The Growth of Sculpture [pp. 420-432]

THE GROWTH OF SCULPTURE.
consciousness." I confess I find it hard to discover traces of moral consciousness in the Memnon or the winged bulls; but any child can see
that while Egyptian statues are stiff, unnatural,
symmetrical, and absolutely devoid of anatomical
detail, many Indian statues are free in position,
stand with arms and legs in natural and graceful
attitudes, show in their faces individuality or even
expression, and represent the limbs with anatomical correctness, only idealized into a somewhat
voluptuous smoothness and rotundity. Here,
again, we must suppose that a preconceived
transcendental idea has blinded the critic to obvious excellence of imitation.*
One word to prevent misapprehension. I do
not mean to say that such a rough test as that
here employed can be used to measure the respective value of the highest artistic work. It
can merely be employed to weigh nation against
nation. In our own days, when good imitation
is almost universal, when drawing, and perspective, and anatomy, are taught systematically to
all our artists, we necessarily judge of esthetic
products by higher and mainly emotional standards. Mr. Frith does not differ much from Mr.
Burne Jones, or M. Legros, or Sir Frederick
Leighton, in mere technical ability to represent
what he sees on a flat surface; but he differs
greatly in sentiment and feeling. What we admire in one modern work of art, as compared
with another, is its coloring, its composition, its
beauty of thought and expression, its power of
stirring the higher and finer chords of our emo
* In justice to Lfibke I should like to add that he differs totally from Sir A. H. Layard as to the Kouyunjik
sculptures, and agrees, on the whole, with my independently formed opinion. To show how greatly our doctors disagree on such points, I venture to transcribe the
whole of his remarks on this subject. "If the works at
Khorsabad," he says, "mark the transition from the strict
old style to one of greater freedom, the latter acquires its
full sway in the palace of Kujjundschik. It is true, even
here, that the extent of subject-matter, the idea and its intellectual importance, remain unchanged. The Assyrian
artists were compelled to restrict themselves, as their
forefathers had done for centuries, to the glorification of
the life and actions of their princes. But, while the ideas
were limited to the old narrow circle, the observation of
nature had increased so considerably in acuteness, extent,
and delicacy, the representations had gained such ease,
freshness, and variety, and the power of characterization
had become so enlarged by the study of individual life,
that an advance proclaims itself everywhere. At the
same time, the art had lost nothing of its earlier excellences, except, perhaps, the powerful, gloomy grandeur
of the principal figures; this was exchanged for the softer
but in no wise feeble grace of a more animated style, and
for the wealth of an imagination that had thrown aside
its fetters in various new ideas and pregnant subjects."
Here Lfibke's own transcendental canons do not mislead
him, and he therefore avoids the fanciful error into which
Layard's canons have led the great explorer.
tional nature. What we dislike is vulgarity of
subject or treatment, crude or discordant coloring, low or commonplace emotion, and all the
other outward signs of poverty in intellectual and
emotional endowment. These higher tests can
sometimes be applied even where the technique
is far from perfect, as among many mediaeval
Italian painters, whose drawing, especially of
animals, is often ludicrously incorrect, while they
nevertheless display a fine sense of coloring, deep
feeling, and profound power of expression. But
they can not be applied to Egyptian or Assyrian
handicraft, which thus falls short entirely of the
specific fine-art quality as understood by modem
aesthetic critics. The total absence of feeling
and expression reduces the art of Egypt and Assyria to the purely barbaric level. That of Hellas, on the contrary, rises to the first rank. The
origin of this remarkable difference forms the
subject of our present inquiry.
A cheap and easy mode of accounting for
such peculiarities, much in vogue among critics,
is to refer them to "the national character";
which is about as explanatory as to say that
opium puts one to sleep because it possesses a
soporific virtue. If we take a single individual,
the absurdity becomes obvious-no one would
account for the excellence of Shakespeare's plays
by saying that he possessed a play-writing character-but, when we talk of a whole nation, the
trick of language imposes upon everybody. The
real question, however, lurks behind all these
shallow subterfuges, and it is this: Why is the
national character artistic or inartistic, free or
slavish, individual or conventional, as the case
may be? The only possible answer lies in the
physical condition and antecedents of each particular people. To put the concrete instance,
Egyptian sculpture was what we know it to be,
first, because the people were Egyptians, that is
to say, Negroids; secondly, because they lived
in Egypt; and, thirdly, because they had no
stone to work in but granite or porphyry. Conversely, Hellenic sculpture was what we know it
to be, first, because the people were Hellenes,
that is to say, Aryans; secondly, because they
lived in Hellas; and, thirdly, because they worked
mainly in white and fine-grained Parian marble.
The first element, that of heredity, was the
one which poor dogmatic, puzzle-headed Buckle
so stoutly refused to take into consideration. But
it is undoubtedly one of prime importance, though
I can not here find room to lay much stress upon
it. Of course heredity itself is ultimately explicable by the previous physical circumstances of
each race; it means the persistent mental twist
given to a nation by the long habits of its ancestors in their dealings with nature and surrounding peoples, which latter factor must, in the last
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