602 CLASSICAL ART 



knowledge of art itself, seem to us more as the plays of fancy than as 

 real additions to our knowledge. To cite an instance : it has been, and 

 even most recently, set down as an aesthetic law of plastic art, that 

 the work must show a qualitative homogeneity of material, a law that 

 could never be set up by any one who is familiar with actual sculpture 

 as the greatest artists of all times have practiced it ; the oneness of the 

 material is the most unimportant of matters for sculpture, which has 

 instead to strive only for unity of appearance. In other fields it is 

 taken for granted that laws are deduced only from material that is 

 exactly known; with the aestheticians, however, the opposite has 

 frequently been the case. We believe that here real furtherance of 

 knowledge can proceed only from those who are completely at home 

 in the field of art; as thus in our own time an important addition to 

 our aesthetic understanding is to be credited to a keen-thinking 

 sculptor (Adolf Hildebrand). We should be glad, if a wish is per- 

 mitted here, to hope, as a development for the future, that every 

 special science, and in especial the natural sciences, might as it were 

 steep themselves in philosophy, that is, might put their own philo- 

 sophical questions and seek to answer them themselves. In any 

 case, however, we hope that aesthetics, so far as it relates to fine 

 art, may consent to be matter of art-study; certainly, however, in 

 a quite different sense from that existing in Winckelmann's time. 



Supposing us to be now clear as to the position which classical 

 archaeology holds with reference to the other sciences, let us, before 

 bringing these reflections to an end, say a word on the characteristic 

 quality of this branch of knowledge and the method which it re- 

 quires. 



In the higher sense there can be but a single scientific method, 

 which is fixed by the general laws of thought; but the special charac- 

 ter of the various subject-matters of the individual sciences brings 

 about special variations of that one method. 



The primary principle of the study of ancient art is that the work 

 of fine art shall be treated and comprehended as what it is in itself. 

 This sounds like a complete truism, yet no requirement is wont to be 

 so often forgotten as this. To comprehend the real aesthetic nature 

 of a work of fine art, it is not enough to have philological, literary, 

 historical knowledge, taste and appreciation for poetry and other 

 arts, but there is needed also a special insight into the nature of fine 

 art and familiarity with the problems peculiar to that art. But this. 

 on the contrary, has evidently often been wanting, and not to petty 

 students but to talented scholars, since so much that is alien has been 

 read into the ancient works of art, and their true content and meaning 

 mistaken. Thus students have construed poetic thoughts into many a 

 Greek vase-drawing, which have a simply corrupting effect on appre- 

 ciation, instead of understanding them out of the aesthetic conditions 



