276 Br, Charles Waldstein [April 13, 



when the hero seizes a rock, we have before us a diskobolos ; when 

 with " loosened knees " the wounded combatant sinks to the ground, 

 we see a figure from the ^gina pediment or a dying Lapith or Gaul. 

 Now, with such feeling for form, such definite conception of what is 

 sculpturesque, so clear a notion of the parts of the human body, the 

 step to the actual execution in the sculptor's material is but a small 

 one. People possessed of such sense for plastic composition cannot 

 remain content with mere symbolical natureless art, and the technical 

 means of expressing their inner wants are a matter attained with 

 comparative ease. Yet the fact remains that even for centuries after 

 Homer thus manifested his sense for what is sculpturesque in nature 

 the extant statues are stiff and conventional and do not manifest even 

 approximately the feeling for nature which we find in these early 

 poems. 



2nd. If we examine the earliest monuments which we may 

 attribute to the eighth century, and compare them with those belong- 

 ing to the middle of the sixth century, we find that they are com- 

 paratively on the same level of imperfection as regards their want of 

 freedom and nature, and we must be struck by the relatively small 

 advance made in two centuries. 



3rd. Now, with this hardly noticeable decrease in stiffness and 

 conventionality during centuries, we must be struck by the singular 

 phenomenon that tbe advance from the imperfect and unnaturalistic 

 to the most perfect freedom in the rendering of the forms of nature 

 takes place within a period of fifty years, from about 510 B.C. to 460 b.o. 

 Within this short span of time the gulf which separates some of 

 the stiff statues like the Apollo of Tenea from the Diskobolos of 

 Myron, some of the lifeless seated figures of the Branchidae from the 

 early w^orks of Pheidias, is overleapt. How could fifty years create 

 so great a change as is shown by the comparison of the Apollo of 

 Tenea, devoid of nature, with the Diskobolos of Myron, who is breath- 

 ing with life ? Other works of Myron are described by ancient authors 

 as true to nature even to deception. The statue of the runner Ladas 

 is called breathing w^ith life (efX7n/ov<;) ; the runner seemed, it is said, 

 with his last breath, to jump from his pedestal to grasp the victor's 

 wreath. Centuries after Homer had in his written descriptions mani- 

 fested such a keen sense for nature in the rendering of the human 

 form, works as conventional as the Apollo of Tenea were produced, 

 differing but slightly in their lack of naturalism from the ApoUos 

 of 160 years before. Fifty years sufficed to produce all the freedom 

 and nature in conception and execution of sculpture, which we can 

 estimate when comparing the Diskobolos of Myron with the Apollo 

 of Tenea. " How can this be accounted for ? " is the question to be 

 answered. 



The explanation which has until now been given, is that the 

 Persian wars and the Greek victories produced a favourable change 

 in the life of the whole Greek people, political, religious, and intel- 

 lectual, and also freed art from its conventional trammels. Now, 



