274 Dr. Charles Waldstein [April 13, 



harmony of tones as opposed to confusion of sound, for composition of 

 thoughts, things and forms as opposed to haphazard collocation of 

 things. Children, when set to draw a real house, will not imitate 

 what they see before them, but will return to the well-known schematic 

 form which we have all drawn, and which children in all countries 

 have drawn and will draw. It is at a far later stage that man learns 

 to render exactly what he sees before him and to follow and imitate 

 nature. 



The childhood of Greek art shows the same characteristics which 

 mark the early artistic attempts of children. The works belonging 

 to what is called the Archaic period (roughly speaking, the works 

 previous to the fifth century before our era) all exhibit a conventional 

 treatment which, when compared with the treatment of the works 

 of the fifth and subsequent centuries, betokens a complete inability 

 to render freely and accurately the forms of nature. How then was 

 the step from this imj)crfection to the highest perfection made ? 



The causes which brought about this advance are numerous. In 

 studying the history of early Greek art we can discern the following 

 moving powers which account for the course it took and its slow or 

 rapid progress. As a iwimum movens there was the creative instinct 

 of man just alluded to. If this were the only moving power, un- 

 affected by surrounding circumstances, unmodified in its course and 

 progress by other active currents, the attempts of the later genera- 

 tions who start with the results attained by their predecessors before 

 them and the experience gained by much struggle transmitted to 

 them would show a constant advance uj)on the work of their fathers. 

 But life does not present so simple a progression. There are other 

 currents which either retard or accelerate progress. Among those 

 we notice as a retarding side-current the law of inertia, which applies 

 to man as it does to nature. In this case it means the force of habit 

 and custom which leads men more or less voluntarily to resist the 

 acceptance of new forms differing from those which they have learnt 

 to admire, and which they associate with things highly esteemed. 

 This conservatism extends not only to the appreciation of form but 

 also to the older traditions of handling the material which we often 

 see survive in cases where a new material suggested and required a new 

 handling. 



As a side current which accelerated the progress of Greek art 

 towards freedom in the rendering of nature we notice among others, 

 that certain changes in the political life of the ancients favoured the 

 free development of art. Such were the accession to j)ower of 

 splendour-loving princes like Polykrates of Samos, Hieron of Syra- 

 cuse, and, above all, Peisistratos and the Peisistratidas of Athens. The 

 most important political event was the Persian war and the wealth 

 and glory it brought to the Greeks. We must further notice 

 the important influence which technical inventions exercised upon 

 the development of art, as the invention of the sawing of marble 

 by Melas of Chios and his school, which freed the early wood-carver 



