Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ... . herarity of this Central work, because ourideas of antique, or as we call it, classicalsculpture, are so often derived from thegreat collections of the Louvre and the Vati-can, collections of such marked inferiorityas to relief sculpture that a piece of pureGreek work in one of those long galleriesmay strike one with astonishment as hepasses rapidly by the great array of Greco-Roman copies. Taking, then, these fewpieces—the Parthenon statues, the Hermesof Praxiteles, the Victory of Paionios, andthe reliefs named above, we are able
Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ... . herarity of this Central work, because ourideas of antique, or as we call it, classicalsculpture, are so often derived from thegreat collections of the Louvre and the Vati-can, collections of such marked inferiorityas to relief sculpture that a piece of pureGreek work in one of those long galleriesmay strike one with astonishment as hepasses rapidly by the great array of Greco-Roman copies. Taking, then, these fewpieces—the Parthenon statues, the Hermesof Praxiteles, the Victory of Paionios, andthe reliefs named above, we are able to seein them the first coming out of masterlywork from an epoch of experiment. The interesting thing to note is the freeuse of convention. The sculptor was an ob-serving and thoughtful man, whether he hadlearned his art technically or not; and seewhat he thought was the right way to treata male figure! Note in the two statuesshown in Plate VIII the extraordinary de-velopment of the muscular formation abovethe hip : surely that is not copied from life,[24]. • The Greek Standard of Excellence but we find it accepted at a very early timeas a mark of the heroic development of thebody. Note in the draped female statues(Plate V) the casting of the drapery : surelythat was not copied from the folds whichthe garment made as it was worn in dailylife. It was studied for its ultimate effectin the marble or the bronze, and especiallyfor the sense of the strong and living bodybeneath the clinging stuff. It is indifferentto our inquiry whether that study was madein part by wetting or otherwise stiffeningthe thin material and casting it in folds,or whether the sculptor working in claydevised his folds in that material, castingmerely a glance from time to time at thedraped living model standing by him. Theinteresting thing to note is the early devel-opment of the artistic feeling. It comesbefore the careful study of nature ; it is nottoo much to say that it comes before anytrue study of n
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectsculpture, bookyear19
