A STATUARY, AND AN ARMOURER, SHOWETH HIS SKILL AND GOOD TASTE IN THE
FINER ARTS.
As Socrates studied to be useful in all his conversations, so he never
happened to be in company even with tradesmen but he always said
something that might be of service to them. Going once into the shop of
the painter Parrhasius, he entertained himself with him in the following
manner:--
"Is not painting," said he, "a representation of all we see? For with a
few colours you represent on a canvas mountains and caverns, light and
obscurity; you cause to be observed the difference between soft things
and hard, between things smooth and rough; you give youth and old age to
bodies; and when you would represent a perfect beauty, it being
impossible to find a body but what has some defect, your way is to regard
several, and taking what is beautiful from each of them, you make one
that is accomplished in all its parts." "We do so," said Parrhasius.
"Can you represent likewise," said Socrates, "what is most charming and
most lovely in the person, I mean the inclination?" "How think you,"
answered Parrhasius, "we can paint what cannot be expressed by any
proportion, nor with any colour, and that has nothing in common with any
of those things you mentioned, and which the pencil can imitate; in a
word, a thing that cannot be seen?" "Do not the very looks of men,"
replied Socrates, "confess either hatred or friendship?" "In my opinion
they do," said Parrhasius. "You can then make hatred and friendship
appear in the eyes?" "I own we can." "Do you think likewise," continued
Socrates, "that they who concern themselves either in the adversity or
prosperity of friends, keep the same look with those who are wholly
unconcerned for either?" "By no means," said he, "for during the
prosperity of our friends, our looks are gay and full of joy, but in
their adversity we look cloudy and dejected." "This, then, may be
painted likewise?" "It may." "Besides," said Socrates, "magnificence,
generosity, meanness of mind, cowardice, modesty, prudence, insolence,
rusticity, all appear in the looks of a man, whether sitting or
standing." "You say true." "And cannot the pencil imitate all this
likewise?" "It may." "And in which do you take most pleasure," said
Socrates, "in regarding the picture of a man whose external appearance
discovereth a good natural disposition, and bespeaks an honest man, or of
one who wears in his face the marks of a vicious inclination?" "There is
no comparison between them," said Parrhasius.
Another time, talking with Clito the sculptor, he said to him, "I wonder
not that you make so great a difference between the statue of a man who
is running a race and that of one who stands his ground to wait for his
antagonist with whom he is to wrestle, or to box, or to play a prize at
all sorts of defence; but what ravishes the beholders is, that your
statues seem to be alive. I would fain know by what art you imprint upon
them this wonderful vivacity?" Clito, surprised at this question, stood
considering what to answer, when Socrates went on:--"Perhaps you take
great care to make them resemble the living persons, and this is the
reason that they seem to live likewise." "It is so," said Clito. "You
must then," replied Socrates, "observe very exactly in the different
postures of the body what are the natural dispositions of all the parts,
for when some of them stoop down, the others raise themselves up; when
some are contracted, the others stretch themselves out; when some are
stiff with straining, others relax themselves; and when you imitate all
this, you make your statues approach very near the life." "You say
true," said Clito. "Is it not true likewise," replied Socrates, "that it
is a great satisfaction to beholders to see all the passions of a man who
is in action well expressed? Thus, in the statue of a gladiator who is
fighting, you must imitate the sternness of look with which he threatens
his enemy; on the contrary, you must give him, when victor, a look of
gaiety and content." "There is no doubt of what you say." "We may then
conclude," said Socrates, "that it is the part of an excellent statuary
to express the various affections and passions of the soul, by
representing such-and-such motions and postures of the body as are
commonly exerted in real life whenever the mind is so-and-so affected."
Another time, Socrates being in the shop of Pistias the armourer, who
showed him some corselets that were very well made: "I admire," said
Socrates to him, "the invention of these arms that cover the body in the
places where it has most need of being defended, and nevertheless are no
hindrance to the motions of the hands and arms; but tell me why you sell
the suits of armour you make dearer than the other workmen of the city,
since they are not stronger nor of better-tempered or more valuable
metal?" "I sell them dearer than others," answered Pistias, "because
they are better made than theirs." "In what does this make consist?"
said Socrates, "in the weight, or in the largeness of the arms? And yet
you make them not all of the same weight nor of the same size, but to fit
every man." "They must be fit," said Pistias, "otherwise they would be
of no use." "But do you not know," replied Socrates, "that some bodies
are well-shaped and others not?" "I know it well." "How, then,"
continued Socrates, "can you make a well-shaped suit of armour for an ill-
shaped body?" "It will be sufficient if they are fit for him," answered
Pistias; "for what is fit is well made." "You are of opinion, then,"
added Socrates, "that one cannot judge whether a thing be well made,
considering it merely in itself, but in regard to the person who is to
use it; as if you said that a buckler is well made for him whom it fits,
and in like manner of a suit of clothes and any other thing whatsoever.
But I think there is another convenience in having a suit of armour well
made." "What do you take that to be?" said Pistias. "I think," answered
Socrates, "a suit of armour that is well made does not load the bearer so
much as one ill made, even though it weigh as much. For ill-made arms,
by pressing too much upon the shoulders, or hanging cumbrous on some
other part, become almost insupportable, and greatly incommode the person
that weareth them. But those arms which, as they ought, distribute an
equal weight to all the parts of the body, that join upon the neck, the
shoulders, the breast, the back, and the hips, may be said to be glued to
the body, and to weigh nothing at all." "For this," said Pistias, "I
value the arms I make. It is true that some choose rather to part with
their money for arms that are gilt and finely carved, but if with all
this they fit not easy upon them, I think they buy a rich inconveniency."
Socrates went on:--"But since the body is not always in the same posture,
but sometimes bends, and sometimes raises itself straight, how can arms
that are very fit be convenient and easy?" "They never can," said
Pistias. "Your opinion therefore is," said Socrates, "that the best arms
are not those that are most fit, and fit closest to the body, but those
that do not incommode the person that wears them." "You, too, are of the
same opinion," replied Pistias, "and you understand the matter aright."