FROM PHIDIAS TO FLAXMAN: THE STORY 
OF SCULPTURE. 
(Wirs Lantern Views). 
By Mr. HENRY ROSE. 13th October, 1903. 
Mr. Rose gave a graphic, historical sketch of the art of sculpture, 
illustrating his subject with a large number of very beautiful 
lantern slides, which were viewed with unmistakable interest and 
pleasure by all present. Referring at the outset to Schegel’s 
description of architecture as frozen music, Mr. Rose claimed that 
sculpture might be said to be music and poetry combined. The 
sculptor was nothing—a mere craftsman—unless, figuratively 
speaking, he were musician and poet also. His chief office was 
to represent the higher qualities of life as shown in form. To 
this office he must bring the musician’s sense of glorious harmony 
and noble rhythm. ‘To this office he must bring also the poet’s 
power to analyse and express thought and feeling. For these 
reasons, the great sculptor had in all ages been given a foremost 
place among artists ; he had always been regarded as one of the 
chief interpreters of human ideals. Mr. Rose described how the 
earlier letters, so to speak, of the alphabet of sculpture might fitly 
be said to have been learnt in the Stone Age by the makers of 
wood, bone, and stone implements. Then by an easy transition 
he passed to the sculpture of Egypt and Assyria, pointing out how 
the art in those two countries was devoted very largely to the 
expression of kingly and priestly power. In this respect Egypt 
and Assyria stood in contrast with Greece. For a long time the 
most commonly accepted theory had been, that the representation 
of his ideal of beauty was the primary aim of the Greek sculptor. 
Mr. Rose questioned whether this was a sound theory. He 
agreed with Mr. Ruskin that as the Greek strove to teach only 
what was true, so in his sculptured symbol] he strove to carve 
only what was right. Truth and rightness, even more than beauty, 
were what he aimed at. This was the great secret of his power. 
In his teaching and in his art alike, the Greek expressed the 
struggle between light and darkness, between freedom and 
tyranny, between Europe and Asia—a struggle which, alas, was 
not yet ended, as recent events in the Kast and in the Far Hast 
only too forcibly reminded us. This struggle in the ancient days 
might not less truly be described as having been a struggle 
