TENTH LECTURE.

Continuation of the same subject—The study of the beautiful, the predominating principle of Greek Art-Expression subordinate to this principle— Examples drawn from the Niobe and from the Laocoön-Other examples drawn from the painting of Timanthes, representing the sacrifice of Iphigenia Application of these principles to some errors of modern taste or of Romanticism in Painting--Of the Destination of Works of Art among the Greeks, and of the condition of the Artists-Historical observations on the Monuments belonging to the Ancient Style which have come down to us.

BEAUTY considered as the sole aim, as the genuine essence of art, was, as we have said, favoured in every way among the Greeks, by their manners, their institutions, and their laws. It was in this sentiment raised to a degree of enthusiasm, which seems to us akin to extravagance; it was in this principle, carried out in all its consequences, that lay, in our opinion, the principal cause of the perfection to which this art was carried among the Greeks. Each of these two assertions deserve to be the subject of some particular observations here. I suppose that no one can entertain the slightest doubt with regard to the reality of the worship which the Greeks, in the flourishing period of their republics, paid to beauty. It would be, doubtless, more difficult to reconcile the idea of this worship with morality, than to render the accounts which have come down to us consistent with historic truth. It is certain that actions and persons, which appear to us as censurable, and justly so, changed, in the eyes of the Greeks, their nature and their character, when the merit of beauty was added in an eminent degree. Phryne, absolved from the penalty of death, which she had incurred, solely because she was beautiful, was no longer in the eyes of the law what she would be in ours, a simple courtesan, but the living model from whom Praxiteles had realised his perfect image of his Venus of Cnidos; and the statue in gold of this courtesan took its place at Delphi among the statues consecrated by public piety. These courtesans themselves, forming, in certain parts of Greece, a kind of priesthood; considered for that reason as sacred personages, Hierodula; called by Pindar the young and amiable priestesses

of Persuasion in the rich Corinth; celebrated by Simonides, as having contributed, by their devotion to Venus, to the safety of Greece, almost as much, if not entirely in the same way, as the heroes of Marathon, were indebted to their sole beauty, of which they were models, for their participating in almost the same worship of which they were ministers. This merit, therefore, was raised above every other consideration even with respect to the women, who generally led among the Greeks so strict and so retired a life, who, secluded in a separate part of the common habitation, almost as if in a domestic sanctuary, communicated but rarely with strangers, or with the guests of the family, and among whom, in fine, modesty and reserve constituted the first duty and the first virtue of the sex. But as beauty constituted, also, among them a merit superior to all others, opportunities suited to place this merit in view, means to have it prized, were countenanced and favoured even by the manners of the day, even though they were opposed to the manners of the day. Thus the sister of Cimon, the beautiful Elpinice, took a pride in being a model to Polygnotus, at the very time when Cimon, the head of the republic, triumphed over all the might of the great King; thus the people of Croton collected all the most beautiful girls before Zeuxis, in order that the artist commissioned to paint Helen might select among all these beauties those who should present all the elements of such a picture. These two examples which I have just mentioned will be sufficient to judge of the importance acquired, in the midst of a nation so keenly alive to beauty, by artists thus constituted the judges of this superior merit, by nen who awarded a prize to it, who immortalised its image, and who must, for all these reasons, have enjoyed more than any one the advantage of possessing continually its model before their eyes, and in their mind. The high value which the Greeks set upon physical advantages, the superiority they allowed to this kind of merit beyond all others, the extraordinary honours they bestowed on their victor athletes, are facts the principle of which I could not possibly pass over, nor in any way not adnit the results. Everything was done among the Greeks to pronote the production of beautiful men, doubtless because, according to them, it was an infallible means of producing generous citizens, but also because beauty had in their eyes a meri independent of this political result. An ancient Greek ode atributed to Simonides or to Epicharmus, containing four

wishes, of which Plato has preserved the first three, which were, to enjoy good health, to be born beautiful, and to possess riches honourably obtained; the fourth wish which Plato has passed over, was to be merry with one's friends. Thus every idea of the Greeks, fixed on physical qualities and enjoyment, tended to favour in every manner the highest possible development of both one and the other; whence it follows that art, the energetic and powerful means of rendering beauty appreciable, palpable, popular, must have acquired from a similar disposition of the minds of all, an extraordinary impulse, at the same time that it must have contributed powerfully to render this disposition more general, and to exalt it to a degree of enthusiasm. Hence, without doubt, the importance which the laws attached in Greece to the productions of the arts, the rules imposed by the Hellanodices on the artists relative to the statues of the victor athletes; the prohibition of mean subjects and ignoble figures, pronounced by the Theban law. We can with difficulty conceive how in free countries and under republican institutions, the legislature could thus interfere with the rules and practice of the arts; but it was because this very practice was linked with their dearest interests, with their most important necessities, that the solicitude of the magistrates extended even over the talents of the artists. A profession which exercised so powerful, so constant an influence on the character and on the constitution of the people, a profession to which a nation, naturally enthusiastic, was indebted for so many moral and physical impressions, could not be abandoned to the caprices and to the errors of individual taste. If, in principle, beautiful models produced beautiful statues, beautiful statues, in their turn, when Greece wɛs filled with them, produced constantly beautiful models. For the women of Sparta kept in their bed-chambers (thalami) statues of Nereus, Narcissus, Hyacinthus, of Castor and Pollux, that they might have beautiful children; a more effectual means, without doubt, and above all milder, than the barbaroɔus custom of sacrificing ill-shaped children. Thus the celebrated dreams of the mothers of Aristomenes, Aristodamas, Alexander the Great, of Scipio, Augustus, dreams in which a serpent constantly appears, the customary symbol of the divinity, have been explained by Lessing in a manner as learned as it is ingenious, by the means of this never-ceasing contemplation, this constant pre-occupation in which the Greek women ived,

their eyes ever fixed on those models of divine beauty reproduced in every place, and under every form. Those images of Bacchus, Apollo, Mercury, Hercules, whose image, after having occupied their attention during the day, pursued them still in their sleep. It was, moreover, the same principle which made Aristotle make it a rule to remove from the eyes of young men every ignoble image. In a word, it was a maxim of policy and of philosophy among the Greeks, to present to the eyes nothing but models of the beautiful, to impress its type strongly on the imagination, to favour its reproduction in every possible manner, and it was under the influence of these ideas that Greek art received its definite form, and its immutable direction.

From this supreme law of beauty imposed on art, as the condition which prevailed over all others, are derived, in fact all the properties of that art, as we see them produced, in proportion as the art itself became more perfect. Thus all the other qualities which art can and ought to add to those of beauty, character, disposition, expression, costume, remain always subordinate to this principle. Nudity becomes almost the general costume, because it is the condition the most favourable to the development of beautiful forms. Old age is indicated by white hairs, or by some ascessories, and never by an exaggerated expression of wrinkles and mean details. Hideous passions which disfigure the countenance; violent motions which mar and break the beautiful lines of the body, hateful personages which cannot be produced without a physiognomy adapted to their character, are entirely banished from the domain of art; and when it was necessary that these personages should be represented, they are produced with a symbol fitted to make them recognised, but never with forms or features of hideousness. Thus the furies, armed with serpents, which pursue and avenge crime. Thus Medusa, her head encircled with serpents; thus all those monsters, and beings of a double nature, which I have spoken of elsewhere, are always produced with a character of beauty which is suited to them, and never with hideous features, and under repulsive forms.* The only god in the mythology who was ill-shaped, Vulcan, lame, as is well known,

* Lionardo da Vinci seems to have worked upon the same grand principle of art in his Medusa, whose beauty strikes even more than the horror, "which turns the gazer's spirit into-stone."-Note of the Translator.

in consequence of his fall from heaven, was never represented as such in the works of art. At a period in which this legend was generally received, Alcamenes, though obliged to follow it, but obliged still more to respect the principles of his art, avoided that difficulty, by covering his statue with a long mantle. He thus made Vulcan draped by a slight mistake with regard to costume, rather than represent him ill-shaped, in which he would have sinned against the very nature of art, and ever since, art succeeded in emancipating itself, from any lingering scruples, for in none of the statues, draped or not draped, which have come down to us of Vulcan, can it be remarked that he was lame. I cannot help making a remark here on a singular mistake made by an antiquary, very learned indeed and much esteemed-the celebrated Zoega-who thought that he discovered in the beautiful statue, long known under the name of the Belvedere Antinous, an Edipus, because the ankles of this statue were somewhat ill-shaped, and who considered this defect as a means employed by the artist to designate Edipus who had been exposed in his infancy on the Citharon and hung up by his foot to a tree, while this was merely the result of a bungling restoration; and further, this statue is at the present day unanimously recognised to be a Mercury, the lightest, the most active, and the least lame of the gods. But it was chiefly in what concerns expression that the principle of Greek art, essentially linked with the sentiment of beauty, is unfolded to our eyes in the least equivocal manner. Every expression which by its nature, or by its excess could mar the beauty, either of the features of the countenance, or of the forms of the body, was softened to that exact and precise point, which rendered the first appreciable, without in any way injuring the latter. Never do anger, rage, fury, despair, carried to that degree which disfigures the human countenance, profane the beautiful productions of art; although the most violent passions, the most pathetic subjects, are frequently exhibited in the works of art.

Let us take as examples, two of the most wonderful monuments which have come down to us of ancient art, and which represent, one, the anguish of the soul, the other, the torments of the body, carried to the highest degree of intensity possible: the Niobe and the Laocoon; all that the heart of a mother who beholds her entire family perish before her eyes, who in vain holds her mantle as a last shelter to the last of her