Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/30

 social life of the epoch were not separable in the minds of contemporaries from the eternal beauty which the work incorporated. Phryne and Antinous, the sculptor's models, were honoured in the minds of onlookers more than was the idealized glory of the statues. When the fullest excellence possible under the reigning philosophy had been embodied, the artist's soul could gain no further afflatus, and his heart died, and was buried for a thousand years; then, the crucible of Time having burned away the corroding dross, henceforth to the pure, all was for ever purified.

The leading notes of Italian art were sounded by Giotto and Dante. The concord was a melodious heralding of the new life. The painter's pronouncement was large-hearted and interpretable for all time. The poet-in-words challenged awe, akin to fear and trembling, so that men scarcely yet dare openly to question the sacredness of the strains he left. His humour was exclusive and stern, with occasional tenderness, as shown in the story of Paolo and Francesca, of a kind sedative to keen judgement. The superpersonal love which inspires heaven's poets was exhibited by him scarcely in charitable affections or overflowing joy in God's creations, it was spent in denunciations of unrighteousness, and in the exquisite form of his work. With sublime confidence of conviction he expressed his meaning with precision and richness such as a god might envy. And yet, if I may declare my own instincts, not by these charms are the horrors of the situations redeemed. It is most important frankly to mark the temper of his philosophy, because at first