. The Civil engineer and architect's journal, scientific and railway gazette. Architecture; Civil engineering; Science. 1S40.] THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 87 Alexander, Adrian and Antinous are naked, and wore made ideal gods, they like the statue of Pompey, seem to have a mystic life, there is a very language in those cold, stem, and colourless stones, which breathes an air of truth and creates on our minds more interest than their names in tlie pages of history. The statue of Napoleon,* by Canova, is naked, and is an apotheosis; it is confessedly, grand, imperial, and collossa
. The Civil engineer and architect's journal, scientific and railway gazette. Architecture; Civil engineering; Science. 1S40.] THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 87 Alexander, Adrian and Antinous are naked, and wore made ideal gods, they like the statue of Pompey, seem to have a mystic life, there is a very language in those cold, stem, and colourless stones, which breathes an air of truth and creates on our minds more interest than their names in tlie pages of history. The statue of Napoleon,* by Canova, is naked, and is an apotheosis; it is confessedly, grand, imperial, and collossal; it has immortalized the hero, as well as the artist, and when we consider that Canova and Gibson were the first to set so good an example to their country, we must say that their statues will ever stand pre-eminent over the barbarous objects which disfigure some of our public monuments. We would ask is there a person capable of reflecting who has paced the vast sculpture gallery at Versailles, and not smiled at the absurd dresses of some of tlie marble effigies; in days gone by they were ad- mired, and the persons they represented were doubtless, much venerated, but alas! how changed, they now excite our contempt, and we feel in- clined to laugh outright at their antiquated costumes. The time will come, and it is not far distant, when the vagaries of our sculptors will share the same fate, and become also objects of ridicule. It is an opinion held by some artists that all monuments should have the figures executed in the style of dress of the period in which they were erected, but we feel sorry to observe that it is only interested and inferior artists who advocate this opinion, and it is because they find that to model drapery and the naked proportions is excessively difficult, and often beyond their capacity, they are therefore contented to please the ignorant multitude, who for the most part, like the cobbler could only criticise the sole of the shoe in the picture of Ape
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