious studies, and for it sacrificing public 
 patronage and popular fame, is an exception in American art. 
 The devotion, however, of West and Cole in their advanced and 
 declining days, like that of Newton, Grrotius and the mass of the 
 ablest men of science, and statesmen in France, England and 
 America, indicates that when American genius is directed to this 
 field it will show a depth of conviction, an intelligence of faith, an 
 inspiration of hope, and a zeal of love entirely new in the history 
 of Christian art. As American scholars, aside from the prejudice 
 of national and ecclesiastical predilections, have analyzed Christian 
 traditions, local and historical, with an independence and candor 
 of judgment impossible in men of any European nationality, so, 
 with their skill in natural landscape and their personal intelligence 
 in Christian truth, the climactic field of art, the union of a lofty 
 ideal of the Divine "Word made flesh" with the perfect trans- 
 cript of the scenes of his actual life, may be realized by American 
 painters. 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; THE GROUPING OF NATURAL OB- 
 JECTS TO SECURE ARTISTIC EFFECTS OF FORM, COLOR, 
 RELATION AND MOTION. 
 
 A GARDEN is a work of man designed for utility ; a landscape is a 
 creation of the Divine hand moulded and grouped to produce the 
 impression of beauty. A landscape-garden is a composite crea- 
 tion ; the artist availing himself of the outline already furnished by 
 Divine skill, removing the defects of Nature's decay, and adapting 
 lor dwelling-places what otherwise would be fitted only for the abode 
 of animals. Lord Kames says, "Gardening is not an inventive art, 
 but an imitation of nature, or rather nature itself adorned." 
 
 Landscape-gardening appeals primarily to the eye, presenting the 
 united beauties of form, of color, of relation, and of motion ; yet 
 addresses the other senses ; adding the odor of flowers, the flavor 
 of fruits, the refreshing of shade, and the charm of the insects' hum 
 and of the birds' warble. It is an art open in its treasures to all ; 
 the flower-beds of the cottager and the park of the noble feasting 
 the eye alike of every passer-by. The garden, too, is the first and 
 the last of human delights ; the traditional abode of man in his 
 purity and perfection, before sculpture and architecture existed ; 
 the home of the blest hereafter in the Greek Hesperides, the 
 lloman Elysium, the Mohammedan Paradise, and the Apocalyptic 
 Christian Heaven. 
 
 Not only passive enjoyment but delightful employ is furnished 
 in the landscape-garden. As in Eden, the first pair were to "dress 
 and keep" the garden, so in all cultured ages and nations it has 
 been the art earliest practised because of its utility, yet last per- 
 fected as a work of beauty. Lord Bacon's philosophic statement 
 is, "Man came to build stately sooner than garder finely; as if 
 gardening were the greater perfection. ' ' 
 
 355 
 
356 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE EFFECTS TO BE SOUGHT IN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 LANDSCAPE gardening, broad in its sensual appeals, is restricted 
 in its spiritual addresses. All the varied impressions of the mind 
 made through the eye, the beautiful, the grand, the picturesque, 
 the novel, the grotesque, the tragic and the comic, belong to this 
 art; as also the appeals to all the lower senses. The range of 
 moral impressions, however, is restricted in landscape-gardening ; 
 its delights awakening less directly than other fine arts the emo- 
 tions called forth by human associations, by the higher social 
 virtues, or by the religious affections. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE GENERAL END OF ORDER AND SYMMETRY, COINCIDING 
 
 WITH UTILITY, IN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 The first element of beauty in a garden is, as Kames and other 
 critics agree, order in the arrangement and symmetry in the pro- 
 portion of parts. Order demands that paths have a central dividing 
 avenue with equal subdivisions, and that plants be ranged in beds 
 according to their size, increasing from the centre. Symmetry de- 
 mands that in rectangular plots a fixed measure control the length 
 and breadth. 
 
 In the broader work of laying out a public garden, park or ceme- 
 tery, winding avenues must so intersect as not to mar each other's 
 outline ; and the clumps and lines of trees of different sizes and forms 
 must so succeed as to aid each other's effect. In a Roman city- 
 residence the little court-yard back of the entrance was as mathe- 
 matically exact in all its measurements as a diagram in Euclid. 
 This controlling method, handed down through the Middle Ages, 
 when introduced into France and England, worked sad havoc for a 
 time amid the wooded knolls of the British Isles. That the simple 
 laws of order and symmetry so long ruled alone, even to the exclu- 
 sion of higher principles, is sufficient testimony that they are per- 
 manent elements, never to be overlooked in this art. 
 
GRANDEUR AND PICTURESQUENESS IN LANDSCAPE. 357 
 
 SECT. 2. THE GENERAL AIM OP GRANDEUR IN EXTENT AND PICS 
 
 TURESQ.UENES8 IN GROUPING, CONSPIRING WITH ELEGANCE IN 
 
 FORMS AND RICHNESS IN COLOR. 
 
 Kent had already called attention to this second aim in landscape- 
 gardening when Lord Kames wrote: "Gardening, besides the 
 emotions of beauty from regularity, order, proportion, color and 
 utility, can raise emotions of grandeur, of sweetness, of gayety, of 
 melancholy, of wildness and even of surprise and wonder." The 
 attaining of true grandeur, beauty with ma ivrin-ss or in wide ex- 
 tent, sought in architecture ' by M. Angelo and in sculpture by 
 Phidias, belongs to the great Architect of nature in landscape. 
 Landscape-gardening, taking advantage of his methods and his 
 material in the range of wood and field, of hill and dale, may most 
 fully secure this effect. 
 
 The u picturesque" requires the opposite of order in some por- 
 tions of a work. Sir. Richard Morris makes the picturesque to 
 consist in "unfinished" as opposed to "finished" forms. As Phi- 
 dias made the very roughness of Minerva's brow give polish to 
 that very feature when seen in the distance, so, as Ruskin con- 
 tends, in a landscape-garden a rock that would be a blemish if the 
 wild brush around it were removed, may, in a vista view, give a 
 grace which no pruning could effect. Lord Kames suggests that 
 though "nature in organized bodies, comprehended under one 
 view, studies regularity," yet she "in her large works neglects 
 these properties;" and hence in " embellishing a field . . . the 
 artist ought to neglect them." 
 
 In the picturesque, however, the general outline of forms must 
 be elegant and the colors rich. The skill requisite is so to group 
 the finished and unfinished portions of the landscape, by pleasing 
 juxtaposition of contrasted objects, as of a tangled copse and a 
 shorn lawn, of an ivy-covered wall and a cleared grove, of a wild 
 cascade and a neatly- walled lake, that the aspect of slovenly neglect 
 do not prevail over that of elegant carelessness. So, too, whatever 
 the clime, the colors of foliage and flowers, of buildings and fences, 
 must possess in themselves a richness which shall not allow an un- 
 pleasant impression from a near view to mar in remembrance the 
 pleasure of the distant prospect. Eve's work in Paradise was "to 
 support" each flower of "gay carnation, purple, azure, gold," 
 
358 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 whose head would otherwise "hang drooping," and thus its rich- 
 ness be lost to view. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OF ASSOCIATION; AS THE NOVEL 
 
 OR VENERABLE, THE NATIVE OR FOREIGN, THE ENLIVENING OR 
 DEPRESSING. 
 
 The power of association may be secured in landscape-gardening 
 more fully than in any other art ; especially the impressions of the 
 novel and the venerable, of the native and the foreign. 
 
 Novelty may be attained both in new forms and new groupings. 
 In the flower-garden every shower gives fuller shape and size and 
 adds freshened tints ; and autumn frosts paint vast panoramas with 
 sober, yet gorgeous hues. Yet more, by new groupings of familiar 
 plants and trees and new selections of rare flowers and shrubs, as 
 well as in architectural and sculptural decorations and in animal 
 accessories, variety may be attained. The Chinese are noted for 
 the surprises introduced into their gardens ; the gardens of Ver- 
 sailles have an excess of quaint devices in hedges and fountains ; 
 and the Hebrew Solomon had exotic plants and even apes and 
 peacocks brought from India for his pleasure-gardens. 
 
 The counterpart of love for the novel is reverence for the venera- 
 ble. A dilapidated wall, a broken column, a fragment of a statue, 
 or even a dead tree covered with ivy, recalls days bygone. The 
 fondness for the antique led the Romans to bear off obelisks from 
 Egypt and statues from Greece to adorn their city and suburban 
 villas; while the Chinese, showing the more the naturalness of 
 this impulse from its rude development, introduce old trees arti- 
 ficially transplanted. Lord Kames, with a nice analysis, suggests 
 that the Gothic is more appropriate than Grecian in gardening, 
 because " the Gothic exhibits the triumph of time over strength, a 
 melancholy but not unpleasant thought;" while " a Grecian ruin 
 suggests rather the triumph of barbarity over taste, a gloomy and 
 discouraging thought." 
 
 As the mingling of the new and venerable gives pleasing contrasts 
 in time, so the blending of the native and foreign give a kindred 
 contrast in place. Every maiden seeks some rare plant or bird ; 
 and the conservatory of exotics and the park of foreign animals 
 are chief centres of attraction in every public garden. Some bold 
 designer has suggested for the environs of the American Capital 
 
MOTION AND LIFE IN LANDSCAPE. 359 
 
 an enclosure of some miles in area in which sections be planted, 
 stocked and peopled by the trees, animals and men of the three 
 continents of the Old World. 
 
 With power of moral adaptation the gardens on the Bosphorus 
 docked with gay flowers and cheerful shrubbery, sparkling with 
 glittering waters and enlivened by warbling birds, may give exhila- 
 ration; tho quiet grove of Academus may woo to reflection ; or the 
 venerable olives of Gethsemane may dispose the soul ix> prayer. 
 The church -yard, too, more worthy of study, may, with moss- 
 covered stone and bramble-carpeted grave, make death seem 
 gloomy and the tomb dreary ; with gay flowers and lively sculp- 
 ture, it may give the associations of holiday dissipation ; or, again, 
 with the drooping willow and dark clustering myrtle, it may 
 awaken that equable impression which seems fittest at the tomb. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OF MOTION, APPARENT OR REAL; 
 IN UNDULATION OF SOIL, IN RUNNING WATER, IN WAVING FORM* 
 AND SUSCEPTIBILITIES OF TREES, AND IN ANIMATE CREATURES, 
 
 In Grecian art the apparent motion of the beings that seemed to 
 live in the marble and on the tablet was the distinguishing feature. 
 In landscape motion may be both apparent and real. In land 
 called "undulating," not only is the superficial extent increased, as 
 by the flutes on columns, but the eye and the feet in moving over 
 such a surface seem to feel the billowy movement of the sea. 
 
 In water there is real motion ; the gentle ripple on the lake, 
 the gliding slide of the running stream, the vase-shaped curve of 
 the waterfall or fountain-jet, being chief charms in landscape since 
 the days of primitive Eden. Even the indication of the presence 
 of water, as the encircling shells around the basins in the little 
 court-yards of the old Roman houses at Pompeii, awaken a peculiar 
 delight. 
 
 The motion of plants has also its charm. The aspen's quiver in 
 the calmest air, the rocking of the golden grain in the zephyr, 
 the swaying of the elm's broad top and the floating, like streamers, 
 of the willow-boughs in the gentle breeze, as well as the rocking of 
 the maple and the oak before the storm, inspire the beholder. 
 
 Animate creatures give a double attraction. The lawn and the 
 forest are the home of the browsing sheep and the gnawing squir- 
 rel; while the picketed deer and water fowl, arid even the chained 
 
360 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 bear and caged eagle in themselves, and the associations of the 
 place are the delight of a park. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE RARE RESORT TO FICTITIOUS EFFECTS; AS THE IMI- 
 TATIVE, THE DECEPTIVE, THE GROTESQUE. 
 
 Hogarth dwells on intricacy as a fascination in art. The impulse 
 tfhich makes children fond of riddles and puzzles and youth of in- 
 volved plots in romance, which stimulates the hunter and explorer 
 in tracking intricate mountain-passes, led Milton to picture as a 
 sharra of Eden, the witchery of "crisped brooks," which "ran 
 with mazy error under pendant shades." 
 
 In attempts by imitation to awaken pleasing deception, natural 
 eifects should seem to be produced by a natural cause. An arti- 
 ficial rock made of loose stones should be so covered with vines as 
 to hide the junctures ; a brick arched grotto should, by a mastic 
 coating, be made to appear stone ; and a fountain-jet should rather 
 issue from the snout of a whale or elephant than from the mouth 
 of a dolphin or the beak of a swan. Bronze lions or dogs chained 
 at a gate, or even stuffed deer or birds half hidden among the foli- 
 age, are legitimate deceptions; though foliage cut into animal 
 forms is illegitimate, since it is less even of a deception than of an 
 imitation. 
 
 The garden is the legitimate field for the grotesque. The natu- 
 ral location of a grotto is a shaded hill-side ; whence Milton intro- 
 duced into the first garden of man, "umbrageous grots and caves." 
 But, if nature has not furnished a hill-side, an artificial mound may 
 serve as a grotto. As the reptile seeks the dark shade of the grotto 
 for his burrow, the garden-grotto is the select repository for this 
 class of sculpture. In the oak carving of a dark old lizard-haunted 
 castle, however, such forms may be appropriate. 
 
 SECT. 6. STUDIES IN SCIENCE AND ART RELATING TO LANDSCAPE- 
 GARDENING, AND REQUISITE TO THE MASTER IN THIS ART. 
 
 In gardening, as in the other fine arts, the science of his profes- 
 sion is essential to uniform success in the master ; and to the mere 
 student it is the main object of acquisition. 
 
 In geometry, whose name originated in the necessity of restoring 
 field-bounds in Egypt every year after 'the Nile's overflow, famil- 
 iarity with every variety of rectangular and curvilinear figure is 
 
MATERIAL FOR EFFECTS IN LANDSCAPE. 361 
 
 essential to the landscape plotter. The principles of descriptive 
 geometry and optics, also, as they relate to perspective, arc essen- 
 tial for the study of effects in landscape in the distance. In useful 
 and ornamental gardening agricultural chemistry as well as botany 
 and vegetable physiology are requisite in the selection and training 
 of plants. Of the wisest of men we are told that u he spake of 
 trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that 
 upringeth out of the wall ;" and the sweetest of Roman poets, the 
 graceful and pensive Virgil, has in his Georgics and Bucolics 
 shown the dignity as well as the extent of the science of plant-study 
 and culture which the master in gardening may attain. 
 
 In art as well as in science the successful gardener must be an 
 adept. To accomplish the effects sought in color and form, relation 
 and motion, the principles of design, the analysis and aesthetic 
 power of hues and tints, and a power in combining and grouping 
 akin to composition in painting, must be attained. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MATERIALS BY WHICH THE EFFECTS OF LANDSCAPE-GARDEN- 
 ING ARE SECURED. 
 
 
 
 THE variety in material employed by sculptors and painters, the 
 marble of Lebanon, Pentelicus and Carrara, and the ochres of India, 
 of Egypt and Greece, found in three continents, are substantially 
 one. The range of the landscape-gardener takes in every variety 
 of inorganic material, as earth, stone and wood, and every class of 
 organic creation as herb, shrub and tree, bird, reptile and 
 quadruped. 
 
 In sculpture and architecture the entire form, and in painting the 
 color, is to be the artist's work. In gardening part of the forms 
 and all color are furnished in nature, and only their grouping be- 
 longs to the artist. The land and its undulations and covering of 
 green are natural elements to be wrought by his skill into fit sur- 
 roundings for an abode of man. The house to shelter him, the 
 stalls for the beasts that serve, the fences and the out-houses that 
 
 31 Q 
 
362 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 add defence, convenience and comfort to his domain, are aitifici-J 
 parts of the one whole. The securing of harmony in grounds and 
 buildings, the happy combination of the natural with the artificial, 
 makes the whole a composition worthy to be ranked as a high art. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE STRFCTURE OF THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND TO BE 
 ADORNED; AS THJS CONTROLLING NATURAL FEATURE IN LAND- 
 SCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 The structure of the ground, whether a sandy plain, a meadow 
 of dark mould, a rolling succession of gravelly hills, or a rocky 
 mountain-side, is fixed by nature ; and the cast of edifices to be 
 erected and the choice of plants to be reared must be made de- 
 pendent on this structure of surface as the leading feature. The 
 eye of taste, indeed, may search for a spot presenting the greatest 
 variety for the accomplishment of its ends; as the Romans followed 
 up the Anio for miles to select sites fitted for their favorite villas. 
 When selected, however, the surface of the ground must control 
 the natural, and to a certain extent the artificial ornamentation of 
 its face. 
 
 In a level country, carriage and foot-paths and especially field- 
 bounds, demand straight lines ; for though a serpentine avenue is 
 allowable in a level garden, a curved field-bound would be unnatu- 
 ral. On the other hand, there is a habit in animal instinct, which 
 thus becomes a law of nature, to seek a winding path over an emi- 
 nence ; the camel in a mountain path, the dray-horse on a steep 
 avenue, the cattle browsing on a hill-side, making for themselves a 
 serpentine path ; guided by which instinct of the animal, the road- 
 builder in a new region is led to the most accessible pass. The 
 landscape-gardener wars with nature who lays out straight avenues 
 on an undulating surface ; as does the engineer who cuts a high 
 road straight over an eminence even when to wind gracefully 
 around its base would save labor and distance. 
 
 True taste again would make the outline of a lake in a deep 
 valley not an unvarying ellipse, but in curves conformed to the foot 
 of th< hill-slopes around ; and it would place a grotto in the steep- 
 est side, where rock, if not present, is indicated by the precipitous 
 elope. Still following nature also, it would fringe the lake with 
 willows, and sprinkle cedars on the rocky heights ; for while the 
 monarch of T^ebanon may be transplanted to the Garden of Plants 
 
STYLE OF BUILDING ADAPTED TO LANDSCAPE. 3G3 
 
 at Paris, and the palm may tower in Hyde Park at London, the 
 cedar must be planted on a bleak, rocky hill-side and the palm in a 
 sunny and sheltered nook. 
 
 SECT. 2. THE STYLE OF BUILDINGS TO BE ERECTED; AS THE LEAD- 
 ING ARTIFICIAL FEATURE IN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 As surface of ground is the controlling natural feature in land- 
 scape, so the style of architecture chosen is the leading artificial 
 feature. This suggests, first, the circumstances which must influ- 
 ence choice in architectural style; second, the extent to which 
 harmonj' requires adherence to one style. 
 
 The general design of private buildings is always the same ; a 
 mansion requiring servants' quarters, stables, barns and granary ; 
 also arbors and conservatories. From the mansion the other struc- 
 tures should take their type. The demands of surface require that 
 a Swiss cottage should be nestled under a steep hill ; that a square 
 mansion with broad Chinese verandah, stand on an open field with 
 a sunny exposure ; and that Grecian colonnade, Italian villa and 
 French chateau structures, be located on a surface slightly undu- 
 lating. The necessities imposed by climate relate more to com- 
 pactness of walls than to general structure. The requisites of 
 material are that Grecian types be of light-colored, in fact, of white 
 material, Egyptian of neutral gray, and Gothic of dark-colored 
 stone ; pure marble for Grecian, granite for Egyptian, and red 
 sandstone for Gothic, being a rule of exacting taste. 
 
 While harmony with the grounds fixes the general style chosen, 
 harmony in buildings as a whole suggests added principles. In 
 general all buildings coming into one range of view should accord 
 with each other in style. In a small private enclosure there is but 
 one main view ; but in extended grounds each range of hills, or 
 shaded avenue, may have separate fields adapted to diverse archi- 
 tectural structures ; as is admirably effected in the Villa Borghese, 
 where the styles of Egypt, of Greece, and of later ages are recon- 
 structed in different sections of the grounds. The chapel of a 
 cemetery may be a Grecian temple standing on a gentle eminence 
 or in an open field, or a Gothic cathedral amid a thick surrounding 
 shade ; while the tombs and monuments in each cluster or range 
 should be of the same class, whether Egyptian or Roman, Grecian 
 or Gothic. 
 
364 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 3. THE BOUNDING LIMITS OF GROUNDS; FENCES SUNKEN OB 
 RAISED, DITCHED OK TERRACED; PALINGS OF WOOD OR OF IRON; 
 WALLS OF BRICK OR OF STONE ; AND HEDGES OF SHRUBBERY. 
 
 Fences designed for protection, chiefly from cattle, require ade- 
 quate strength. Art demands that they be made to seem a natural 
 rather than an artificial limit. The surface of the ground and the 
 material furnished are controlling guides in the construction of 
 fences. 
 
 In undulating fields fences winding through the depressions are 
 hidden ; on a hill-side an embankment wall with a low open fence 
 leaves the view least obstructed ; while on a level field a fence 
 should be a tall hedge or an open paling of wood or iron. In utter 
 violation of this principle, close high fences around private gardens 
 give a prison-like confinement, disagreeable to the proprietor, 
 annoying to the passer-by denied his just public enjoyment, and 
 injurious to the plants themselves shut out from the cooling 
 breeze. 
 
 The supply of material generally corresponds to the nature of 
 surface ; both harmonizing in the style of fences appropriate. 
 Stone for embankment walls and terraces generally abounds in hilly, 
 and wood in dry low grounds ; while in marshy lands, as Egypt and 
 Holland, willow-bordered ditches harmonize nature and art. In 
 the limited enclosures of a cemetery, lightness united to strength 
 commends open iron-work, either wire-netting, chains or foliated 
 castings, as also small hedges. 
 
 SECT. 4. THE WALKS AND DRIVES ; DEPENDENT AS TO DIRECTION 
 AND CURVATURE UPON INEQUALITIES AND OBSTRUCTIONS OP 
 
 GROUNDS, AND ON THE POSITION OF THE PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS. 
 
 In carriage-drives and foot-paths, designed to give access to 
 grounds and buildings, art requires that varied and pleasing views 
 be afforded ; an end best secured by a curved avenue. 
 
 Before a mansion in an open level field, a smooth lawn from the 
 highway to the end of the mansion, with a straight avenue of shade 
 trees at one side, furnishes in separate features the richest possible 
 variety. On grounds slightly sloping, a single uniform curve is 
 most tasteful ; while over an undulating surface a winding approach 
 of gradual rise and sweep is most desirable. Foot-paths in open 
 
WALKS AND POOLS; LOCATIONS OF PLANTS. 365 
 
 grounds, as a vegetable or flower-garden, naturally assume straight 
 lines ; while in a grove the zigzag course necessary to pass obstruc- 
 tions makes the serpentine the preferred line of a wooded path. 
 
 The question how far natural obstructions, such as rocks and old 
 trees, deep dells and sharp acclivities, should be left undisturbed, 
 long discussed in English gardening, turns on the decision, what 
 are permanent and what accidental features. A stump as a mark 
 of the unfinished work of the woodman is unsightly by a road-side ; 
 but a sweep of a few feet to save a noble tree awakens pleasure, 
 since it is a preserved work of the Creator. A low ragged rock 
 seems no sufficient obstacle to give turn to a carriage road ; yet in 
 a foot-path it is a legitimate occasion for a bend. In general the 
 principle of nature, always that of beauty, will be sufficiently sug- 
 gestive in the arranging of the drives and walks of a landscape. 
 
 SECT. 5. THE CONDUCT OF WATER, DEPENDENT ON SLOPE o* 
 GROUNDS; AND ITS EMPLOY IN FOUNTAINS, RILLS AND POOLS 
 
 Water in grounds is requisite for plants and domestic animals ; 
 and is desirable to give swimming space for water-fowl and a bath- 
 ing place for animals and men. In the introduction and conduct 
 of water in landscape, ruled as it is by the force of gravity, the 
 elope of the ground is a controlling feature ; the flow of a rill de- 
 pending on declivity, and a lake being naturally located in a plain 
 or meadow. A jet, though appropriate in a narrow court-yard, in 
 extended grounds seems more natural in a valley or on a hill-side. 
 
 As a narrow enclosure offers little variety in the conduct of \\ater, 
 it requires special adornment of the fountain-jet and basin ; as is 
 illustrated in ancient Pompeii, where the basin of the fountain in 
 the little court-yard of private houses is tastefully decorated with 
 sea-shells and groups of miniature animals. In the larger gardens 
 of ancient and modern times art has exhausted its skill in designs 
 for the improvement of this feature. 
 
 SECT. 6. THE LOCATION OF TILLED LANDS AND USEFUL PLANTS , 
 
 AS VEGETABLE-GARDENS, FRUIT-ORCHARDS, WHEAT-FIELDS, GRASS 
 AND PASTURE-LANDS. 
 
 The field-beds, of which fences, roads and water-courses are but 
 borders, are occupied by two classes of products : useful and orna- 
 mental plants. In all larger suburban retreats, utility is the main 
 31* 
 
366 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 end ; and to what an extent beauty may conspire with usefulness 
 the ancient Egyptian and Roman, and the modern Chinese and 
 English gardens are interesting testimonials. 
 
 Universal taste has suggested that a vegetable garden should be 
 in the rear, not in front of a mansion ; and if necessarily located so 
 as to be seen in front, that it be shielded by a flower-border, 
 a hedge or a row of flowering shrubs. 
 
 In grouping tilled land, hay-fields and pasturage, regard should 
 be paid to their relative position. The early and short grains, as 
 wheat, show to best advantage in front of the taller maize ; and a 
 hay-field, always green, appears best intervening between the high 
 road or drive and the tilled lands. Orchards should be in the rear 
 of tilled grounds and of a kitchen garden. In their position rela- 
 tively to each other, in fruit as in ornamental trees, regard should 
 be paid to forms, as the drooping peach and erect cherry; and 
 also to color of foliage and blossoms. Low grounds in the real 
 of tilled grounds form appropriate pasturage ; but an enclosed 
 park for deer, or a lawn for sheep, is an attractive ornament of 
 front grounds. 
 
 Convenience as well as beauty suggests a rectangular form for 
 fields and beds, the plough necessarily moving in a straight line ; 
 while the ornamental portions as naturally take the curved line. 
 
 SECT. 7. THE GROUPING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS AND TREES ; THE 
 ADJUSTING OP FLOWER BORDERS AND SHRUBBERY ; AND THE AR- 
 RANGEMENT OF GROVES, AVENUES AND CLUMPS OF TREES, AC- 
 CORDING TO CLASS, FORM, COLOR AND MOBILITY. 
 
 The classes of ornamental plants are trees, shrubs, flowering- 
 etalks and grass-sward. The general form of flower-borders must 
 conform to that of the drives and walk. In court-yards elaborate 
 shapes as stars and varied ovals, may be introduced ; but simple 
 are preferable to complicated forms. 
 
 As to relative position, shrubs require, like trees, independent 
 locations; either in lines along drives, or in clumps upon grass 
 plots. As in summer flowering plants will be the chief charm, and 
 in winter evergreen shrubs, these should be so intermingled as to 
 relieve each other. Along drives flowers should be between, not 
 in front of shrubs, and shrubs between, yet slightly behind trees; 
 but along foot-paths the reverse order should prevail, shrubs rising 
 
GROUPING OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS AND TREES. 367 
 
 behind flower-beds, and trees back of them. Broad lawns between 
 avenues should be dotted with clumps of shrubs. In general the 
 arrangement should be such that larger shrubs and smaller plants 
 shall be seen in vistas beyond each other. 
 
 As respects form, tall and tapering shrubs, as the arbor- vitse, 
 should be made to set off round-topped bushes as the box or holly: 
 and dwarfed shrubs should be beneath the high boughs of the lilac 
 or althea. The securing of harmony in color is a more difficult 
 study. As in making up a bouquet the just gradation of colors 
 according to the laws of contrast and complement, the shading of 
 the lively into the sombre, and the relieving of the whole by a 
 background of green, requires the skill of an artist, so does the 
 grouping of the natural flowers in a landscape-garden. 
 
 Ornamental trees, the grand feature of public parks and private 
 grounds, are designed for both shade and ornament. Without 
 them the thoroughfares of villages and cities would be intolerable, 
 while as ornaments, from their size they conspire to grandeur as 
 well as beauty. 
 
 Groves are naturally formed of native forest growth and of one 
 class of trees. As favorite resorts for a quiet ramble, or as gather- 
 ing places for open-air discourse, poets have had in groves their 
 sweetest dreams, and philosophers, as opposite as Plato and Epi- 
 curus, have found their shade minister alike to the most ideal of 
 spiritual breathings, and to the grossest of sensual pleasures. 
 Avenues required to line walks and highways admit trees of 
 greater variety, since they are supposed to be transplants; yet 
 being designed for shade they require chiefly trees with broad tops 
 and thick foliage. Clumps are designed for ornament merely; and 
 therefore admit every form and variety. Originally they are the 
 natural forest growth, left simply to save labor on rocky ridges ; 
 they reach their rarest perfection when an extensive meadow, de- 
 voted to this end, grows for years under the eye and hand of a 
 genuine amateur as an ever-improving gem of art. 
 
 In the grouping of clumps nice gradation of class, form, coloi 
 and mobility, is called into exercise. The winter's stripping re- 
 quires that the bare limbs of deciduous trees have as a relief the 
 spruce, cedar and pine, green during winter; the corners of inter- 
 secting paths especially demanding such landmarks in the season of 
 frost. The form of trees is an element of effective harmony or of 
 
368 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 expressive sentiment ; the most enchanting effect being produced 
 by a skillful succession in a vista of conica. firs and spruces, of the 
 oval maple and poplar, the acorn- shaped oak and chestnut, and the 
 umbrella-topped willow and elm ; while to the Mohammedan the 
 tall, conical, sky-pointing cypress, and to the Christian, the droop- 
 ing form of the weeping willow is a fit monitor at the grave. 
 Color, too, adds a pleasing effect when at each step the vis' a 
 changes from the dark bottle-green of the fir, through the varied 
 shades of green and yellow, to the snow-white of the silver-leaved 
 poplar. The most sublime effects of motion, too, may be achieved 
 by the skillful grouping of the aspen, the willow and the elm. 
 
 SECT. 8. ARTIFICIAL ACCESSORIES ; AS SCULPTURED FORMS ; RUSTIC 
 
 SEATS, ARBORS AND GROTTOES FOR REST; AND SWINGS, VEHICLES 
 
 AND BOATS FOR MOTION. 
 
 Besides the buildings essential as abodes, arbors for occasional 
 shelter may be made the gems of a landscape ; while sculptured 
 forms may decorate enclosures too small for architectural orna- 
 mentation. 
 
 The idea of the ancient Germans alluded to by Tacitus has peo- 
 pled groves and rocky heights with rural deities ; making the 
 open air of the garden a chief field for sculpture. A large portion 
 of the works of Grecian sculpture have been rescued from villas ; 
 colossal vases and rustic deities being the ornament of groves and 
 fountains. Funereal monuments especially are companions of the 
 green sod that covers the dead. 
 
 Among the smaller erections of gardens the simplest is the rustic 
 seat under trees, the more conformed to nature in material and 
 structure the more truly artistic ; a moss-covered bank, a stone 
 smoothly hewn, a lounge formed of knotty boughs and vine- 
 branches, or an iron seat cast in imitation of foliated and inter- 
 twining boughs. In open ground a canopy as well as a seat is 
 required ; an extemporized booth made of boughs of trees ; an open 
 wooden frame covered with creeping vines ; or a richly adorned 
 Asiatic kiosk. For deeper seclusion from heat, the grotto hag 
 always been a resort ; either natural cavities in a rocky hill-side, or 
 ' rude masonry in a thicket. 
 
 In larger grounds a swing hung upon a strong oak or elm, pigmy 
 carriages drawn by neatly harnessed goats, light row-boats after the 
 
ARTIFICIAL AND ANIMAL ACCESSORIES. 369 
 
 pattern of the Turkish caique or Venetian gondola, have in every 
 age and land been made accessories in pleasure-grounds. 
 
 SECT. 9. ANIMAL ACCESSORIES; SMALLER AND LARGER QUADRUPEDS 
 WILD AND DOMESTIC; BIRDS FREE OR CAGED; FISH AND REP- 
 TILES. 
 
 The water, the air and the dry land were peopled long ere man 
 appeared on earth ; since which era they have always been needed 
 companions. 
 
 The domestic animals of the farm, the horse and the cow, the 
 sheep and the goat, made to feed upon the herbage unfitted for man, 
 are a pleasure and pride to their possessor ; while rare quadrupeds, 
 such as the deer and elk, and the undomesticated hare and squirrel, 
 are a delight in extended country grounds or in an open city 
 square. Besides herbiferous animals, ranging free, chained or 
 caged beasts of prey, as the native fox and bear, and the leopard 
 and lion of other continents, are garden-denizens suggested by the 
 demands of true art. 
 
 To quadrupeds will be added fowls. As the farmer prides him- 
 self upon his " stock," so does the farmer's wife on her ''poultry." 
 To the ordinary domestic fowls the rich landholder adds the pea- 
 cock and the swan ; and besides the pigeon, the swallow and the 
 wren, coveted tenants of the humblest barn, the caged canary, 
 mocking-bird and parrot, are favorite enliveners of the summer 
 piazza ; and the chained owl and eagle attractions in a public 
 garden. 
 
 Even fish and reptiles have their place in the garden. The 
 frogs of the ditch and the fish of the brooks give amusement to 
 youth ; the tortoise on the grass and the lizard on the wall give 
 interest even to age ; and from the sage Aristotle to the simplest 
 maiden the tiny gold-fish in a glass and the luscious trout in the 
 costly fish-pond will ever be favorite accessories in beautified 
 grounds. 
 
 SECT. 10. CLIMATE AND SEASONS, BLEAK AND SUNNY EXPOSURES, AS 
 
 INFLUENCING CHOICE OF PLANTS AND STYLE OF BUILDINGS. 
 In grounds specially guarded, the effect of climate and changing 
 seasons may be controlled by conservatories and other shelters. 
 Seeking the ends of utility, however, the fruit-grower finds that 
 Q * 
 
370 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the apple and the pear mature best in a northerly, the peach and 
 the plum in a medium, the fig and orange under a more southerly 
 sky ; as also among the cereals, rye, wheat and rice have corres- 
 pondent latitudes for healthful development. Among ornamental 
 shrubs, the hawthorn, the privet, the arbor vitse and the osage 
 orange have each their appropriate latitudes ; while in the gardens 
 of Syria and Mexico, the cactus, which is a hothouse plant in the 
 north, grows to gigantic size, and forms a strong and secure hedge. 
 Among shade trees the stately elm falls a prey to insects in a 
 southerly clime ; while the fairest of the oaks, the willow or water- 
 oak, never shows itself in a northern forest. 
 
 The alternation of seasons has a subordinate influence. A large 
 class of trees, as well as of plants, seem made for every clime. In 
 the choice of plants and trees for ornament, regard to season sug- 
 gests that a cemetery hedge, visited alike in summer and winter, 
 since death has ' ' all seasons for its own, ' ' should be evergreen ; 
 while in all adorned grounds symmetry in foliage should be pre- 
 served by so interspersing winter's green that no portion may at 
 any time look bare and barren. The rest, or sleeping time of 
 plants should be regarded ; that of the oak being the winter of the 
 frigid and the summer of the torrid zone ; while the corn is planted 
 early and ripens late under a southern sky because of the long 
 summer drought when its growth is arrested. 
 
 Yet more importance is to be attached to southern as opposed to 
 northern exposure. The degree of heat which the earth receives 
 from the sun depends mainly upon the perpendicularity and conse- 
 quent directness with which its rays fall. Any child can test this by 
 holding the back or more sensitive portion of his hand near a fire ; 
 turning the hand so that the rays of heat strike it now in perpen- 
 dicular lines and now at an acute angle. For this reason southern 
 summers are not warmer though longer than northern. The farmer 
 may indefinitely prolong the growing season by planting his garden 
 upon a sunny southern exposure ; and the vintner on the Rhine se- 
 cures an Italian clime almost up to Arctic regions. 
 
 Buildings in colder climates require more durable material and 
 more compact structure; but suburban residences, designed for the 
 Bummer only, naturally assume everywhere the light style of 
 southern latitudes. Special regard, however, should be paid to 
 exposure in the location of a mansion; a front due north a/id 
 
ASIATIC GARDENING; PARADISE. 371 
 
 wmth, leaving one side perpetually without sunlight and the other 
 blistered by its constant rays ; while a house on a northern slop* 
 never can be healthful. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANCIENT AND ASIATIC STYLES OP LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 WHILE gardening, beginning with the works of nature, is the 
 art most conformed in its style to nature's method, the leading 
 peculiarities of country and age, marking sculpture, architecture and 
 painting, will be found to characterize this art. As the early home 
 of mankind was in Asia, so primitive gardening was an Asiatic art ; 
 the people of that continent retaining this, as other arts, from the 
 earliest period in its original rude stage of advancement. 
 
 The extreme antiquity of the art is exemplified in the Garden of 
 Eden , its first and rudimentary stages in the Egyptian and As- 
 syrian ; its second stage of advance in the Syrian and Persian ; its 
 culminating influence in the Grecian and Roman ; its lingering 
 sway in the early Christian of Southern Europe, while its present 
 type may be studied in modern Turkish and Chinese gardens. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE PRIMITIVE "GARDEN OF EDEN;" AS THE PERFECTION 
 OF NATURE AND ART. 
 
 The sacred and traditional historic fact that man in primitive 
 simplicity was made to occupy a garden as his happy abode is tes- 
 timony to the attraction of this art. As to the fact, conspiring 
 Grecian and Indian traditions are in striking confirmation of the 
 Mosaic narrative. As to location the universal Asiatic tradition, 
 alluded to alike in the Laws of Menu of India, the Zendavesta of 
 Persia and the Koran of Arabia, agree with the Hebrew record in 
 locating it at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, among 
 the valleys of the Caucasus, still peopled by the noblest specimens 
 of the human race. 
 
 The wide park -like extent of this primitive abode, its " delights," 
 in broad watered valleys, in mountains filled with "every precious 
 
372 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 stone," its trees giving shade like the u cedar " and affording every 
 variety of fruit, are pictured by Milton in fiction founded on relia- 
 ble testimony. The statement that, with all its perfection derived 
 from the Creator's hand, its lordly occupant was with his compan- 
 ion ' ' to dress and keep it, ' ' has been in all ages and lands an index 
 to a lofty aspiration in this climactic art. 
 
 SECT. 2. EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN GARDENS; CONTROLLED IN THEIR 
 
 FEATURES BY THE SAMENESS OF SURFACE AND RICHNESS OF SOU, 
 BELONGING TO LEVEL RIVER BOTTOMS. 
 
 Numerous historical allusions, illustrated by the pictured repre- 
 sentations on the walls of ancient tombs, and confirmed by modern 
 customs, enable us with great accuracy to reconstruct the Egyptian 
 garden of the age of the Pharaohs. 
 
 Moses alludes to Egyptian gardens as, " by the river-side," hav- 
 ing ' ' cedar-trees' ' and ' ' gardens of herbs. ' ' The sculptures of the 
 tombs picture gardens with rows of dark conical trees on the river 
 bank ; and their beds of flowers, clumps of trees, vineyards and 
 fish-pools are geometrically squared. The palm, the fig, the pome- 
 granate and the vine formed borders ; all the processes of culturing 
 and gathering are pictured on the tombs ; while in fruit vases 
 deposited with the dead, the fig, prune and various nuts are found 
 preserved. Pools of water are interspersed ; in which are growing 
 the lotus and papyrus with their rich \i\y flowers. Arbors and 
 shrines for deities also rise amid the green. 
 
 The Assyrian gardens were Egyptian in model ; the banks of the 
 Euphrates being level like those of the Nile. The ancient dramatic 
 poem of Job describes them as traversed by streams, with rows of 
 shade trees like the willow along the banks, and clumps of the olive, 
 vine and the fragrant lign-aloes in rocky places ; while Herodotus 
 Diodorus and Layard illustrate these statements of the early 
 Chaldean. 
 
 Diodonis and Strabo give the distinctive idea of both Assyrian 
 and Egyptian gardens in picturing the hanging gardens built by 
 the king of Babylon for his Median wife ; who in the unvarying 
 plains of Babylonia sighed for something like her native hills. 
 Those gardens rose in terraces like a pyramid ; having a base four 
 hundred feet square and a perpendicular central height of three 
 hundred and fifty-feet. The minute description of arches, of water 
 
SYRIAN AND PERSIAN (JAUDENS. 
 
 tight terrace basins, and of latticed summer arbors indicates the per- 
 fection of this art as early as B. C. 600. 
 
 SECT. 3. SYRIAN AND PERSIAN GARDENS; ILLUSTRATED SPECIALLY 
 AT JERUSALEM AND PER8EPOLIS J ALLOWING THE VARIETY Off 
 
 FEATURES BELONGING TO A ROCKY HILL COUNTRY. 
 
 The hill country of Judea took the Persian model in its gardens. 
 They were of two classes, the small suburban and the broad park 
 in the country. 
 
 Solomon's gardens about Jerusalem bore sweet herbs, spices 
 and nuts; they were fenced with hedges; among their flowers 
 were the rose or narcissus, and the lily ; among fruit trees the 
 apple, the fig. the pomegranate, the date-palm, the pi>t:u-hio nut, 
 the grapevine and the olive ; and they were watered by fountains, 
 pouring refreshing streams. Pliny remarks: ''Syria is nio.-t 
 laboriously cultured for gardens ; and thence the proverb among 
 the Greeks, 'The many garden vegetables of the Syrians. ' ' Two 
 gardens hallowed in Christ's life still retain their interest; Geth- 
 semane, an enclosure of about an acre, shaded by aged olive trees, 
 and the garden in which Jesus was crucified and buried, now 
 covered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, three hundred feet 
 long and two hundred feet wide. 
 
 The larger or park garden of Syria is illustrated by Solomon and 
 Xenophon. Its designation "paradise," both in the Hebrew and 
 Greek, is from the most ancient Japhetic tongue ; it had groves 
 and orchards, fountains and fish-pools, "garden houses" or sum- 
 mer palaces. 
 
 One, seven miles south of Jerusalem, noted for its massive pools 
 still existing, was among the highlands still called "Mountain of 
 Paradise;" and a second was in the valleys of Lebanon. To these, 
 afterward alluded to by Strabo, Solomon brought exotic trees and 
 foreign birds and animals from India. The type of these larger 
 gardens Xenophon describes in Persia where the name Paradise 
 originated. In one, mentioned in his Cyropsedia, young Cyrus 
 learned to hunt the stag and wild boar. In another, described in 
 his Anabasis, "Cyrus had a palace and an extensive park full of 
 wild beasts," in which he hunted to give himself and his horses 
 exercise. Through the wildest of this park the river Meander 
 runs. In a third, alluded to in his Hellenics, in addition to the 
 
 32 
 
374 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 hunting park there was "a river full of all sorts offish, and plenty 
 of birds for those fond of fowling." 
 
 SECT. 4. ANCIENT GRECI \N AND ROMAN GARDENS ; CHARACTERIZED 
 BY GEOMETRIC EXACTNESS OF OUTLINE AND ELEGANCE OF FORMS 
 IN ADORNMENT. 
 
 Gardening as an art has to do with the real rather than the 
 ideal ; and no originating genius in Greece was devoted to it. The 
 allusions of the Greek authors show that their ideas and methods 
 were Asiatic, derived from Persia. Among practical Romans, 
 however, gardening attained the characteristics of geometric exact- 
 ness in outline and richness of ornamentation preserved in Southern 
 Europe to this day. 
 
 The gardens of the Hesperides, merely alluded to by Hesiod and 
 later Greek writers, called by Strabo " the islands of the blessed," in 
 their very name from espera, evening, or "the cool of the day," as 
 well as in the legends of the forbidden fruit, seem the re-echoing of 
 the traditional voice, always appreciative in Grecian philosophy and 
 art. The gardens of Alcinous, in the Island of Corfu, on the other 
 hand, pictured by Homer, seem to be a real rather than an ideal 
 creation ; though their author was an Asiatic Greek. These were 
 located in front of the palace of the prince ; they contained four 
 acres, surrounded by a hedge ; and the plants were arranged in 
 parterres, among whose beds jetted two fountains. Their chief 
 charms were tall fruit trees, as the apple, pear, olive, fig, pome- 
 granate and grape, which bloomed with perpetual foliage, buds, 
 flowers and fruit. 
 
 The only garden noted in the era of Greek philosophy was that 
 whose history is given by Pausanias. It was a lot of ground about 
 three-fourths of a mile from Athens, given by Academus to the 
 citizens for a gymnasium ; which was unenclosed until Hipparchus, 
 about B. C. 520, surrounded it with a wall. Cimon, the popular 
 leader before Pericles, as Plutarch states, " first adorned the city 
 with those elegant and noble places for exercise and disputation 
 which a little after came to be so much admired. He planted the 
 forum with plane trees ; and, whereas the Academy was before a 
 dry and unsightly plat, he brought water to it and sheltered it with 
 groves, so that it abounded with neat avenues and shady walks." 
 While, however, Plato planted his school in this garden, though 
 
ROMAN SUBURBAN VILLAS. 375 
 
 in both his Republic and Laws he urges that for music, sculpture 
 and architecture, government should make special provision, he 
 has no suggestion as to gardens for public or private resort 
 Xenophon expressly says of the park constructed by himself in 
 Elis, which had two streams flowing through it, lakes of fresh fish 
 and shell-fish on the sea-shore, hunting-grounds for the boar, the 
 antelope and the deer, pastures and stalls for horses, oxen, goats 
 and swine, and above all, a beautiful little temple in it with a status 
 of cypress wood, that it was after the model of one at Ephesus. 
 The casual mention that Dinocrates, Alexander's architect, pro- 
 posed to carve Mount Athos into a bust of the monarch, making 
 one hand to rest on a lower peak and in its hollow a lake, while the 
 other stretched to an opposite peak and held a city upon its palm, 
 was a suggestion of the degenerate age, when mere massiveness be- 
 gan to take the place of elaborate fini.-h. 
 
 Among the Romans gardening became a high art ; Cicero, the 
 philosopher, and Vitruvius, the architect, devoting their time and 
 money specially to it. The eminent popularity of the Georgics and 
 Bucolics of Virgil, and of Pliny's Natural History, are a striking 
 comment on this taste. 
 
 The Romans had the "villa rustica" or farm, and the "villa 
 urbana," or suburban villa. The farm villa had three large shaded 
 courts, one for the mansion, a second for laborers' quarters, and a 
 third for stables. Two such villas, belonging to himself, Pliny the 
 younger describes at length. 
 
 His Laurentine or winter villa, Pliny states, seventeen miles 
 from Rome on the sea-ooast, was reached by a sandy road, heavy 
 for a carriage, "but easy and pleasant to those riding on horse- 
 back." The house was close built, had a semi-circular open porch; 
 back of which was an enclosed portico, and back of this was the 
 atrium, or central hall, radiating from which were the principal 
 rooms, one of which looked out on the sea, another on a terrace, 
 and another on the play-ground. The play-ground was a grass 
 sward surrounded by a box-hedge without shade trees to admit the 
 winter sun ; within which was a garden surrounded by grape vines, 
 fig and mulberry trees. 
 
 Pliny's summer villa, north of the Tiber, approached from Rome 
 by a gradual rise, had a stiff soil with abundant water, and was 
 cooled by breezes from the Apennines. The mansion fronted 
 
376 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 south, and had a wide portico ; before it was the xystus^ or court- 
 yard, the gestatio, or play-ground, the ambulatio, or promenade, 
 and the hippodrome, or circus for riding ; behind which was the 
 kitchen-garden. 
 
 The dining-room overlooked the hippodrome ; before which was 
 a spring-house shaded by four plane-trees, having a central foun- 
 tain with a marble basin ; over which was a sleeping berth with a 
 frescoed ceiling. Adjoining was a bath-room having three basins, 
 one of hot, another of cold, and a third of tepid water, heated by 
 the sun. In the rear of the mansion, in a warm exposure, was the 
 kitchen, with the vegetable garden adjoining; and on the north 
 side was an open portico, under whose floor was a cool grotto. 
 
 The court-yard in front was enclosed by a box-hedge cut into the 
 shapes of various animals, and around it was a promenade with a 
 border of clipped evergreen. Beyond this were the gestatio and 
 hippodrome, enclosed by a bank wall. The hippodrome had three 
 rectilinear sides bordered by plane trees covered with ivy ; between 
 which were clumps of box, and back of these bay trees; "the 
 plane trees blending their shade with the bays ;" while the fourth 
 side was semi-circular, bordered by tall, dark cypress, to "vary the 
 prospect and cast a deeper gloom." The inner walks around the 
 race course were bordered by rose bushes, to " correct in delightful 
 contrast the coolness of the shade by the warmth of the sun." 
 
 Beyond the hippodrome was a succession of fields and meadows, 
 which owed "as many beauties to nature as that within the wall to 
 art." A broad avenue bordered by box, cut into the letters form- 
 ing the name of the proprietor, led by lateral paths to several fields. 
 The first was dotted with fruit trees interspersed with obelisks and 
 statuary; the next, " suddenly in the midst of elegant regularity, 
 surprised by the contrast of the negligent beauty of rural nature 
 presented by a knot of dwarf plane trees." A pathway here, 
 bordered by trees cut in fantastic shapes and festooned with the 
 soft twining acanthus, led to an alcove of white marble, supported 
 by four slender columns, shaded with vines, furnished with a seat, 
 beneath which a fountain gushed up, with a basin in front having 
 a broad brim and filled from the fountain ; where Pliny says he 
 oflon took a noonday repast, making the basin-rim his table, having 
 his dishes in the shape of ships and water-fowl floating on the 
 water, \\hich cooled their contents. Fronting this alcove was a 
 
GARDENS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 377 
 
 summer retreat of exquisitely carved marble, furnished with seat* 
 and jetting fountains with rills running around ; having doors open- 
 ing on one side into a green arborescent enclosure, and on anothei 
 side into a small sleeping-room dark with overhanging vines. 
 
 Virgil gives extended lists of fruit and shade trees ; with theii 
 adaptation to soil, climate and sunny exposures. He describes 
 various hedges and garden accessories as statuary, fountains, grot- 
 toes and water-fowl. He urges the value of skill in grouping, 
 "that the prospect may give delight to the mind;" and enumerates 
 as horticultural associations, by which aesthetic and moral impres- 
 sions are awakened, these: "the ash is fairest in the forest, tht 
 pine in gardens, the poplar by rivers, and the fir on lofty moun- 
 tains;" "the poplar is most grateful to Hercules, the vine to 
 Bacchus, to lovely Venus the myrtle, to Apollo his own laurel, 
 while Phyllis loves even the hazels." He advises especially that 
 whatever is undertaken in gardening be perfected ; commending 
 the maxim, "Admire a large farm ; cultivate a small one." 
 
 Vitruvius, the architect, treats of grounds as subordinate to 
 buildings; urging that health demands due light and heat for both 
 man and beast, that a north front be avoided, and a south front 
 for the kitchen and stable be always sought ; that to granaries and 
 storehouses the air have free admission ; light and air being always 
 chief requisites in everything about a villa. 
 
 The remains of ancient villas, now visited near Rome and 
 Naples, still illustrate their structure ; while the actual reconstruc- 
 tion of many of them in later times links Roman to mediaeval 
 gardening. 
 
 SECT. 5. GARDENS OF THE MIDDLE AGES ; CHRISTIAN AND MO- 
 HAMMEDAN; ROMAN IN ARRANGEMENT, AND ASIATIC IN ADORN- 
 MENT. 
 
 The spirit of Christianity, adopting Roman methods with new 
 associations in art, is thus presented by Eusebius in his Life of 
 Constantine, written about A. D. 350, "Then might be seen foun- 
 tains in the midst of the Forum graced with figures representing 
 the Good Shepherd and Daniel with the lions, cast in brass, and 
 resplendent with plates of gold. " In the eighth century Charle- 
 magne established gardens for improvement in horticulture, pre- 
 scribing by a royal edict the plants that should be reared in them, 
 
 jf^S^\ 
 
 ( UNIVERSITY 1 
 
378 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 In the North, the life of feudal lords in strong-walled castles, and of 
 learned monks in close-built convents, made the common castle and 
 convent gardens perfect counterparts of the old Roman court-yards 
 in city residences. In later times cardinals who had gathered large 
 wealth lavished their treasures in the planting and adorning of 
 gardens around Rome, arranged after the ancient model ; the 
 Cardinal Alphonso d'Este in the sixteenth century being a leader 
 in this improvement. 
 
 The feudal castle had an exterior moat; whose banks were 
 adorned with grass-sward, flowering plants, willows and other shade 
 trees. The interior yard was laid off in small parterres and flower- 
 beds. The remains of old Roman and more modern English castles 
 yet show the former structure of their gardens. 
 
 Convent gardens, alike illustrated among the Copts of Egypt, the 
 Greeks of Asia Minor, and in the monasteries of Italy, France, 
 England and America, are permanent embodiments of the unvary- 
 ing medieval type. Thus in the perfect desert, at Mt. Sinai, the 
 garden of the Greek Convent is built in terraces on the western 
 slope of the Sacred Mount, well watered from the mountain 
 springs, and thickly strewn with fruit-trees, as the apple, pear, 
 apricot, quince, fig, mulberry, pomegranate, the olive and also the 
 grape ; at its foot vegetable beds, flower borders and spicy shrubs 
 mingle their odors and flavors ; while the tall blank outer wall is 
 relieved by towering cypresses and creeping ivy. 
 
 SECT. 6. MODERN CHINESE GARDENS; CHARACTERIZED BY FOND- 
 NESS FOR THE DIMINUTIVE IN DIMENSIONS AND THE GROTESQUE 
 IN FORMS. 
 
 Lord Kames says that gardens are "in China brought to greater 
 perfection than in any known country." In skill devoted to pro- 
 ductiveness this is true ; while in artistic merit Chinese gardens 
 rank with their architecture, sculpture and painting. 
 
 Necessarily divided among the swarming population into the 
 minutest beds, which to save space are without fences, pushed as 
 each little field is to the most luxuriant productiveness, the China- 
 man's patches of rice and wheat, of beans and beets, are a per- 
 vading element of delightful green, filling the whole region around 
 cities. Where wealth permits ornamentation, the Chinese excel in 
 mere imitation, aiming at novelty and grotcsqueness. The beds 
 
TURKISH GARDENS; VOLUPTUOUS IN IDEA. 379 
 
 and banks of artificial lakes and rills are made to have gravelly or 
 Bandy bottoms, and to assume a serpentine and quiet flow, or to 
 rush from cavern- mouths and to dash over precipices. Every rock 
 and stump is left as a contrast to surrounding verdure ; and islands in 
 artificial lakes are completely rocky and barren, or clothed with an 
 exuberance of flowering shrubs. Trees are skillfully combined 
 according to shape and depth of green ; and sometimes the effect 
 of perspective vista views is attempted. The chief effort is at sud- 
 den transition, accompanied by a heaping of grotesque and pigmy 
 forms in architecture and sculpture, such as miniature mills and 
 boats, wooden quadrupeds, clay reptiles and canvas birds. 
 
 SECT. 7. MODERN TURKISH GARDENS; DISTINGUISHED BY LUXURI- 
 ANCE IN NATURAL ADORNMENT AND VOLUPTUOUSNESS IN ARTI- 
 FICIAL ACCESSORIES. 
 
 In the Oriental or Turkish garden the natural features of beauty 
 in plants, trees and waters, and in artificial accompaniments, are 
 directly designed to minister to corporeal pleasures. 
 
 This voluptuous character is set forth in the Koran ; the sacred 
 authority in art as well as in morals. The prophet announces: 
 "This is the description of Paradise; it is watered by rivers, its 
 fruit is perpetual, and its shade ever green." In fuller visions the 
 streams are pictured as flowing with milk, wine and clarified honey; 
 the trees of dark green "loaded with fruit from top to bottom ;" 
 fountains jet with cooling showers; while "pavilions, with couches 
 adorned with gold and precious stones," curtained with "fine silk 
 interwoven with gold," are attended by "damsels having complex- 
 ions like rubies and pearls, and large black eyes like pearls hid- 
 den in their shells, reposing on cushions of green and flowery 
 carpets." 
 
 Alike on the low river banks of the Nile as at Shoobra, and on 
 the highlands of the Bosphorus as in the ' ' valleys of sweet 
 waters' ' above Constantinople, the dream of the Arabian prophet 
 as well as of the Persian poet is realized. 
 
 An extended green sward furnishes a natural seat for men and 
 women reclining in Oriental ease; kiosks stand on terraced hillocks, 
 or by the side of rills from the heights ; the walks are few and 
 irregular ; the banks of mountain streams are simply cleared of 
 undergrowth and the green sward trimmed ; while at some points 
 
380 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 the stream is made to flow over marble beds A .o nil basins, and 
 jet from fountains. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MODERN EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 
 
 GARDENING has taken the type of other arts, especially of paint- 
 ing, in modern improvements; partaking in Italy of the bright 
 aspect of nature, in France of the operatic artificial style, in Hol- 
 land of homely cheerfulness ; while in England it culminated in the 
 picturesque style. 
 
 SECT. 1. ITALIAN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; VILLA AND PALACE 
 
 GARDENS, AS INFLUENCED BY CLIMATE, SURFACE OF COUNTRY, 
 
 AND BY FONDNESS FOR ANCIENT FORMS AND ARCHITECTURAL 
 
 ACCESSORIES. 
 
 The genius of Italy, balanced between reverence for the past and 
 love of nature, has developed two tendencies in gardening. The 
 controlling feature is artificial rather than natural adornment. 
 
 The gardens of Italy are the ornaments of villas and convents. 
 The mild summer breezes from the sea favor the culture of juicy 
 fruits; the shade trees have light green foliage to which the clear air 
 imparts an amber tinge. The winter winds from the Apennines 
 make the architectural and sculptural features, unrelieved to any 
 great extent by evergreens, a needed attraction. 
 
 The area is usually surrounded by a high close wall of stone, 
 capped with an ornamental parapet ; similar walls divide and even 
 subdivide the extended enclosure ; between which are arranged 
 colonnades and summer-houses and statuary under canopied roofs. 
 
 The numerous villas, such as the Albani and Borghese, which 
 extend from Rome to the Apennine range, originated in the taste 
 of cardinals resident at Rome after the era of revived art ; who, 
 gaining their position on account of superior intellectual and 
 aesthetic culture, and having no families to share their large in- 
 come, sought in art both gratification and honor. A leader in this 
 revived art was the Cardinal Hippolito d'Este ; who conceive! the 
 idea of reconstructing at Tivoli Hadrian's villa. 
 
ITALIAN AND FRENCH GARDENS. 381 
 
 The villa Albani was designed originally to provide tasteful, open 
 colonnades for treasures of exhumed statuary; a collection in which 
 Winckelmann became so able a critic. The villa Borghese had as 
 its aim the reconstruction of ancient architecture; the Egyptian 
 with its varied types ; the Grecian with its three orders ; and the 
 Roman with its circular ground-plot and exuberant ornament. 
 The Madama is admirable for its terraces overlooking Rome ; and 
 the Dora for its extensive park. The D'Jv-tr ami Brasehi, recon- 
 structions on the old Roman type, with their clipped hedges an 1 
 squared fields, seem hardly in keeping with the wild luxuriance of 
 the ilex and cypress ; and the machinery of artificial waterworks, 
 at Frascati employed as a power to work an immense organ, seems 
 a child's device alongside of the grand cascades pouring from the 
 cliffs overhanging the Anio. 
 
 The palace gardens of Caserta, thirteen miles north of Naples, 
 planted in the middle of the eighteenth century by the first of the 
 Spanish Bourbons, present an interesting contrast to the villa gar- 
 dens about Rome ; and prepare the way for the transition to French 
 landscape-gardening. From the southern summer-house, called 
 the Casino, the eye ranges over three miles of hill and vale, of 
 grove and water-fall, to the palace on the north ; and then stretches 
 at least a mile southward to the limit in that direction. On one 
 side is an English garden, fitted up by the romantic Queen Caro- 
 line; and on the other a dense forest which formed an ancient hunt- 
 ing-ground, still full of game. In front of the palace, meandering 
 for miles in extent, skirted by lawns, flower-borders, groves and 
 arbors, .flows a stream brought from springs at the north through 
 an aqueduct twenty-seven miles long, piercing two mountains in its 
 course, and spanning valleys on arches of dizzy height, till within 
 the grounds it is tortured into every conceivable form of fountain 
 and cascade, and is made to fill broad basins supplied with fish of 
 rare variety and quality. 
 
 SECT. 2. FRENCH LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; METROPOLITAN, SUB- 
 URBAN AND CHATEAU GARDENS; MODIFIED FROM THE ITALIAN 
 BY A NATURALLY WOODED COUNTRY, AND BY NATIVE TASTE FOB 
 LIVELY FORMS AND COLORS. 
 
 French gardens prior to the age of Louis XIY. belong to the 
 the Middle Ages. The conception of the gardens of Versailles 
 
382 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 formed an era in the history of the art, not only in France bul in 
 Europe. 
 
 The public gardens of France are of three classes : the metropo- 
 litan, suburban and chateau gardens or parks. To the former 
 class belong those of the Luxembourg and of the Tuileries ; to the 
 second the Bois de Boulogne and the old palace garden of St. 
 Cloud ; and to the third the old hunting park of Compiegne, and 
 the grand works of Versailles. 
 
 The surface of the country in France, more gently undulating 
 than that of Italy, allows a wider extent of view and greater variety 
 of scenery. This feature invites the curved line in ground-plot and 
 elevation, serpentine foot-paths and winding avenues, rugged rock- 
 eries covered with wild vines, and knolls tangled with undergrowth ; 
 a characteristic specially alluded to by Rapin, the early English 
 rhymester on gardening. 
 
 A later feature of French gardening is the attempt to represent 
 fable and allegory ; too severely criticised by the opposite taste of 
 Lord Kames. The attempt to represent in clipped clumps of box 
 animals conversing together after the manner of .ZEsop is absurd, 
 since neither in form, color or expression can there be even the 
 shadow of an approximation to reality ; and the sense of the 
 ludicrous awakened by such an attempt is too strongly mixed with 
 the conviction of failure not to be changed to contempt for the 
 artist. When, moreover, as Lord Kames urges, lions and wolves, 
 deer and lambs are breathing water from their nostrils, the device 
 is disagreeable ; as the modern conceit of urinating Cupids is ob- 
 jectionable in its moral as well as its aesthetic expression. The 
 idea, however, of representing jets of water spouting from the nos- 
 tril of a whale, or the proboscis of an elephant, or even from the 
 trumpet of a bugler, or the bill of a swan, is not unnatural, though 
 the latter cases are a mere surprise. 
 
 In the garden of the Luxembourg, level in surface, the structure 
 is mechanical ; since there is no natural feature to set off the 
 square flower-beds and oval and serpentine box-borders. In the 
 grounds of the Tuileries this feature is relieved by avenues of shade 
 trees like the horse-chestnut, by groves of orange, by beds and 
 borders of flowers and shrubs interspersed with statuary and foun- 
 tains. The Champs Elyse"es,orElysian Fields, anarrowdrive of about 
 a mile and a quarter long, with its central avenues of shade trees, 
 
ST. CLOUD, COMPIEGNE AND VERSAILLES. 383 
 
 its side parterres of flowers and shrubs, its circus and summer 
 houses, terminated by the "Arc de Triomphe," unite the features 
 of a park and garden. The Bois de Boulogne, an old royal forest 
 of about two thousand acres lying along the Seine, one of whose 
 lakes is three-quarters of a mile in length, though mainly level, lias 
 meadows, which by ditching, mounding and rock transportation, 
 and by its winding avenues shaded by the oak, the beech and the 
 pine, possess the picturesqueness of an English garden ; while 
 (he allegorical idea and operatic execution of the main rock- work, 
 including the grotto, cascade and fountains, are characteristic of 
 French taste. 
 
 St. Cloud, for generations the type of the old chateau garden, in 
 its location overlooking the Seine, in its aged trees, winding 
 avenues and deep dells, contrasted with sunny knolls, is the 
 embodiment of Kames' idea of true art in gardens, "nature itn-lf 
 adorned." 
 
 The forest of Compi6gne, about sixty miles north-east of Paris, 
 a hunting park before the days of William the Conqueror, fitted up 
 with a summer residence by Louis IX., and a costly palace by 
 Louis XIV., the favorite resting place of the war-worn Napoleon 
 I. and of Napoleon III., contains over thirty-six thousand acres; 
 its roads measure more than six hundred 'miles ; and it is truly a 
 forest, rather than a park. 
 
 In the palace and park gardens of Versailles, Louis XIV. 
 attempted an extravagance of expenditure and an idea of leisurely 
 seclusion from care for his subjects, which Asiatic despotism even 
 cannot maintain. The halls of the palace, now ranges of picture 
 galleries, are a mile in entire length. The grounds comprise the 
 garden proper, the small park and the large park. In front of the 
 palace gushes a small river, whose waters flow past marble basins in a 
 3entral channel throughout the entire grounds ; along whose course 
 are varied classic devices wrought in bronze, as the peasants of 
 Libya turned into frogs for denying water to thirsty Latona, and 
 compelled for ever to spout torrents of water over her. The garden 
 is occupied by an orangery, a conservatory and beds and parterres 
 of flowers. The small park is twelve ani the large park sixty 
 miles ia circuit. 
 
384 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 3. DUTCH LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; CONTROLLED BY LOW- 
 LAND SCENERY; CHARACTERIZED BY STRAIGHT LINES IN ROADS 
 AND CANALS, IN FIELD-BOUNDS, BANK-TERRACES AND SHADED 
 
 AVENUES. 
 
 The lowland scenery of the Netherlands, which gave to Dutch 
 painting its low horizon, led to straight roads and canals giving 
 form to field-bounds and garden-borders. As trees on lowlands are 
 ge nerally transplants, through their commerce with the Indies gar- 
 dens among the Dutch became noted for exotics ; especially for 
 roots rich in nutriment and bearing flowers of rare beauty. 
 
 The public grounds of the Lowland cities are chiefly wide avenues 
 with rows of trees serving as drives and promenades. At Amster- 
 dam, Rotterdam and Hamburg the moats outside of the old walls, 
 and the canals, are bordered with green sward and lines of trees ; 
 while at Utrecht, Frankfort, Leipsic and Vienna the foundations 
 of the old walls form, like the Boulevards of Paris, broad carriage 
 roads skirted by avenues of trees ; a style introduced by William 
 III. into England, and by the German princes into Russia. 
 
 In modern German and Russian cities the picturesque style of 
 England has prevailed. Munich has a park four miles long, un- 
 dulating and wooded, with winding drives and foot-paths ; and at 
 Berlin, while the old gardens are still laid out in rectangles, the new 
 parks conform to the natural undulations of the soil. The grand 
 park of Tsarkoe Selo, near St. Petersburg, has a surface beautifully 
 diversified ; it contains a Chinese village with a pagoda, a Turkish 
 town with kiosks and a mosque, a Grecian city with temples and 
 statues of classic grace, and an Egyptian temple with pyramids and 
 obelisks; while in the mountain-sides are caves, in the forest 
 hermitages, and on the plains monuments of civic and military 
 glory. 
 
 SECT. 4. ENGLISH LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; CHARACTERIZED SPE- 
 CIALLY BY LAWNS, PARKS AND ANIMAL COLLECTIONS; IN STYLE 
 THE EARLY ROMAN, MODIFIED BY THE ANCIENT DUTCH, AND 
 THEN SUPERSEDED BY THREE SUCCESSIVE NATIVE SCHOOLS, THE 
 BALD OF KENT, THE PICTURESQUE OF PRICE AND THE GARDEN- 
 ESQUE OF REPTON. 
 
 The soil, climate and tastes of the people of Great Britain have 
 made landscape-gardening the art of England ; as sculpture was of 
 
ENGLISH GARDENING ; ITS VARIED STYLES. 385 
 
 Greece, architecture of Rome, and painting of Italy. The surface 
 of Great Britain is undulating, and the damp from the Gulf Stream 
 covers it with a coat of the darkest green. The fondness of the 
 British people for an out-door, stirring life has naturally led them 
 to add beauty and grace to their out-door haunts. 
 
 The early English garden, derived from the Romans, was a little 
 square court-yard, with beds of cramped proportions. An innova- 
 tion was made upon this style by Charles II., in employing Lc 
 Notre, who laid out the grounds of Versailles for Louis XIV., to 
 plant the parks of St. James and of Greenwich. The instructive 
 utterance of the old style, resisting nature, appeared in the innocent 
 inquiry of Lord Stafford, "What would have been the additional 
 expense to make the banks of this piece of water straight?" The 
 new style met a reaction under William III., Dutch in education 
 both as to religion and art ; as is illustrated in the Duke of Marl- 
 borough's estate called "Blenheim," whose rows of shade-trees 
 were arranged in lines corresponding to the order of the regiments 
 in Marlborough's line of battle. Under the house of Brunswick, 
 gardening became pre-eminently an English art ; and under George 
 III., through the prevalence of Hogarth's ideas, so great was the 
 opposite tendency that Sir William Chambers remarked : "If this 
 mania be not checked, there will not be remaining three trees 
 standing in a line throughout the kingdom." The principle that 
 no line is beautiful except the curve, rejected projecting piazzas, 
 terraces and enclosed court-yards, since these would break up the 
 rounded outline of nature. The natural green sward, closely cut, 
 skirted the foundations of the mansion ; the carriage-way wandered 
 by an easy gradation up to the mansion ; and trees were left stand- 
 ing or cut without any regular order. This extreme was soon en- 
 titled the bald style ; since it left the exterior of the mansion and 
 the front lawn entirely bare. In the conflict of tastes numerous 
 critical writers, as well as the poets Cowper, Shenstone and Mason, 
 advocating the theory of Kent, threw around the art as a literal 
 copying of nature the charm of poetic picturing which Virgil had 
 attempted for the Romans. 
 
 As among landscape-painters, so among gardeners, there was a 
 
 reaction against the extreme natural of Kent. The aim of the 
 
 second style was a contrast between the finish of the mansion and 
 
 its immediate surroundings and the untrimmed thickets upon its 
 
 33 R 
 
386 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 sides and in the background. It urged that on the front court-yard, 
 and select spots in the wild grounds, the highest culture should be 
 lavished ; while the main portion of the landscape should be left in 
 a state of nature more untouched than that of Kent. This style, 
 called the " picturesque," gained the favor of critics and landscape 
 painters; Lord Kames stating that in "the picturesque of Price 
 gardening was brought to greater perfection than in any other 
 known country of the world." It arrested the crusade against 
 hoary trees because they had been planted in straight rows ; it led 
 philosophic minds, as Lord Kames in his "Gentleman Fanner" 
 suggests, to "test proposed improvements in agriculture by 
 rational principles." 
 
 A third method was suggested in the principle that sudden and 
 violent contrasts between finished and unfinished grounds are un- 
 natural ; while a gradually diminished culture, complete in promi- 
 nent and not slovenly in obscure parts, is the true law of nature, 
 and therefore of art. This final style, that of Repton, recognized 
 the fact that as a single human figure by Phidias or Apelles is 
 more attractive than a confused group, so a single noble oak stand- 
 ing alone on the plain is an object more admired than a "clump 
 that hides the monarch." His system would harmonize congruity 
 in grouping and elegance in individual forms ; his two principles 
 being that "relative fitness" should be regarded, since gardening is 
 a useful art, and, again, " comparative proportion," since it is a fine 
 art. The leading idea that ornamental trees are transplants forbids 
 the undergrowth of a chimp ; and equally demands that trees be at 
 proportionate distances, and be contrasted and complementary in 
 size, form and color. Suggesting the same law for shrubs and 
 flowering plants, it required that exotics be brought in summer 
 from conservatories and be planted in the open sunlight. This 
 style, designated " gardenesque, " because it gave the charactci 
 of a garden alike to a small court-yard and to the broadest fields, 
 has been greatly promoted by the progress of landscape-painting 
 and by the yet greater advance made in agricultural science. 
 
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING. 387 
 
 SECT. 5. AMERICAN LANDSCAPE-GARDENING; AFFORDING A FIELD 
 FOR UNLIMITED VARIETY, AND REQUIRING A NATIVE THOUGH 
 CHASTENED TASTE. 
 
 The New World has, in gardening, an advantage over the Old ; 
 since her artists have the combined methods of all Europe, while 
 the field for their art is unmarred by former errors in workmanship. 
 
 In the American colonies on the seaboard English taste early 
 prevailed. In Carolina the earlier English method has maintained 
 its sway, the Battery of Charleston and the public grounds of 
 Columbia illustrating this ; while around Boston the later English 
 methods are seen in Lyman's lawn, in Perkins' oak-groves, and in 
 Cu.shing's flower and fruit-beds. From Louisiana the French style 
 of Louis XIV. has extended along the Gulf of Florida, and up the 
 Mississippi to Missouri ; the immense box-hedges and clumps cut 
 into vases and sofas and the initials of proprietors, being seen in 
 the towns of Alabama and Georgia, and north to St. Louis. 
 
 The geological structure of the United States territory invites 
 comprehensive methods of gardening. The mountain range cutting 
 every Atlantic State gives to each the features of three zones, 
 the steep peaks with the dark firs of the frigid, the undulating hills 
 with the maple and apple of the higher temperate, and the level 
 savannas with the willow-oak and fig of the lower temper*.**) 
 regions: while its undisturbed virgin growth, like marble fr.-^h 
 from the quarry, woos a worthy master. The able treatises of 
 Kenrick in the Eastern, of Downing in the Middle, and of Kern 
 in the Western States indicate the amount of intelligent native 
 thought already devoted to this art. 
 
BOOK VII. 
 
 THE DECORATIVE ARTS; ARTIFICIAL ACCESSORIES AND 
 ORNAMENTS OF OBJECTS IN NATURE AND OF WORKS IN 
 ART. 
 
 THE decorative arts, though confined to "decoration," as dis- 
 tinct from the forming of a principal object, are truly "arts;" since 
 they require studied design and elaborate execution. 
 
 The objects legitimate for decoration are human beings and 
 human implements. It is a perversion of art when lower animals, 
 trees and plants are tricked with fantastic decorations. In objects 
 employed by man the decorative are subsidiary to the higher arts, 
 adding a frame to a painting, a pedestal to a statue, and capitals to 
 columns ; while in useful mechanism they add grace to strength. 
 
 The field of the decorative arts is as limitless as human wants. 
 The pages of critical and descriptive authors like Pliny and Hero- 
 dotus, of tourists ancient and modern, are filled with objects com- 
 ing within this range. A concise classification of the principal 
 wants of man which have called forth skill in this department, a 
 reference to the principles of design employed in decoration, and 
 a brief history of varied methods employed in different lands and 
 age3, may aid in the grouping of such a mass of detail. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FIELD OF DECORATIVE ART; COEXTENSIVE WITH HUMAN 
 WANTS; AND VARIED ACCORDING TO MATERIAL EMPLOYED 
 
 AND TASTE EXERCISED. 
 
 HUMAN wants have always called out inventive skill ; and the 
 measure of success attained in decoration has been in part depend- 
 388 
 
DRESS AND ORNAMENTS. 380 
 
 ent on the material employed, as of wood or stone, and of the im- 
 plements at command, whether flint, bronze or steel. Designs in 
 decoration have been drawn from three leading sources: animal 
 and vegetable forms ; geometric figures, apprehensions of reason , 
 and ideas of the imagination, or pure spiritual devices. The first 
 class are the earliest and simplest, as in the three orders of Egyp- 
 tian capitals; while they are the foundation of the highest creations 
 in ancient and modern art. Very early geometric figures became 
 formative models ; the Egyptians employing the rectangle and the 
 trapezoid, the circle and the globe ; the Greeks analyzing the 
 ellipse, the parabola and the volute ; while in later mosaic and 
 heraldic devices, forms became as infinite as the combinations pos- 
 sible to be made with straight and curved lines. In the third field 
 of design proper, the ideal, all nations have conspired to call the 
 artist's work a creation. 
 
 SECT. 1. DRESS AND ORNAMENTS ; THEIR CLASSES, MATERIAL AND 
 MODES OF ELABORATION. 
 
 Form and color in dress, depending partly on material, partly 
 on national customs, have from time immemorial been the recog- 
 nized sphere of woman's taste and skill. 
 
 The first raiment was in form a short half skirt or pinafore, its 
 color simple green, its material broad leaves; followed soon by 
 "coats" or close-fitting tunics, of the " skins of animals." The 
 monuments of Egypt, as well as present customs among all nations, 
 show that the tunic, chemise, shirt or frock, all kindred in form, is 
 the universal primitive dress for male and female. To this as a 
 temporary covering the robe, mantle, shawl or cloak was added. 
 The closer-fitting vest, boddice and jacket, and the trowsers or 
 pantaloons, originated later in a northern clime. The head-dress, 
 varying so greatly from fancy, is hardly susceptible of analysis or 
 of historic tracing. The shoe, necessarily conformed more than any 
 part of the dress to the form of the foot, has varied from the mere 
 sandal to high-topped boots. 
 
 The simplest material employed in dress consisted of the vege- 
 table and animal tissues still used by rude tribes. At an early day. 
 however, the idea of spinning short animal and vegetable fibre, as 
 wool, hair, hemp, cotton and afterward silk, came to displace the 
 simpler fabrics. The adv;mce of the art of spinning from tho sini- 
 33 * 
 
390 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 pie spindle, and of weaving from the two rough rods tied to posts 
 now used in Africa, is a study worthy the ablest mind. 
 
 As to form, the true ideal of dress is that which sets off the per 
 son to the best advantage ; and this, in the main, prevails in youth 
 when its claims alone control. Comfort and health demand a 
 flowing dress, especially for matrons. Homer pictures veils and 
 skirts which "swept the ground ;" and Herodotus, three centuries 
 later, describes the progress of dress as that of the orders in colum- 
 nar architecture, first the plain Dorian, then the matronly Ionian, 
 and finally the maiden Corinthian. 
 
 The color of dress, originally that of its material, is very early 
 made artificial ; as is seen in the buffalo robes of the American 
 Indian, and in the ancient Egyptian dyes, "red, blue, scarlet, 
 crimson, and purple." The early tinctures gave the same hue to 
 every part of woven fabrics. Dyeing, as Aristotle and Pliny indi- 
 cate, became truly an art when by tinging, first with one, then with 
 another color, as " purple on a dark rose," new tints of rare beauty 
 were attained. 
 
 It was a new art when by the needle and loom threads of different 
 dyes were interwoven, in which art Homer reveals surpassing per- 
 fection as attained, before Troy fell, by Trojan and Grecian matrons. 
 Pliny recorded the stages of advance ; first, the invention of spin- 
 ning and weaving wool ; then the Phrygian fine needle-work, the 
 Pergamean interweaving of gold thread, and the Babylonian dyeing 
 with parti-colors ; and finally the Alexandrian interweaving of 
 figures by colored thread distributed in the warp and web. 
 
 In addition to dress as a necessity, ornaments are sought ; espe- 
 cially by females. In this department, pre-eminently in engraving 
 on precious stones, decorative art approaches the fine arts. 
 
 The forehead is decked with wreaths of flowers in childhood ; 
 with a fringe of shells and feathers among savages ; with the turban 
 in Asia; and with the fillet and jewel droplets of the Greek 
 maidens. Among rude tribes the nose, and in refined ages the 
 ear, invite pendant ornaments ; and in every land the necklace, 
 %n ancient royal badge and funereal decoration, is retained as a 
 female and childhood ornament. The breast-plate or girdle, a 
 favorite token of exchange between Grecian and Trojan heroes, still 
 retains its character in the rosette as an official badge. For females, 
 bracelets on the arms and rings on the fingers are still worthy orna- 
 
IMPLEMENTS AND U1ENSILS. 391 
 
 ments. Even anklets, with which eastern damsels of old " made 
 a tinkling as they went," retain their attraction. 
 
 As material, calcareous substances, shell, bone, horn, ivory and 
 pearl have from the days of Solomon been preferred for ordinary 
 ornaments. The metals, as silver and gold, and especially precious 
 stones, are the most costly ; valued even by princes. 
 
 SECT. 2. IMPLEMENTS OF BUSINESS, AND HOUSE UTENSILS, FURNI- 
 TURE AND WALL DECORATIONS; THEIR USES, MATERIAL AND 
 VARYING FORMS AND STYLES. 
 
 In hours of toil, implements for man's out-door and utensils for 
 woman's in-door employ have been demanded, from the day when 
 Cain tilled the soil and Abel slaughtered his lamb. An Arab's 
 tent, an Indian's wigwam, an army bivouac, reveal how simple 
 these may be. 
 
 The material of implements is controlled partly by necessity ; the 
 Egyptian finding a wooden plough adapted to a soft soil, but the 
 Syrian being compelled to use an iron coulter. Civilization has 
 converted the flint hatchet first into bronze then into steel. The 
 implements of the farmer, carpenter, smith and potter have changed 
 most in mere finish ; while in utensils of glass, clay and porcelain 
 art was early perfected. 
 
 The forms of implements have improved, while their material 
 has remained unchanged. The modern farmer is eloquent over 
 the beauty of his patented plough. 
 
 As the house is the resting-place from toil it needs appropriate 
 funiture. The hall requires receptacles for out-door raiment ; the 
 saloon, convenient seats ; the parlor, chairs and lounges for special 
 guests, the dining-room, its seats and tables; the sleeping chamber, 
 its beds, wardrobe and varied conveniences. The furniture of the 
 humblest cottage is a study calling for the exercise of taste. 
 
 Asiatic taste luxuriates in this field. The sculpture of the oldest 
 Egyptian tomb is a wonder in every variety of house furniture. 
 Homer, too, tells of Agamemnon's "gilded throne," of Juno's 
 ''golden couch," of Helen's "loom" and of Hecuba's "odoriferous 
 wardrobe." In this ancient art, color as well as form influenced 
 ornamentation ; the Asiatics setting off the graceful curves of otto- 
 mans by their rich blue and yellow housings : while the Greeks, aa 
 pictured by Homer and Virgil, allowed the land of luxury to rule 
 
392 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 in this her appropriate sphere. The same Asiatic richness is in 
 modern times seen in the gorgeous divans of a Turkish saloon ; 
 while the taste of Europe has grown in exquisiteness of workman- 
 ship and chasteness of design. 
 
 Besides the furniture of a mansion, the doors and their casings, 
 the windows with their sashes, the fire-place with its jambs and 
 mantles, and indeed the entire face of the walls, require not only 
 proportion but artistic decoration. Here architecture, sculpture 
 and painting all meet to create decorative art. 
 
 Walls, made either of wood or plaster, have been decorated by 
 carvings as in English oak, by painting as in Italian fresco, by 
 needle- work as in ancient and modern tapestry. 
 
 Ceiling cornices may be moulded in stucco, and carved in wood ; 
 or, mere shading in paper or fresco may accomplish their effect. 
 Heavy doors may be in oak or bronze; but delicate window-tracings 
 must be partly in metal. Even balcony railings, anciently cumber- 
 some, become light and graceful in modern castings. 
 
 SECT. 3. TRAVELING EQUIPAGE; TRAPPINGS OF ANIMALS AND 
 STYLES OF VEHICLES. 
 
 Called from home by business or pleasure, traveling equipage is 
 required for guiding and controling animals, and for the carriage 
 of the rider ; either the back of the animal, or a vehi6le drawn be- 
 hind him, serving this purpose. 
 
 The horse, favorite for his strength and swiftness, is managed by 
 rnde tribes without saddle or bridle ; the Greeks had these so sim- 
 ple as to originate the fable of the centaurs ; while the Persians, 
 with Asiatic sumptuousness, loaded down their horses with trap- 
 pings. The Asiatic uses the donkey, camel and elephant as well as 
 the horse ; showing a special taste in decking their halters, saddles 
 and howdahs ; and from the days of Abraham to Jesus, in Western 
 Asia, a donkey or mule has been a princely riding beast. 
 
 In Egypt the chariot, not the saddle, was from early times em- 
 ployed. The Romans in their country, less hilly than Greece, 
 adopted the chariot; covering not only Italy but Western Asia 
 with pavel carriage-roads for their narrow vehbles. 
 
BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS AND PICTURE BORDERS. 393 
 
 SECT. 4. BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS AND PICTURE BORDERS; THEIR DE- 
 SIGN AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THEIR ADAPTATION. 
 
 Besides his physical needs man has intellectual wants ; to meet 
 which art addresses the eye. 
 
 While rude tribes from necessity used picture writing, Egyptian 
 wise men employed it to conceal their meaning from the multitude. 
 Under Christian civilization, pre-eminently, art has come to the aid 
 of written speech. 
 
 Egyptian records and monuments show that the idea of an en- 
 larged and ornamented initial letter was of early origin. In 
 Christian history the "limning" or "illuminating" of the text in 
 missals or liturgies containing prayers at mass, became a high art. 
 From the crimson red employed, such works were called "rubrics." 
 Retained in early German and English printing, ritualists still per- 
 petuate it in religious literature. 
 
 In modern times the art of engraving fills the place of ancient 
 limning ; its tendency, not only in light literature but in solid sci- 
 ence, being to exclude rather than aid true apprehension. 
 
 An aesthetic, distinct from the intellectual want, demands that 
 the painter's canvas have a finished border and the statue a pedes- 
 tal ; and design in decorative art seeks an appropriate supply for 
 this lack. The leading idea in a picture-frame is, that its slope 
 inward seem a window or doorway through which the view is ob- 
 tained. Its form and color should suit the tone of the general de- 
 sign. For landscape the rectangle as of a window half opened, and 
 for portrait the oval are preferred because appropriate. 
 
 While the inner rim should be plain, the exterior may be adorned 
 with geometric or floral decorations in imitation of wreaths. Gilt 
 stucco gives richness to a picture by its reflected light. Special 
 skill is required in mounting and hanging paintings in a gallery. 
 
 In statuary, regard should be had to the proportions of the 
 pedestal and the color of the background. A statuette should 
 always be elevated on a mantel or bracket, and a colossal statue on 
 a broad pedestal of dark material ; while a life-size statue should 
 stand nearly on a level with the beholder. Statues in niches, aa 
 the Greeks learned, need, as in the open air, an azure background 
 to give the bost relief. 
 
 R 
 
394 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 SECT. 5. INSIGNIA OF PERSONAL RANK AND OF NATIONALITY, WITH 
 THEIR SYMBOLIC CHARACTER AND ELABORATE ADAPTATION; DE- 
 FENSIVE ARMOR AND OFFENSIVE WEAPONS. 
 
 The relations of civil society, calling for officers with authority to 
 use force, require badges of rank and instruments of power. In- 
 signia of rank are borne on the forehead and left breast and in the 
 right hand, as the seats of intelligence, affection and power. 
 
 The first token of civil power is the sceptre ; an emblem borne 
 by Hebrew princes and Grecian chiefs; Ulysses' "rod" being dis- 
 tinguished from the fcerte&etba, or caduceus, borne by heralds, as 
 Mercury ; and also from the sltytale, or baton, of the Greek general. 
 In Christian ages the crosier or shepherd's crook, an ecclesiastical 
 badge, has been made to accompany the sceptre of civil and the 
 baton of military authority; which is burlesqued in the tall horse- 
 hair tufted poles of officials in Eastern Asia. 
 
 The second badge of rank is the crown ; illustrated in the cap of 
 Egyptian and Hebrew priests, and in the Persian tiara, which in 
 its band furnished the type of the modern diadem, out of which has 
 grown the triple crown of the Papal ecclesiastic. 
 
 The third badge, the star or rosette, is perhaps the "latus 
 clavus" worn by Romans of consular rank ; whence also originated 
 the "banner" of feudal lords. The rosette on the left breast is 
 now the only distinctive badge of Turkish officials. 
 
 Military insignia, more elaborate than civic, include standards, 
 or national symbols, and ensigns, or party signals. These take the 
 form of a banner stretched and supported at its centre, or of a flag 
 floating free in the breeze. The term "colors" refers to the fact 
 that for distinctness pure colors, as red, are chosen as a contrast to 
 sky and earth. The Egyptian standards were feather-shaped ; the 
 Persians carried silk streamers ; Themistocles' battle-flag was of 
 scarlet ; while the Romans, beginning with a wisp of straw on a spear, 
 added the animal forms of the eagle, the wolf, the minotaur, the 
 horse and the boar. The former of these, under the consul Marius, 
 about B. C. 104, became the sole recognized symbol; beneath 
 which hung the banner of square silk. To this was added the 
 vexittnm or swallow- tailed flag, as a cavalry ensign. Modern 
 Christian civilization has retained the old military emblems. 
 
 With military ensigns are directly associated armor for defence 
 
INSIGNIA OF OFFICE AND RELIGIOUS VESSELS, 395 
 
 and weapons for offence. The former includes the helmet, casque 
 or cap for the head, the coat of mail or corselet for the body, 
 greaves for the legs, sandals or boots for the feet, and the movable 
 shield. Weapons of offence, as to the mode of wielding and the 
 distance at which they are used, include three classes ; those for 
 bruising, as the club, whirling mace and sling-stone; for thrusting, 
 as the knife, spear, dagger, bayonet, lance and arrow ; and for 
 slashing, as the axe and sword. 
 
 SECT. 6. RELIGIOUS VESSELS AND SYMBOLS; FESTAL DECORATIONS 
 AND FUNEPEAL MONUMENTS AND TABLETS. 
 
 Moral and religious cravings call for memorial symbols to be 
 supplied by decorative art. 
 
 The two ideas of offering and of purification, aside from the con- 
 ception of images of Deity which belongs to sculpture, embrace the 
 fields of religious symbolism proper. The Greeks and Romans had 
 their altars and vases ; as the Hebrews had their altar, table and 
 censer, and their font and vases ; and as the Christian Church has 
 its fonts and bowls for Baptism, and plates, ewers and chalices for 
 the Sacred Supper. 
 
 To these the Hebrew and Christian systems add the peculiar pro- 
 vision for spiritual enlightenment embodied in the ark with its 
 tables and books of the law ; to which the Christian faith, more 
 imperative than any other in its demands on decorative art, adds 
 candelabras, the pulpit, book-stands and furnished pews. 
 
 Social and civil relations, founded in the moral nature, seek in 
 religious festivities at once the recreation and refining of an 
 associated community. 
 
 Festal decorations have taken the floral and the geometric or 
 architectural types ; the floral being borrowed directly from nature 
 in the peasant's wreaths and garlands ; the architectural agreeing 
 with the measured and polished character of city and court life. 
 The latter, scientific in principle, should alwaj T s be the foundation 
 of the former ; as the arborescent of the Gothic never reaches its 
 climax except when grounded upon the framework of the Grecian 
 and Roman. 
 
 Tombs and their inscriptions speak of the end of human life. 
 The true idea of burial is the grave; where "dust returns to dust;" 
 over which a slab was laid or a headstone was reared. The idea 
 
396 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of the soul's inseparable union to the body, originating the embalm- 
 ing of the body and sealed tombs, reached its Asiatic climax in the 
 pyramids and rock-tombs of Egypt, and its degenerate Grecian ex- 
 travagance in the mausoleum of Artemisia. The comprehensive 
 spirit of Christianity adopts every species of funeral monument in 
 its tablets ; recording memories and sentiments speaking to the soul. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ASIATIC DECORATIVE ART; RUDIMENTARY IN STYLE, DEFECTIVE 
 IN FORM, EXCESSIVE IN ORNAMENT, BUT ELABORATE IN 
 FINISH. 
 
 IN decorative art Asiatics fall behind Europeans in conceptions 
 of style, form and color, but are superior in the patient labor of the 
 hand. 
 
 SECT. 1. THE INDIAN AS THE PERMANENT SOURCE, AND THE EGYP- 
 TIAN AS THE ANCIENT STOREHOUSE, OF ASIATIC DECORATIVE ART. 
 
 From India in the earliest days came even to Egypt, as well to 
 Syria and Phosnicia, and afterward to Greece and Rome, every 
 form of luxury in decorative art ; as now they come to modern 
 Europe. As Herodotus and Pliny conceded to the Indians supe- 
 riority in this department over the Greeks and Romans, so modern 
 English residents agree that in silk and cotton weaving, wood and 
 ivory ornamentation, Indian operatives show skill superior to that 
 of Western Europe. 
 
 The long-hidden Egyptian tombs, rich in minute works of art, 
 reveal a special religious idea presiding over the secular life of that 
 people ; well illustrated in their sacred symbols and utensils. The 
 globe with wings, or beetle holding the ball containing its maturing 
 eggs, with asps ready to devour its young when hatched, the sacred 
 vases of fruit and water deposited for the dead, finely moulded and 
 finished, indicate in their conception superior intellect, guiding 
 gross superstition. Among other articles the Egyptian earthen- 
 ware is second only to the Etruscan ; while Egyptian glass is first in 
 rank. The mosaic in the British Museum is inimitable by mod- 
 
CHINESE, IIF.1SREW AND ARABIAN ]>i:< 'ORATION. 397 
 
 trn art ; while the enameled obelisks in the Great Oasis, mentioned 
 by Plin}', must have rivaled the Porcelain Tower at Nankin. 
 
 SECT. 2. CHINESE AND JAPANESE AS THE DEGENERATING STAGE, 
 AND POLYNESIAN AND AMERICAN AS THE DEGRADED DECLINE OF 
 
 ASIATIC DECORATIVE ART. 
 
 While inferior in some arts to the Indian, Chinese ornamental 
 manufactures are in porcelain superior. This superiority depends 
 partly on the fine material found in their mountains; the infusible 
 portion, kaolin or clay, and the fusible, petuntse or silicon, furni>h- 
 ing their inimitable watery white porcelain, which is colored by 
 metallic oxides. This art of China the Greeks knew and called it 
 Jteramicos ; but the Portuguese were the first to bring it to Europe. 
 Tn all other respects Chinese art is a degeneracy ; the exuberant 
 fancy displayed in the endless variety of exported Chinese toys and 
 notions indicating a lack in elevated sentiment. Japanese decora- 
 tion excels the Chinese in both color and form. The method of 
 giving adhesion to colors laid on metal, as that called japanning, 
 seems peculiar to that people. 
 
 Every voyager to the Pacific isles adds to the treasures of P< >]y 
 nesian decorative art; while every wandering camp of American 
 Indians has its venders of rude decorated workmanship. A care- 
 ful comparison with the line of kindred art westward to China in- 
 dicates a kindred taste ; displaying itself in fondness for pure colors 
 and fine texture in material. The northern tribes decorate buffalo 
 hides and the southern the delicate buffalo pleura, with, the same 
 colors; while for carvings, ivory, coral or flint are chosen where 
 each is found. 
 
 SECT. 3. HEBREW DECORATIVE ART; THE CENTRAL AND HALLOWEI* 
 
 TYPE OF THE ASIATIC STYLE. 
 
 The glory of the Hebrews was not military prowess, nor civil do- 
 minion, but their possession of the "Oracles of God." All pro- 
 fessed revelations, the Vedas, Zendavesta and Koran, have ema- 
 nated from Asia ; as false coin is issued nigh the source of the true. 
 Both the Old and New Testament, have come to the world mainly 
 from Hebrew pens. 
 
 Hebrew art excelled in religious emblems; their altar and candle- 
 stick becoming types for all ages Not only the vessels of their 
 
 34 
 
398 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 worship, and their priestly vestments adorned with golden fringes 
 presenting alternately a bell and a pomegranate, but even common 
 utensils, were so hallowed that " Holiness to the Lord" was to be 
 inscribed "on the bells of the horses." The Hebrew, therefore, 
 has become for all subsequent ages, uninterrupted by progressing 
 European civilization, the type of religious symbolism. 
 
 fiixrr. 4. ARABIAN, PHOENICIAN, SYRIAN AND ASSYRIAN DECORATIVE 
 ART: THE FIRST STAGE OF ADVANCE IN THE ASIATIC STYLE. 
 
 The Arabians, an intelligent and permanent Shemitic family, 
 h ave possessed a high type of decorative art. This eminence is 
 indicated in the designation Arabesque ; a term applied to the 
 tracery-work heaped upon the fagades of Moorish palaces and 
 mosques in the mediaeval age, and given since to highly embossed 
 work. 
 
 With the Assyrians, between India and Asia Minor, decoration 
 was a chief aspiration in art ; the pictures given by the Hebrew 
 writers and by Herodotus and Pliny illustrating this characteristic ; 
 while the explorations of Layard have made it palpable in imple- 
 ments and utensils of every variety. 
 
 Phoenicia, with Tyre its capital, furnishing the purple dye cele- 
 brated among the Greeks and the glass lauded by Pliny, excelled 
 in rich ornament ; becoming so exuberant that not only men and 
 women, but their riding camels, were decked with necklaces and 
 jewelry. 
 
 Finally Syria, with its capital Damascus, lives in the works bear- 
 ing its name; as dnmafilc, a silk fabric with embossed figures, damas- 
 sin, a similar silk interwoven with threads of gold and silver, 
 damaskin, a sword-blade of rare tempered steel, and damaskeen, 
 the adorning of steel sword-blades and scabbards, knives, etc., with 
 inlaid gold and silver thread. This inimitable workmanship forma 
 a link never to be broken in the union of ancient Asiatic and mod- 
 ern European art. When, after the fall of the Roman Empire, 
 Genoa and Venice were bringing not only the material but the arts 
 of Arabia into Europe, one of the most fascinating episodes in 
 Cennini's history of early Italian art is a description of his own 
 enthusiasm in trying to copy the exquisite work on the scabbard of 
 a Damascus scimetar ; as Faraday's last triumph was the discovery 
 of the composition of Arabian steel which formed its blade. 
 
PERSIAN, GRECIAN AND ROMAN DECORATION. 399 
 
 SECT. 5. PERSIAN AND GREEK COLONIAL DECORATIVE ART; THE 
 MOST ADVANCED ASIATIC, AND THE CONNECTING I INK TO THE 
 GRECIAN TYPE. 
 
 The connection of the Persians with both Southern Asia and 
 with the Greeks, as indicated by Homer, Herodotus and Xeno- 
 phon, is more intimate in ornamental than in the higher arts. 
 The pyramidal tombs alike of Hector and Achilles, the sceptres 
 both of Priam and Agamemnon, are links reaching from Egypt to 
 Greece. The adoption by the Greeks of the chaste architectural 
 trefoil of Persia, and their rejection of the high cap and necklaces 
 peculiar also .to the Egyptians, show that this intercommunication 
 in art was only partial. The couch for reclining at meals, borrowed 
 from Persia through Asiatic Greece, whose history is epitomized 
 in the Jcline of Matthew addressing Asiatics, in the kliuidion of 
 Luke appealing to Greeks, and in the knibbaton or Latin grab- 
 batum of Mark writing for Roman readers, is a specimen of the 
 tendency of luxury to pass from a lower to a higher civilization. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EUROPEAN DECORATIVE ART ; CONTROLLED BY THE ALTERNATING 
 PROGRESS AND DECLINE OF SCIENCE AND ART, OF SOCIAL, IN- 
 TELLECTUAL, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 As the traditional reverence of the Asiatic for the past is specially 
 manifest in dress, equipage, furniture, implements, utensils and 
 personal ornaments, so is the European spirit aspiring to progress. 
 
 SECT. 1. GRECIAN AND ROMAN DECORATIVE ART; THE ONE EXACT 
 
 IN FORM AND CHASTE IN FINISH ; THE OTHER ELABORATE IN 
 DETAIL AND PROFUSE IN ORNAMENT. 
 
 In higher art the Grecian artist showed three national character- 
 istics: first, mathematical exactness ki form, as in architectural orna- 
 mentation ; second, simplicity in outline, as in the curve of their 
 Etruscan vase unbroken by embossments ; and third, elaborateness 
 
400 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 of finisli. These characteristics made the G reeks in some respects 
 eclectic ; as when in sculpture the early Ionic style of female dress, 
 with hair curled or frizzled and held by a jeweled fillet, and long 
 robes, was harmonized with the later Dorian fashion of plain 
 straight hair tied in a knot, and short skirts. The control of 
 mathematical simplicity in Grecian decorative art is seen alike in 
 the tripod as opposed to four-footed supports of chairs and tables, 
 and in plain vases for holding the ashes of the dead. 
 
 The cumbersome and gorgeous detail which prevailed in "Roman 
 architecture pervaded Roman decorative art. The labor devoted 
 b} 7 the Greek to polish, the Roman exhausted in embossed decora- 
 tions. 
 
 The severe religious simplicity inculcated at Rome by Numa, 
 abjuring images and leaving the Pantheon walls blank, gave to 
 Roman art a permanent foundation of strength, to which luxury 
 added a gorgeous exterior ; as is seen in the relics of Pompeii. In 
 dress Roman plainness preserved the tunica or frock-shirt, called 
 stola for females, at first short and without sleeves, and the toga 
 or sack-coat, known as palla, for women ; while, however, the 
 native fondness for ornament displayed itself in the rings univer- 
 sally worn by men. and in the profusion of jewelry decorating their 
 women. Their variety in elaborate furniture and equipage forbids 
 enumeration. 
 
 SECT. 2. EARLY CHRISTIAN DECORATIVE ART; MARKED ESPECI- 
 ALLY BY SYMBOLS OF RELIGIOUS IDEAS PECULIAR TO THE NEW 
 FAITH. 
 
 Diognetus, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius, about B. C. 140, 
 wrote of the early Christians: "They are not distinguished from 
 other men by their place of residence, their language or manners." 
 In decorative art the early Christians were transformed in nothing 
 but in religious symbols. 
 
 Didron, Miinter and Lord Lindlay have illustrated the emblems 
 wrought into early Christian decorative art. The representation 
 of God the Father was a hand and arm stretched from a cloud. 
 The Son was symbolized by the monogram X and p, from Ohristos, 
 overlapping; by a cross, a lamb, a lamp, a vine, a rock and a 
 pelican ; and also by a fish, the Greek Ichthus being made up of 
 the initials of lesous, Chi-istos, Thens, Uios, Srter. The 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND MEDIAEVAL DECORATION. 401 
 
 Spirit was figured by a dove bearing an olhe branch; also by a 
 candlestick with seven branches. The Trinity was pictured by 
 three beams of light radiating from Christ's head ; by a rainbow 
 with three arches ; by the thumb, fore and index fingers of Christ 
 raised erect; or by the index finger straight and the thumb 
 hooked, the index and ring finger crossed, and the little finger 
 crooked, making together the letters I. C. and X. C., the first and 
 last letters of Icsous Christos. The four Evangelists were desig- 
 nated in general by four rivers ; and in particular, Matthew by an 
 nngel, Mark by a lion, Luke by an ox, and John by an eagle. 
 Among the apostles, Paul was indicated by a sword, and Peter by 
 the keys. The three graces, Faith, Hope and Charity, were repre- 
 sented by the cross, anchor and heart; purity by a lily; incorrupti- 
 bility by a rose ; victory by a wreath of palm ; and peace by an 
 olive-branch. The sacrament of baptism was symbolized by water 
 poured on the cross, and the Lord's Supper by wheat in the ear 
 and grapes, or by a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. 
 
 SECT. 3. MEDIAEVAL DECORATIVE ART, ECCLESIASTIC AND SECULAR ; 
 ARTIFICIAL IN DESIGN AND LIMITLESS IN INVENTION. 
 
 After Constantine images took the place of symbols ; God the 
 Father was pictured as an old man ; the Council of Trent, A. D. 
 692, ordered that images of Christ should be substituted for the 
 symbol of the Lamb ; and till the eighth century, masterpieces of 
 design in mosaic and painting were produced. Then symbolism 
 again became prominent ; showing its character in emblems of 
 apostolic and priestly offices, and in the dress of the head and per- 
 son of the Virgin. 
 
 Architecture having assumed a distinct ecclesiastical type, called 
 for decoration ; the common designation, Ifyrialte, Jcirche, Idrlt, or 
 church, indicating the prominence which the " Lord's" house had 
 attained. The edifice, in ground-plot a cross, with the choir as its 
 head, the transept as its cross-arms, and the nave as its body, had a 
 narrow section of the nave at the entrance called narthex or oblong, 
 fenced off for penitents. The choir was frescoed or hung with oil 
 paintings and had niches for statuary ; its floor had a raised plat- 
 form or bcma, with a front railing called cancelli or chancel ; upon 
 the bema was an altar, before which was the cathedra or bishop's 
 chair, called from its sanctity, Merateion, from its seclusion adyton^ 
 34 * 
 
402 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 and from its authority, presbyterion ; and on one side was the pul- 
 pit for the preacher. The organ and choir gallery, at first behind 
 the altar, was afterward moved to the side or transept, then to the 
 front of the nave. On one side near the door or in a separate 
 building in the rear was the baptistery ; and in a tower, at first 
 joined with, then separated from, the front, were the bells. Each 
 of these portions of the edifice with its furniture became a field ( >r 
 elaborate ornament. 
 
 Doors, windows and pavements in churches, also weie orna- 
 mented ; the doorways with carvings in stone, often grotesque in 
 style ; the windows with stained glass, superior in execution though 
 rude in design ; and the pavements with mosaics after the Roman 
 style. To this decoration the spirit of Christianity and of art alike 
 agreed ; the criticism of extreme reform showing its unphilosophic 
 cast in the objection of Bernard to the pavement: "Those passing 
 over them often spit in the mouth of an angel, or grind the face of 
 some saint with their heels." 
 
 In dress the common people followed national customs ; a few 
 ascetics, pointing to John's camel-hair raiment, and insisting that 
 Christians of patrician rank lay aside the toga ; while the intelligent, 
 like Tertullian, regarding Jesus' example, exclaimed: "We are 
 no Hindoo fakirs !" In the dress of ecclesiastics excessive richness 
 grew up ; and the tiara of the Persian noble, the stole or robe of the 
 Roman Pontifex Maximus, the epliod of the Jewish high-priests, 
 and the ring and crosier were adopted. 
 
 The civic and military decoration styled "heraldry" and "bla- 
 zonry," from herald and blasen, to proclaim, designed to indicate 
 the nationality, community and family of knights when completely 
 cased in armor, though known in the age of Henry I. of England, 
 was perfected as a system during and after the Crusades. The 
 field or escutcheon, having a crest above, a scroll below and the 
 colors at the sides, was divided into nine compartments. The three 
 at the top and the three at the bottom were horizontal; the 
 former being called the dexter, middle and sinister chiefs; the 
 latter the dexter middle and sinister basis ; while the three uniting 
 them were perpendicular, called honor, fess and nombril points. 
 Diagonal bands, called chief, pale, bend, bend sinister, fess, bar, 
 chevron, cross and saltire, and also eight curved or bent lines, en- 
 titled the eng'-aved, inverted, wavy, embattled, nebuly, raguly, in- 
 
CHANGES IN HANDICRAFT AND IMPLEMENTS. 403 
 
 dented and dancette, subdivided the field. Nine colors were intro- 
 duced : or or gold, gule or red, azure or blue, sable or black, vert or 
 green, purpure or purple, tenny or orange, sanguine or crimson, and 
 murrey or brown-red. Finally, various figures, as crosses, shells, 
 birds, beasts, dragons, stars, flowers, etc., called charges, were 
 inserted. 
 
 SECT. 4. MODERN CHANGES IN MATERIAL AND HANDICRAFT; MOD- 
 IFYING THE STYLE, AND DETERIORATING THE FINISH OF ORNA- 
 MENTAL WORK. 
 
 New species of material and new forms of the old have been 
 introduced into decorative art; modifying its form and style. 
 Cheap iron castings take the place of elaborately wrought bronze 
 and nicely hewn marble. Modern Parian, as plastic as clay, rivals 
 the finest porcelain. In coloring the moire antique, giving by the 
 action of acids on metallic plates rainbow hues in wavy lines, opens 
 a new field of art. 
 
 While modern machinery gives exactness of form, the neglect of 
 handicraft, because of this easier method, tends to a degeneracy in 
 the execution of the carver and chiseler. 
 
 The aid of improved chemical agents makes easy the former 
 severe toil of Cennini in damaskeening ; but in porcelain and glass 
 staining, experiment has not attained to the chemical law employed 
 by the Asiatic. 
 
 SECT. 5. MODERN METHODS OF LOCOMOTION AND ENGINES OF WAR; 
 VARYING THE FORM AND ADORNMENT OF VEHICLES AND OF 
 VESSELS, AND REVOLUTIONIZING THE STYLES OF ARMOR AND 
 
 WEAPONS. 
 
 In convenient adaptations for animal carriage the moderns have 
 made improvements on ancient methods ; though these should not 
 be confounded with ornamentation. The use of steam has intro- 
 duced on land and sea traveling mansions. The modern car invites 
 paneled walls, carving and painting. Passenger-vessels, having 
 theii exterior marred by unsightly chimneys, demand a peculiar 
 skill in securing external grace. The inner saloons, rivaling palace 
 apartments, require tact in order to secure proportion ; on which 
 alone the excess of decoration assumes a worthy aspect. 
 
 In the conflicts of bordering nations the invention of gunpowder 
 
404 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 and modern projectiles has substituted for lustrous metal designed 
 for defence, variegated woolens and silks ; which in actual service 
 are subdued into the sober blue and gray of close-fitting jackets, 
 with a simple leaf, eagle or star on the shoulder to indicate rank. 
 
 Modern offensive weapons, cannon, guns and pistols, exposed to 
 B'jot and smoke, at their first invention, and since as mere orna- 
 ments for princely hands, have been enriched with inlaid and em- 
 bossed decoration ; as is seen alike in the matchlock muskets of the 
 Imaum of Muscat and in the richly embossed brass cannon of 
 Louis XIV. Weapons for service require elaborate polish but no 
 ornament. 
 
 SECT 6. MODERN VIEWS OF POPULAR EQUALITY; SIMPLIFYING 
 OFFICIAL INSIGNIA AND MULTIPLYING ILLUSTRATIVE METHODS 
 OF IMPARTING KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Ascetic and cynic philosophy in religion and politics may become 
 extreme in demanding simplicity in dress and ornament appropri- 
 ate to civil and religious offices. In the French Legislative Assem- 
 bly, and in the Lower House of the English Parliament, the medi- 
 aeval insignia are laid aside. In the American republic, no badge 
 marks the highest executive and legislative officials; only the robe 
 of the chief judicial officers being a memorial of the ancient 
 insignia. 
 
 Military and naval official badges, however, remain in every land 
 true to ancient ideas ; as their office is unchanged by ameliorating 
 civilization. 
 
 In childhood and among uncultured people the eye instructs the 
 mind. Expanding reason, however, forms truer conceptions by its 
 own efforts at comprehension ; reaching the reality, where child- 
 hood stops at the image. 
 
 In a community where all are educated, the necessity for early 
 application to industrial pursuits makes the mental training of most 
 youth purely elementary. This necessitates the multiplying in 
 school-rooms and in text-books of illustrations which address the 
 eye. The pure mathematics must be illustrated by diagrams; but, 
 in the applied mathematics the pupil should be trained to form his 
 conceptions of mechanism independently of apparatus. In the fine 
 arts the artist must learn to conceive with no model before the 
 eye, and the critic may be hindered instead of aided by the im- 
 
MODIFICATIONS IN ILLUSTRATIVE DEVICES. 405 
 
 perfect drawings of the text-book. By the missal paintings of the 
 Middle Ages, as well as by .the engraved Scripture illustrations of 
 modern times, the intellect is only aroused ; its apprehension must 
 be completed by its own effort. In history, natural, civil and 
 religious, in science and in symbolism, secular and Christian, mod- 
 ern progress modifies, but does not supersede book illustrations. 
 
 SECT. 7. MODERN REFINEMENTS IN METAPHYSICAL AND THEOLOGI- 
 CAL SCIENCE; ORIGINATING NEW DEVICES TO REPRESENT SPIRIT- 
 UAL TRUTH AND FUTURE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 Intellectual progress, manifestly extending in every portion of 
 Europe and reacting on Asia, is tending to unity in habits, customs 
 and conveniences of life; as is seen in the assimilation of dress, of 
 modes of locomotion and of military armament reaching from Con- 
 stantinople to London. A kindred unity in metaphysical, moral 
 and religious convictions is leading on from more refined forms of 
 personal adornment and of civic insignia to more spiritual religious 
 symbols and funereal memorials. In American society, where every 
 form of European and even Asiatic and African prejudice and 
 precedent, social, civil and ecclesiastical, are meeting, even churches 
 and cemeteries indicate a tendency to unity in conception. 
 
 Much of man's devotion to art ever has shown and ever will 
 show itself in funeral monuments; which speak of the deceased 
 at once, in pleasant memory of his past, and in lively hope of 
 his future. The Egyptian kings carried this sentiment at first to 
 an extreme ; building pyramidal abodes, as much more costly than 
 their palaces as the body's rest in one was to be longer than in the 
 other; while during all their history Egyptian royal tombs were as 
 expensive as their temples. In its early history, German, English 
 and American sculpture has been chiefly confined to funeral monu- 
 ments ; to which also it must be permanently devoted. 
 
 Unity, however, implies a whole made up of differing parts; for 
 we do not speak of the unity of a rock, but of the unity of a tree 
 or landscape. Unity, therefore, in science or art is true when it 
 creates a whole of infinite variety. 
 
 In nothing more than in funereal monuments, which embody the 
 sweetest memories of the past, the most exalted conceptions of 
 imagination and the liveliest hopes of the future, has this unity in 
 variety shown its pervading power. 
 
406 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 The marked distinction between modern Christian and ancient 
 Egyptian, Hebrew and even Grecian and Roman types for funeral 
 monuments, is to be traced to the distinct philosophy of each as to 
 the power and province of death. The spirit of the ancients was 
 based on the idea that matter is eternal ; in its nature possessed by 
 indwelling evil ; as uncreated beyond the power of the spiritual 
 Ruler and Redeemer to transform and purify ; and thence for ever 
 shut up to the lament, which "says to corruption, ' Thou art my 
 father,' and to the worm, ' Thou art my mother.' " The Egyptinn 
 and Hebrew, even till the burial of Jesus Christ, embalmed the 
 body and sealed it in a tomb ; while the Greek and Roman burned 
 it to ashes and enclosed it in an urn. 
 
 The Christian idea is based on the fact of Christ's personal bodily 
 purity and immortality ; that matter, made from nothing by God's 
 word, is not in itself evil, or controlled by its power, but that after 
 death "both soul and body" may be redeemed. The spirit of 
 this revelation has led Christians and even Mohammedans to deck 
 the dead body with flowers and to inscribe on funereal monuments 
 such devices as the dove bearing a rosebud to heaven, and the 
 worm breaking the chrysalis and soaring with wings. 
 
 The consideration of funereal monuments under the Christian 
 revelation is a fitting close to this treatise on the fine arts and 
 their criticism. Monuments to the dead demand from all the arts, 
 drawing, sculpture, architecture, landscape-gardening and decora- 
 tion, their highest efforts. It is the field for art, last in order, 
 speaking of man's final end ; it is the most exalted, looking to his 
 higher life; and it is exhaustless, drawing emblems from every 
 field of nature, and from the philosophy and poetry of all ages and 
 nations. Above all, it embodies the highest conceptions of the 
 true, the beautiful, and the good this side the grave ; and deriving 
 its light from a purer world, it aspires to the perfect right in ita 
 home beyond the tomb. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 IN a concise and comprehensive text-book, covering the field of 
 all the fine arts, it is impossible that any considerable attempt to 
 furnish engraved illustrations should be expected. To obtain a 
 thorough mastery in detail of each department the teacher and 
 thorough student have three resources : first, works of art them- 
 selves gathered in chief cities; second, large and numerous en- 
 graved copies of such works collected in well-appointed libraries ; 
 and third, photographic views of the best existing works in sculp- 
 ture, architecture and painting, now readily obtained either in per- 
 sonal tours in Europe or through the leading houses of our com- 
 mercial cities. 
 
 In the department of drawing any teacher can furnish himself 
 with elementary illustrated works, and especially with specimens 
 of wood and copper-plate engravings, lithographs and photographs. 
 In sculpture, stereoscopic views, with an ordinary stereoscopic 
 instrument, should be employed; in painting, which forbids 
 stereoscopic views, excellent photographs as well as engravings 
 may be procured ; while in architecture, collections of engravings 
 and of both monocular and binocular photographs are requisite to 
 a thorough student. 
 
 In the illustrations which follow three are designed to present 
 important principles in perspective; while all the remainder are 
 devoted to the most practically important art, that of architecture. 
 In the latter the author has availed himself of drawings prepared 
 for various works, chiefly English. 
 
 407 
 
PLATE I. 
 
 Fig. 1. A geometric figure, presenting two squares of equal 
 Burface, the one at twice the distance from the eye of the other ; 
 in which the lines of vision in both the horizontal and vertical 
 planes are seen to diverge from the eye as a focus, the line sub- 
 tending this angle and forming the third side of a triangle increas- 
 ing in length in proportion to its distance from the eye. It is thus 
 observed that one-fourth of the square nearest the eye hides from 
 view the entire square at twice the distance ; and in general, that 
 the field of vision enlarges in the ratio of the square of the distance. 
 
 Fig. 2. Lionardo's diagram; showing that by the sight of the 
 two eyes more than half the contour of a ball comes within the 
 field of vision, and that the entire surface of a wall behind the ball 
 is distinctly in view ; thus exhibiting the two principles of binocular 
 perspective. 
 
 Fig. 3. An optical illustration of the diminution both in breadth 
 and heighth of a line of objects as they are removed farther from 
 the eye ; presenting a specimen of linear perspective. 
 408 
 
PLATE I. 
 
 35 
 
 S* 
 
 409 
 
PLATE IL 
 
 Fig. 4. The delicate or adorned order of Egyptian columns; 
 having the open flower of the lotus as its capital, a slender shaft 
 and an ornamented foot. 
 
 Fig. 5. The medium, or Osiride Egyptian column ; having aa 
 its capital a female face, with cows' ears and a hooded turban, 
 above which rises the faade of a miniature temple as a cap to the 
 head ; with its shaft plain or sculptured, and its base straight and 
 unadorned. 
 
 Fig. 6. The robust order of Egyptian columns ; having the lotus 
 bud as its capital, the reeded and banded shaft in imitation of a 
 bundle of lotus stalks, and the foliations of the tuber-root of the 
 lotus as its base. 
 
 Fig. 7. The true and false Egyptian cornice; the former having 
 a curve forward only in the upper half of its elevation, which curve 
 is swept by the radius of one-half the height of the cornice ; the 
 false having its curve from the base of the cornice, with its entire 
 height as radius. 
 
 Fig. 8. A section of the reeded and banded robust Egyptian 
 column ; illustrating the geometric precision of its fluting. 
 
 Fig. 9. Model of a pylon preserved in front of the temple at 
 Edfoo ; about 100 feet high and 300 feet in breadth. 
 
 Fig. 10. Interior of a public hall in India ; the ceiling sup- 
 ported by tree-trunks, with branches at top, employed as sustain- 
 ing columns. 
 
 Fig. 11. Fayade of the Temple of Dendera erected by the 
 Romans; having Osiride columns; showing the flat roof; and 
 adding a latticed-screen between the columns rising to about one- 
 half their height 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
PLATE II. 
 
 411 
 
PLATE III. 
 
 Fig. 12. Grecian Corinthian; its capital tall in proportion to 
 its breadth, and having only foliations, or leaf ornaments, usually 
 of the acanthus. 
 
 Pig. 13. Grecian Ionic column; front view; showing the side 
 curls, intervening fillet and jewel droplets ; exhibiting also the base 
 and taper of the shaft. 
 
 Fig. 14. Grecian Doric column; the middle of the shaft cut 
 out, showing the amount of its taper from bottom to top. 
 
 Fig. 15. Front of a temple in antis; having two Ionic columns 
 in a recess. 
 
 Fig. 16. The log-cabin as the model of the Grecian temple, 
 after the suggestion of Vitruvius ; the end of the rafters grooved 
 forming the triglyphs, and the spaces between called metopes, 
 originally left open in the plain Doric temple. 
 
 Fig. 17. Front of the Parthenon ; showing the platform ; tho 
 front Doric columns; the entablature; the gentle slope of the roof; 
 and the tympanum with its recess filled with statuary. 
 412 
 
PLATE III. 
 
 a5* 
 
 413 
 
PLATE IV. 
 
 Fig. 18. The outlet of the Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer of 
 ancient Rome ; the best preserved arch of the early Roman era. 
 
 Fig. 19. Plan of the hemispheric Roman dome ; showing the 
 intersections and slope of the stones forming its double curvature. 
 
 Fig. 20. Plan of the Roman arch ; the faces of its stones lying 
 in planes cutting the axis of the half-cylinder formed by its curve. 
 
 Fig. 21. The Roman Ionic ; more elaborate than the Grecian ; 
 at corners having a side front, the curl projecting diagonally be- 
 tween the two faces. 
 
 Fig. 22. The Roman Doric ; with capital more elaborate than 
 the Grecian ; having floral decorations. 
 
 Fig. 23. The Tuscan column ; the improved gate-post ; the 
 plainest of the Roman orders. 
 
 Fig. 24. The Roman Composite order ; with the curls of the 
 Ionic and the foliations of the Corinthian united. 
 
 Fig. 25. The Roman Corinthian ; stouter than the Grecian ; 
 having also strong spines in the centre and a heavy curl of the 
 leaves at the corners. 
 
 Fig. 26. The Tomb of Absalom ; cut from the solid rock east 
 of Jerusalem under Herod the Great in the age of Augustus ; a 
 Roman mingling of Grecian and Asiatic styles ; the base being 
 Ionic and the upper part an Indian pagoda. 
 
 Fig. 27. The Tomb of Zachariah; of the age also of Herod and 
 Augustus, having an Ionic base and an Egyptian pyramid above. 
 
 Fig. 28. The Temple of Vesta, still standing at Rome ; a spe- 
 cimen of a circular edifice, with surrounding colonnade, and hav- 
 ing a roof of tiles. 
 
PLATE IV. 
 
PLATE V. 
 
 Fig. 29. The Coliseum at Rome ; with elliptical groundplot ; 
 and having four orders of pilasters : the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian 
 and Composite, in stages above each other on its exterior. 
 
 Fig. 30. The Pantheon; its circular walls and hemispheric 
 dome being among the oldest and best preserved works of the days 
 of the Roman kings ; the Grecian portico being built under the 
 early emperors, and the two bell-towers added by Christian 
 bishops. 
 
 Fig. 31. Facade of the Basilica di San Spirito at Florence, 
 Italy ; showing the scroll-relief above the wings. 
 
 Fig. 32. A section of a basilica church ; showing its interior 
 structure ; the roofed centre being much higher than the wings. 
 416 
 
PLATE V. 
 
 s* 
 
 417 
 
PLATE VL 
 
 Fig. 33. Section of the Byzantine church of St. Sophia at Con- 
 stantinople ; showing the interior supports of the dome. 
 
 Fig. 34. Pitch of roofs as a fundamental element in architect- 
 ural styles ; the Egyptian without slope ; the Grecian having but 
 a few degrees of elevation ; the Roman a right angle at the peak, 
 inscribed in the semicircle of the Roman arch ; the Gothic 60, or 
 less, at the apex. 
 
 Fig. 35. The Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem ; the groundplot 
 of the Greek cross changed to an octagonal form; the dome 
 Byzantine. 
 
 Fig. 36. The elements of the Gothic arch, formed of two arcs 
 of circles whose centres are at A and B ; the line of its outward 
 thrust lying in the direction of the chord C D, which subtends 
 two-thirds of one of the two arcs, or one-third of both the arcs, 
 forming the arch. 
 
 Fig. 37. Line of pressure in the semi-circular Roman arch ; ita 
 resultant lying in the direction C D of the chord B C of 60, or 
 of one-third of the semi-circle forming the arch ; its lateral thru st 
 requiring that the supporting wall slope outward in that line, >r 
 have a weight, strength or adhesion of material equivalent, as a 
 counterpoise to that thrust 
 
 418 
 
PLATE VL 
 
 419 
 
PLATE VIL 
 
 Fig. 38. Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral ; showing the junctures 
 of the stones in the Gothic arch. 
 
 Fig. 39. Arched ceiling of a tomb at Delhi, India; illustrating 
 the perpetuated use of the Gothic arch among the Asiatics. 
 
 Fig. 40. Arch covering an ancient sewer in Nimroud, or 
 Nineveh ; showing that the Gothic, as well as the circular arch, was 
 known to the ancient Chaldeans and Brahmins. 
 
 Fig. 41. Norman architecture ; walls of finished stone, deco- 
 rated Roman arches, and notched embattled parapet 
 
 Fig. 42. Saxon architecture ; a wall of unhewn stone ; with 
 Roman arched windows and a plain parapet 
 
 Fig. 43. The perfected Gothic; the arcs forming the arch 
 meeting at an angle of about 60, with a roof of corresponding 
 elant ; surmounted by decorated pinnacles. 
 
 Fig. 44. The early pointed Gothic; with three windows, 
 ally united into one. 
 
 420 
 
PLATE VII. 
 
PLATE VIII. 
 
 Fig 45. Fagade of Westminster Hall, London ; a chaste speci- 
 men of Tudor Gothic. 
 
 Fig. 46. The florid Gothic; with arches having an ohtuse angle 
 at the apex; its windows capped with Tudor hoods; and its 
 window tracery, parapet and pinnacles overloaded with elaborate 
 carving. 
 
 Fig. 47. Section of the Alhambra, a palace of the Moors at 
 Grenada in Southern Spain ; illustrating the excessive ornamenta- 
 tion of the Arabesque or florid Saracenic. 
 
 Fig. 48. A Saracenic arch ; re-entering like a horse-shoe in a 
 doorway, window or corridor ; mitre or acorn-shaped in a dome. 
 422 
 
PLATE VIIL 
 
 45 
 
 423 
 
PLATE IX. 
 
 Fig. 49. The elevation of the central portico, dome and lantern 
 of the U. S. Capitol at Washington, D. C. ; illustrating the re- 
 vived Grecian ; three stages of columns and one of pilasters rising 
 abovs each other, all in pure Grecian Corinthian. 
 424 
 
PLATE IX. 
 
 36 
 
 425 
 
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