It was about the 6th century that the genius of the Greeks, almost
suddenly, as it seems to us, emancipated itself from the thraldom of
tradition, and passed beyond the limits with which the nations of the
east and west had hitherto been content, in a free and bold effort
towards the ideal. Thus the 6th century marks the stage in art in which
it may be said to have become definitely Hellenic. The Greeks still
borrowed many of their decorative forms, either from the prehistoric
remains in their own country or, through Phoenician agency, from the
old-world empires of Egypt and Babylon, but they used those forms freely
to express their own meaning. And gradually, in the course of the
century, we see both in the painting of vases and in sculpture a
national spirit and a national style forming under the influence of
Greek religion and mythology, Greek athletic training, Greek worship of
beauty. We must here lay emphasis on the fact, which is sometimes
overlooked in an age which is greatly given to the Darwinian search
after origins, that it is one thing to trace back to its original
sources the nascent art of Greece, and quite another thing to follow and
to understand its gradual embodiment of Hellenic ideas and civilization.
The immense success with which the veil has in late years been lifted
from the prehistoric age of Greece, and the clearness with which we can
discern the various strands woven into the web of Greek art, have tended
to fix our attention rather on what Greece possessed in common with all
other peoples at the same early stage of civilization than on what
Greece added for herself to this common stock. In many respects the art
of Greece is incomparable--one of the great inspirations which have
redeemed the world from mediocrity and vulgarity. And it is the
searching out and appreciation of this unique and ideal beauty in all
its phases, in idea and composition and execution, which is the true
task of Greek archaeological science.
[Illustration: _Mus. Napoleon_, 57.