270 SCULPTUftfe. 



LESSON 123. 



Sculpture. 

 Consifit'ence, degree of density or rarity. 

 To ascertain when the art of sculpture was first practised, 

 and by wliat nation, is beyond human research. We may 

 safely conjecture, however, that it was ahnost one of the 

 original propensities of man. This will still appear in the 

 ardent and irresistible impulse of youth to make represen- 

 tations of objects in wood, and the attempts of savages to em- 

 body their conceptions of their idols. A command from the 

 author of our being was necessary to prevent the ancient Is- 

 raelites from making graven images ; and the inhabitants of 

 the rest of the earth possessed similar propensities. The de- 

 scriptions in the Scriptures demonstrate that the art had been 

 brought to great perfection at the period of which they treat. 

 It is necessary to make a distinction between carving and 

 sculpture : the former belongs exclusively to wood, and the 

 latter to stone or marble. It is probable that every essay at 

 imitating animated objects was in each nation made original- 

 ly in wood, But they soon discovered, doubtless, that wood 

 was incapable of a durability commensurate with their 

 wishes ; they adopted, therefore, a close grained and beau- 

 tiful granite, which not only required tools of iron, but those 

 of the most perfectly tempered steel, to cut it ; and with 

 such they have left us at this very distant time vast num- 

 bers of excavated figures, as complete and as little injured 

 as if executed within our own memory. The acknowledged 

 masters of the sublime art of sculpture are the ancient Greeks^ 

 to whom every nation of the earth still pays a willing homage, 

 and from whose matchless works each sculptor is happy to 

 concentrate and improve his observations on the human 

 figure, presented by them to his contemplation in its most 

 graceful perfection. Such have been the excellence and 

 correctness of their imitations of nature, and the refined 

 elegance of their taste, that many of their works are men- 

 tioned, as efforts never to be exceeded or perhaps equalled. 

 Statuary is a branch of sculpture employed in the making 

 of statues. The term is also used for the artificer himseK 

 Phidias was the greatest statuary among the ancients, and 



