748 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of a similar kind, only ruder and more childish in their realism 

 than those of Egypt. The wooden doll was made as lifelike as 

 possible by being dressed up in real clothes with a wig of hair, 

 and with accessories or arms in actual metalwork and jewelry. 

 These realistic images were highly honored from a religious point 

 of view, like the bambino of the church of Ara Cceli, in Rome, at 

 the present day, and were undoubtedly copied from a living effigy 

 in the festival, as this bambino is now carried in the ceremonial 

 processions at its annual fete. Still further light is thrown upon 

 the subject by the religious symbolism of colors among widely 

 separated peoples. Among the Chaldeans, the planetary gods 

 were all symbolized by colors, yellow standing for the sun ; black, 

 for the moon ; red, for the planet Mars ; pale yellow, for Venus ; 

 and blue, for Mercury. So, among the Indians, green is ascribed 

 to Venus, purple to Jupiter, and black to Saturn. All this finds 

 its easy explanation in the color given to the representative of the 

 god in the festal dance. 



If, now, we have established our thesis, it appears that the fine 

 arts are only the various modes of expressing the strong feelings 

 awakened by religion and other potent stimuli of the imagination 

 finding utterance under the social conditions of the time, and giv- 

 ing form in material sign and symbol to otherwise incommunica- 

 ble sentiments. An analytical and philosophizing age is not par- 

 ticularly favorable to the production of the fine arts. They thrive 

 best among an impressible, imaginative, spectacle-loving people. 

 All history is a witness of this. The art of Egypt is the record of 

 its religious rites and ceremonies, its military triumphs, and its 

 royal processions. The same is true to a great extent of the art 

 of Greece. The most of its sculpture is copied from figures seen 

 in the dance, represented in the great festal games, or in the reli- 

 gious celebrations of the people. The marbles once in the frieze of 

 the Parthenon, many of which were taken to England by Lord 

 Elgin and placed in the British Museum — known as the " Elgin 

 Marbles " — are copies from the Panathenaic festival as a spectator 

 might have beheld it when all Athens contributed to its magnifi- 

 cence. The Italian rappresentazioni, most splendid at Florence, 

 gave inspiration to the great painters of the fourteenth and fif- 

 teenth centuries. As these spectacles increased in beauty and 

 artistic excellence, so did the paintings copied from them, for here 

 the painter found his living models, already works of art in per- 

 sonal beauty and costume. The artists actually took both their 

 themes and characters from these pageants. The "miracle- 

 plays " and " mysteries," their equivalents north of the Alps, were 

 less impressive, but these also kindled the flame of art and almost 

 created the northern painter. There was also in Italy the trionfo, 

 or procession of masked and costumed mummers, representing 



