16 GREEK AND CHINESE ART IDEALS 



linking of literature with painting may be regarded as 

 Hellenistic. The 'Nothing in excess' motto of the ancient 

 Delphic temple, and the harmony and balance of the Greeks, 

 show the same general outlook as is developed in the third 

 of the books of the Confucian classics — the Doctrine of the 

 Mean. The Greeks regarded bravery, for example, as the 

 mean between rashness and cowardice. Harmony was the 

 essence of Greek civilization and based on rhythmic vitality. 

 Greek art reached the sublime through symmetry and 

 balance without elaboration of detail. The Greeks crystal- 

 lised the ideal in the representations of their mythological 

 figures. The absence of mystery connected with their 

 anthropomorphic pantheon, each deity having his allotted 

 function, attributes and shape, on the one hand was in 

 marked contrast with the somewhat flabby sentimentality of ' 

 Buddhism, but on the other, never reached the intellectual 

 standard of the essentially correct ethical teaching of 

 Confucius. 



The Greek view is happily illustrated in the following 

 passage from Plato (Republic, III, 401, Jowett's translation) 

 'Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the 

 true nature of the beautiful and graceful : thus will our youth 

 dwell in a land of health and fair sights and sounds, and 

 receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of 

 fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health 

 giving breeze from a fairer region, and insensibly draw the 

 soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the 

 beauty of reason. ' 



The Greek idea in art was lavished with sublime self 

 approbation on man as the highest creation of nature, the 

 remainder of the natural world being subsidiary. There is 

 no record of an art of landscape among them. Landscape 

 was evolved quite late in the history of European art, and 

 may be regarded as its highest development. By contrast 

 it is all the more remarkable to note how early the art of 

 landscape appeared in China. The warrior or athlete, strong 

 and beautiful, is the ideal of Greece. In China, the warrior 

 has generally been despised and the athlete is seldom 

 depicted. The Chinese ideal is the scholar contemplating 

 the beauty of the mountains. Their mountain philosophy 

 has a quite important bearing on the art of China. In Greek 

 poetry, nature is described as incidental to human action. 

 The choral odes in Greek drama supply the reference to 

 natural environment merely as an accessory to the main 

 theme, which concerns alone the heroic variations of man as 

 the glory of creation. Sculpture is the finest manifestation 

 of Greek art, the representation of the human figure, actual 



