ON 



THE RISE AND PROGRESS 



OF 



THE FINE ARTS. 



PART I. 



PAINTINO and sculpture seem the natural off- 

 spring of the human mind : they are coeval with 

 music and song. They are to be found rude 

 indeed, and uncouth amongst the most savage 

 of the human tribes : wherever civilization has 

 penetrated, the rudiments of the fine arts hive 

 been found long established ; some Laban of the 

 desert had his household gods carved in wood, 

 and enriched with colours and with precious 

 stones. Representations of historical events, or 

 personifications of abstract ideas of good and 

 evil, are conunon to all communities, civilized 

 or savage ; nor is it less remarkable than true, 

 that the fine arts of almost all ancient nations 

 have been closely united with devotion. Religion 

 gave a moral expression and a heavenward look 

 to all that sprang from human genius : the first 

 hymns were in honour of the immortals ; the 

 earliest specimens of art represented the gods 

 whom men worshipped. When civilization and 

 knowledge brought reflection and philosophy, 

 men began to disregard the sculptured stone and 

 the painted symbol, and look higher, and think 

 more deeply. The idols, before whom the early 

 nations of the earth were taught to bow, were 

 only .abandoned because knowledge purified our 

 sight and mind, and bade us bow to the invisible 

 Power, of which the best had only ' dreampd 

 rather than believed. 



Yet there is no doubt that the fine arts or, in 

 other words, the gods of wood and stone aided 

 in raising man out of his barbarous condition. 

 Art was the language in which, after the confu- 

 sion of tongues, men spoke and comprehended 

 one another. The first rude figure was succeeded 

 by one more skilfully made : elegance began to 

 dawn amid deformity, and men grew polished 



with their productions. Nor was this all. Art 

 walked abroad, like one of the early missionaries, 

 and speaking to the barbarous tribes of Asia and 

 Europe through painted groupes and sculptured 

 figures, historical and religious, spread abroad a 

 sense of something lofty and spiritual. Increas- 

 ing taste required art to become more graceful 

 and beautiful : science was applied ; true pro- 

 portion was discovered ; and the marbles of the 

 men of Attica assumed the shape and aspect of 

 gods. It was so in Egypt, in India, in Greece, 

 and in Italy : religion breathed sublimity into 

 song, and an air of heaven over sculpture and 

 painting. A divine nature triumphed over that 

 of earth in the Apollo, modest beauty kept down 

 voluptuousness in the Venus, and that terrible 

 majesty was diffused over the Jupiter which 

 makes us think of thunder as we look on him. 



It was so with the heathen, nor was it much 

 otherwise with the Christian. A religion which, 

 addressing the mind and soul, excluded the 

 more visible and sensual, refrained not from 

 accepting the aid of the fine arts, which, in the 

 train of the false deities, aided in civilizing much 

 of the earth. Our Saviour came to save the 

 world to raise men from their knees, humbling 

 themselves to their own handywork, and bid 

 them look to heaven, and think of immortality. 

 The Dianas, Junos, Apollos, Minervas, and 

 Jupiters, hitherto adored, were now to be as no- 

 thing, or as beautiful productions only in marble 

 and brass ; and Faith, and Hope, and Charity 

 were to take their places, and establish them- 

 selves without temples or altars. The oracles 

 were struck dumb : incense no longer ascended 

 to the gods of Olympus, and the intellectual eye, 

 touched by a new light, was directed towards 

 that great and invisible One of whose existence 

 the heathen had but glimmerings. 



Much, however, of the world which is in light 



