Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/361

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SCULPTURE 305 SCULPTURE India, in 1861. She graduated from Smith College in 1884 and took post- graduate studies at Oxford and in Paris. From 1882 to 1910 she was associate pro- fessor of English literature at Wellesley College, and from 1910 was full profes- sor of this branch. She wrote "Social Ideals in English Letters" (1898) ; "The Disciple of a Saint" (1907) ; "Socialism and Character" (1912) ; "Church and the Hour" (1917), and edited many English texts. SCULPTURE, the art of cutting or carving any material so as to represent form. Sculpture may be broadly divided into relievo and round. In the former, single figures or groups are represented as more or less raised, but without being entirely detached from a background. According to the latter method, insulated figures, such as statues, or collections, or groups, are made, so as to be entirely independent of a background. The origin of sculpture is lost in an- tiquity. An admirable material for early effort was found in clay, so widely dif- fused in many lands, to which, as knowl- edge advanced, were added wax, gesso, marble, alabaster, bronze, etc. Hence the rudiments of sculpture are found among all races of mankind. The idolatry of the Old World gave it a great impulse, from the necessity which it produced of representing gods. The history of sculp- ture is almost the history of religion. In the inspired writings, the Israelites are repeatedly exhorted to turn away from the worship of images, the sculptured works of their own hands. Sculptured works have been found in the most ancient Hindu caverns and grotto temples. In the ruins of Persepolis there are many examples attesting to the fact that the Persians possessed many works of sculp- ture, yet they never carved the semblance of the human form. Sculpture flourished in Assyria. The museums of London and Paris contain colossal slabs, the dates of which range from the time of Sardan- apalus, 930 B. c, to the destruction of Nineveh, 625 B. c. The Egyptians were the first who elevated sculpture almost to pure art. In Greece the art of sculp- ture soon rose superior to all those im- pediments which trammeled and restricted its advancement in other countries. The Greeks had an intuitive sympathy with beauty, either in poetry, painting, or sculpture. Sculpture in Greece, as elsewhere, had its beginning in very rude forms. At first the symbols of divinity were little more than rude quadrangular blocks of stone. Between the 9th and 7th centuries B. c. the Greeks had frequent intercourse with the commercial Phoeni- cians. From this nation the Greeks bor- rowed their Hermae, or god of roads and travelers; at first mere stone pillars. On these pillars a head was afterward carved, thus forming the origin of busts. Hands and feet were next added, a shield and spear were placed in the hands of the statues; and thus the first semblance of Pallas originated. Till the time of Daedalus of Athens, the bodies or trunks of large statues were a mere cylindrical pillar, as in the Colossus of the Amyclean Apollo. Progressing still further, sculp- ture was called on to assist in the deco- ration of temples. Daedalus inaugurated a new era; and of his divine genius the Greeks said that he made statues walk, see, and speak. After this great master it was that all artists were sym- bolically termed Daedalides, the sons of Daedalus. Henceforth, ancient Greek art may be divided into two styles: the Old Attic, and the .^Eginetic. However, the true, the ideal style of Greek art was not inaugurated till the time of Phidias. This great genius lived in the time of Pericles, the age of classic models. For the Parthenon at Athens, Phidias wrought the statue of Minerva, and at Elis he set up his other great masterpiece, the famous Olympian Jupiter. Both were executed in ivory and gold. The god Ju- piter was 40 feet high. This statue ex- isted till the year 475 of our era, when it was destroyed by fire at Constantinople. Besides these great works he made a statue of Pallas in brass, for Athens, the Venus Urania, the Nemesis in the temple at Marathon, and an Amazon, famed throughout Greece for the beauty of her limbs. Alcamenes of Africa, and Agora- critus of Paros, were his favorite dis- ciples. The most famous works of Alca- menes were his Mars, Cupid, Venus, and Vulcan. It was said that Agoracritus was even superior to Alcamenes, and when he contended with the latter in the execution of a statue of Venus the Athen- ians only adjudged the prize to Alcame- nes out of partiality for their fellow-citi- zen. According to Varro, the Venus of Agoracritus was the finest ever wrought. Polycletus of Argos was the author of the work deemed worthy of being ranked as the companion to the Jupiter of Phidias. This was the celebrated statue of Juno. Myron of Eleutherae, in Bceotia, was the great rival of Polycletus. Despising the soft and graceful forms which his con- temporary sculptor loved to represent, Myron sought his models in the brawny athlete. He sculptured the ideal Her- cules, the Discobolus throwing the discus. In one quality, however, he was surpassed by Pythagoras of Rhegium, who executed the ideal of Apollo, who, as an archer, has just shot the serpent Python. The finest statue possessed by the moderns is