Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/27

Rh rently rendered in different ages and countries; and that the examples I have cited may be ranged in a scale from the Greek downward to the Mexican, according to the amount of essential truth embodied in these several representations of nature. Here then we get a common measure or standard of the art of all races and ages, whether it be painting or sculpture, whatever be the material in which it is executed; whether the work of which we have to judge be one of the statues from the pediment of the Parthenon, or an Otaheitan idol; a fresco of Michael Angelo, or a Dutch picture; a painted window, or a picture on a Greek vase; a coin, or the head of Memnon; the Bayeux tapestry, or the cartoons at Hampton Court.

All these are works of imitative art; some more, some less worthy of being so called.

Now, the artists who executed these works had this in common, that they all tried to imitate nature, each according to his powers and means, but they differed very widely in those powers and means. Some painted, some carved; some worked on a colossal, others on a minute scale. For the solution of the problem they had proposed to themselves, a very varied choice of means presented itself. Thus by the word painting we may mean a fresco painting, or an oil painting, or an encaustic painting, or a painted window, or a vase picture. Sculpture may be in wood, in ivory, in marble, in metal. Each material employed by the sculptor or painter imposes on him certain conditions which are the law under which he ought to work. He may either turn the material he uses to the best account, master its difficulties, and atone for its deficiencies, or he may in turn be mastered by them.

The difference between artist and artist, or school and school, in this respect, constitutes what has been justly called specific style, as opposed to general style. The Archaeologist must take cognisance not only of general, but of specific style. He must compare the art of different races as much as possible in pari materiâ; he must ascertain as nearly as he can the real conditions under which the artist wrought before he can appreciate his work; he must observe how similar necessities have in different ages suggested the trial of similar technical means; how far the artist has succeeded or failed in the working out these experiments.