

\M> PROGRESS 



comma ml, or excite, or astonish in his pictures. 

 ^ < murt accept his universal fame as a full, 

 proof of his superiority, in spite of the remarks 

 of modern professors. Aristides of Thclie , in- 

 ferior to Apelles in harmony and grace, sur- 

 paatcd him in delineating the passions. It is 

 mid of the Suppliant, whom he painted, that 

 his look was intensely earnest, and his voice 

 earned to escape from the picture. He loved 

 painful subjects. He painted a sister dying for 

 love of her brother; and a mother, mortally 

 wounded in the bosom, endeavouring to prevent 

 her infant sticking blood with her milk. He 

 now and then touched historical subjects. His 

 Little between the Greeks and Persians con- 

 tained a hundred heads, and he was paid ten 

 pounds 1 weight of silver for each. His Chariot 

 Race, too, was widely admired. " You would 

 almost think," said Pliny, " that the wheels were 

 in motion, such was the energy of action in the 

 picture." Other eminent men maintained the 

 glory of Grecian art. Asclepiodorus excelled 

 in symmetry, and Protogenes in beauty of finish. 

 The compliment paid to the latter by the accom- 

 plished Demetrius ought not to be forgotten. 

 He refused to assault Rhodes on the side where 

 the painter's studio stood ; and when he took the 

 city, and the chief men entreated him to spare 

 the pictures of their admired countryman, he 

 made answer, that he would sooner destroy the 

 images of his own ancestors than touch the pro- 

 ductions of Protogenes. 



There is a sad deficiency of technical know- 

 ledge in the accounts which have descended to 

 us of Grecian painting; nor is there so much 

 detailed or vivid description as we could wish. 

 The same may be said of sculpture ; but we are 

 not therefore to conclude as some have not 

 hesitated to do that the latter, of which we 

 fortunately see so much, excelled the former, of 

 which no specimens have survived. For any- 

 thing that can be gathered or surmised from 

 ancient writers, we need not pause before we 

 say that all the secrets of light and shade, and 

 beauty of colours, and harmony and unity of 

 composition, which distinguish modern art, were 

 familiar to the great painters of Greece. The 

 writings of both Pliny and Plutarch abound in 

 passages intimating this. " The hand of Alex- 

 ander," the former observes, " appeared to come 

 out of the picture." " Painters," says the latter, 

 "increase the brilliancy of light colours, by 

 opposing them to dark ones, or to shades." 

 Pliny speaks even more decisively. " The art 

 assumed new powers, and discovered or invented 

 light and shadow, by graduating which, the 

 colours are alternately heightened or kept down. 



Afterward- splendour was added, which was dif- 

 ferent from light, and which, because it was a 

 mean between light and shade, they called tone, 

 and the union of the colours, and the transition 

 from one to another, they called harmony." 



Those who suspect, from the want of direct 

 and visible evidence, that the paintings of ancient 

 Greece failed to equal those of modern Italy, 

 can entertain no such doubts regarding the ex- 

 cellence of the sculpture ; for nothing has yet 

 been created which rivals the grace and dignity 

 of the Venus or the Apollo. It is true that these 

 magnificent works, and others of equal beauty, 

 are the consummation of ancient art ; while it 

 may be averred that modern art is still living, 

 and producing groups and statues. But from 

 what is, we may imagine what will be. We want 

 both the austere simplicity and poetic elevation 

 of the productions of Greece , our forms are less 

 pure, our sentiments less ethereal ; and though 

 we excel them in the picturesque, we are not 

 sure that they thought it worthy of study. 



The sculptors of Greece borrowed perhaps the 

 inanimate body of their art from Egypt or Syria ; 

 they endued it with life, and gave it beauty of 

 form and elevation of sentiment. Daedalus seems 

 to have been one of the first who asserted the 

 dignity of sculpture. He wrought chiefly in 

 hard wood ; and when he found the material 

 unsuitable for the expression, he made the heads 

 of Ptone. A naked Hercules from his chisel was 

 seen by Pausanias, who remarks that " his works 

 are indeed rude and uncomely in aspect ; but yet 

 they have something as of divinity in their appear- 

 ance." It is supposed that some of the works, 

 or copies at least, of that artist still exist. " In 

 the British Museum," says Flaxman, " as well as 

 in other collections of Europe, are several small 

 bronzes of a naked Hercules, whose right arm, 

 holding a club, is raised to strike, whilst his left 

 is extended, bearing the lion's skin as a shield. 

 From the style of extreme antiquity in these 

 statues, the rude attempt at bold action which 

 was the peculiarity of Daedalus, the general 

 adoption of this action in the early ages, the 

 traits of savage nature in the face and figure, 

 expressed with little knowledge, but strong feel- 

 ing, by the narrow loins, turgid muscles of the 

 breast, thighs, and calves of the legs, we shall 

 find reason to believe that they are copied from 

 the Hercules of Daedalus. " The Gnossians pos- 

 sessed a Chorus in white stone, made by the 

 same artist for Ariadne, from the eighteenth 

 book of the Iliad, where youths and maidens 

 dance hand in hand. Endaeus followed and 

 made the Minerva seen by Pausanias at Athens. 

 From this figure it has been surmised that the 



