CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL OF SCULPTURE

Now that we pass on to consider the really ideal style of sculpture we

must once again recall the fact that the perfected type necessarily

presupposes the imperfect as its predecessor; and it does so not merely

in relation to its technique, which, in the first instance, does not

concern us here, but in respect to the general notion, in other words

the mode of its conception and the particular way in which it sets

forth the same ideally. We have in general terms called the symbolical

type that of inquiry; consequently pure sculpture, too, has for its

presupposition a certain stage of the symbolical type, and by this we

do not merely mean a stage of the symbolic form as generally conceived,

in other words of architecture, but a form of sculpture which is itself

characterized by the symbolical principle. We shall find an opportunity

of supporting this assertion with the example of Egyptian sculpture in

the third chapter.

We may in this place and from the point of view of the Ideal

generally, and for the present wholly in an abstract and formal

manner, assume that which we term symbolical in a specific art is

its _incompleteness_; as, for example, we may so apply this term to

an attempt of children to draw the human figure, or mould it from

wax and clay. What they execute is to this extent merely a symbol,

as it only _suggests_ the living reality it purports to exhibit,

remaining, however, wholly unfaithful to the actual object and its

significance. Art is consequently in the first instance hieroglyphical,

no mere accidental and capricious mark, but a haphazard delineation

of an object for the imagination. For this purpose a badly drawn

figure suffices if it recalls that object it is intended to suggest.

In a similar way piety is content with badly executed images, and

still worships Christ, the Virgin, and any other saint in the most

bungling counterfeit, although such images may merely derive such

individualization purely from particular attributes conveyed by such

means as a lantern or a mill-stone. For piety refuses to be reminded

of aught save the object; the soul adds all else thereto, which

will be filled up with an image of the object, however untrue the

counterfeit may be. It is not the living expression of the present

which is required; it is not that which is presented which is intended

to enkindle us by itself. Rather a work of art of this kind already

brings satisfaction if it excites the general concept of the objects

by virtue of its images, however insufficient they be. A concept of

this kind, however, already abstracts from the given content. I can

readily imagine some known thing, such as a house, a tree, a man;

but even in such a case, where the reference is to something quite

determinate, the concept merely includes wholly general traits, and is

in fact only a _true concept_[153] in so far as it has effaced from the

concrete presentment the wholly immediate singularity of the objects

and simplified the same. If the imaged concept, which the work of art

has to arouse in us, is that of the divine nature, and if this has to

receive recognition from an entire people, this object is especially

attainable when no _alteration_ is allowed in the mode of presentation.

For this reason art is on the one hand conventional, and on the other

scholastic[154]; and this is so not merely in the case of the more

ancient Egyptians, but also in that of more ancient Greek and Christian

art. The artist in such case was bound to restrict himself to definite

forms and to repeat their type.

The crucial point of transition, where fine art wakes from its sleep,

must consequently be sought there, where at last the artist is creative

by virtue of his own free conception, where the flash of genius

strikes into the material presented, and communicates freshness and

vitality to the presentment. Then for the first time the atmosphere

of mind[155] enfolds the work of art, which is no longer restricted

to merely calling up in a general way some idea before the mind, and

recalling to it some deeper significance which the spectator already

is essentially possessed of, but which proceeds to make visible this

significance as throughout made vitally present in some individualized

creation, and which consequently neither makes no further advance

beyond the purely superficial generality of its forms, nor binds itself

on the other hand, in respect to the detail of its delineation, to the

characteristics of all that common reality offers it.

In the rise of ideal sculpture we presuppose perforce a complete

passage to such a sphere of creation. In establishing the facts of this

appearance we may emphasize the following points of view.

_First_, we have to address ourselves to the general character of the

ideal form in its contrast to the stages previously discussed.

_Secondly_, we shall have to adduce specific aspects of it, the

importance of which is most obvious, such as the way in which facial

characteristics, drapery, and pose are modelled or treated.

_Thirdly_, we have to enforce the position that the ideal figure is

not merely a general type of beauty in the formal sense of type,

but includes, by virtue of its principle of individuality, which

belongs to the really living Ideal, essentially, too, the aspect of

differentiation and specific definition within its own sphere, and

by this means the province of sculpture is expanded in a cycle of

particularized images of gods and heroes.

1. THE GENERAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE IDEAL FIGURE OF SCULPTURE

We have already examined at length what the general principle of

the classical ideal is. Our present inquiry is therefore limited to

the particular mode under which this principle is realized through

the medium of sculpture in the human form. In this connection the

lines of difference between the human physiognomy, expressive as it

is of spiritual life and the general build of the animal organism,

which is unable to pass beyond the mere expression of natural life

in its unbroken association with natural wants and an organism that

is exclusively adapted to their satisfaction, will supply us with a

standard of comparison which carries us considerably further. Yet

even such a standard is still somewhat indefinite for the reason

that the human form alone neither is as bodily form, or as an

expression of Spirit, wholly and as we find it first of ideal type.

On the contrary we may observe with more closeness from the fine

masterpieces of Greek sculpture what the ideal of sculpture in the

spiritually fine expression of its creations has to bring before us.

It was pre-eminently Winckelmann who, with this intimate knowledge

of and devotion for art of this kind, and by means of his receptive

enthusiasm, no less than his intelligence and critical faculty, made

an end of indefinite statements over the Ideal of Greek beauty by

leaving the characterization of detail in the form at once distinct

and precise, an endeavour which by itself is full of instruction. No

doubt the results he obtained supply abundant opportunity for further

criticism, exceptions, and the like; but we should be careful, before

attempting to criticize details and errors in his work, not to obscure

the main result which he established. However far aesthetic science

may extend its borders that at least must be presupposed as essential.

Assuming this, it cannot, however, be denied that since Winckelmann's

death our knowledge of the antique has not only been essentially

enlarged in the number of examples submitted to criticism, but also has

been placed on a securer basis in its relation to the style of these

works and the true appreciation of their beauty.

Winckelmann, no doubt, passed under review a great number of Egyptian

and Greek statues; we have, however, added in more recent times the

closer acquaintance of the Aeginetan sculptures, no less than those

masterworks which in part are ascribed to Pheidias and in part we must

recognize as creations of his age and under his supervision. In a word

we have secured a more intimate knowledge of a number of sculptures,

whether single statues or reliefs, which, in their relation to the

severity of the ideal style, are referable to the age in which Greek

art was at its fullest bloom. For these astonishing monuments of Greek

sculpture, as is well known, we are indebted to the efforts of Lord

Elgin, who, as English ambassador to Turkey, had a number of statues

and reliefs of the greatest beauty taken from the Parthenon at Athens

and other towns to England. People have blamed such acquisitions and

called them temple robbery. Lord Elgin has, however, as a matter of

fact, really rescued these works of art for Europe and preserved

them from complete destruction. Such an enterprise deserves its true

recognition. Moreover, it is due to this circumstance that the interest

of all connoisseurs and friends of art have been directed to an epoch

and a mode of presentation, which, in the exceptionally consistent

severity of its style, constitutes the true greatness and height of

the Ideal. What the general verdict has highly estimated in the works

of this epoch is not the charm and grace of form and pose, not the

elegance of expression which already, as in the times subsequent to

Pheidias, makes an external appeal and distinctly aims at pleasing

the spectator, nor yet the delicacy and boldness of the elaboration;

rather the general chorus of praise is concentrated upon the expression

of self-subsistency and essential repose in these figures, and more

especially has this note of admiration been most emphatic by virtue

of the free vitality, the absolute transfusion of and command over

the purely natural and material aspect, a command by which the artist

moulds the marble, makes it alive and endows it with a soul. And we

may add that when all has been said that can be said in such praise

the figure of the reclining river-god remains as most emphatically its

object, which is one of the finest examples of antique art we have

recovered.

(_a_) The vitality of these works consists in this, that they are the

free product of the genius of the artist. The artist at this stage

is neither satisfied with giving, by means of general and haphazard

contours, suggestions and expressions, a general conception of that

which he desires to reproduce, nor does he, on the other hand, in

respect to what is individual and singular, accept the forms as he has

received them by chance from the external world. For this reason also

he does not present them again with loyalty to this accidental aspect,

but he is concerned to place within his own free creation what is

empirically particularized in isolated aspects that thus appear in a

further individual accord with the universal types of the human form,

an accord which is made to appear as throughout transpierced with the

spiritual configuration of that which he is called to make apparent,

when he suffers us to see his own vitality, conception and animation in

the work regarded on the side of the artist's activity. The universal

aspect of the content of his work is not due to his creation. It is

presented him by means of mythology and saga precisely in the way that

he finds the general effect and details of the human form; but the

free and living individualization, which permeates all portions on his

work, is the result of his own personal point of view, his efforts and

services.

(_b_) The effect and charm of this vitality and freedom is only

produced by means of the sufficiency, the honest candour of the

elaboration of all the particular parts to which the most definite

knowledge and review of the construction of these parts belongs, no

less in their position of repose than also in that of their motion. The

way in which the different members are disposed and moulded with regard

to rondure and smoothness, in every condition of rest and movement,

must be expressed in the most satisfactory way. This fundamental

elaboration and placing in relief of all the separate parts we find in

all products of antique art, and the animation thus produced is only

the effect of infinite pains and truth. When the eye contemplates works

of this kind it is, in the first instance, unable clearly to recognize

a mass of distinction; and it is only by virtue of a particular manner

of lighting that we can appreciate the same by means of a stronger

contrast between light and shadow. But though these fine nuances are

imperceptible at first glance, the general impression they produce is

not for that reason lost. In part they appear as the spectator varies

his point of view, and in part we derive from them what is essentially

the impression of the organic continuity of all the members and their

forms. This spirit of vitality, this soul of material configuration,

is due wholly to the fact that, though every part is entirely complete

in its separable independence, yet it is to a like extent throughout,

by virtue of the wealth of its modes of transition, associated not

merely with the part that is immediately its neighbour, but with the

entire work. For this reason the form is vital in every part of it;

the least detail of it is stamped with purpose; every part of it is

differentiated from the rest, possesses that which distinguishes it

and makes it distinct, and yet is affected by the same fluidity of

treatment, is only what it is vitally as a part of the whole, so that

we are able to recognize the whole in the very fragments of it, and a

part that is broken off enables us not merely to see but to enjoy a

totality that is not thus mutilated. The material surface, although for

the most part statues are now seriously impaired by the weather and

other causes in this respect, presents a soft and malleable appearance;

and in one particular example of the head of a horse I have in mind

it literally glows with the ardour of life on the face of the marble

itself. This scarce perceptible undercurrent of fluidity in all organic

parts, united to the most conscientious elaboration which avoids

purely regular surfaces and anything approaching the bare convexity of

circular shape, supplies that softness and ideality of all parts, that

harmonious unity, which extends throughout the whole as the spiritual

breath of one animating presence.

(_c_) However true, notwithstanding, expression of detailed or

general configuration may be, this truth is no mere imitation of

Nature simply. Sculpture is always occupied with the abstraction of

form, and is consequently obliged, on the one hand, to omit from

the bodily presentment what is most essentially the natural aspect,

in other words, what is exclusively indicative of natural function.

From a further point of view it is unable to carry to extremes its

particularization of detail, but rather as, for example, in its

treatment of hair, must restrict its attention and reproduction to the

more general of its forms. In this way, apart from any other, the human

figure, when properly treated by sculpture, is at once declared as the

form and expression of Spirit, rather than of a purely natural form.

Closely connected with this consideration is the fact that, though a

spiritual content is expressed by means of sculpture in the _bodily_

form, yet in the genuine Ideal it is not asserted so _prominently_ in

the exterior form to the extent of making that which is simply external

in its charm and grace either the exclusive or predominant attraction

to the spectator. On the contrary, though the genuine and more severe

Ideal of Spirituality is here presented in bodily shape, and is

exclusively thus presented by means of such shape and its expression,

yet this configuration must equally appear to be without exception

unified, supported and transfused by this ideal content. The swell of

life, the malleability and bodily presence, or sensuous fulness and

beauty of the bodily organism, must as little supply independently the

object of the presentation, as what is individual in the spiritual

presence can be carried to the length of expressing the more intimate

and more closely related inner life of the spectator, when we consider

his own particularity.

2. THE PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF THE IDEAL FORM OF SCULPTURE AS SUCH

If we direct our attention now to the more specific consideration of

the fundamental phases, on which the ideal form of sculpture reposes,

we shall do well to follow Winckelmann in essentials, who has laid

stress on the several types with the finest intuitive sense, and with

the most fortunate results, as well as on the way in which the same

have been treated and shaped by Greek artists, with the result that

they finally present to us the Ideal of sculpture. The vitality,

this floating emanation no doubt evades the definitions of the

understanding, which in the present case is unable to hold fast and

transpierce the particular as in architecture, which, however, asserts

itself in the entire work, as we have already seen, as the coalescence

of free spirituality and bodily forms.

The first general feature of distinction which arrests us concerns

the determination of works of sculpture in a general way, by virtue

of which the human form has to express that which is spiritual. The

spiritual expression, albeit it has to be poured forth over the entire

bodily presence reaches its highest degree of concentration in the

_facial form_, whereas the remaining members are merely able to reflect

what is spiritual by means of their _position_, in so far, that is, as

the same proceeds from Spirit in its essential freedom.

In our examination of these ideal forms we will make a beginning in

the _first_ place with the head; we will, then, in the _second_ place

enlarge upon the position of the body, after which we shall _conclude_

with the principle of the drapery.

(_a_) In the ideal configuration of the human head we are first and

foremost confronted with the so-called Greek profile.

(_α_) This profile consists in the peculiar union of the forehead

and nose; in the almost straight or merely slightly crooked line in

which the forehead unites without interruption with the nose, as also,

to speak more accurately, in the vertical direction of this line to

another which, extending it from the root of the nose to the orifice

of the ear, forms a right angle with the line of the forehead and

nose above mentioned. In a line of this sort nose and forehead stand

throughout to one another in the ideal and fine art of sculpture, and

the question presents itself whether this is a merely national and

artistic contingency or a physiological necessity.

Camper, the famous Dutch physiologist, has, with more exactness and

in an exceptional way, characterized this line as the line of facial

beauty; he in fact discovers therein the main distinction between the

form of the human visage and the profile of animal life; and on account

of this follows up the modifications of this feature throughout the

various human races. In this respect his researches are no doubt in

conflict with those of Blumenbach[156]. Speaking generally, however,

the line adverted to is in fact a most marked means of distinction

between the outward form of man and animal. Among animals, it is

true, muzzle and nasal bone also form a more or less straight line,

but the specific projection of the animal's snout, which is forced to

the front, as being in the nearest practical relation to objects, is

essentially determined through its connection with the skull, united to

which the ear is moreover placed above or below, so that in the present

instance the line that is carried forward from the skull to the root of

the nose or the upper jaw, where the teeth are in position, forms an

acute angle instead of a right angle as is found in the case of man.

Everybody can independently feel in a general way the strength of this

distinction, which no doubt opens the path to more definite thinking on

the subject.

(_αα_) In the formation of the head of animals the most insistent

feature is the mouth as the organ by means of which it feeds in

co-operation with the upper and lower jaws, the teeth, and the muscles

of mastication. All the other organs are subordinate and in a position

of subservience to this principal feature. Notably the snout as a

means of scenting food, the eyes being to a lesser degree instrumental

in spying it out. The express insistence on these animal features as

exclusively devoted to the natural wants and their satisfaction gives

to the head of the animal the appearance as though intended merely to

satisfy natural functions without any trace of spiritual ideality. For

this reason the entire animal organism is rendered intelligible from

the mouth as a point of departure. A specific mode of nourishment, that

is to say, requires a specific structure of the muzzle, a particular

formation of the teeth, together with which the structure of the jaw

bones, the muscles of mastication, cheek-bones, and, moreover, the

vertebrae, the thighbones, claws, and so forth all stand in the closest

relation. The body of the animal merely subserves natural ends and on

account of this dependence on the purely material aspect of nourishment

gives the impression of absence of spirit. If, then, the human

countenance is, even in its bodily conformation, to possess a spiritual

stamp, those organs which in the animal form are so predominant must

in the case of man, retire from such a pre-eminence and give way to

those which do not so much suggest a practical relation as one that is

referable to the ideality of mind.

(_ββ_) The human countenance has consequently a _second_ central point,

in which that attitude to facts, which indicates the relation of the

soul or spirit, is declared. We find this in the _upper_ portion of

the face, in the thoughtful brow and the eye, through which we face

the soul, which looms out beneath it, together with its environment.

Thought, reflection--that is, the introspection of the spiritual

identity--is necessarily connected with the forehead, whose internal

life in concentrated clarity looks forth from the eye. Through

the prominence of the forehead and the correspondingly retreating

appearance of the mouth and the cheek-bones the human countenance

derives its _spiritual_ character. This projection of the brow is

therefore necessarily that which determines the entire formation of the

skull, which no longer falls back, forming the side of an acute angle

as its extreme point the mouth is pressed to the front[157], but rather

permits of a line being drawn from the forehead through the nose to

the point of the chin, which, with a second drawn over the rear of the

skull to the apex of the forehead, form a right angle, or one at least

which approximates to it.

(_γγ_) _Thirdly_, we may say that the _nose_ forms the passage and

connection between the lower and upper portion of the face, that is

to say, between the purely contemplative and spiritual forehead and

the practical organ of nutrition; and if we take into consideration

its natural function as the organ of smell it is rightly placed in

this intermediate position between an attitude to the external world

which is either wholly practical or ideal. No doubt the sense of smell

in such a position is still associated with an animal want; it is

intimately connected with the taste; and for this reason, in the case

of the mere animal, the snout is at the service of the mouth and the

organ of nourishment. But the sense of smell is by itself as a fact no

actual consumption of objects, as eating and tasting are; it merely

accepts the result of the process in which the objects pass into the

atmosphere and its invisible and mysterious medium of dissolution.

Assuming, then, that the passage from forehead and nose is of such a

formation that the forehead viewed independently arches forward, and

yet in relation to the nose retreats, whereas this latter organ on its

part, in proximity to the forehead, is withdrawn back and only projects

beyond this point, we see that both these portions of the face--that

is, the contemplative part, the forehead, and that which suggests a

practical use, with which we may associate the mouth, form an emphatic

contrast, in virtue of which the nose, as belonging in a sense to

both extremes, appertains equally to the practical aims[158] of the

mouth. Furthermore, the forehead, in its isolated position, receives

the appearance of severity and exclusive spiritual concentration in

its contrast to the eloquent sympathy of the mouth, which is primarily

the organ of nutritive support, and at the same time accepts the nasal

organ into its service as its instrument in creating the natural want

by virtue of its smell, and thereby declares its direct relation to the

material side. And in close connection with this reciprocity is the

contingent character of the form to the indeterminable modifications

of which both nose and forehead may be carried. The particular type of

the forehead's arch, the nature of its projection or retreat, loses its

secure lines of definition, and the nose can be fiat or fine, drooping,

arched, more acutely flattened and a snub.

By virtue of amelioration[159] and accommodation, however, that

beautiful harmony, which the Greek profile asserts in the gentle and

uninterrupted communication between the spiritual forehead and the

nose, that is, between the upper and lower portions of the face, the

nose appears on this very account of closer affinity to the forehead,

and consequently receives itself a spiritual expression and character

as though drawn up into the spiritual system. The sense of smell

becomes at the same time a sense independent of purely practical ends,

a nose refined for spiritual purpose; just as in fact also the nose by

its sneer and similar movements, however unimportant by themselves they

may be, is nevertheless shown to be in the highest degree pliable as

a mode of expressing the judgments and emotions of soul-life. So, for

example, we say of a proud man that he holds his nose high, or ascribe

sauciness to a young girl who tosses up her bit of a nose.

And the same thing may be said of the _mouth._ No doubt it is on the

one hand referable as an instrument to the satisfaction of hunger

and thirst; it expresses, however, in addition to this conditions of

the soul, opinions, and passions. Even among animals it is used in

this relation as the organ of animal cries, and by man as that of

speech, laughter, sighs, and so forth, by which means the lineaments

of the mouth are themselves associated with the facts of eloquent

soul-sympathy, or of joy, sorrow, and similar conditions.

It is no doubt asserted that, though for the Greeks, such a

configuration of the human countenance is presented as the true

presentation of beauty, the Chinese, Jews, and Egyptians, regarded on

the contrary an entirely different type, or rather forms absolutely in

conflict with such, as equally beautiful, or yet more beautiful, and

the conclusion is made that, cancelling one example by another, we have

not proved that the Greek profile is the type of genuine beauty. Such

a statement, however, is wholly superficial. The Greek profile must

in fact not be regarded as any mere external and accidental form, but

approximates to the ideal of beauty by its independent claims, namely,

first, because it is the type of countenance in which the expression of

soul-life forces into the background all that is purely material, and,

secondly, because it to the fullest extent detaches itself from all

that is contingent in the form, without, however, displaying thereby

mere subservience to rule, and leaving no place for every kind of

individuality.

(_β_) With respect to specific types and their closer consideration I

will merely touch upon certain fundamental aspects selected from the

abundant material which otherwise invites attention. In this respect

we may in the _first_ instance refer to the forehead, the eye, and the

ear, as those parts of the face which are most nearly related to the

contemplative, or at least spiritual aspect, and, _secondly_, to the

nose, mouth, and chin, as those relatively speaking more connected with

the organs of practical import.

_Thirdly_, we shall have somewhat to say of the _hair_ as the external

setting, by virtue of which the head is rounded off in an oval shape of

beauty.

(_αα_) The _forehead_ is in the ideal form of classical sculpture,

neither fully arched forward, nor as a rule lofty; for, although the

spiritual aspect has to be prominently emphasized in its configuration

of the visual features, yet it is not as yet spirituality simply

as such, which sculpture has to present before us, but rather

individuality as still exclusively expressed in bodily form.

In heads of Hercules, for example, the forehead is preferably low,

for the reason that Hercules possesses rather the muscular vigour of

the body directed towards external objects than the introspective

energy of mind. And for the rest we find the forehead subject to

many modifications, lower in the case of charming and youthful

feminine forms, and more lofty in the case of figures that represent

substantial character and serious reflection.

In speaking of the _eye_ it is important at once to make it clear that

in the figure of ideal sculpture, in addition to the absence of any

true colour such as is found in painting, the _glance_ of the eye is

also absent. It is possible no doubt to show on historical evidence

that the ancients, in the case of particular images of Minerva and

other gods placed in temples, have painted the eye, since we find

actual traces of colour in certain statues; in the case of images

dedicated to a sacred purpose, however, artists have frequently held

fast so far as possible to traditional usage in the face of good taste.

In the case of other examples it is clear that they must have possessed

eyes in the shape of precious stones inserted. This practice, however,

is the result of a desire already adverted to of adorning the images

of gods in as rich and lavish a manner as possible. And we may affirm

generally that such either mark the beginnings of the art, or are due,

as exceptions, to the traditions of religion. Moreover, apart from

this, mere colour is still far from giving to the eye the essentially

concentrated look, which alone communicates to it an expression that

is wholly complete. We may therefore here assume it as a fact that in

the case of statues and busts of a truly classical type, unaffected by

such exceptional conditions which have come down to us from antiquity,

the light focus of the eye, no less than the spiritual expression

of its glance, is absent. For although not unfrequently the focus

is inserted in the apple of the eye, or at least is indicated by a

conical depression, and a modification which expresses the light point

of this focus and by this means a kind of visual glance, such remains

nevertheless the purely external configuration of the eye-ball, and is

no presentation of its vitality; in other words it is not the glance of

it simply, the inward glance, that is, of the soul.

We can readily imagine that it must cost the artist a great deal to

sacrifice the eye in its simple aspect of animation. We have only to

look a man in the eyes to discover a point of arrest, a centre that

explains and is basic to his entire presentment, which we may grasp in

its simplest terms from the unifying declaration of its bare look. The

eye-glance is in fact that aspect which is most steeped in soul; it is

the concentration of the inward life and its subjective emotion. Just

as a man by means of a handshake, so, too, with yet more rapidity he

is brought into unity with his fellow by virtue of the eye-glance he

faces. And it is this pre-eminently spiritual mode of revelation which

sculpture is forced to dispense with. In painting, on the contrary,

this outward expression of soul-life makes its appearance by means

of the subtle gradations of colouring either in its entire spiritual

effect, or in a manifest association with external facts and the

particular interests, feelings, and passions, which are called up by

their presence. But the province of the sculptor in his art is neither

the essential inwardness of soul-life, the concentration of the entire

man in the simple centre of self-identity, which gleams out in the

human glance as its ultimate point of illumination, nor the developed

subjectivity as we find it diffused amid the surrounding world. The

end of sculpture is the totality of the external form, into which the

soul must disintegrate itself, and present itself by means of the

manifold of the medium thus utilized, so that the recourse to one

simple soul-focus, in other word the immediacy of the spirit-glance,

is not here permitted. The work of sculpture possesses no such ideal

intimacy in its simplest terms which is allowed to assert itself, as

the human look does assert itself in contrast to other parts of the

human body, thereby unfolding a contrast between the eye and the body;

rather in sculpture what the individual is in his ideal and spiritual

significance remains wholly fused in the total aspect of form, which

the spirit that contemplates it, the spectator, can alone grasp in its

unity. And in the _second_ place, and with equal truth the eye peers

into the world that surrounds it; it necessarily looks at something

positive, and thereby is witness to man in his relation to a manifold

world of objects, just as in the sphere of feeling he is united to his

environment and general experience. It is, however, precisely this

union with external objects from which the true figure of sculpture

is withdrawn, being rather absorbed in what is substantive in its own

spiritual content, essentially self-subsistent, that is without further

diffusion or development. _Thirdly_, the glance of the eye receives

its fully evolved significance by virtue of the expression of the rest

of the bodily presentment, such as in its general mien and speech,

albeit as the purely formal point of subjective life, in which the

entire manifold of the form and its environment is concentrated to a

focus, it holds itself aloof and contrasted with this development. A

breadth of vision of this specific kind is, however, foreign to the

plastic art. For this reason the more specialized mode of expression in

the human vision, which did not at the same time immediately discover

its further reciprocal response of effect in the entire compass of

its configuration, could only be an accidental particularity, which

the sculptured figure must dispense with. For reasons such as these,

sculpture does not merely deprive itself of nothing when it leaves

its figures bare of the eye's full glance; but we may affirm that it

is only true to its fundamental principle when it totally disregards

this mode of the soul's expression. Consequently it is merely one

more example of the fine insight of antiquity, that it recognized

firmly this limitation and restriction of sculpture, and remained

loyal to the abstract view it implied. It is an evidence of the lofty

intelligence of the ancients, based on the fulness of their reasoning

faculties, and the comprehensive grasp of their outlook. No doubt we

do meet with cases in antique sculpture, in which the eyes gaze upon

some definite point, as for example in the case of the faun we have

alluded to several times who glances at the young Bacchus. This smile

of recognition is expressed in a moving way; but even here the eye is

itself visionless, and the real statues of the gods in their simple

situations are not presented to us in relations of this specific

character so far as the direction of eye and glance is concerned.

With regard to the _form_ of the eye in ideal sculpture it is large

of size, widely extended, oval and in respect to position placed

at right angles toward the line of the forehead and nose, and in

considerable depression. As far back as Winckelmann[160] the large

size of the eye was accounted significant of beauty, just as a great

light is more beautiful than a small one. "The size, however," his

description continues, "is relative to the bone of the eye or its

cavity, and is expressed in the mode of incision[161] and in the

opening of the eyelids, of which in beautiful eyes the upper describes

a more circular arch toward the angle within than the lower one." In

the case of profile heads of superior workmanship the apple of the eye

itself possesses a profile and receives precisely by virtue of this

opening thus cut away a nobility and a free glance, whose very light,

according to Winckelmann's observation, is rendered visible on coins

through an exalted point or focus on the apple of the eye. At the same

time mere size does not make all eyes beautiful; they are this in the

first place by virtue of the cast of the eyelids, and in the second

through being themselves deepset. In other words the eye ought not to

press forward, and by so doing be thrust on the external world, for

it is just this close relation to the external world which is removed

from the ideal, exchanging for this the self-retirement of personality

upon its own resources, that is, upon what is ideally substantive in

the individuality. The projection of the eye, however, also suggests

the thought that the apple of the eye is at one time pushed to the

fore and at another withdrawn, and, particularly in the case of the

staring gaze, only testifies to the fact that the individual is beside

himself, either staring in total absence of thought, or in an equally

soulless way absorbed in the gaze upon some material object. In the

Ideal of antique sculpture the eye is placed in even more pronounced

retreat than we actually find it in Nature. Winckelmann suggests as

a reason for this that in the case of statues of larger size which

are placed more remote from the vision of the spectator, without

this more receding position, on account of the fact that apart from

this the apple of the eye was for the most part flat, the eye itself

would have been without meaning and practically lifeless, if by just

this more emphatic projection of the bone of the eye-socket, the

thereby accentuated play of light and shadow had not made the eye more

apparently active. Yet this deepening of the eye has a yet further

significance. In other words, if the forehead is thereby suffered to

receive a prominence superior to that of Nature the contemplative

portion of the face is the predominant factor, and we receive a keener

sense of spiritual expression, while also the emphasized shadow in

the eye-sockets on its own account enables us to feel a depth and

unimpaired inwardness, a look that is shut off from external objects,

and retires on the essential presence of individuality, whose depths

are suffused over the entire presentment. In the case of coins, too, of

the best period the eyes are deep-set, and the enclosing bones of the

eye are projected. The eyebrows on the contrary are not expressed by

a more extended arch of tiny hairs, but merely suggested by means of

the acute sharpness of the eye-bone ridge, which, without interrupting

the forehead in its form of continuity as eyebrows actually do through

their colour and relative elevation, surround the eyes as with an

elliptical garland. The more elevated and consequently more independent

arch of the eye-brows has never been regarded as beautiful.

Winckelmann[162] further observes with regard to the _ears_ that the

ancients devoted the greatest care to their elaboration, so that in the

case of cut stones indifferent attention to the execution of the ear

is an infallible sign of the spuriousness of the work in question. In

particular he insists that statues which are portraits often reproduced

the characteristic and individual type of the ear. It is consequently

possible in many cases to ascertain the very personality represented

from the ear, if the same happens to be known, and to take one example,

from a single ear with an exceptionally large opening into it, to

deduce the presence of a Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, the ancients have

not failed to indicate in this respect what is actually misshapen.

As examples of a peculiar type of ear to be found in ideal heads,

Winckelmann draws attention to certain ears given to Hercules, which

are beaten out flat, and others which bulge out in their cartilaginous

folds. They indicate wrestlers and pancratiasts, just as Hercules

himself carried off the prize at Elis as a pancratiast in the games of

Pelops.

(_ββ_) We have still to add some remarks with reference to that part

of the countenance which is more nearly related to the practical or

sensuous side of natural function, in other words the specific form

of the nose, the mouth, and the chin. The distinction in the form of

the nose gives to the face a variety of configuration and many various

kinds of expression. A keenly cut nose with thin folds[163] at the

apertures we are accustomed to associate with an acute understanding,

whereas a broad and drooping one, or a snub nose that is somewhat

brutish, suggests as a rule sensuality, folly, and bestiality. It is,

however, the function of sculpture to hold itself aloof, not merely

from such extremes, but also the intermediate stages of design and

expression, and refuse consequently to accept, as we have already seen

is the case with the Greek profile, not simply the separation from the

forehead, but also the extreme curve, whether upwards or downwards, the

acute point and the more extended rounding off, the elevation in the

middle and the depression towards the forehead and the mouth, generally

speaking the extreme acuteness and thickness of the nose, setting in

the place of these varied modifications a comparatively indifferent

type, if at the same time one which in a quiet way is throughout

vitalized by individuality.

Second only to the eye the _month_ belongs to the most beautiful

portion of the face, provided that it is formed not so much in express

relation to its natural function as an organ for eating and drinking

as in accommodation to its spiritual significance. In this respect it

only gives place to the eye in the variety and wealth of its means

of expression, and this though it is enabled to express with vital

force the finest nuances of scorn, disdain, envy, the entire gamut of

sorrows and joy through the slightest of movements and the fullest

play of such, and to a similar degree to express the charm of love,

earnestness, sensuous feeling, obstinacy, attraction, and other such

emotions by its state of repose. Sculpture, however, makes less use

of it to express the nuances of particular expression, and, above

all, is bound to keep what is entirely sensuous, and suggests natural

wants away from the form and delineation of the lips. For the most

part, therefore, it models the mouth neither over-full-shaped nor too

spare, for extremely thin lips also suggest a parsimony of emotional

life; makes the underlip more full than the upper, which was also the

case with Schiller, upon the modelling of whose mouth was inscribed

every kind of significance and fulness of temperament. This more ideal

type of the lips in its contrast to the animal snout presents the

appearance of a certain absence of desire, whereas in the case of the

beast, if the upper portion projects, we are at once reminded of the

headlong devouring of food and the grasp for it. Among human beings the

mouth is, when we have regard for its spiritual relation, primarily

the seat of human speech, the organ for the free communication of

self-conscious life, just as the eye is that of the emotional spirit.

Moreover, according to the ideals of sculpture, the lips are not

tightly closed; rather in the works of art in its blooming season the

mouth is set slightly open without suffering the teeth, however, to be

visible, which have nothing to do with the expression of a spiritual

significance. This attitude is so far supported by the fact that when

the organs of sense are strongly active, as, for example, when we gaze

intently at an object, the mouth is closed; when, on the contrary, we

are absorbed in visionless thought it opens slightly and the angles of

the mouth are to an appreciable extent inclined downwards.

Last in our review of the objects above named, the _chin_, in its

ideal form, completes the spiritual expression of the mouth, that is,

assuming it is not wholly absent, as in the case of animals, or only

retained in a retreating and meagre condition as in works of Egyptian

sculpture, but as rather lengthened out even beyond the degree which is

usual, receiving thus in the rounded fulness of its arched curve, more

particularly where we have shorter underlips, yet further increase of

size. To sum up in fact a full chin conveys the impression of a certain

satiety and repose. Odd fussy wenches wag with their withered-up chins

and meagre muscles. Goethe, for example, likens their chops to a pair

of tongs that will be snatching at something. All restlessness of this

kind disappears with a full chin. The dimple, however, which nowadays

is held to have some claim to beauty is, as an accidental grace itself,

no essential accompaniment of beauty. In its place, however, a rounded

chin of considerable proportions is an infallible sign of antique

heads. In the case of the Medicean Venus it is not so noticeable, but

it is proved on good evidence that the statue has suffered a loss in

this respect.

(_γγ_) We have only now in conclusion to refer to the _hair._ Generally

speaking the hair has rather the character of a vegetable than an

animal formation; it testifies less to the strength of the organism

than it is indicative of weakness. Barbarians allow the hair to hang

in straight lines, or cut it off close to the head rather than in

undulating line or locks. The ancients, on the contrary, devoted

excessive attention to the elaboration of the hair in their ideal works

of sculpture, a direction in which more modern artists devote less

trouble and skill. No doubt the ancients also, when the stone on which

they worked was extremely hard, did not suffer the hair of the head to

flow in freely hanging locks, but arranged as though it was cropped

short[164] and, in that form, finely combed out. In the case of marble

sculpture of the better time the hair is in locks and of great vigour

both in the case of male and female heads, where we find it presented

in upward rolls and bound together on the crown of the head; one finds

it at least, as Winckelmann points out, drawn out in winding rolls and

with express depressions the better to indicate its various folds in

light and shadow, which is impossible if the drills are shallow. Add

to this in the case of particular gods the line of direction and the

arrangement of the hair is different In a similar way in Christian

painting Christ is made recognizable by a definite type of the crown of

the head and the locks of hair, following which type in our own time

there are not a few who deliberately imitate such an appearance.

(_γ_) The parts above described in their form sum up collectively the

head as a whole. The beautiful form is here determined by a line which

most nearly approaches the oval of an egg, and thereby resolves every

indication of sharpness, pointedness, and angularity in harmonious

form and a gently progressive association, without, however, being

exclusively regular and abstractly symmetrical, or issuing in multifold

variety of lines and their direction and inclination as is the case

with other portions of the body. In order to form this self-collected

oval shape, the beautiful and free inclination from the chin to the ear

contributes, particularly if we look at the face from the front, no

less than the line already indicated, which describes the termination

of the forehead, the bones of the eye-socket. And the arch over the

profile from forehead over the point of the nose to the chin is

equally noticeable, and the beautiful arching of the back of the head

to the nape of the neck. So much I have permitted myself, without

entering on further detail, to observe on the ideal shape of the head.

(_b_) In respect to the other organic members such as neck, breast,

back, belly, arms, hands, thighs, and feet, we find here another type

of co-ordination. They can no doubt possess a beautiful form, but the

beauty is sensuous, vital, without expressing by virtue of their form

as such a spiritual significance as the countenance expresses it. The

ancients have shown for the form of these parts of the body the highest

sense of beauty; but in genuine sculpture they must not merely pass as

the beauty of a living organism, but as members of the _human_ form

it is their further function to present the appearance of a spiritual

effect, so far as this is compatible with what is purely bodily

presence. Otherwise the expression of the soul would be concentrated

wholly in the face, whereas in plastic sculpture what is spiritual must

appear as permeating nothing less than the entire configuration, and

must not be permitted to isolate itself independently and in contrast

to what is corporeal.

If we now inquire what are the means which enable the breast, the

torso, the back, and the extremities to contribute to the expression of

spirit and thereby to receive over and beyond a beautiful vitality, the

breath of a spiritual life, we shall find the following:

In the _first_ place there is the relation in which the limbs, in so

far as that relation proceeds from the ideality of Spirit, and is

freely determined by that ideality, are brought into juxtaposition.

_Secondly_, there is the motion and repose in their complete freedom

and beauty of form.

_Thirdly_, this type of position and motion in their definite

affiliation[165] and expression supplies the situation more closely,

in which the Ideal, which can never consist purely in the Ideal of

abstraction, is comprehended.

I will add yet further some general remarks on the above points.

(_α_) With regard to _position_ of first importance is that aspect

we have had already occasion to notice in a superficial way, namely,

the _upright_ position of man. The body of animals moves in a parallel

line with the ground; mouth and eye follow the same direction, and the

animal is unable independently to raise himself from this relation

to gravity. The opposite is the case with mankind; the eye looking

straight forward is placed in its natural direction, that is, in a

right angle with the line of gravity and the body. Man is no doubt able

to go on all fours just as animals do, and children do so in fact;

but as soon as consciousness begins to awaken, man wrests himself

from the animal chains of the earth, and stands up straight in free

independence. This stansion is an act of will, for if we cease to try

to stand our body collapses and falls to the ground. In this way the

upright position possesses a spiritual significance, in so far as the

self-elevation from the ground remains linked with the volition and

thus with that which is spiritual and ideal; just as we are accustomed

to say of an essentially free and independent man, who keeps his

opinions, view's, principles, and aims unaffected by others, that he

stands on his own feet.

The upright position is, however, not yet merely as such beautiful;

it is only so by virtue of the freedom of its form. In other words if

a man stands up only straight in an abstract way, letting his hands

fall glued to his side with no interval of separation, his legs in the

same way being close to each other, we receive an untoward expression

of stiffness, even although in the first instance this is due to no

compulsion. From this stiff effect we deduce on the one hand the

abstract and likewise architectonic principle of uniformity, under

which the limbs adhere together in the like position, and on the other

hand we do not discover in it any determination derived from what is

spiritual and the ideal principle. In such a case arms, legs, breast,

body, all the members stand and hang just as though they had from the

first grown there on man, without being brought by means of his spirit,

his volition and emotions into a change of position. The same thing

may be said of the sitting posture. Conversely also the squatting or

perching on the ground is destitute of freedom for the reason that it

suggests an attitude of subordination, dependence, and serfdom. The

free position, on the contrary, avoids in a measure this abstract

uniformity and angularity, and places the position under lines which

approximate to the organic form; and to a further extent it suffers

spiritual relations to shine through, so that by virtue of such a

position the conditions and passions of the soul are cognizable. Only

in this manner can the position pass as a genuine exhibition of Spirit.

In the application of positions as significant pose[166], it is

necessary, however, that sculpture proceed with great circumspection,

and it has thereby many a difficulty to overcome. On the one hand,

no doubt, the reciprocal relation of the members is to be derived

from the ideal principle of Spirit; on the other hand, however, this

determination from the ideal side ought not to place the particular

parts under a mode which contradicts the corporeal structure and the

laws of the same, and thereby produce the impression of a constraint

imposed on the members, or come into collision with the material of

substance, in which sculpture is set the task to execute the artist's

conceptions. And, in the third place, the pose must appear wholly

spontaneous, as though the body received it of its own initiative,

otherwise body and spirit have the appearance of being distinct and

separable from each other, and are involved in the relative position

of mere direction from one side and purely abstract obedience from the

other, whereas both in sculpture ought rightly to constitute one and

the same immediately congruent totality. This absence of constraint

is here of the first importance. Spirit, as the ideal principle, must

throughout transfuse the members, and these latter must in like degree

essentially accept spirit and its determination as to the content of

its own soul. As to the pose itself and its character, which we may

empower to express the just attitude in ideal sculpture, we can readily

infer from our previous exposition that it ought not be one wholly

referable to change or instantaneous action. The representation of

sculpture must produce no effect such as is seen in the case where men,

while in the art of motion and action, were turned to stone or frozen

by means of Hüon's horn. On the contrary, it is necessary that the

posture, although it may without question point to some characteristic

action, express for all that merely a beginning and preparation, an

intention, or it must indicate the close of an action and a return from

the same to the state of repose. The repose and self-subsistency of a

spiritual life, which potentially encloses in itself an entire world,

is the most suitable aspect for the ideal form of sculpture.

(_β_) And, in the _second_ place, what we have observed of posture is

equally applicable to _motion._ There is in sculpture as such less room

for motion in the full sense of the term than other arts[167], just in

so far as the same does not as yet advance to the mode of presentation

which is more nearly related to an art whose sphere of effect is more

extensive. The tranquil image of the god in his blessed self-seclusion

is the presentment which it is its task mainly to set before us in

all its essential freedom from conflict. A variety of movement is

necessarily excluded from such. What we ought to have is rather a

stansion or reclining posture of essential self-absorption[168].

This attitude of self wholly referable to self it is which does not

proceed to a definite action, and by doing so does not contract

its entire energy to the space of a single moment, making such of

first importance, but rather persists in the continued equilibrium

of tranquillity. We ought to be able to imagine that the figure of

the gods will remain for ever in the same posture. The escape from

self-subsistency, the plunging of individual life within the vortex of

a particular action that implies conflict, the strain of the moment,

which is unable to continue as such--such relations are foreign to

the ideality of sculpture. We cross them rather where, in the case of

groups and reliefs, the particular moments of an action are presented

with a distinct inclination to the principle of painting. A result

brought about by powerful effects, and their passing exhibition,

no doubt exercises upon us an immediate impression; but after once

having received it we do not readily return to it. For that which is

so prominent in the presentation is the affair of a moment's passage,

which we both observe and recognize in that moment, whereas the ideal

fulness and freedom, what is infinite in its significance, in other

words that which holds our attention permanently, is relegated to the

background.

(_γ_) In asserting this, however, we do not maintain that sculpture,

where, in the case where it adheres to its principle in all its

severity and attains its highest point, must necessarily exclude

entirely the attitude of movement. If it did so it would merely

present to us the divine in its indeterminacy and indifference. On the

contrary, in so far as it is its function to comprehend the substantive

as individuality, and to present it to our vision in bodily form, both

the ideal and external condition, in accordance with which it brings

its content and form to an impression, is necessarily individual. And

it is this individuality of a definite situation which is pre-eminently

expressed by means of the pose and movement of the body. Inasmuch

as, however, the substantive in sculpture is of most importance, and

individuality is not as yet itself extricated from the same to the

point of particular self-subsistency, the specific determinacy of the

situation must not be of a kind that it impairs or annuls the simple

sterling character[169] of that substantiveness, by either making

it one-sided or drawing it into the conflict of collisions, or in a

general way by placing it without reserve under the overmastering

importance and variety of what is particular. It must rather remain,

independently regarded, a determinacy less essential in its result, or

rather we may say a vivacious play of vital force, harmless in effect

over the superficial features of individuality, whose substantive

character in no respect suffers loss thereby in depth, subsistency, and

repose. This is, however, a point which I have at an earlier stage of

this investigation already[170] discussed at length in relation to the

Ideal of sculpture when the situation itself was under review, in which

the Ideal ought to appear in definite relation to the presentation:

further discussion may here be consequently dispensed with.

(_c_) The last point of importance we have now to consider is the

question of _drapery_ in sculpture. At first sight it may appear as

though the nude form and its corporeal beauty permeated by spiritual

significance, in the manner of its pose and movement, were the most

appropriate form for the Ideal of sculpture, and drapery were simply

a hindrance. In accordance with such a view we hear the complaint

raised, more particularly in our own time, that modern sculpture is

so frequently forced to drape its figures, whereas no drapery should

touch the beauty of human organic forms. And we have finally the wail

added that our artists should have so little opportunity of studying

the nude which was ever before the eyes of the ancients. In general we

may simply reply to this that though without question, from the point

of view of sensuous beauty, the preference must be given to the nude

form, yet merely sensuous beauty is not the ultimate aim of sculpture,

so that the Greeks do not give the lead to a false path when they

presented the larger number of their male figures no doubt in the nude,

but by far the greater number of female figures draped.

(_α_) And generally we may add that, apart from artistic purpose,

drapery is justified in real measure in the necessity of providing a

protection from climatic changes, Nature having failed to provide man

with any covering of hide, feathers, hair, such as animals possess.

And from another point of view it is the sense of modesty which

compels man to cover himself with raiment. Now this shame, regarded

in a general way, is a beginning of indignation over that which is

coarse or crude. Man in fact, who is conscious of his more elevated

calling to be Spirit, must necessarily regard what is purely animal

as an incompatibility with that, and pre-eminently seek to cover, as

that which is not consonant with the Ideal of his soul[171], those

parts of his body, such as the belly, breast, back, and legs, which

are subservient to animal functions, or only are directed to external

uses, and possess directly no spiritual determinacy, and no spiritual

expression. We therefore find among every people, who have entered

upon the life of reflection, this sense of shame and the necessity of

clothing in some degree, whether great or small. As far back as the

narrative of Genesis we have this transition expressed in the shrewdest

way. Before Adam and Eve have eaten of the tree of knowledge they walk

in Paradise in the nakedness of innocence; but no sooner is their

consciousness as spiritual beings[172] aroused than they are ashamed

of their nakedness. The same sense is prevalent among all other

Asiatic nations. So, for example, Herodotus asserts in narrating[173]

how Gyges came to the throne, that it was regarded even in a man as a

matter of shame among the Lydians, and almost all barbarians, to be

seen naked; and as a proof of this we have the tale of the wife of

Candaules, king of the Lydians. The tale runs that Candaules exposed

his wife in nudity to the gaze of Gyges, his satellite and favourite,

in order to convince him that her beauty as a woman was beyond compare.

She, however, discovered the outrage, which it was intended to conceal

from her, by chance seeing Gyges, who had been hidden in her sleeping

chamber, slip out of the door. Indignant at the outrage, she received

Gyges in audience the following day, and declared to him that, inasmuch

as the king had taken this step and permitted Gyges to see what he

ought not to have seen, he might select one of two courses, either

kill the king as his punishment, and possess himself both of her and

the kingdom, or himself die. Gyges selected the first alternative, and

after assassinating the king mounted the throne and married the widow.

On the other hand the Egyptians represented frequently, or, indeed,

for the most part, their statues in the nude to the extent that the

male figures merely carried an apron; and in the case of Isis the

drapery was indicated by nothing more than a barely perceptible fringe

round the legs. This, however, was neither due to a defective sense of

shame, nor in virtue of their instinct for the beauty of organic forms.

For if we consider their symbolic point of view we can only maintain

that what concerned them was not the configuration of a presentment

consonant with a spiritual significance, but rather the meaning, the

essence and conception of that which the form was intended to present

to intelligence; and they permitted the human form to be thus, without

reflection upon the further and more remote adequacy of the same to

Spirit, in its natural state, which they moreover copied with great

closeness to life.

(_β_) Finally, among the Greeks, we meet with both aspects, both nude

and draped figures. And in actual life also they were equally clothed,

albeit from other considerations they held it a point of honour to

have first contested in the games nude. To an exceptional degree the

Lacedaemonians were the first to wrestle naked. But this was with them

not due so much to a sense of beauty as to their general indifference

to what savoured of refinement and spiritual purport in the sense of

modesty. In the national character of the Greek people, among whom the

feeling for personal individuality in all its immediacy, and as it is

the spiritual animation of their existence, is so strongly developed,

taking this as the instinct for free and beautiful forms, it was also

inevitable that what was human in its immediacy, the bodily presence,

that is, as it belongs to man and is suffused with his spirit, should

be elaborated in independent form, and that the human form should be

revered above all others for the reason that it is the freest and the

most beautiful. In this sense, no doubt, they threw aside that instinct

of shame, which will not suffer us to look at what is purely corporeal

in' man, not out of indifference to what was spiritual, but with an

indifference to what is purely sensuous in desire, for the sake of

beauty; and this intention is manifest in full play throughout a great

number of their nude figures.

This entire absence of drapery, however, it was impossible wholly

to justify on principle. For, as I have already indicated when

distinguishing the head from other parts of the body, it is undeniable

that the spiritual expression of the form is restricted to the face

and the pose and movement of the whole, to the general mien, which is

preeminently eloquent by virtue of the arms, hands, and position of

the legs. For these organs, whose activity is in an outward direction,

have still, and precisely by the nature of their pose and movement,

for the most part the expression of a spiritual deliverance. The other

members of the body, on the contrary, are and remain solely productive

of a sensuous beauty; and the distinguishing features which are visible

on them can only be bodily vigour, development of muscle, or degrees

of delicacy and softness, such as characterize respectively the two

sexes, age, youth, and childhood. As a means, therefore, of expressing

what is spiritual in the form, the nudity of these parts is also

from the standpoint of beauty indifferent; and it is only due to our

moral sense, when, that is to say, the main thing looked for is the

paramount presentation of the spiritual in man, that such parts should

be veiled. What in general ideal art does in the case of every separate

part of the body is to remove the necessary limitations of animal life

in its detailed particularities, such as little veins, wrinkles, hairs

of the skin, and so forth, and simply to enforce and emphasize the

spiritual impression of the form in its vital outlines, and this is

precisely what drapery effects. It covers up the superfluity of the

organs, which are no doubt necessary for the body's self-support, but

are in other respects superfluous as an expression of the spirit's

import. We are, therefore, not entitled to assert without condition

that the nudity of figures of sculpture in every respect betrays a

higher sense of beauty, and a greater ethical freedom and emaculacy. It

was in this respect, as in others, that a just and spiritual instinct

dominated the Greek.

Children, Cupid for example, where we find the bodily presentment one

of unreserved innocence, and the spiritual beauty consisting just in

this; or, to take other examples, youths, youthful gods, heroic gods,

and heroes, such as Perseus, Hercules, Theseus, Jason, in which cases

heroic courage, and the use and elaboration of the bodily frame in

works of bodily strength and permanence is of most importance; or

wrestlers in the national games, where it is not so much the content

of the action, the spirit and individuality of character, as the

physical aspect of the exploit, the vigour, suppleness, and free play

of the muscles and limbs, which is the source of exclusive interest;

or finally fauns and satyrs, Bacchantes in the frenzy of the dance,

no less than Aphrodite, in so far as the sensuous charm of her beauty

is emphasized--such are the kind of examples which were rendered

in the nude by antique sculpture. Where, on the contrary, a more

lofty significance and reflection, a more ideal earnestness is made

prominent, where in general the natural features are not superlatively

emphasized, there we get drapery. So Winckelmann adduces a case where

among ten statues of the female form only one is wholly undraped.

Among the goddesses Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Diana, Ceres and the Muses

are pre-eminently those which are veiled in drapery, while among the

gods such a treatment particularly applies to Jupiter, and the bearded

Indian Bacchus, with some others.

(_γ_) And finally with regard to the principle of drapery, it is

unquestionable that we have here a subject that critics are very fond

of discussing, and which has consequently to some extent been already

well thrashed out. I will, therefore, limit myself to the few following

remarks.

Generally we have no reason to lament the fact that our modern feeling

of what is respectable is somewhat averse to setting up totally nude

figures. For if the drapery merely permits the pose in question to be

entirely transpicuous instead of covering it up, we lose nothing at

all; rather the drapery is just that which rightly fixes the emphasis,

and is in this respect even an advantage, in so far as it draws us

aside from the direct view of that which as merely sensuous is without

true significance, and simply shows us what is there in relation to the

situation expressed by means of pose and movement.

(_αα_) Once accept this principle, and it may at first sight appear

that such covering is of most signal advantage for the artistic

treatment, which conceals the contour of the limbs, and consequently

also the pose as little as possible, precisely in fact as this is the

case with our sufficiently enclosing _modern_ garments. Our closely

fitting sleeves and trousers follow the outlines of the form, and

stand in the way of the motion and mien least of all by their making

the entire form of the limbs visible. The long white garments and

bulging-out hoses of the Orientals, on the contrary, are intolerable to

our sense of vivacity and multifarious activities, and are only fitting

for folk who, like the Turks, sit the whole day long in one place with

legs crossed, or only perambulate slowly and with great gravity. And

yet we are conscious at the same time--indeed the very first glance

at either modern statues or pictures will establish the truth for

us--that our modern clothing is entirely unartistic. In other words

what we behold in it really is, as I have already in another passage,

insisted, not the fine, free, and vital outlines of the body in their

tender and flowing elaboration, but stretched out sacks with stiff

folds. For albeit we do obtain the most generalized form, yet the

beauty of the organic undulations is lost; and what we really look at

is a contrivance of exterior aim, a matter of tailor's work, which in

one place is stitched together, in another folded back over, and yet in

another made tightly fitting--in other words, as a whole, forms that

are not free, folds and surfaces which are fastened together by stitch,

buttons and button holes. To all intents and purposes such a clothing

as this is simply a cover and veil, which, while devoid of any real

form of its own, yet in its other aspect, though in a general sort of

way following the organic contour of limbs, hides from the view just

that sensuous beauty and vital rondour and undulation which belongs to

them, merely to replace it with the material aspect of the mechanically

elaborated stuff of which it is composed. And thus we get what is so

entirely inartistic in our modern form of garments.

(_ββ_) The principle for an artistic type of clothing, then, consists

in this that it is at the same time treated as a work of architectonic

design. Such a work is simply an environment, in which a man can

likewise move in freedom, and which must essentially possess and

declare on its part a determinate shape of its own as its mode of

covering quite apart from the form which it encloses. Add to this

such a work, in its aspect of a thing which is worn and carried, must

freely follow its own mechanical texture. A principle of this type

follows in the track of the kind of draping which we find adopted in

the ideal sculpture of the ancients. Particularly here do we find that

the mantle is as it were a house in which free motion is possible. It

is no doubt carried, but is only made fast at one point, namely, on the

shoulder. For the rest it evolves its particular form according to the

modifications brought about by its own weight; it hangs, falls along

the ground, and casts folds spontaneously, and only receives through

the pose the varied changes of this free kind of configuration. In like

manner there is little to impair essentially, if in varied degree, the

freedom of disposition in other parts of antique drapery. This it is

which constitutes its artistic quality. It is only in drapery such as

this that we do not face something which is a burden, and something

artificial, whose shape merely displays an external constraint and

necessity, which is rather something itself independent in its form,

and which, however, accepts from a spiritual source, that is the pose

of the figure, its point of departure. For this reason the garments

of the ancients are only fastened to the body so far as is actually

unavoidable, that is, to prevent their collapse, and are modified by

the pose of it. In all other respects they hang freely about it, and

themselves in their power of movement through the motion of the body

give yet further support to the same principle. And this is wholly as

it should be; for the body is one thing and its drapery another, and

the latter ought thereby to receive its full due and be displayed in

its freedom. Modern clothing on the contrary is either wholly carried

by the body and purely in subjection to it, so that even the pose

itself is too emphatically repeated, and it merely follows the forms

of the limbs, or, in cases where it is able to secure an independent

form in the formation of folds, it is after all merely the tailor's

work who makes this form according to the exigences of fashion. The

material is, on the one hand, dragged up and down by the various parts

of the body and their movements, and, on the other, by its stitches and

seams. On grounds of this description the antique form of drapery is by

a long way to be preferred to our modern style as the ideal standard

for works of sculpture. No end has been written with every resource of

antiquarian research over the form and details of the ancient ways of

draping, for although men as a rule do not permit themselves to chatter

much over fashion in their clothes, the kind of cloth, border, cut,

and every other such detail, yet they find ample justification from

the antiquarian standpoint for treating these trifling matters also as

important, and of talking about them with even greater prolixity than

is permitted to woman herself in her unchallenged field of supremacy.

(_γγ_) It is, however, a totally different problem we have to consider

when the question is asked whether modern clothing, that is, the kind

so greatly to be contrasted with the antique, is in all cases to be

rejected. This question is of particular importance when we examine the

case of portrait statues; and inasmuch as its main interest closely

touches a principle of importance to art as we have it now, we will

consider it at rather greater length. When nowadays we have to create

a portrait of some contemporary it becomes necessarily a part of it

that the drapery and the environment are both accepted from the actual

facts of their individual existence, for, inasmuch as it is just this

actual person which is here made the object of art, this external

framework, to which the clothing essentially belongs, is in its reality

and truth precisely that which is most important. And this is more

especially to be observed when what is aimed at is the presentment

before our vision in our individuality of well-defined characters whose

greatness and activity in any _particular_ sphere have been remarkable.

Whether it be in a picture, or in the marble, an individual is, in

fact, exhibited to our immediate vision in a bodily mode, in other

words under external conditions, and to seek to carry the portrait

beyond such a restriction would virtually imply the self-contradiction

that the individual was associated with that which was essentially

untrue, and this for the reason that the service, what is peculiar

and distinguished in actual men, consists precisely in their active

relations to the real, that is in their life and action in definite

professional spheres. And if this individual activity is to be made

clear to us the environment must exhibit nothing that is foreign to or

tends to impair the effect. A famous general, for example, has lived

in respect to his professional surroundings with cannon, rifles, and

powder before his eyes. If we intend to depict him in his professional

activity we recur most naturally to the way he gives orders to his

adjutants, commands the line of battle, and advances against the enemy.

And with yet more detail such a general is not merely one of a class,

but is distinguished by the particular style of his uniform. He is

either a leader of infantry or a stalwart hussar, and so forth. In

every example of this kind we have some exceptional form of habiliment

which is appropriate to the circumstances. Moreover a famous general

is simply a famous general, not necessarily a law-giver, poet, or

even very possibly a religious man; he commands in all respects as

a soldier; he is just that; he is, in a word, no complete totality,

and this alone gives us the ideal and divine type. For the divinity

of the ideal figures of sculpture is to be sought in nothing so much

as this that their character and individuality are appertinent to no

particular relations and professed callings, but are rather removed

from such division, or, in the case that the idea of such relations is

mooted, it is so placed before us that we are forced to believe about

such individuals that their powers of performance are unlimited. For

reasons such as the above a demand to represent the heroes of our time

or the more recent Past, when their heroism is of a restricted nature,

in ideal drapery is very superficial. Such a demand testifies no doubt

to a zeal for artistic beauty, but a zeal which is unintelligent, and

in its devotion to the antique overlooks the fact that the greatness of

the ancients likewise reposes essentially in the lofty comprehension

of all that they accomplished. In other words, they have, no doubt,

represented what is essentially ideal, but they have not sought to

enforce a form that is opposed to reality. If the entire content of

the individuals in question is not of an ideal character, then their

draping ought not to be such; and if a powerful, determined, and

resolute general does not already possess a countenance indicative of

the lineaments of Mars, then to drape him with Greek drapery would

be as much a folly as though we popped a bearded man in a maiden's

petticoats. Despite this truth, however, modern clothing does involve

us in considerable difficulty because it is subject to fashion, and

consequently subject to change. For the rational principle of fashion

consists in this that it exercises over Time the claim to be always

subject to modification. A robe, according to some particular cut, soon

passes out of fashion, and it is only in fashion so long as it pleases.

But when the fashion is over, we cease to be used to it, and what

pleased us a few years back now appears suddenly ridiculous. For this

reason only those forms of garments are appropriate for statues which

carry the specific character of a period in a more permanent type; but,

in general, it may be advisable to find a middle way, as our artists

attempt to do. Yet, despite of the rule, it is generally a mistake

to clothe portrait statues in modern clothing when they are either

small, or the object sought after is simply a familiar presentation.

In such cases mere busts are best, which are the more easily lifted to

an ideal elevation, simply neck and breast being retained, inasmuch

as the head and the physiognomy thus remain of most importance, and

everything else is relegated to incidental insignificance. Where we

have large-sized statues on the contrary, more particularly where

the pose is one of tranquillity, we see at once, because they are in

repose, how they are draped; and large-sized male figures, even in

the painted portrait, when clothed after modern wont can only with

difficulty be raised over what is insignificant. As instances we may

mention the full-figure seated portraits by old Tischbein of Herder and

Wieland, of which we have excellent engravings on copper. One feels

at once, when looking at them, that it is a somewhat stale, flat, and

unprofitable business to gaze at their breeches, stockings, and shoes,

and absolutely so to see their cosy, self-contented posture on a sofa,

where they have their hands lying happily together over their paunches.

It is another matter with portrait statues of individuals where,

either in respect to the period of their activity they are far removed

from our own, or are themselves essentially of an ideal greatness. In

such cases what is old is already divested of the temporal aspect and

has passed into the more indefinite background of the general idea,

so that in this release from its particular form of actuality it is

also in the mode of its drapery capable of an ideal presentation. And

this is still more true in the case of individuals, who by virtue of

their self-subsistency and the ideal fulness of what are otherwise

the mere limitations of their particular profession, and detached

from what is merely the activity of a definite period of time, create

independently for themselves a free totality, a world of relations

and activities, and consequently should appear, even in the aspect of

their habiliments, as exalted above the familiar guise of everyday life

in their ordinary temporal costume. As far back as the Greeks we find

statues of Achilles and Alexander, on which the more individual traits

of portraiture are of so fine a quality that we should rather imagine

them to be sons of gods than human beings. In the case of the genial

and greathearted youth Alexander this is quite as it should be. And in

much the same way, moreover, Napoleon himself has been lifted to such

a fame, and is a genius of so comprehensive a grasp, that there is no

reason why he should not be depicted in ideal drapery, which indeed

would not be unfitting for Frederick the Great, when the object is to

celebrate him in all his greatness of soul. No doubt the size of the

statues is here, too, of importance. In the case of small figures,

which carry an air of familiarity, the three-cornered little hat of

Napoleon is out of place no less than the famous uniform and the arms

crossed over breast, and, if we desire to have before us the great

Frederick as "old Fritz," we may have him pictured for us with hat and

stick as we find him on tobacco boxes.

3. THE INDIVIDUALITY OF IDEAL FIGURES OF SCULPTURE

Hitherto we have considered the Ideal of sculpture in its general

character and in the further aspect of the more detailed forms which

distinguish it. We have _thirdly_ only left us to emphasize the fact

that the Ideals of sculpture, in so far as, in respect to their

content, they have to manifest what is substantive in individualities,

and in respect to their external form the human bodily shape, are

also under the necessity of an advance in which the _particularity_

of their presentation is differentiated, and an aggregate of specific

individuals is thereby created, just as we already, in the classical

type of art, recognize the embracing circle of the Greek gods. We

may, no doubt, very possibly imagine to ourselves there can only be

one _exemplum_ of the finest beauty and perfection, which may be,

moreover, concentrated in its absolute completeness in one statue.

Such a conception of one Ideal in its purity is deficient in insight

and indeed ridiculous. For the beauty of the Ideal consists just in

this, that it is no purely general form or standard, but essentially

individuality, and consequently possesses both particularity and

character. It is simply owing to this that vitality is imported into

works of sculpture, and it is this[174] which expands the one abstract

beauty, in a totality of essentially definite creations. Taken as a

whole, however, this aggregate is, if we regard its content, one with

marked limits; and the reason is that a number of categories, which

we are, for example, accustomed to employ in our Christian outlook,

fall absolutely away in the case of the genuine Ideal of sculpture. The

ethical points of view and virtues, for example, such as were brought

together by the Middle Ages and our modern world in a synthetical nexus

of duties which yields to some modification, moreover, in every epoch,

has no meaning at all when applied to the ideal gods of sculpture; it

is simply absent from such a circle altogether. Consequently we can as

little expect to find here the presentation of sacrifice, of egotism

overcome, of the conflict, against what is sensuous, of the victory of

chastity and so forth, as that of incommutable fidelity, of the honour

and honesty of either man or woman, or of the expression of religious

meekness, subjection, and blessedness in God. All these virtues,

qualities, and conditions repose in part on the breach between what is

spiritual and what is corporeal; and in part they retire altogether

beyond what is of the body within, the intimate shrine of the soul, or

betray the individual personal life in its separation from its entirely

concrete and explicit substance, as also in its struggle to find again

mediation in the same. Moreover, the circle of these veritable gods of

sculpture is no doubt a totality, but, as we already discovered in our

consideration of the classical type of art, it is, when we examine the

distinguishing differences of its notion, no stringently articulated

and unified system. Moreover, the particular examples are every one

of them to be distinguished from all the others in their essentially

definite and self-exclusive individuality, albeit they are not thus set

apart by virtue of the characteristics of a purely abstract mintage,

but rather, on the contrary, include much which they share in common

relatively to their ideal and divine substance.

We will now pass in review the distinctions above indicated under the

following aspects:

_First_, we have to examine purely external marks, incidental

attributes, style of drapery, style of armour, and such like,

indications with the detail of which Winckelmann deals at exceptional

length.

_Secondly_, we shall see how the most important differences do not

merely consist in external marks and traits of this kind, but rather

in the individual configuration and _habitus_ of the entire figure.

What is most important in this respect is the distinction of _age_,

_sex_, no less than that of the _different sphere_, from which the

works receive their content and form, whether they are the impressions

of gods, heroes, satyrs, fawns, or such representations as reach their

final dissolution in the attempt to render animal images.

And, _thirdly_, we propose to direct the attention on a _particular_

example of each class, in the individual form of which sculpture

elaborates these general differences. Here, no doubt, we are faced with

a multiplicity of material, and can only permit ourselves to deduce

parts of it by way of example, a province, too, as it moreover is which

implies a large experience.

(_a_) In considering these _first_ mere attributes and all such

external accessories, the kind of ornament, armour, tools, vessels,

and in general all that is associated with mere environment, we find

that such things are of a very simple character in superior works of

sculpture, and retained only in a temperate and restricted degree, so

that we see little of them beyond what is suggestive or sufficient

to appeal to our minds. It is the independent figure, that is its

expression and not outside accessories, which has to give us the

spiritual significance and its manifestation. Conversely, however,

marks of this kind are nevertheless necessary, in order to enable

us to recognize the particular gods. In other words divinity in its

universal guise, which is the source of the substantive part of the

presentment in the case of each individual, asserts, by virtue of this

very equality of ground-basis, close affinity between the expression

of each example and also between the individual figures, so that every

god is to this extent withdrawn from the aspect of his particularity,

and can indeed further pass through other conditions and modes of

expression, than would otherwise belong to them. For this reason we do

not as a rule have set before us the particular characterization with

complete seriousness; and it is frequently these external additions

which exclusively make the particular god intelligible. Among these

indicating marks I will allude briefly to the following.

(_α_) I have already discussed the real _attributes_ when the classical

type of art and its gods presented an opportunity. In sculpture the

same lose yet more their self-subsistent, symbolical character, and

merely retain the right to appear as the external presentation and

form which is referable to simply one aspect of the specific gods, a

presentment which is true to this extent or approximately so. Such

marks are frequently borrowed from animal life, as for example when

Zeus is represented with the eagle, Juno with the peacock, Bacchus

with the tiger and panther, who are harnessed to his car, because, as

Winckelmann observes[175], this animal is an exceptionally thirsty

one, and, moreover, fond of wine; and in the like manner we have Venus

with her hare. Other attributes are tools or utensils of some kind,

which are related to activities and actions, which may be ascribed to

any particular god by virtue of his or her specific individuality. So

we have Bacchus depicted with the thyrsus wand, in order to entwine

thereon the ivy-leaves and garlands; or he receives a wreath of laurel

leaves, to indicate him as victorious in his expedition to India, or a

torch, with which he lighted Ceres home.

Accessories such as these, among which I have here, of course, only

adduced the most famous examples, are an exceptional stimulus to the

acuteness and learning of our professors, and carry them into a kind of

commerce in trifles, which too frequently leads them out of bounds, and

finds significance in things where there is really none. As an example

we are assured that two famous sleeping female figures in the Vatican

and the Villa Medici are representations of Cleopatra, simply because

they have a bracelet in the shape of a viper, and to the vision of

such archaeologists a serpent at once suggests the death of Cleopatra,

much as it would suggest to a pious father of the church the original

serpent who seduced Eve in Paradise. It was, however, a prevailing

custom for Greek women to wear bracelets in serpent coils, and such

bracelets in fact were called by that name. Consequently the just

sense of Winckelmann[176] has long ago rejected this interpretation,

and Visconti has finally recognized[177] them as figures of Ariadne,

as she at lasts sinks to sleep after her sorrow at the departure of

Theseus. Although in uncounted cases acuteness of this quality shows

itself at fault in dealing with detail of this kind, and makes itself

appear contemptible in its departure from such insignificant facts, yet

unquestionably both research and criticism of apparently unimportant

facts are necessary, because it is only thereby that we can arrive at

the closer determination of a figure. Yet even here the difficulty

crops up, that attributes no less than form, do not in all cases point

our conclusions to one god, but may be shared in common by several.

We have the vase, for example, not only associated with Jupiter,

Apollo, Mercury, Aesculapius, but also with Ceres and Hygiaea. Several

goddesses receive the ear of corn; we find the lily in the hand of

Juno, Venus, and Hope; and even the lightning is not the exclusive

possession of Zeus, for it is shared by Pallas, who on her part again

does not alone carry; the Aegis, but on equal terms with Zeus, Juno,

and Apollo[178]. The source of the individual deities from a general

significance of less determinate character which, they share itself is

associated with ancient symbols, which were appertinent to this more

general and consequently more widely shared nature.

(_β_) Accessories of this incidental nature are more in place with

works which, already departing from the simple repose of the gods,

represent actions, groups, or the series of figures such as we find on

reliefs, and for this reason are able to make more extensive use of

a variety of external indications and suggestions. On gifts dedicate

to a devout purpose, which are frequent in all kinds of works of art

and nowhere more frequent than, in the case of statuary, on statues of

Olympic victors, but more particularly on coins and cut stones, the

rich and prolific invention of the Greek found ample scope for the

presence of symbolical references of this type, such as that to his

city's locality and others like it.

(_γ_) Other signs are more removed from purely external significance,

and penetrate deeper within the individuality of such deities. These

themselves are a part of the particular type in question, and are

an integrating factor in it. Among such we may mention the specific

type of the drapery, armour, adornment of the hair, and other attire

of a similar nature, in respect of which I must here content myself

in elucidation with a few examples borrowed from Winckelmann, who

exercised great acuteness in such matters. Among the several gods Zeus

was pre-eminently recognizable by the general treatment of his hair,

and our authority maintains[179], that any particular head can at once

be determined as one intended for this deity or no by the hair over his

forehead, or his beard, even though there be nothing else significant

to arrest us. In other words he asserts that, "the hair is elevated

in an outward curve on the brow, and its different divisions fall

in a narrow curve with broken lines[180] down again." This type of

hair-treatment was so rigorous, that we even find it persisted in among

the sons and grandchildren of Zeus. So, for example, the head of Zeus

is barely to be distinguished from that of Aesculapius in this respect,

who consequently receives another kind of beard, more particularly

over the upper lip, where the same is more depressed in its curve,

whereas that of Zeus is rather folded over the angle of the mouth and

intermingled with the beard on the chin. Winckelmann further recognizes

the fine head of a statue in the Villa Medici, later in Florence, by

means of the more curled beard, which, moreover, folds over the upper

lip, and is of greater thickness, and must be distinguished from the

heads of Zeus with their greater tendency to curled locks. Pallas,

in direct contrast to Diana, wears her hair long, bound together in

its downward fall from the head, and then beneath the fillet flowing

in a series of locks. Diana, on the contrary, wears hers thrown up

from all sides, and fastened in a knot on the crown of the head. The

head of Ceres is up to the back portion covered with her veil. Add to

this, in addition to the corn she carries, she holds a diadem as Juno

does, in front of which, to quote our authority once more[181], the

scattered hairs are thrown into a charming confusion, as though to

suggest possibly her sorrow at the robbing of her daughter Proserpine.

Individuality of the same kind is emphasized by other exterior means,

as for example, when we recognize Pallas by her helmet and its

particular shape, in her type of drapery and various other things.

(_b_) The truly vital individuality, however, in so far as it should

find its mintage in sculpture by means of the spontaneous and beautiful

bodily form, ought not to be asserted merely by such accessories as

the external attributes or modes of things we have cited, but should

be displayed no less in the form itself than in its expression. In

attempting such an individualization the fine insight and creative

power of the Greek artist increased in proportion as the figures of

their deities possessed a substantive basis of essentially the same

kind, from which, without wholly departing from it, it was their task

so to elaborate the characteristic individuality that this ground-root

of their conception was still maintained as a wholly vital and present

fact. Nothing invites our admiration so much in the best works of

antique sculpture than the exquisite attention the artist directed

to the task of bringing the smallest traits of the presentment and

expression into harmony with the entire figure, an attention which is,

in fact, the source of such a harmony.

(_α_) If we inquire further after general distinctions of main

importance which assert themselves as the substantive bases in most

direct relation to the more individual severation of the bodily forms

and their expression we may note, _first_, the distinction of more

youthful figures in contrast to those of more mature age. In the

genuine Ideal, as I have already stated, every trait, every particular

part of the figure is expressed; and, moreover, the direct line,

which is taken straight forward, avoids the abstractly level surface

precisely as the circular form avoids the geometrical circle; and

instead of this the vital variety of lines and shapes is elaborated

in the finest way throughout by the nuances of their transitional

forms which unite them. In juvenile and youthful age the boundaries of

forms are less noticeably fluent, and pass into each other so finely,

that we may compare them, I borrow the simile from Winckelmann[182],

with the surface of a sea unruffled by the wind, of which we may say

that, although in continuous motion, it is still. In the case of

more advanced age, however, such distinguishing features are more

definitely emphasized, and have to be elaborated with more pronounced

characterization. Consummate male figures consequently are more

likely to please us at the first glance, because the expression is

throughout more distinct, and we wonder more readily at the knowledge

and ability of the artist. Youthful examples appear more easy in their

accomplishment because of their softness, and the smaller number of

their distinguishing features. As a matter of fact, however, the

opposite is the case. That is to say, in so far as "the forming of

their parts in the interval between their first growth and their

completion is permitted to be indefinite[183]," the joints, bones,

sinews, muscles, are necessarily more delicate and tender, yet are none

the less suggested. Antique art celebrates its triumph in just this

fact, that even in its most delicate figures all parts throughout and

their appropriate organization are somehow made perceptible in barely

visible nuances of elevation and depression, by means of which the

science and virtuosity of an artist is only followed by an observer

whose research and attention is equally thorough. If, for example, to

take the case of a delicate human figure, such as the youthful Apollo,

the entire structure of the human body were not reproduced actually,

and in all its essentials with consummate, if half veiled insight, the

members might indeed appear well and fully rounded off, but they would

be at the same time flaccid, without expression and variety, so that

the entire effect could hardly satisfy. As a striking example of the

distinction between the youthful body and a man's in mature age, we may

adduce the sons and father in the Laocoon group.

Speaking generally the Greeks, in the representation of their deities,

preferred the still youthful age, and even in heads and statues of Zeus

and Neptune do not indicate old age.

(_β_) In the case of the _sex_, in which the figure is portrayed, the

difference, that is, between male and female figures, we meet with a

distinctive mark of still more importance. In general we may affirm of

the latter what I have already briefly stated in the contrast drawn

between the more youthful and more advanced age. The female figures

are more tender and soft, the sinews and muscles, albeit they must be

there, are less pronounced, the transitional lines are more flowing

and malleable, yet in the wide interval of expression from the point of

quiet earnestness, greater severity of power and dignity to that of the

most delicate charm and grace of the love attraction, there is room for

the richest gradations and variety. We find a wealth of form equally

great in the male figures, in the treatment of which we have, moreover,

the expression of elaborate bodily strength and courage. The cheerful

tone of delight, however, is shared by all, a blithesomeness and

blessed indifference, which soars above all particularity, associated

not unfrequently with a trait of tranquil sorrow, a kind of smile

through tears, in which we neither have wholly smile nor tears.

There is not a marked line of distinction here between the masculine

and feminine character, for the more youthful figures of Bacchus and

Apollo frequently are fined out to the point of feminine delicacy and

softness, nay, we even find representations of Hercules in which there

is so much the appearance of a young woman's form that critics have

confused him with Iole, his sweetheart. And it is not merely this point

of transition but even the combination of the male and female figure,

which the ancients have expressly represented in their hermaphrodites.

(_γ_) _Thirdly_, and in conclusion, there is the question as to the

main distinctions which the figure of sculpture receives in order

that it may be classed within one of the specific divisions of

subject-matter which constitute the content of the ideal outlook on the

world appropriate to this art.

The organic forms which sculpture can utilize generally in its plastic

effort are on the one hand the forms of humanity, on the other those

of _animal_ life. In respect to the animal forms we have already seen

that in the case of the more severe type of the art at its culminating

perfection they will only be found as attributes associated with

the divine form, as when we find a hind with the hunting Diana, or

Zeus with an eagle. And the same thing may be said of the panther,

griffin, and similar figures. Apart from the genuine attributes animal

forms are, however, accepted partly in combination with human shapes,

and in part entirely by themselves. The extent, however, of such

representations is of a limited character. Apart from figures of the

roebuck it is above all the horse whose beauty and fiery animation

obtains a recognition in plastic art, whether it be in union with

the human form, or in its own free and independent shape. In fact,

we find that the horse stands generally in a close relation to the

courage, bravery, and dexterity of human heroism and heroic beauty,

whereas other animals, such as the lion, which Hercules overcomes,

and the wild boar, which Meleager kills, are objects of heroic deeds

themselves, and consequently are entitled to a place within the circle

of representation, when such are expanded in groups and reliefs where a

freer field is admissible for situations of movement and action.

The _human_ figure on its part, in so far as it is conceived in form

and expression as pure Ideal, supplies the adequate form for the

divine, which, being still in union with the sensuous material, is not

capable of being concentrated in the simple unity of _one_ God, and can

merely embrace a _collective_ whole of divine figures. And similarly,

to put the matter conversely, the human, whether we regard it according

to its form or its expression, cannot pass out of the province of human

individuality, albeit the same is at one time brought into intimacy and

union with the divine, and at another with the animal nature.

For these reasons sculpture is faced with various sources out of

which it can select and elaborate its subject-matter, and which I

will now review. The essentially central source is, as I have already

several times indicated, the sphere of the _particular gods._ Their

distinction from humanity preeminently consists in this, that as they,

in respect to that which they express, appear essentially gathered

up over and beyond the finitude of care and mortal passion within a

blessed repose and everlasting youth, so, too, their bodily shapes are

not merely purified from the finite particularity of mankind, but they

are further detached from everything which would suggest the needs

and necessary limitations of sensuous life, without, however, losing

their vitality. We have, for example, an object of human interest in

the way a mother pacifies her child. The Greek goddesses, however,

are always represented as childless. Juno, according to the myth,

tosses the young Hercules from her, and the Milky Way is the result.

To associate a son with the majestic spouse of Zeus was beneath the

dignity of the antique point of view. Even Aphrodite does not appear in

sculpture as mother. Cupid is no doubt very near to her, but scarcely

in the sense of her child. In the same way Jupiter is nursed by a

goat, and Romulus and Remus are suckled by a wolf. Among Egyptian and

Hindoo representations, on the contrary, we find many, in which deities

receive mother's milk from goddesses. Among Greek goddesses the maiden

form is that which is pre-eminent, this being that which to the least

extent asserts the purely natural functions of the wife.

The above constitutes an important contrast between classical art and

romantic, in the latter of which maternal love is a leading subject.

After the gods we find that sculpture deals with heroes and those

figures which have both the human and animal form in their composition,

such as centaurs, fauns, and satyrs.

The line of distinction between _heroes_ and gods is a very fine one;

and much the same interval separates them from ordinary human life.

Winckelmann observes with regard to a Battus on a coin of Cyrene, "With

a single glance of tender jollity we could make a Bacchus of it, and

one trait of godlike greatness would leave us an Apollo." And yet even

in such cases human forms, where the object is to envisage the force

of the will and bodily strength, tend in certain directions to make

for greatness; the artist gave to the muscular development a vital

activity and movement, and in violent actions set in motion all the

springs of Nature's workmanship. Inasmuch as, however, we find the same

hero subject to an entire series of conditions not merely distinct,

but opposed to each other, the masculine forms here also frequently

approximate to the feminine. This is, for example, the case where

Achilles first appears among the maidens of Lycomedes. Here we do not

find him in his full heroic strength such as he displays before Troy,

but in drapery resembling that of a woman and a fascination of figure

which almost conceals his sex. Hercules, too, is not always depicted

in the gravity and power suggestive of the tedious labours which he

performed, but in the milder impersonation of his service to Omphale,

as also in the repose of his deification, and generally in a variety of

situations. In other relations heroes possess the closest affinity for

the figures of the deities themselves, Achilles for that of Mars, for

instance; it is consequently only after the most profound study that we

can recognize the specific meaning of a piece of statuary merely from

the characterization without further suggestion from attributes. Really

expert connoisseurs can, however, deduce the character and shape of the

entire figure from isolated pieces and supply what is missing; from

which fact we again are instructed to admire the fine insight and the

consequential character the individualization of Greek art displays to

us, whose masters knew how to preserve and execute even the smallest

detail in consonance with the entire effect.

Coming now to _satyrs_ and _fauns_ we find in them made visible what

is throughout excluded from the lofty Ideal of the gods, the needs

of mankind, the jollity of life, sensuous pleasure, satisfaction of

excessive desire, and the like. Yet we find in particular young satyrs

and fauns so remarkable for the beauty in which they are represented

by the ancients that, to adopt a phrase of Winckelmann[184], "Every

example of such figures may be exchanged, if we except the head, for a

statue of Apollo, I refer to that one which is styled Sauroktonos, and

possesses the same stansion of the legs." The heads of fauns and satyrs

may be known by their pointed ears, their stiffly erected hair, and

their little horns.

A _second_ province of sculpture is occupied by what is _human simply._

In this we have above all else the beauty of human form as we find it

set before us in its elaborate power and dexterity in the sacred games.

Wrestlers, discoboli, and the like are its main subject-matter. In such

productions sculpture proceeds in a way that is somewhat opposed to the

mere portrait, in which department the ancients, even in cases where

they actually copied _real_ personages, still understood how to hold

fast throughout to the principle of sculpture as we have come to know

it.

The _last_ field that sculpture makes its own is that of independent

_animal_ figures, more particularly lions, hounds, and some others.

Here, too, the ancients did not fail to grasp, make vital in its

individuality, and enforce the principle of sculpture, the substantive

significance of form, and indeed attained to such a perfection that,

to take one example, the cow of Myron has become more famous than all

his other works. Goethe, in "Kunst und Alterthum[185]," has described

it with great charm of style, and pre-eminently drawn attention to the

fact that, as we have already seen, such as animal function as suckling

is only presented by Greek art in the entirely animal world. He

entirely sets on one side poetical conceits such as we find in ancient

epigrams, and with acuteness confines his attention to the _naïveté_

of the conception out of which this most familiar of artistic themes

arises.

(_c_) In concluding this chapter we have now to refer a little more

closely to the _particular_ individuals, in the characterization and

vitality of which the distinctions above mentioned are elaborated, that

is to say, for the most part to the presentment of gods.

(_α_) However much, speaking generally--and we may no doubt seek to

enforce our conviction in reference also to the spiritual deities of

sculpture--this spiritual significance is at bottom the emancipation of

individuality--and the remark applies to Ideals also according to the

degree of their ideality and nobility--to that extent as individuals

their distinction from one another is less marked. And the astonishing

thing in the problem of sculpture, as solved by the Greeks, consisted

just in this, that despite of the universality and ideality of their

gods they have none the less preserved their individuality and lines

of distinction; they have done so despite the fact that in certain

directions we are conscious of the endeavour to eliminate hard-and-fast

boundaries and to depict particular forms in their transitional state.

If, moreover, we are inclined to regard individuality in a way that

suggests definite traits as being appropriate to definite deities,

much as the traits of a portrait are so, a fixed type will thereby

necessarily appear to be substituted for a vital creation and art

will suffer accordingly. But this is quite as little in accordance

with the facts. On the contrary we find that their invention in

such individualization and vitalization gained in subtlety just in

proportion as a substantive type lay at the roots of the same.

(_β_) Again, in considering the particular deities, we are inevitably

led to the conviction that one individual is of commanding influence

in determining all these ideal figures. This supreme value and dignity

Pheidias attached in an unrivalled degree to the form and expression of

his Zeus, albeit the father of the gods and mankind, is set before us

at the same time with a blithe and benignant look throned in serenity

of mature age, that is not in the first flush of youth, without,

however, on the other hand emphasizing in the least any harshness of

form or suggesting the feebleness of age. The most obvious parallels in

form and gesture with Zeus are his brothers Neptune and Pluto, whose

interesting statues in Dresden, for example, despite all that they

share with him, nevertheless retain a clear line of distinction--Zeus

himself, by virtue of the benignity of his lofty presence, Neptune, by

virtue of his greater ruggedness, Pluto, who is a kindred type to the

Egyptian Serapis, by virtue of his profounder gloom and melancholy.

Essentially more apart from Zeus are Bacchus and Apollo, Mars and

Mercury, the first pair in their more youthful beauty and the greater

delicacy of their figures, the second more masculine albeit beardless.

Mercury, too, is more robust, more slender in shape, with exceptional

fineness noticeable in the facial traits. Mars is not so much marked

out from the others as Hercules might be in the strength of his muscles

and other parts of his figure, but rather as a more youthful and

beautiful hero of an ideal form.

Among the goddesses I will only refer to Juno, Pallas, Diana, and

Aphrodite.

Just as Zeus among the masculine deities, so, too, Juno among the

feminine displays in her figure and its expression the greatest

dignity. The large circular-arched eyes are proud and commanding, in

like manner, too, the mouth by which she is at once recognized more

particularly in profile. Generally she presents the appearance of "a

queen, who will rule, is to be revered and must awaken devotion[186]."

Pallas, on the contrary, receives the expression of more austere

maidenhood and chastity. Tenderness, love, and every kind of womanly

weakness are kept away from her; her eyes are less expanded than

those of Here, less emphatically arched and somewhat downcast in the

tranquillity of reflection, just as her head is, which is not proudly

erect as in the case of the spouse of Zeus, although it is armed with

a helmet. A very similar type of maidenhood characterizes the figure of

Diana. She is, however, endowed with a more fascinating quality, more

lightly poised, more slender, albeit there is no self-conscious delight

in her charm. She is not given the pose of tranquil observation, but

is generally in motion, pressing forward as toward some object in her

vision.

Finally we have Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty as such, who is, along

with the Graces and the Hours, alone depicted by the Greek artists as

undraped and even here subject to exceptions. In her case nudity is

justified on the good ground that she expresses, above all, sensuous

beauty and its conquest, grace, attractiveness, tenderness, elevated

and tempered by spiritual qualities. Her eye, even in cases where a

more grave and lofty expression is emphasized, is smaller than that of

Pallas and Juno, not so much in length, but narrower by reason of the

lower eyelid being slightly raised, by which means Love's yearning look

is admirably expressed. She varies, however, very considerably in the

type expressed. In some cases her pose is more serious and powerful; in

others delicacy and tenderness are most insisted upon; her age, too,

is sometimes that of maidenhood, at other of riper years. Winckelmann

compares the Medicean Venus to a rose which blossoms in the fair light

of its own colour at daybreak. Uranian Aphrodite is, on the contrary,

indicated by a diadem which resembles that worn by Juno, and which

Venus victrix also wears.

(_γ_) The discovery of this plastic individuality, whose entire

expression is wholly elaborated through abstract form and nothing

further, was in a like degree of consummate perfection peculiar to

the Greeks and is due to religion itself. A more spiritual religion

can rest satisfied with the contemplation and devotion of the soul,

so that works of sculpture pass for it simply as so much luxury and

superfluity. A religion so dependent on the sense vision as the Greek

was must necessarily continue to create, inasmuch as for it this

artistic production and invention is itself a religious activity and

satisfaction, and for the people the sight of such works is not merely

so much sight-seeing, but is part of their religion and soul-life.

And in general the Greeks did everything with a public and universal

aim in view, in which every man discovered his enjoyment, pride, and

honour. In this public aspect the art of the Greeks is not merely an

ornamental object, but a vital thing that meets a really felt want,

in much the same sort of way as that of painting in its most glorious

season responded to the life of Venice. Only on grounds such as

these can we find a rational explanation, if we consider the great

difficulties which the technique of sculpture implies, for the host

of sculptured figures, this forest of statues of every kind, which

in their thousand and indeed thousands, were to be met with in _one_

single city, in Elis, in Athens, in Corinth, and even in towns of

lesser importance, and in the same way in the greater Greece beyond and

the islands of the Cyclades.