Greek bronzes . the highlycivilised nations of the East, and to assume that this same distinguishingquality was likely to hold good also as against the nations of the Westsuch as the Etruscans, because we know how the Etruscans admired andcoveted these products of Greek genius, and how direct and intimate weretheir relations with the Greeks. There must have been some radicaldifference in the artistic instincts of the two peoples. One would suppose that the faculty of incising designs on bronzewas practically the same as drawing with a fine brush on a terra-cottavase. In each case success depen
Greek bronzes . the highlycivilised nations of the East, and to assume that this same distinguishingquality was likely to hold good also as against the nations of the Westsuch as the Etruscans, because we know how the Etruscans admired andcoveted these products of Greek genius, and how direct and intimate weretheir relations with the Greeks. There must have been some radicaldifference in the artistic instincts of the two peoples. One would suppose that the faculty of incising designs on bronzewas practically the same as drawing with a fine brush on a terra-cottavase. In each case success depends entirely on beauty of line. Is it not,therefore, strange that the Etruscans, who had shrunk from the attempt GREEK BRONZES 31 at vase-painting, should have devoted themselves to an extraordinaryextent to the production of incised drawings on bronze ? The explana-tion may lie partly in this, that it is one thing to execute a drawing on aflat even surface, such as the bronze mirrors and cistas of the Etruscans,. Fig. II.—Archaic Etruscan Statuette. British Museum. and a much more difficult thing to accommodate a drawing to a surfacewhich curves both vertically and horizontally, as is the case with many ofthe Greek vases. Very probably it was to escape this difficulty that theEtruscans abandoned the painting of vases and threw their energies intodrawing on flat bronze surfaces instead, leaving us a vast series of such 32 GREEK BRONZES drawings out of all comparison with the few specimens which havesurvived from the Greeks. We must remember that the Etruscans were never successful inworking with the brush on a small scale. In archaic times they couldpaint very well on a large scale, as the frescoes testify which still surviveon the walls of their tombs. Then again it may be argued that havingacquired, by means of their skill in bronze-work, a success which hadextended even to Greece, they would naturally not care to profit by theexample of the Greek vases further than was suit
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