418 APPENDIX 



duces reality. Transmutation into human stuff or idealisation is | 

 the condition under which man works. 



NOTE ON 'THE MODEL' 



THE female form has less variety than the male. It cannot 

 symbolise so many modes of vigorous existence. There are several 

 positions which it cannot assume with grace as in the act of^ 

 running, the spreading abroad of the limbs, and wherever the belly 

 and pelvis are extended by physical effort. Eaphael, in his drawing 

 of Eoxana visited by Alexander, and in his fresco of Venus rising 

 in her car, upon the Farnesina ceiling, adopted graceless female 

 attitudes. No Greek artist, so far as I remember, fell into this 

 fault of showing how the female figure sprawls. The Greeks took 

 pains to drape or partially drape women in their statues ; or when 

 they modelled the nude, they selected attitudes of self-restrained 

 repose or of marked sexual suggestiveness attitude of self-restraint 

 in the Venus de' Medici, attitude of sexual suggestiveness in the 

 Venus Accroupie. 



If we divest ourselves of sexual associations, we shall recognise 

 that the male is more ready-made in plastic quality to the artist's 

 hand, more capable of varied posturing, more representative of 

 human energies and activities. It requires less management in 

 order to bring out its qualities and tone down its defects. 



On the other side, the female presents finer suavities of contour, 

 higher elements of voluptuousness. There are numerous modes of 

 emotion all the tender, imploring, shrinking, languishing, seductive, 

 yielding, timid, wavering modes which the female expresses, and 

 which are inappropriate to the male. 



The activity of the male, the passivity of the female, are seen in 

 their respective physical types. The male is classical, the female 

 romantic. The male is sculpturesque, the female musical. 



Thus it is chiefly when the body is used as an index of human 

 activity, vigorous capacity, ebullient passion, solid strength, that the 

 male predominates in art. Organically, as an instrument of action, 

 it is far more potent and more varied in resources. 



But when we use the body as the index of human susceptibilities, 

 sensibilities, allurements, in this less active and less intellectual 

 region the female asserts predominance. 



