of the vaulting carry one up to the glowing medley of color in the clerestory. The impression is at once more harsh and more tender than that of the Greek temple. The buildings are as different as are the temperaments and the religions which they represent.

READING REFERENCES

RUSKIN: "Seven Lamps of Architecture," "Stones of Venice," and "The Poetry of Architecture."

LÜBKE: "History of Art."

MOORE: "Gothic Architecture" and "Renaissance Architecture." STATHAM: "Architecture for General Readers."

FLETCHER AND FLETCHER: History of Architecture."

STURGIS: "How to Judge Architecture."

CHAPTER XII

SCULPTURE

THE problem of the artist, as we have seen, is to work out some image or form which will objectify his emotion and communicate it to others. The exact configuration of the finished work of art depends upon the original feeling, but also upon the material medium through which the artist wishes to express it, and the limits which the medium imposes upon his imagination. The feeling and the medium modify each other, and the final form of the work is an adjustment between these two. It is well to keep this in mind at the outset of every discussion of a special field of art. The medium of the sculptor is the human form (sometimes also animal forms) represented in some enduring material like marble or bronze. Relationship to the Dance. Sculpture has this in common with the art of dancing that its chief vehicle of expression is the human figure. this respect, the best fitted of all the physiological aspect of emotion; they do not portray sorrow by somber colors or low tones, but by the actual appearance of the sufferer-the bowed head, relaxed muscles, dejected form. A study of the dance ought to be full of suggestion for the sculptor, and, indeed, the ancient Greek and Roman artists sought very much after the dancers of their day to use them for models, and to represent them in characteristic attitudes of the dance.

These two are, in arts to deal with the

The rules which govern the artistic presentation of the real human body must have validity, though of course with some modifications, for the sculptured body. Thus the principle of opposition, or the proper balance of parts, is as important a rule in sculpture as in the dance. The points on which sculpture differs from the dance are partly a limit to its expressiveness, and partly an opportunity. Dancing consists of movements as well as of attitudes or arabesques, but it is only the latter which the art of sculpture is able to render. It is true that indirectly, that is, by suggestion, some idea of movement is conveyed by a statue, some play of rhythm in its lines, but the impression lacks the intensity and vivacity of an actual movement executed by a dancer. On the other hand, the statue is capable of more simplification and abstraction and of certain artistic exaggerations which are impossible to the living form. A rough-hewn statue sometimes gains in power by its very want of detail; and again, a pose pushed slightly beyond the natural, or an idealized muscular development, may make a statue more telling. than the living form would be. The sculptor may exaggerate or may eliminate; that is, he has to his hand the human form in various poses, with license to alter where he wishes.

Early Uses of Sculpture. Sculpture rose out of certain specific practices, and only in its maturer development became the expression of generalized emotional situations. Among the Egyptians there was an exceptional impetus to the production of portrait sculpture—an impetus connected with religious beliefs. The Egyptians believed that every man had a soul or "double" of himself which

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left the body at death, but would rejoin it again at the resurrection. Meantime, however, the soul must have a resting-place. An image of the deceased person was accordingly made for its habitation, and the soul was supposed to reside in the image or likeness. Such a belief would tend to keep sculpture realistic. Among the Assyrians and Babylonians a prevailing use for sculptured works was the commemoration and glorification of the deeds of the king. Long processions of triumph, and pictured accounts of the king fighting, the king hunting, the king receiving homage, were chiseled on the palace walls. Hence the condition of sculpture with the Asiatics also tended to emphasize the imitative rather than the ideal side of the art. The same thing was true of the Romans of a later day, who cared more for the literal commemoration of events, and for the portrait likenesses of great men, than they did for a more abstract and typical art. Among the Greeks it was a different case. Their genius preferred the abstract and typical to the realistic and individual forms. For example, the commemoration of victory did not, with them, take the form of a portrait group in which their leader was shown in some actual moment of striking down his foe; but they rather celebrated it in the figure of a winged woman, with triumphant lines and victorious pose. Such a figure is more abstract, since it represents one person instead of a whole battle scene, and since it represents not merely one victory, but victory in general. At the same time such a figure stimulates the emotion of triumph more knowingly than any photograph of a battle would do. The firm forward-moving torso with its buoyant lines tends to

induce the like attitude in the spectator and hence to arouse the sense of power. Thus when sculpture becomes freed from the necessity of literal copying it becomes generalized, and more forceful emotionally. It then becomes art in the full sense.

The Sculpturesque Subject: The "Laocoon" Quoted. Out of all the possible human attitudes which indicate feeling, some must be rejected as unsuited for the sculptor's purpose. The discussion of this point as a question of esthetics was first begun by Lessing. Lessing's Laocoon, though "an essay upon the limits of painting and poetry," takes a sculptured work-the Laocoon-as its point of approach, and includes valuable criticism on the art of sculpture. This essay is an important one in the history of esthetics; it was a protest against the medieval regard for spiritual expression at the expense of form. Lessing pointed out that if sculpture is to be the medium of expression, it in turn may claim some regard and some concessions to its own peculiar character. The limits imposed by sculpture are indicated in the following quotations: “All phenomena, whose nature it is suddenly to break out and as suddenly to disappear, which can remain as they are but for a moment; all such phenomena, whether agreeable or otherwise, acquire through the perpetuity conferred upon them by art such an unnatural appearance, that the impression they produce becomes weaker with every fresh observation, till the whole subject at last wearies or disgusts us." It is proper to put into statues, he thinks, only the moments which can be naturally felt as enduring. Violent passion is transitory, hence for sculpture it must be modified or altogether re