Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/64

 which is life-like and sincere; it is found even in the most perfect works of its classic period. In the same way the most advanced and refined forms of art draw a part of their motives and effects from geometrical decoration. This style therefore should be studied both for its principle and for the resources of which it disposes, but as we shall have to notice it when we treat of Greece, it seems to us better to adjourn till then any discussion of its merits. Both in Greece and Italy approximate dates can be given to the monuments which it ornaments, they can be placed in their proper historical position, which is by no means the case with the objects gleaned throughout central Europe.

There is another consideration of still greater importance; the artistic remains of Greece form an almost unbroken series, from the humble and timid attempts of nascent sculpture to the brilliant masterpieces of Phidias and Polycletus, and show the steps by which the artist succeeds in passing from one style to another, from curves and interlacing lines, from all mere abstract combinations, to the imitation of nature, to the representation of bodies which breathe, feel, and speak, which move and struggle. Elsewhere force has either been wanting for this development, or evidence of the transition has escaped our researches. Nothing can be much more imperfect or more conventional than the figures which we find upon some of the painted vases from Mycenæ and Cyprus, upon which the workman's hand, accustomed to straight lines and circles, or segments of circles, has succeeded in suggesting by those means the figures of birds and fighting men. Nothing could be farther from the subtlety and variety of the contours presented by living organisms. But in spite of all this, art was born with the awakening of this desire to reproduce the beauty and mobility of living forms. All that had preceded it was but the vague murmuring of a wish which had not yet become self conscious; but, at last the intellect divined the use to which it might be put, and guessed at the part which might be played by the plastic instincts with which it felt itself endowed. All the rest depended upon natural gifts, upon time and circumstance; the march along the road of progress began, and although its rapidity was intermittent, it was certain to arrive, if not always at the