Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/255

 On the Classical Authorities for Ancient Art. 245 Pamphilus wrote a book on plants : this book, it further appears, was in alphabetical order. Is it possible that the word e<Wes can be a corruption of manuscripts for some botanical term ? Judi- cent peritiores. The next name on our list is that of the famous Euphranor (b. c. 362). For the fact that to the practice of sculpture and of painting he added an exposition of the theory, we are indebted to Pliny, who says (xxxv. 11. 40), "Volumina quoque composuit de symmetria et coloribus." When we reflect on the critical position occupied by Euphranor in the history of Greek art, as a connecting link between the Idealism of Pheidias and the Natu- ralism of Lysippus, we can scarcely over-estimate the value of a treatise on art proceeding from such a quarter. This is especially the case with the first of the two works here assigned to Eu- phranor. The enquiries which of late years have been instituted by Mr D. R. Hay of Edinburgh, on the proportions of the human figure, and on the natural principles of beauty as illustrated by works of Greek Art, constitute an epoch in the study of aesthetics and the philosophy of Form, which testifies largely to the inge- nuity, I had almost said the genius, of their author. Now in the presence of these enquiries, or of such less solid results as Mr Hay's predecessors in the same field have elicited, it naturally becomes an object of considerable interest to ascertain how far these laws of form and principles of beauty were consciously de- veloped in the mind, and by the chisel, of the sculptor : how far any such system of curves and proportions as Mr Hay's was used by the Greek as a practical manual of his craft. Without in the least wishing to impugn the accuracy of that gentleman's results a piece of presumption I should do well to avoid, I must be permitted to doubt whether the " Symmetria" of Euphranor con- tained anything analogous to them in kind, or indeed equal in value. It must not be forgotten that the truth of Mr Hay's theory is perfectly compatible with the fact, that of such theory the Greek may have been utterly ignorant. It is on this fact I insist : it is here that I join issue with Mr Hay, and with his Re- viewer in a recent number of Blackwood's Magazine. Or, to speak more accurately : while I am quite prepared to find that the Elgin marbles will best of all stand the test which Mr Hay has hitherto applied, I believe, to works of a later age, I am none the less convinced that it is precisely that golden age of