Chapter II: The Ideal of Sculpture (2)

The upright position is, however, not yet merely as such beautiful; it is only so by virtue of the freedom of its form. In other words if a man stands up only straight in an abstract way, letting his hands fall glued to his side with no interval of separation, his legs in the same way being close to each other, we receive an untoward expression of stiffness, even although in the first instance this is due to no compulsion. From this stiff effect we deduce on the one hand the abstract and likewise architectonic principle of uniformity, under which the limbs adhere together in the like position, and on the other hand we do not discover in it any determination derived from what is spiritual and the ideal principle. In such a case arms, legs, breast, body, all the members stand and hang just as though they had from the first grown there on man, without being brought by means of his spirit, his volition and emotions into a change of position. The same thing may be said of the sitting posture. Conversely also the squatting or perching on the ground is destitute of freedom for the reason that it suggests an attitude of subordination, dependence, and serfdom. The free position, on the contrary, avoids in a measure this abstract uniformity and angularity, and places the position under lines which approximate to the organic form; and to a further extent it suffers spiritual relations to shine through, so that by virtue of such a position the conditions and passions of the soul are cognizable. Only in this manner can the position pass as a genuine exhibition of Spirit.

In the application of positions as significant pose[166], it is necessary, however, that sculpture proceed with great circumspection, and it has thereby many a difficulty to overcome. On the one hand, no doubt, the reciprocal relation of the members is to be derived from the ideal principle of Spirit; on the other hand, however, this determination from the ideal side ought not to place the particular parts under a mode which contradicts the corporeal structure and the laws of the same, and thereby produce the impression of a constraint imposed on the members, or come into collision with the material of substance, in which sculpture is set the task to execute the artist's conceptions. And, in the third place, the pose must appear wholly spontaneous, as though the body received it of its own initiative, otherwise body and spirit have the appearance of being distinct and separable from each other, and are involved in the relative position of mere direction from one side and purely abstract obedience from the other, whereas both in sculpture ought rightly to constitute one and the same immediately congruent totality. This absence of constraint is here of the first importance. Spirit, as the ideal principle, must throughout transfuse the members, and these latter must in like degree essentially accept spirit and its determination as to the content of its own soul. As to the pose itself and its character, which we may empower to express the just attitude in ideal sculpture, we can readily infer from our previous exposition that it ought not be one wholly referable to change or instantaneous action. The representation of sculpture must produce no effect such as is seen in the case where men, while in the art of motion and action, were turned to stone or frozen by means of Hüon's horn. On the contrary, it is necessary that the posture, although it may without question point to some characteristic action, express for all that merely a beginning and preparation, an intention, or it must indicate the close of an action and a return from the same to the state of repose. The repose and self-subsistency of a spiritual life, which potentially encloses in itself an entire world, is the most suitable aspect for the ideal form of sculpture.

(_β_) And, in the _second_ place, what we have observed of posture is equally applicable to _motion._ There is in sculpture as such less room for motion in the full sense of the term than other arts[167], just in so far as the same does not as yet advance to the mode of presentation which is more nearly related to an art whose sphere of effect is more extensive. The tranquil image of the god in his blessed self-seclusion is the presentment which it is its task mainly to set before us in all its essential freedom from conflict. A variety of movement is necessarily excluded from such. What we ought to have is rather a stansion or reclining posture of essential self-absorption[168]. This attitude of self wholly referable to self it is which does not proceed to a definite action, and by doing so does not contract its entire energy to the space of a single moment, making such of first importance, but rather persists in the continued equilibrium of tranquillity. We ought to be able to imagine that the figure of the gods will remain for ever in the same posture. The escape from self-subsistency, the plunging of individual life within the vortex of a particular action that implies conflict, the strain of the moment, which is unable to continue as such--such relations are foreign to the ideality of sculpture. We cross them rather where, in the case of groups and reliefs, the particular moments of an action are presented with a distinct inclination to the principle of painting. A result brought about by powerful effects, and their passing exhibition, no doubt exercises upon us an immediate impression; but after once having received it we do not readily return to it. For that which is so prominent in the presentation is the affair of a moment's passage, which we both observe and recognize in that moment, whereas the ideal fulness and freedom, what is infinite in its significance, in other words that which holds our attention permanently, is relegated to the background.

(_γ_) In asserting this, however, we do not maintain that sculpture, where, in the case where it adheres to its principle in all its severity and attains its highest point, must necessarily exclude entirely the attitude of movement. If it did so it would merely present to us the divine in its indeterminacy and indifference. On the contrary, in so far as it is its function to comprehend the substantive as individuality, and to present it to our vision in bodily form, both the ideal and external condition, in accordance with which it brings its content and form to an impression, is necessarily individual. And it is this individuality of a definite situation which is pre-eminently expressed by means of the pose and movement of the body. Inasmuch as, however, the substantive in sculpture is of most importance, and individuality is not as yet itself extricated from the same to the point of particular self-subsistency, the specific determinacy of the situation must not be of a kind that it impairs or annuls the simple sterling character[169] of that substantiveness, by either making it one-sided or drawing it into the conflict of collisions, or in a general way by placing it without reserve under the overmastering importance and variety of what is particular. It must rather remain, independently regarded, a determinacy less essential in its result, or rather we may say a vivacious play of vital force, harmless in effect over the superficial features of individuality, whose substantive character in no respect suffers loss thereby in depth, subsistency, and repose. This is, however, a point which I have at an earlier stage of this investigation already[170] discussed at length in relation to the Ideal of sculpture when the situation itself was under review, in which the Ideal ought to appear in definite relation to the presentation: further discussion may here be consequently dispensed with.

(_c_) The last point of importance we have now to consider is the question of _drapery_ in sculpture. At first sight it may appear as though the nude form and its corporeal beauty permeated by spiritual significance, in the manner of its pose and movement, were the most appropriate form for the Ideal of sculpture, and drapery were simply a hindrance. In accordance with such a view we hear the complaint raised, more particularly in our own time, that modern sculpture is so frequently forced to drape its figures, whereas no drapery should touch the beauty of human organic forms. And we have finally the wail added that our artists should have so little opportunity of studying the nude which was ever before the eyes of the ancients. In general we may simply reply to this that though without question, from the point of view of sensuous beauty, the preference must be given to the nude form, yet merely sensuous beauty is not the ultimate aim of sculpture, so that the Greeks do not give the lead to a false path when they presented the larger number of their male figures no doubt in the nude, but by far the greater number of female figures draped.

(_α_) And generally we may add that, apart from artistic purpose, drapery is justified in real measure in the necessity of providing a protection from climatic changes, Nature having failed to provide man with any covering of hide, feathers, hair, such as animals possess. And from another point of view it is the sense of modesty which compels man to cover himself with raiment. Now this shame, regarded in a general way, is a beginning of indignation over that which is coarse or crude. Man in fact, who is conscious of his more elevated calling to be Spirit, must necessarily regard what is purely animal as an incompatibility with that, and pre-eminently seek to cover, as that which is not consonant with the Ideal of his soul[171], those parts of his body, such as the belly, breast, back, and legs, which are subservient to animal functions, or only are directed to external uses, and possess directly no spiritual determinacy, and no spiritual expression. We therefore find among every people, who have entered upon the life of reflection, this sense of shame and the necessity of clothing in some degree, whether great or small. As far back as the narrative of Genesis we have this transition expressed in the shrewdest way. Before Adam and Eve have eaten of the tree of knowledge they walk in Paradise in the nakedness of innocence; but no sooner is their consciousness as spiritual beings[172] aroused than they are ashamed of their nakedness. The same sense is prevalent among all other Asiatic nations. So, for example, Herodotus asserts in narrating[173] how Gyges came to the throne, that it was regarded even in a man as a matter of shame among the Lydians, and almost all barbarians, to be seen naked; and as a proof of this we have the tale of the wife of Candaules, king of the Lydians. The tale runs that Candaules exposed his wife in nudity to the gaze of Gyges, his satellite and favourite, in order to convince him that her beauty as a woman was beyond compare. She, however, discovered the outrage, which it was intended to conceal from her, by chance seeing Gyges, who had been hidden in her sleeping chamber, slip out of the door. Indignant at the outrage, she received Gyges in audience the following day, and declared to him that, inasmuch as the king had taken this step and permitted Gyges to see what he ought not to have seen, he might select one of two courses, either kill the king as his punishment, and possess himself both of her and the kingdom, or himself die. Gyges selected the first alternative, and after assassinating the king mounted the throne and married the widow. On the other hand the Egyptians represented frequently, or, indeed, for the most part, their statues in the nude to the extent that the male figures merely carried an apron; and in the case of Isis the drapery was indicated by nothing more than a barely perceptible fringe round the legs. This, however, was neither due to a defective sense of shame, nor in virtue of their instinct for the beauty of organic forms. For if we consider their symbolic point of view we can only maintain that what concerned them was not the configuration of a presentment consonant with a spiritual significance, but rather the meaning, the essence and conception of that which the form was intended to present to intelligence; and they permitted the human form to be thus, without reflection upon the further and more remote adequacy of the same to Spirit, in its natural state, which they moreover copied with great closeness to life.

(_β_) Finally, among the Greeks, we meet with both aspects, both nude and draped figures. And in actual life also they were equally clothed, albeit from other considerations they held it a point of honour to have first contested in the games nude. To an exceptional degree the Lacedaemonians were the first to wrestle naked. But this was with them not due so much to a sense of beauty as to their general indifference to what savoured of refinement and spiritual purport in the sense of modesty. In the national character of the Greek people, among whom the feeling for personal individuality in all its immediacy, and as it is the spiritual animation of their existence, is so strongly developed, taking this as the instinct for free and beautiful forms, it was also inevitable that what was human in its immediacy, the bodily presence, that is, as it belongs to man and is suffused with his spirit, should be elaborated in independent form, and that the human form should be revered above all others for the reason that it is the freest and the most beautiful. In this sense, no doubt, they threw aside that instinct of shame, which will not suffer us to look at what is purely corporeal in' man, not out of indifference to what was spiritual, but with an indifference to what is purely sensuous in desire, for the sake of beauty; and this intention is manifest in full play throughout a great number of their nude figures.

This entire absence of drapery, however, it was impossible wholly to justify on principle. For, as I have already indicated when distinguishing the head from other parts of the body, it is undeniable that the spiritual expression of the form is restricted to the face and the pose and movement of the whole, to the general mien, which is preeminently eloquent by virtue of the arms, hands, and position of the legs. For these organs, whose activity is in an outward direction, have still, and precisely by the nature of their pose and movement, for the most part the expression of a spiritual deliverance. The other members of the body, on the contrary, are and remain solely productive of a sensuous beauty; and the distinguishing features which are visible on them can only be bodily vigour, development of muscle, or degrees of delicacy and softness, such as characterize respectively the two sexes, age, youth, and childhood. As a means, therefore, of expressing what is spiritual in the form, the nudity of these parts is also from the standpoint of beauty indifferent; and it is only due to our moral sense, when, that is to say, the main thing looked for is the paramount presentation of the spiritual in man, that such parts should be veiled. What in general ideal art does in the case of every separate part of the body is to remove the necessary limitations of animal life in its detailed particularities, such as little veins, wrinkles, hairs of the skin, and so forth, and simply to enforce and emphasize the spiritual impression of the form in its vital outlines, and this is precisely what drapery effects. It covers up the superfluity of the organs, which are no doubt necessary for the body's self-support, but are in other respects superfluous as an expression of the spirit's import. We are, therefore, not entitled to assert without condition that the nudity of figures of sculpture in every respect betrays a higher sense of beauty, and a greater ethical freedom and emaculacy. It was in this respect, as in others, that a just and spiritual instinct dominated the Greek.

Children, Cupid for example, where we find the bodily presentment one of unreserved innocence, and the spiritual beauty consisting just in this; or, to take other examples, youths, youthful gods, heroic gods, and heroes, such as Perseus, Hercules, Theseus, Jason, in which cases heroic courage, and the use and elaboration of the bodily frame in works of bodily strength and permanence is of most importance; or wrestlers in the national games, where it is not so much the content of the action, the spirit and individuality of character, as the physical aspect of the exploit, the vigour, suppleness, and free play of the muscles and limbs, which is the source of exclusive interest; or finally fauns and satyrs, Bacchantes in the frenzy of the dance, no less than Aphrodite, in so far as the sensuous charm of her beauty is emphasized--such are the kind of examples which were rendered in the nude by antique sculpture. Where, on the contrary, a more lofty significance and reflection, a more ideal earnestness is made prominent, where in general the natural features are not superlatively emphasized, there we get drapery. So Winckelmann adduces a case where among ten statues of the female form only one is wholly undraped. Among the goddesses Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Diana, Ceres and the Muses are pre-eminently those which are veiled in drapery, while among the gods such a treatment particularly applies to Jupiter, and the bearded Indian Bacchus, with some others.

(_γ_) And finally with regard to the principle of drapery, it is unquestionable that we have here a subject that critics are very fond of discussing, and which has consequently to some extent been already well thrashed out. I will, therefore, limit myself to the few following remarks.

Generally we have no reason to lament the fact that our modern feeling of what is respectable is somewhat averse to setting up totally nude figures. For if the drapery merely permits the pose in question to be entirely transpicuous instead of covering it up, we lose nothing at all; rather the drapery is just that which rightly fixes the emphasis, and is in this respect even an advantage, in so far as it draws us aside from the direct view of that which as merely sensuous is without true significance, and simply shows us what is there in relation to the situation expressed by means of pose and movement.

(_αα_) Once accept this principle, and it may at first sight appear that such covering is of most signal advantage for the artistic treatment, which conceals the contour of the limbs, and consequently also the pose as little as possible, precisely in fact as this is the case with our sufficiently enclosing _modern_ garments. Our closely fitting sleeves and trousers follow the outlines of the form, and stand in the way of the motion and mien least of all by their making the entire form of the limbs visible. The long white garments and bulging-out hoses of the Orientals, on the contrary, are intolerable to our sense of vivacity and multifarious activities, and are only fitting for folk who, like the Turks, sit the whole day long in one place with legs crossed, or only perambulate slowly and with great gravity. And yet we are conscious at the same time--indeed the very first glance at either modern statues or pictures will establish the truth for us--that our modern clothing is entirely unartistic. In other words what we behold in it really is, as I have already in another passage, insisted, not the fine, free, and vital outlines of the body in their tender and flowing elaboration, but stretched out sacks with stiff folds. For albeit we do obtain the most generalized form, yet the beauty of the organic undulations is lost; and what we really look at is a contrivance of exterior aim, a matter of tailor's work, which in one place is stitched together, in another folded back over, and yet in another made tightly fitting--in other words, as a whole, forms that are not free, folds and surfaces which are fastened together by stitch, buttons and button holes. To all intents and purposes such a clothing as this is simply a cover and veil, which, while devoid of any real form of its own, yet in its other aspect, though in a general sort of way following the organic contour of limbs, hides from the view just that sensuous beauty and vital rondour and undulation which belongs to them, merely to replace it with the material aspect of the mechanically elaborated stuff of which it is composed. And thus we get what is so entirely inartistic in our modern form of garments.

(_ββ_) The principle for an artistic type of clothing, then, consists in this that it is at the same time treated as a work of architectonic design. Such a work is simply an environment, in which a man can likewise move in freedom, and which must essentially possess and declare on its part a determinate shape of its own as its mode of covering quite apart from the form which it encloses. Add to this such a work, in its aspect of a thing which is worn and carried, must freely follow its own mechanical texture. A principle of this type follows in the track of the kind of draping which we find adopted in the ideal sculpture of the ancients. Particularly here do we find that the mantle is as it were a house in which free motion is possible. It is no doubt carried, but is only made fast at one point, namely, on the shoulder. For the rest it evolves its particular form according to the modifications brought about by its own weight; it hangs, falls along the ground, and casts folds spontaneously, and only receives through the pose the varied changes of this free kind of configuration. In like manner there is little to impair essentially, if in varied degree, the freedom of disposition in other parts of antique drapery. This it is which constitutes its artistic quality. It is only in drapery such as this that we do not face something which is a burden, and something artificial, whose shape merely displays an external constraint and necessity, which is rather something itself independent in its form, and which, however, accepts from a spiritual source, that is the pose of the figure, its point of departure. For this reason the garments of the ancients are only fastened to the body so far as is actually unavoidable, that is, to prevent their collapse, and are modified by the pose of it. In all other respects they hang freely about it, and themselves in their power of movement through the motion of the body give yet further support to the same principle. And this is wholly as it should be; for the body is one thing and its drapery another, and the latter ought thereby to receive its full due and be displayed in its freedom. Modern clothing on the contrary is either wholly carried by the body and purely in subjection to it, so that even the pose itself is too emphatically repeated, and it merely follows the forms of the limbs, or, in cases where it is able to secure an independent form in the formation of folds, it is after all merely the tailor's work who makes this form according to the exigences of fashion. The material is, on the one hand, dragged up and down by the various parts of the body and their movements, and, on the other, by its stitches and seams. On grounds of this description the antique form of drapery is by a long way to be preferred to our modern style as the ideal standard for works of sculpture. No end has been written with every resource of antiquarian research over the form and details of the ancient ways of draping, for although men as a rule do not permit themselves to chatter much over fashion in their clothes, the kind of cloth, border, cut, and every other such detail, yet they find ample justification from the antiquarian standpoint for treating these trifling matters also as important, and of talking about them with even greater prolixity than is permitted to woman herself in her unchallenged field of supremacy.

(_γγ_) It is, however, a totally different problem we have to consider when the question is asked whether modern clothing, that is, the kind so greatly to be contrasted with the antique, is in all cases to be rejected. This question is of particular importance when we examine the case of portrait statues; and inasmuch as its main interest closely touches a principle of importance to art as we have it now, we will consider it at rather greater length. When nowadays we have to create a portrait of some contemporary it becomes necessarily a part of it that the drapery and the environment are both accepted from the actual facts of their individual existence, for, inasmuch as it is just this actual person which is here made the object of art, this external framework, to which the clothing essentially belongs, is in its reality and truth precisely that which is most important. And this is more especially to be observed when what is aimed at is the presentment before our vision in our individuality of well-defined characters whose greatness and activity in any _particular_ sphere have been remarkable. Whether it be in a picture, or in the marble, an individual is, in fact, exhibited to our immediate vision in a bodily mode, in other words under external conditions, and to seek to carry the portrait beyond such a restriction would virtually imply the self-contradiction that the individual was associated with that which was essentially untrue, and this for the reason that the service, what is peculiar and distinguished in actual men, consists precisely in their active relations to the real, that is in their life and action in definite professional spheres. And if this individual activity is to be made clear to us the environment must exhibit nothing that is foreign to or tends to impair the effect. A famous general, for example, has lived in respect to his professional surroundings with cannon, rifles, and powder before his eyes. If we intend to depict him in his professional activity we recur most naturally to the way he gives orders to his adjutants, commands the line of battle, and advances against the enemy. And with yet more detail such a general is not merely one of a class, but is distinguished by the particular style of his uniform. He is either a leader of infantry or a stalwart hussar, and so forth. In every example of this kind we have some exceptional form of habiliment which is appropriate to the circumstances. Moreover a famous general is simply a famous general, not necessarily a law-giver, poet, or even very possibly a religious man; he commands in all respects as a soldier; he is just that; he is, in a word, no complete totality, and this alone gives us the ideal and divine type. For the divinity of the ideal figures of sculpture is to be sought in nothing so much as this that their character and individuality are appertinent to no particular relations and professed callings, but are rather removed from such division, or, in the case that the idea of such relations is mooted, it is so placed before us that we are forced to believe about such individuals that their powers of performance are unlimited. For reasons such as the above a demand to represent the heroes of our time or the more recent Past, when their heroism is of a restricted nature, in ideal drapery is very superficial. Such a demand testifies no doubt to a zeal for artistic beauty, but a zeal which is unintelligent, and in its devotion to the antique overlooks the fact that the greatness of the ancients likewise reposes essentially in the lofty comprehension of all that they accomplished. In other words, they have, no doubt, represented what is essentially ideal, but they have not sought to enforce a form that is opposed to reality. If the entire content of the individuals in question is not of an ideal character, then their draping ought not to be such; and if a powerful, determined, and resolute general does not already possess a countenance indicative of the lineaments of Mars, then to drape him with Greek drapery would be as much a folly as though we popped a bearded man in a maiden's petticoats. Despite this truth, however, modern clothing does involve us in considerable difficulty because it is subject to fashion, and consequently subject to change. For the rational principle of fashion consists in this that it exercises over Time the claim to be always subject to modification. A robe, according to some particular cut, soon passes out of fashion, and it is only in fashion so long as it pleases. But when the fashion is over, we cease to be used to it, and what pleased us a few years back now appears suddenly ridiculous. For this reason only those forms of garments are appropriate for statues which carry the specific character of a period in a more permanent type; but, in general, it may be advisable to find a middle way, as our artists attempt to do. Yet, despite of the rule, it is generally a mistake to clothe portrait statues in modern clothing when they are either small, or the object sought after is simply a familiar presentation. In such cases mere busts are best, which are the more easily lifted to an ideal elevation, simply neck and breast being retained, inasmuch as the head and the physiognomy thus remain of most importance, and everything else is relegated to incidental insignificance. Where we have large-sized statues on the contrary, more particularly where the pose is one of tranquillity, we see at once, because they are in repose, how they are draped; and large-sized male figures, even in the painted portrait, when clothed after modern wont can only with difficulty be raised over what is insignificant. As instances we may mention the full-figure seated portraits by old Tischbein of Herder and Wieland, of which we have excellent engravings on copper. One feels at once, when looking at them, that it is a somewhat stale, flat, and unprofitable business to gaze at their breeches, stockings, and shoes, and absolutely so to see their cosy, self-contented posture on a sofa, where they have their hands lying happily together over their paunches.

It is another matter with portrait statues of individuals where, either in respect to the period of their activity they are far removed from our own, or are themselves essentially of an ideal greatness. In such cases what is old is already divested of the temporal aspect and has passed into the more indefinite background of the general idea, so that in this release from its particular form of actuality it is also in the mode of its drapery capable of an ideal presentation. And this is still more true in the case of individuals, who by virtue of their self-subsistency and the ideal fulness of what are otherwise the mere limitations of their particular profession, and detached from what is merely the activity of a definite period of time, create independently for themselves a free totality, a world of relations and activities, and consequently should appear, even in the aspect of their habiliments, as exalted above the familiar guise of everyday life in their ordinary temporal costume. As far back as the Greeks we find statues of Achilles and Alexander, on which the more individual traits of portraiture are of so fine a quality that we should rather imagine them to be sons of gods than human beings. In the case of the genial and greathearted youth Alexander this is quite as it should be. And in much the same way, moreover, Napoleon himself has been lifted to such a fame, and is a genius of so comprehensive a grasp, that there is no reason why he should not be depicted in ideal drapery, which indeed would not be unfitting for Frederick the Great, when the object is to celebrate him in all his greatness of soul. No doubt the size of the statues is here, too, of importance. In the case of small figures, which carry an air of familiarity, the three-cornered little hat of Napoleon is out of place no less than the famous uniform and the arms crossed over breast, and, if we desire to have before us the great Frederick as "old Fritz," we may have him pictured for us with hat and stick as we find him on tobacco boxes.

3. THE INDIVIDUALITY OF IDEAL FIGURES OF SCULPTURE

Hitherto we have considered the Ideal of sculpture in its general character and in the further aspect of the more detailed forms which distinguish it. We have _thirdly_ only left us to emphasize the fact that the Ideals of sculpture, in so far as, in respect to their content, they have to manifest what is substantive in individualities, and in respect to their external form the human bodily shape, are also under the necessity of an advance in which the _particularity_ of their presentation is differentiated, and an aggregate of specific individuals is thereby created, just as we already, in the classical type of art, recognize the embracing circle of the Greek gods. We may, no doubt, very possibly imagine to ourselves there can only be one _exemplum_ of the finest beauty and perfection, which may be, moreover, concentrated in its absolute completeness in one statue. Such a conception of one Ideal in its purity is deficient in insight and indeed ridiculous. For the beauty of the Ideal consists just in this, that it is no purely general form or standard, but essentially individuality, and consequently possesses both particularity and character. It is simply owing to this that vitality is imported into works of sculpture, and it is this[174] which expands the one abstract beauty, in a totality of essentially definite creations. Taken as a whole, however, this aggregate is, if we regard its content, one with marked limits; and the reason is that a number of categories, which we are, for example, accustomed to employ in our Christian outlook, fall absolutely away in the case of the genuine Ideal of sculpture. The ethical points of view and virtues, for example, such as were brought together by the Middle Ages and our modern world in a synthetical nexus of duties which yields to some modification, moreover, in every epoch, has no meaning at all when applied to the ideal gods of sculpture; it is simply absent from such a circle altogether. Consequently we can as little expect to find here the presentation of sacrifice, of egotism overcome, of the conflict, against what is sensuous, of the victory of chastity and so forth, as that of incommutable fidelity, of the honour and honesty of either man or woman, or of the expression of religious meekness, subjection, and blessedness in God. All these virtues, qualities, and conditions repose in part on the breach between what is spiritual and what is corporeal; and in part they retire altogether beyond what is of the body within, the intimate shrine of the soul, or betray the individual personal life in its separation from its entirely concrete and explicit substance, as also in its struggle to find again mediation in the same. Moreover, the circle of these veritable gods of sculpture is no doubt a totality, but, as we already discovered in our consideration of the classical type of art, it is, when we examine the distinguishing differences of its notion, no stringently articulated and unified system. Moreover, the particular examples are every one of them to be distinguished from all the others in their essentially definite and self-exclusive individuality, albeit they are not thus set apart by virtue of the characteristics of a purely abstract mintage, but rather, on the contrary, include much which they share in common relatively to their ideal and divine substance.

We will now pass in review the distinctions above indicated under the following aspects:

_First_, we have to examine purely external marks, incidental attributes, style of drapery, style of armour, and such like, indications with the detail of which Winckelmann deals at exceptional length.

_Secondly_, we shall see how the most important differences do not merely consist in external marks and traits of this kind, but rather in the individual configuration and _habitus_ of the entire figure. What is most important in this respect is the distinction of _age_, _sex_, no less than that of the _different sphere_, from which the works receive their content and form, whether they are the impressions of gods, heroes, satyrs, fawns, or such representations as reach their final dissolution in the attempt to render animal images.

And, _thirdly_, we propose to direct the attention on a _particular_ example of each class, in the individual form of which sculpture elaborates these general differences. Here, no doubt, we are faced with a multiplicity of material, and can only permit ourselves to deduce parts of it by way of example, a province, too, as it moreover is which implies a large experience.

(_a_) In considering these _first_ mere attributes and all such external accessories, the kind of ornament, armour, tools, vessels, and in general all that is associated with mere environment, we find that such things are of a very simple character in superior works of sculpture, and retained only in a temperate and restricted degree, so that we see little of them beyond what is suggestive or sufficient to appeal to our minds. It is the independent figure, that is its expression and not outside accessories, which has to give us the spiritual significance and its manifestation. Conversely, however, marks of this kind are nevertheless necessary, in order to enable us to recognize the particular gods. In other words divinity in its universal guise, which is the source of the substantive part of the presentment in the case of each individual, asserts, by virtue of this very equality of ground-basis, close affinity between the expression of each example and also between the individual figures, so that every god is to this extent withdrawn from the aspect of his particularity, and can indeed further pass through other conditions and modes of expression, than would otherwise belong to them. For this reason we do not as a rule have set before us the particular characterization with complete seriousness; and it is frequently these external additions which exclusively make the particular god intelligible. Among these indicating marks I will allude briefly to the following.

(_α_) I have already discussed the real _attributes_ when the classical type of art and its gods presented an opportunity. In sculpture the same lose yet more their self-subsistent, symbolical character, and merely retain the right to appear as the external presentation and form which is referable to simply one aspect of the specific gods, a presentment which is true to this extent or approximately so. Such marks are frequently borrowed from animal life, as for example when Zeus is represented with the eagle, Juno with the peacock, Bacchus with the tiger and panther, who are harnessed to his car, because, as Winckelmann observes[175], this animal is an exceptionally thirsty one, and, moreover, fond of wine; and in the like manner we have Venus with her hare. Other attributes are tools or utensils of some kind, which are related to activities and actions, which may be ascribed to any particular god by virtue of his or her specific individuality. So we have Bacchus depicted with the thyrsus wand, in order to entwine thereon the ivy-leaves and garlands; or he receives a wreath of laurel leaves, to indicate him as victorious in his expedition to India, or a torch, with which he lighted Ceres home.

Accessories such as these, among which I have here, of course, only adduced the most famous examples, are an exceptional stimulus to the acuteness and learning of our professors, and carry them into a kind of commerce in trifles, which too frequently leads them out of bounds, and finds significance in things where there is really none. As an example we are assured that two famous sleeping female figures in the Vatican and the Villa Medici are representations of Cleopatra, simply because they have a bracelet in the shape of a viper, and to the vision of such archaeologists a serpent at once suggests the death of Cleopatra, much as it would suggest to a pious father of the church the original serpent who seduced Eve in Paradise. It was, however, a prevailing custom for Greek women to wear bracelets in serpent coils, and such bracelets in fact were called by that name. Consequently the just sense of Winckelmann[176] has long ago rejected this interpretation, and Visconti has finally recognized[177] them as figures of Ariadne, as she at lasts sinks to sleep after her sorrow at the departure of Theseus. Although in uncounted cases acuteness of this quality shows itself at fault in dealing with detail of this kind, and makes itself appear contemptible in its departure from such insignificant facts, yet unquestionably both research and criticism of apparently unimportant facts are necessary, because it is only thereby that we can arrive at the closer determination of a figure. Yet even here the difficulty crops up, that attributes no less than form, do not in all cases point our conclusions to one god, but may be shared in common by several. We have the vase, for example, not only associated with Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, Aesculapius, but also with Ceres and Hygiaea. Several goddesses receive the ear of corn; we find the lily in the hand of Juno, Venus, and Hope; and even the lightning is not the exclusive possession of Zeus, for it is shared by Pallas, who on her part again does not alone carry; the Aegis, but on equal terms with Zeus, Juno, and Apollo[178]. The source of the individual deities from a general significance of less determinate character which, they share itself is associated with ancient symbols, which were appertinent to this more general and consequently more widely shared nature.

(_β_) Accessories of this incidental nature are more in place with works which, already departing from the simple repose of the gods, represent actions, groups, or the series of figures such as we find on reliefs, and for this reason are able to make more extensive use of a variety of external indications and suggestions. On gifts dedicate to a devout purpose, which are frequent in all kinds of works of art and nowhere more frequent than, in the case of statuary, on statues of Olympic victors, but more particularly on coins and cut stones, the rich and prolific invention of the Greek found ample scope for the presence of symbolical references of this type, such as that to his city's locality and others like it.

(_γ_) Other signs are more removed from purely external significance, and penetrate deeper within the individuality of such deities. These themselves are a part of the particular type in question, and are an integrating factor in it. Among such we may mention the specific type of the drapery, armour, adornment of the hair, and other attire of a similar nature, in respect of which I must here content myself in elucidation with a few examples borrowed from Winckelmann, who exercised great acuteness in such matters. Among the several gods Zeus was pre-eminently recognizable by the general treatment of his hair, and our authority maintains[179], that any particular head can at once be determined as one intended for this deity or no by the hair over his forehead, or his beard, even though there be nothing else significant to arrest us. In other words he asserts that, "the hair is elevated in an outward curve on the brow, and its different divisions fall in a narrow curve with broken lines[180] down again." This type of hair-treatment was so rigorous, that we even find it persisted in among the sons and grandchildren of Zeus. So, for example, the head of Zeus is barely to be distinguished from that of Aesculapius in this respect, who consequently receives another kind of beard, more particularly over the upper lip, where the same is more depressed in its curve, whereas that of Zeus is rather folded over the angle of the mouth and intermingled with the beard on the chin. Winckelmann further recognizes the fine head of a statue in the Villa Medici, later in Florence, by means of the more curled beard, which, moreover, folds over the upper lip, and is of greater thickness, and must be distinguished from the heads of Zeus with their greater tendency to curled locks. Pallas, in direct contrast to Diana, wears her hair long, bound together in its downward fall from the head, and then beneath the fillet flowing in a series of locks. Diana, on the contrary, wears hers thrown up from all sides, and fastened in a knot on the crown of the head. The head of Ceres is up to the back portion covered with her veil. Add to this, in addition to the corn she carries, she holds a diadem as Juno does, in front of which, to quote our authority once more[181], the scattered hairs are thrown into a charming confusion, as though to suggest possibly her sorrow at the robbing of her daughter Proserpine. Individuality of the same kind is emphasized by other exterior means, as for example, when we recognize Pallas by her helmet and its particular shape, in her type of drapery and various other things.

(_b_) The truly vital individuality, however, in so far as it should find its mintage in sculpture by means of the spontaneous and beautiful bodily form, ought not to be asserted merely by such accessories as the external attributes or modes of things we have cited, but should be displayed no less in the form itself than in its expression. In attempting such an individualization the fine insight and creative power of the Greek artist increased in proportion as the figures of their deities possessed a substantive basis of essentially the same kind, from which, without wholly departing from it, it was their task so to elaborate the characteristic individuality that this ground-root of their conception was still maintained as a wholly vital and present fact. Nothing invites our admiration so much in the best works of antique sculpture than the exquisite attention the artist directed to the task of bringing the smallest traits of the presentment and expression into harmony with the entire figure, an attention which is, in fact, the source of such a harmony.

(_α_) If we inquire further after general distinctions of main importance which assert themselves as the substantive bases in most direct relation to the more individual severation of the bodily forms and their expression we may note, _first_, the distinction of more youthful figures in contrast to those of more mature age. In the genuine Ideal, as I have already stated, every trait, every particular part of the figure is expressed; and, moreover, the direct line, which is taken straight forward, avoids the abstractly level surface precisely as the circular form avoids the geometrical circle; and instead of this the vital variety of lines and shapes is elaborated in the finest way throughout by the nuances of their transitional forms which unite them. In juvenile and youthful age the boundaries of forms are less noticeably fluent, and pass into each other so finely, that we may compare them, I borrow the simile from Winckelmann[182], with the surface of a sea unruffled by the wind, of which we may say that, although in continuous motion, it is still. In the case of more advanced age, however, such distinguishing features are more definitely emphasized, and have to be elaborated with more pronounced characterization. Consummate male figures consequently are more likely to please us at the first glance, because the expression is throughout more distinct, and we wonder more readily at the knowledge and ability of the artist. Youthful examples appear more easy in their accomplishment because of their softness, and the smaller number of their distinguishing features. As a matter of fact, however, the opposite is the case. That is to say, in so far as "the forming of their parts in the interval between their first growth and their completion is permitted to be indefinite[183]," the joints, bones, sinews, muscles, are necessarily more delicate and tender, yet are none the less suggested. Antique art celebrates its triumph in just this fact, that even in its most delicate figures all parts throughout and their appropriate organization are somehow made perceptible in barely visible nuances of elevation and depression, by means of which the science and virtuosity of an artist is only followed by an observer whose research and attention is equally thorough. If, for example, to take the case of a delicate human figure, such as the youthful Apollo, the entire structure of the human body were not reproduced actually, and in all its essentials with consummate, if half veiled insight, the members might indeed appear well and fully rounded off, but they would be at the same time flaccid, without expression and variety, so that the entire effect could hardly satisfy. As a striking example of the distinction between the youthful body and a man's in mature age, we may adduce the sons and father in the Laocoon group.

Speaking generally the Greeks, in the representation of their deities, preferred the still youthful age, and even in heads and statues of Zeus and Neptune do not indicate old age.

(_β_) In the case of the _sex_, in which the figure is portrayed, the difference, that is, between male and female figures, we meet with a distinctive mark of still more importance. In general we may affirm of the latter what I have already briefly stated in the contrast drawn between the more youthful and more advanced age. The female figures are more tender and soft, the sinews and muscles, albeit they must be there, are less pronounced, the transitional lines are more flowing and malleable, yet in the wide interval of expression from the point of quiet earnestness, greater severity of power and dignity to that of the most delicate charm and grace of the love attraction, there is room for the richest gradations and variety. We find a wealth of form equally great in the male figures, in the treatment of which we have, moreover, the expression of elaborate bodily strength and courage. The cheerful tone of delight, however, is shared by all, a blithesomeness and blessed indifference, which soars above all particularity, associated not unfrequently with a trait of tranquil sorrow, a kind of smile through tears, in which we neither have wholly smile nor tears.

There is not a marked line of distinction here between the masculine and feminine character, for the more youthful figures of Bacchus and Apollo frequently are fined out to the point of feminine delicacy and softness, nay, we even find representations of Hercules in which there is so much the appearance of a young woman's form that critics have confused him with Iole, his sweetheart. And it is not merely this point of transition but even the combination of the male and female figure, which the ancients have expressly represented in their hermaphrodites.

(_γ_) _Thirdly_, and in conclusion, there is the question as to the main distinctions which the figure of sculpture receives in order that it may be classed within one of the specific divisions of subject-matter which constitute the content of the ideal outlook on the world appropriate to this art.