REALISM AND IDEALISM 121 



enhancing and accentuating their suggestions, interpreting 

 with loyal conscientiousness nature's effort to effectuate perfec- 

 tion. Here at last we touch Idealism in its essence. But 

 such Idealism, when sound and healthy, is only Realism in 

 the intensest phase of veracity ; it is truth quintessenced and 

 raised to the highest power. Such is the ultimate expansion 

 of those factors which we found to be co-existent in the 

 simplest sketch from nature. 



In the right understanding of this correlation between 

 Realism and Idealism the Greek sculptors are our surest 

 teachers. It was incumbent upon them to create images of 

 gods and goddesses and heroes, each of whom represented 

 in perfection some one psychological attribute of human 

 nature. For these spiritual essences they were bound to find 

 fit incarnation through the means available by art. They 

 therefore always had before their minds the problem how 

 to invest such isolated attributes with appropriate forms 

 how to fashion a Zeus who should be all-majestic, a Herakles 

 who should be strength personified, an Aphrodite who should 

 be the consummation of feminine attractiveness, a Faun who 

 should be light and active as the creatures of the woodland 

 without ceasing to be man in shape. The solution of this 

 problem forced them to idealise, while their exquisite sense 

 for the beauty, grace, and dignity of the living model kept 

 them realistically faithful to minutest facts in nature. 



In order to illustrate how the best Greek work exhibits 

 that right blending of the ideal with the real, on which 

 I am insisting, I will quote a passage from Haydon's auto- 

 biography, which records the impression made upon his 

 mind by the first sight of the Elgin marbles. It must be 

 remembered that Haydon grew up in England at a time when 

 Reynolds, Fuseli, and West had saturated the art schools 

 with false- doctrine about * the beau-ideal,' ' the grand style,' 

 ' the superiority of art to nature.' Haydon, though he never 

 worked out the problems of design successfully in his own 

 practice, was convinced that Realism, or truth to actual fact, 

 formed the only solid basis for sculpture and painting. 

 Consequently, when he found the closest observation of nature 



