Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/253

 On tJie Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 243 Greek matters of every-day life, ministering draughts of beauty axnrep avpa (pepovtra ano xprjcrrav tottqov vyieiav. And thus it IS matter of trite notoriety, that, while the works of Pheidias are the grand- est that sculpture ever produced, making men breathless as they gaze, the craft of Pheidias received from the Greek the humble epithet of pavavo-os. That exquisite little work of Lucian's, " The Dream," is full of instruction on this head, and will amply repay perusal. Young Lucian, on entering life, decides upon a rexvij rav Pavavo-oov, and accordingly is apprenticed to his uncle a sculptor, from whom he receives a sound thrashing for breaking some marble Jo-re Saupva fioi to. irpooifiia rfjs rexvys. This sound thrashing is followed by a sound sleep, the sleep by a vision. Two women, one of them Sculpture (Tex^ 'EppoyKvcpucr)), the other Literature (ilcuSeta), try in turn to make him, each, her votary. Techne, we are told, clipped the king's English we beg pardon the archon's Greek, dicvrrTaiovcra. ml {Sapfiaplov<ra navTodev. Dame Literature reminds him (in reply to Techne's observation that he might one day be a Pheidias) : " and even if you were to become a Pheidias or a Polycleitus, and were to execute ever so many a chef- d'ceuvre, your skill indeed all will praise: but not one of the spectators, if he has any sense, would wish to be your fellow : for be you what you might, you would be set down as a fiavavaos, as a craftsman, and by the sweat of your brow you would be left to earn your bread." After making due allowances for exaggera- tion, more than enough remains to prove that the Greek lan- guage has no equivalent for artist*. I have no doubt then that the work of this third Menaechmus was connected with the so- called Aiowa-iaKol rexvlrai, or theatrical performers (whether actors or musicians), mentioned by Aristotle, Problem, xxx. 10. Plutarch, Qucest. Bom. Comp. Aul. Gell. xx. 4. The word Texvlrai, by itself, is itself of comparatively modern growth. the word artist, and under the heading As it came to us from France, it is there "ouvrier" he places the Latin words we must look for its cradle. Not with- "fabricator," "opifex," " operarius," out grievous throes did it come to the " artifex." Cotgrave in 1611 translates birth witness the struggle made in the "artiste" by "master of art." Even reign of Louis XIV. against the insti- the first edition of the Dictionnaire de tution of the Academies of Architecture VAcademie looks unkindly upon the and Painting. The original meaning of word, adding, as it does : "II est dit par- artista was "liberalium artiumperitus;" ticulierement de ceux qui font les ope - - it was subsequently used in the sense rations magiques." of "magister in artibus ;" as late as 162
 * The signification of the word artist 1539, Robert Stephen says nothing about