THE PROVINCES OF THE SEVERAL ARTS 85 



Sculpture and painting distinguish themselves from the 

 other fine arts by the imitation of concrete existences in 

 nature. They copy the bodies of men and animals, the 

 aspects of the world around us, and the handiwork of man- 

 kind. Yet, in so far as they are rightly arts, they do not 

 make imitation an object in itself. The grapes of Zeuxis at 

 which birds pecked, the painted dog at which a cat's hair 

 bristles if such grapes or such a dog were ever put on 

 canvas are but evidences of the artist's skill, not of his 

 faculty as artist. These two plastic, or, as I prefer to call 

 them, figurative arts, use their imitation of the external 

 world for the expression, the presentation of internal, spiritual 

 things. The human form is for them the outward symbol of 

 the inner human spirit, and their power of presenting spirit is 

 limited by the means at their disposal. 



Sculpture employs stone, wood, clay, the precious metals, 

 to model forms, detached and independent, or raised upon 

 a flat surface in relief. Its domain is the whole range of 

 human character and consciousness, in so far as these can 

 be indicated by fixed facial expression, by physical type, and 

 by attitude. If we dwell for an instant on the greatest his- 

 torical epoch of sculpture, we shall understand the domain 

 of this art in its range and limitation. At a certain point 

 of Greek development the Hellenic Pantheon began to be 

 translated by the sculptors into statues : and when the genius 

 of the Greeks expired in Rome, the cycle of their psycho- 

 logical conceptions had been exhaustively presented through 

 this medium. During that long period of time, the most 

 delicate gradations of human personality, divinised, idealised, 

 were submitted to the contemplation of the consciousness 

 which gave them being, in appropriate types. Strength and 

 swiftness, massive force and airy lightness, contemplative 

 repose and active energy, voluptuous softness and refined 

 grace, intellectual sublimity and lascivious seductiveness the 

 whole rhythm of qualities which can be typified by bodily 

 form were analysed, selected, combined in various degrees, 



