Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/23

 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. CHAPTER I. PHCENICIAN SCULPTURE. i. Materials and Processes. THE Phoenicians were the neighbours and commercial agents, the pupils and imitators, of peoples who had looked much at nature, of peoples who had each in their own way given a free and original rendering of living form ; clever with their hands, active in mind and thoroughly awake, they could hardly fail to make full use of such examples and to imitate the figures of men and animals. And we know they made bas-reliefs, statues and statuettes of every size and substance, everything, in fact, that would sell, whether on native or foreign markets. They carved the figures of their gods, and in order to perpetuate the memory of their piety, they figured themselves in adoring attitudes before them. Finally, when the races with whom they trafficked came within the influence of the gorgeous and sensual rites celebrated by the Syrian navigators on all the shores of the Mediterranean, Tyre, Sidon, and their colonies set up a trade in the export of idols, and there arose a prolific Phoenician school of Sculpture, which must have had a certain influence over the development of plastic art among the Greeks and Italiots. We are therefore bound to determine its character and value, and that can only be VOL. II. B