272 Dr. Charles Waldstein [April 13, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, April 13, 1883. 



William Bowman, Esq. LL.D. F.R.S. Honorary Secretary and Vice- 

 President, in tlie Chair. 



Charles Waldstein, Esq. Ph.D. (Heidelberg), M.A. (Cambridge), 



READER IN CLASSICAL ARCHEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 



The Influence of Athletic Games upon GreeTc Art/" 



If we were to tell an uneducated workman or a thoughtless young 

 lady in society that the reasons why they consider certain people 

 good-looking and certain things pleasing and well-proportioned are 

 based upon the canons of proportion which the ancient Greeks esta- 

 blished for the human form and for the objects manufactured by them, 

 they would find it difticult to realise the truth of such a state- 

 ment. Yet so it is. We can all readily realise that our taste differs 

 from the taste of savages who, as Professor Flower told you three 

 years ago, flatten their skulls, run bones through their noses, and 

 stretch and thicken their lips and ears by means of weights. Yet the 

 fundamental principles underlying our taste, in contradistinction to 

 that of these savages, are identically the same as those laid down by 

 the artists of ancient Hellas. Nay, the difference in taste which 

 separates us from the types of Byzantine-Christian and early German 

 art is the same as that which separates these pre-renaissance types 

 from those of ancient Greece. We are fundamentally still Greek 

 in taste. Now, when we consider how much further than the Byzan- 

 tines and early Germans the ancient Greeks are removed from 

 us in time, space, race, and religion, the question as to the causes of 

 this singular persistency of the influence of Greek art must necessarily 

 present itself to the inquiring mind. 



The first and most obvious answer to this question is a purely 

 historical one. It would consist in pointing to the events of the 

 Italian renaissance, where, as a matter of fact, Greek art and Greek 

 letters were brought back to light and revived among the people. Yet 

 this is really no answer. For the question must further be asked : 

 why should a few statues unearthed, coming from an age remote in 

 antiquity, commend themselves so strongly to the taste of a later age 



* This address is written from memory, as nearly as possible in the form in 

 which it was delivered. In a few instances points that could only be mentioned 

 in the address have been slightly amplified in writing. This is a preliminary 

 publication, without illustrations and notes, of a work which the writer hopes 

 some day to publish in a more complete form. 



