§ 23, 2k NATURAL OBJECTS COPIED. 209 



23. The early steps made by the Greeks were gradual and 

 judicious ; they borrowed much from the styles of older peo- 

 ple with whom they came in contact, and the same adoption 

 and adaptation of other notions (parce detorta) are seen to the 

 last in the various details borrowed from " the barbarian ;" 

 but which, by being made really beautiful, became their own. 

 They did not borrow in order to compose a new design, 

 but because what they selected suited it. This remark is 

 of course only applied to their ornamental art, not to their 

 sculpture of the human figure ; and though this last had in 

 early times a rude character, owing to their imperfect skill in 

 representing it, they gradually improved, and approached 

 nearer to truth, as they advanced. But neither at first, 

 nor after their taste had become formed, did they confine 

 themselves to conventional rules ; and even their architecture 

 was free from the trammels to which we have subjected it. 

 The proportions of a temple were not laid down according to 

 fixed measures, without reference to the position it was to oc- 

 cupy ; they consulted their eye rather than their compasses ; 

 and a column was not necessarily of the same number of 

 diameters, because it was of this or that particular order. 

 Hence it happened, that no two Greek temples, no two sets 

 of columns of the same order in different buildings, were of 

 the same proportion ; as no two temples were confined to the 

 same kind of site. The hill, and vale, temples differed. 



24. Among many mistakes made in modern Europe is the 

 custom of representing pictures on materials ill-suited for the 

 purpose : another is to make ornaments in decorative art 

 direct imitations of natural objects. Even certain materials 

 are suited to particular kinds of art ; and thus panel, canvas, 

 and the fresco wall are those most proper for paintings. In 

 all of these, near and distant objects and the various degrees 

 of distance can be represented with proper effect, by the dis- 

 tinction of colour as well as by the effect of aerial perspective. 



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