SCULPTURE. 29 
them the creative faculty has freer scope for action and development. We 
will bestow on both classes a more particular consideration. 
A. Mythological Subjects. 
Before art properly so called existed among the Greeks, the poetical 
genius of that people had already called into being a vast treasure of 
myths; and these formed as it were the fruitful soil from which a rich 
and luxuriant growth of flowers of art must necessarily spring. The mystic 
nature of religion, though which the Divine Being, as something entirely 
different from humanity, admits only of indication and never of personifica- 
tion, had been thrust by poetry into the background ; and when the plastic 
art sought to represent the gods, it found in them only idealized human 
beings elevated to the highest point of perfection. Although even this was 
quite impossible without an entirely peculiar conception, without inspiration, 
without an act of genius on the part of the artist, still there prevailed 
throughout the nation a general idea of each deity, that served as a test of 
the representation. If this idea was satisfied by the character of the artist’s 
production, there was constituted at once a normal figure or type of the god, 
which was adopted and followed, though not with slavish literalness, by 
succeeding artists. AJ] this is exhibited most completely in those deities 
which possess the most individual character ; 7. e. whose whole being cannot 
be reduced to a fundamental idea. These are the twelve Olympic gods, 
Zeus with his children and brothers and sisters. 
1. Tat Twetve Gops or Otympus. a. Zeus. Zeus, the Jupiter of the 
Romans, was the father of all life in nature. Old descriptions make him to 
be the god who rules in heaven, upon the earth, and under the earth; but 
the conception of him embodied by artists is that of the gracious and mighty 
ruler of gods and men. This union of his qualities was adopted already by 
Phidias. To it belonged the arrangement of the hair rising high over the 
centre of the forehead and falling back like a mane on both sides, the fore- 
head clear and open above and vaulted beneath, the deep sunk but wide 
open and round eyes, the fine and mild contour of the upper lip and cheeks, 
the full flowing and curly beard, the broad deep chest, and the powerful 
muscular development. The most important statue of the kind still exist- 
ing, although by no means a work of the first class, is the Verospz Jupiter 
in the Museo Pio Clementino. Later artists occasionally deviate from this 
type, some of them giving to Jupiter a more youthful form with less beard, 
while others, giving to his youth an expression of anger though moderated 
and of martial vehemence, represent him as an avenging, punishing 
deity. 
b. Hera. The female counterpart of Zeus was Hera, the Juno of the 
Romans. Her union with him, which is the source of nature’s blessings, 
constitutes her essence, and at the same time makes her the goddess of 
marriage. As a lawful wife and powerful goddess she has attributed to her 
a proud and imperious character, which artists, however, knew how to 
soften. From very ancient times her principal attribute was the veil, and 
in the oldest statues it envelopes her completely. The colossal statue by 
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