middle-relief between high and low, and sometimes figures are merely outlined by a groove. Relief and background are usually of the same material, but may properly be diverse.

The beauty of sculpture may be analyzed as follows: Though the mass of sculpture matters less than its form, the heroic size befits the grand subject, and pieces destined to elevated or remote location must be enlarged to corre

Niobe.

spond, and at the same time changed in the proportions of their parts and trimmed of details. Since sculpture has the third dimension of thickness, it may be enjoyed by touch as well as by sight, precisely as acquaintances are recognizable by a blind person, and finely modeled statuary has been so appreciated in privileged cases. This solidity also renders possible an endless variety of aspects, according as the observer changes standpoint. The surfaces of the animal or human body-which commonly form the objects of sculpture are exquisitely rounded in every direction, and the outlines which become visible when we look at these surfaces against a background are mostly curves of consummate beauty, combining lines nearly straight with others of greatest flexion; and the Philistine needs to learn that those on foot or nates are in no wise inferior to those on shoulder or head. These curved surfaces, moreover, can be expressive of underlying substances as varied as bone, sinew, muscle, flesh and veins; and when they are so, the surface is said to be sensitive, but when they are not, then puffy or monotonous. Contrast is secured by means of massively rounded forms, as of the nude, against the sharp folds of drapery and crisp locks or wavy tresses. Unity among this variety is secured by dominant lines, as in the Discobolos of Myron, where an approximate semi-circle may be traced from the discus, along the right arm, across the shoulders, down the left arm and left leg, to the left foot; while the bowed trunk and bended right leg show a zigzag quite as plainly.

The effect of the single color in bronze and of the absence of color from marble and plaster

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is to concentrate attention on the form and line of sculpture, which on that account is enjoyed by certain temperaments more than is painting, and can be utilized by all as special opportunity for a revel in line. But the injury both given and received by a large patch of white among the colored objects of a picture gallery or parlor is undeniable, and should be remedied by investment of the marble statue or relief with some warm tint, as was apparently the practice of the Greeks at all periods. Failing such remedy, the distraction of the gleaming and ghostly marble should be precluded by assigning to it a separate recess or room. But in general the tinting is preferable, since sculpture can then be admitted to the company of flat walls and pictures which its projection will greatly relieve, while they also aid it. Statues and reliefs never appear to such disadvantage as when jostling each other in a store or museum, where numbers satiate, rivalry discounts and nothing serves as a foil.

The element of light-and-shade becomes important in that mainly through it form is revealed to the eye. This in turn requires that the sculpture should be modified to suit the lighting available, namely, as it comes from either side, from the front, or from above; while of course it should never come from the back, though statuettes placed in windows cause that very effect. A brilliant play of such lightand-shade is the only peer to beauty of line in sculpture; and is often referred to by sculptors under the misnomer "color," as if to make amends thereby for the absence of color from modern sculpture.

As in all other arts, worthy meaning or significance should be wedded to the beauty of

Papirius and Mother.

sculpture; but here the case has peculiar strength. Since sculpture is solid, it must fully express or exhibit the form of whatever it shows, whereas painting can merely suggest an object, which is indifferent or repulsive in itself, and throw around it the glamour of light or color. Sculpture is, therefore, limited to such subjects as are capable of exciting interest

by their forms taken separately, although it must not be forgotten that form is explained to the eye by delicate gradations of shade, the surfaces seeming tinted in this way as they receive light more or less directly. The nobler animals, and especially man in the typical activities that become him, form the subjects of the separate or independent sculpture most in fashion in the 19th and 20th centuries. Sculpture of such character as this is necessarily the highest in rank. This characteristic of sculp

The Dying Gaul.

ture reaches its maximum in the undraped human figure, which must, therefore, belong_to the noblest type both physical and mental, that is, in both beauty and significance; but when it so does, proves a very gospel of art in the uplift to finer sense and sentiment which it elicits from the normally minded observer. Sculpture is also the noblest of the decorative arts as well as that the most constant in use in all ages. Architectural sculpture occupies itself largely with vegetal forms, mingling with them animal and human forms freely treated;

ered within and without with scenes from the victories and consequent offerings to the god made by a king. The workmanship on some of the hardest stones known was superb and achieved only with immense toil, to lessen which the statue was generalized as much as possible, though at the same time made to express the salient traits of the subject. The ushabti, on the other hand, called for a realistic portrait, and this was achieved in the softer material with great skill. All of the reliefs and most of the statues received a decorative coloring. Curious conventions gave part of a figure in profile, but part full face; and principal objects, like gods and kings, were represented larger than their fellows.

Chaldæan sculpture showed great technical skill as early as the fourth millennium B.C. The tomb had little importance, since the corpse was burned, but temples sheltered idols in stone, and palaces contained demoniac images, royal statues and historical stela. Stone was used for the larger pieces, terra-cotta for the smaller. The Assyrians adapted Chaldæan art traditions, but gave chief attention to the palace where reliefs depict a king in war or the chase. The style excels in vigor and movement especially in the representation of animals, but lacks variety and ignores the life of woman. The art of Egypt and Assyria was carried by the Phoenicians both eastward and westward, and proved of special moment in the development of the Greeks.

The wide distribution of the Greeks in Europe, Asia and Africa combined with their tribal distinctions to favor a healthy rivalry in the arts. The largest and chief classes of sculpture consisted of, first, free statues, some of

and finds its highest reach in the nobly designed human form with its drapery, as in the Caryatid porch of the Erechtheum and the portals of Rheims cathedral.

Egyptian sculpture, whose first monuments date from the fifth millennium B.C., forms, with that of Chaldea-Assyria, the two tap-roots for subsequent tradition in Europe. Tomb and temple are responsible for the great mass of Egyptian sculptures. Religious belief held that survival of the ka or spirit after death depended upon preservation of the body (as a mummy), or failing that, upon provision of a ushabti or sculptured portrait. Scenes from the past and future life of the deceased were also sculptured upon the wall of his tomb. Temples were cov

which were representations of divinities, others votive offerings, portraits set up at tombs and the like; and secondly, temple reliefs, but there also appear civic monuments and others celebrating the life of a sovereign or statesman. Terra-cotta figurines with mythological and sometimes grotesque subjects, were fashioned for the home, and stela (sculptured slabs) to mark the resting place of the departed. Statuary of rough material or crude execution was colored generally, as where the terra-cotta statuettes have their garments colored throughout, but finer works received intense color to express or emphasize details, as the border or pattern of a cloak, while a tint was spread over the whole. Gold, silver and bronze were both

hammered and cast into statues, which were then variously inlaid and provided with realistic eyes. Wood was carved and then painted or else covered with metal plates; and wooden figures made to be covered with drapery were fitted with heads and hands of finer material. Terra-cotta, which ranked with wood as the earliest material used for sculpture and largely in architectural accessories, was also painted in

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marble statue in the Vatican, which is assumed to be a copy of the lost original, shows the same qualities, in contrast to the Polykleitan canon. Scopas is said to have excelled in expression of spirited action whether as boar hunt or bacchante. The Aphrodite of Melos, in the Louvre, free equally from shame and coquetry, and uniting superb form with facial expression, belongs to this or a century later. The 3d and 2d centuries saw the diffusion of Greek art over the known world, and the various modifications consequent upon it. The friezes on the altar of Zeus at Pergamon exhibited originality of design and vigorous action; and akin to them are such statues as the Apollo Belvedere, the Diana of Versailles and the torso of the Belvedere. The group known as the Laokoön belongs to the same general type and period, the ripe autumn of Greek art, but not in any sense a degeneration.

The Romans as a race were deficient in plastic sense. Sculpture appealed chiefly to their personal ambition as portraiture, which under the early empire reached a realistic perfection never before attained Relief was the next most

part or whole. In all Greek sculpture, therefore, the finished work was polychromatic.

B.C.

Crude statuettes remain from a Greek prehistoric stone age, 2500-1500 B.C., and stone reliefs from the Mycenæan bronze age, 1500-1000 Incursions of Hellenic tribes from Thessaly led to transition and progress, until by the 6th century sculpture in marble and bronze had become a national art, of which there were two types. The Ionic preferred rounded forms, slender proportions, light draperies revealing the figure; and organic groups. It quickly developed the draped female figure. The Doric type shows sturdy, muscular forms, heavy draperies and figures merely juxtaposed. It developed the nude male figure. But Athens drew sculptors from both sources, and thus combined grace and force to form a third school, the Attic. The 5th century witnessed achievement of a mastery that allows interest in prior work elsewhere only in so far as it contributed to this, and that has remained until this present time a source of perennial delight and instruction. We are told that Polykleitos brought his athlete carrying a spear, the Doryphoros, to such perfection as to furnish a canon or standard for all such subjects. Myron showed fine naturalism in his Discobolos, and the artists who worked under the direction of Phidias combined figures of unsurpassed dignity and beauty into coherent compositions, such as those on the pediments, metopes and friezes of the Parthenon. The 4th century saw a movement toward slender proportions and graceful line, especially with Praxiteles, as in his Hermes and the Aphrodite of Knidos. The Apoxyomenos of Lysippos, probably well represented by the

Michael and Satan-Flaxman.

practised branch of sculpture, and reached great excellence as decorative art and as commemorative representation, in such monuments as arches and columns, especially those of Trajan. Roman taste for imaginative sculpture depended almost entirely upon Greek sculptors resident in Rome and upon Greek masterpieces, which were transported thither in great numbers from the entire Greek world. Finally, sculpture de