1883.] on tJie Influence of Athletic Games upon Greek Art. 275 



from the restrictions of a round stem of a tree narrowly circumscribed 

 in its dimensions. Tlie art of soldering iron, discovered by Glaukos 

 of Chios, which gave similar freedom to the metal-worker, and, above 

 all, the invention of the casting of bronze by Ehoikos and Theodores, 

 which enabled the sculptor to bring his finished statue closer to his 

 own clay model, reacted upon the art of modelling and did much to 

 free art from its conventional trammels. 



Again, the influence of kindred arts upon one another advanced 

 each one in turn. So architecture advanced sculpture in forcing the 

 sculptor to give freedom of movement and variedness of attitude to 

 his figures, prescribing to him a limited space which he had to fill 

 with his figures. A triangular pediment, high in the middle and 

 low at the angles, was filled in the earliest art by quaint figures 

 that grew smaller and smaller in dimension as they approached the 

 angles. In order to avoid this absurdity, the sculptor, while placing 

 figures erect in the centre, was forced to vary the attitudes from a 

 slight inclination down to a completely reclining posture in the 

 ' angles, and thus learned to represent figures with freedom of move- 

 ment. The influence of sculpture upon painting and of painting upon 

 sculpture furnishes us with reflexions which could hardly be dealt 

 with thoroughly in only one address. 



But of all causes which led the conventional early artist to nature, 

 by far the most efiective was the influence of the athletic games and 

 the j)al£estra, which forms the subject of this address. 



We shall see then, first, how the palaestra led Greek artists to 

 nature, and secondly, how it led them away from nature to the ideal, 

 or rather, through nature to the ideal. 



It has often been said that a question clearly put is half the 

 answer. In the present case to appreciate the influence of the palaestra 

 upon the development of Greek art we must resolve the question 

 into three definite ones, which will all tend to explain the influence 

 exercised by the athletic games. At the same time these questions, 

 if answered, will account for the peculiar rapidity of the advance 

 made during a relatively short period of Greek art from conventional 

 archaism to free naturalism and idealism, a fact, which, it appears to 

 me, has heretofore not been satisfactorily explained. 



1st. If we study the Homeric poems so far as they are concerned 

 with plastic art, we must feel that they manifest the highest feeling 

 for nature and freedom of execution in the rendering of the human 

 form. This has already been felt with regard to the descriptions of 

 the works of art the poet saw in his mind's eye and described as if 

 really existing. But it appears to me that the most important side of 

 the artistic feeling in the Homeric poems is to be found in the de- 

 scription of gods and heroes, and, more especially, in the sensuous 

 description of the warriors in action and the careful study of the 

 anatomy of the human figure as shown by the account of the wounded 

 and falling heroes. In Homer's picture of a spear-hurling warrior, 

 we have before our mind's eye the perfect statue of a spcar-thrower ; 



