1883.1 on the Influence of Athletic Games upon Greelc Art. 283 



spent his time and studied tlie liiiman form ; but not only in indi- 

 viduals. Constantly from his earliest youth, day by day, he had 

 before his eye numbers of well-built youths in all attitudes and all 

 actions, and these series of individual forms impressed themselves 

 upon his mind until they became an intrinsic j)art of his visual 

 memory and imagination, forming, as it were, an alphabet with which 

 he could create at will things of great and new meaning. Just as 

 letters, words, and grammar have become to us elements and units of 

 thought which lie ready to be composed, without effort, as far as they 

 are concerned, into phrases, sentences, periods, books, poems and 

 orations with great and new meaning and perfect form, so the ex- 

 isting human bodies and their changes in various attitudes and actions 

 became such elements to the visual and imaginative mind of the 

 ancient Greek artist. They did not require conscious attention, but 

 became the parts of a great and new composition, with a meaning 

 and spirit as a whole, lofty and high, yet ever intelligible, because 

 composed of these elements familiar to man from the daily suggestion 

 of nature. 



It is therefore that the human forms which they present are so 

 perfect. Turn to an entirely different period of art and you will 

 notice a similar phenomenon having similar causes. Northern 

 renaissance painting and sculpture, which possess so many great 

 characteristics of their own, widely differ from Italian renaissance 

 art in that their renderings of the nude human figure are devoid of 

 the grace and harmony which those of the Italians possess : they are 

 to a greater extent the portraits of individuals whose bodies were not 

 perfect in all parts. This is chiefly to be attributed to the fact that 

 in the southern districts partial nudity is more common, and from an 

 early age the Italian has more than the German or the Fleming to 

 some degree reduced the individual human forms to an alphabet, and 

 has created more ideal individuals of art. Most of the nude subjects in 

 modern works of art are really studies, and not pictures or statues. 

 The modern artist depends upon his one model, and if the figure be 

 more or less perfect we are rather inclined to praise him for his 

 skill or luck in choosing a good model than for his artistic 

 imagination. 



This feeling for perfection of form which the Greek artist 

 gained through the study of so many individual instances in the 

 palasstra soon became conscious, and the attempt was soon made to 

 find the most normal proportions of the human figure as suggested by 

 the palaestra. The generalisation from the individuals to the ideal 

 type was bridged over in the palaestra itself by certain classes or 

 groups of individuals forming types of their own. As the palaestra 

 became thoroughly organised in this period, so the games were classi- 

 fied and systematised, all joining in the one great end of producing 

 healthy and strong youths serviceable to the state. Thus the games 

 were subdivided into light and heavy, Kov(i)os and fiapv<Sj having their 

 particular type and fullest representatives in certain classes of men. 



