Identifier: criticismmo00chil (find matches)
Title: Art and criticism : monographs and studies
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Child, Theodore
Subjects: Art criticism
Publisher: Harper
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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e sanctuary of psychic beautywhich the primitives had so severely guarded. But the revengeof the Greek gods happily resolves itself into conciliation, andphysical beauty, instead of being reinstated as the supreme idealof sculpture, becomes the handmaiden of beauty of anotherorder. Only let it be remarked that the artists of the Renais-sance never allowed their admiration to deviate from that ele-ment of Greek sculpture which they could really appreciate,namely, its plastic perfection; the calmness, the abstract seren-ity, the repose, of the Greek masterpieces they left to be ex-pounded by the perspicacity of modern criticism. The great sculptors of the fifteenth century and their suc-cessors in modern times have shown by triumphant examplesthat the expression of moral life, of the most intense passion,and of the most powerful thought is not only compatible withpure plastic beauty, but even enhances that beauty and lends ita higher signification. To us moderns the ardent and pas- >
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MODERN FRENCH SCULPTURE. 235 •sionate artists of the Renaissance are more closely interestingthan Phidias or Praxiteles, for the simple reason that they ex-press the emotions and troubles of modern man. In the worksof Donatello first, and then in those of Michael Angelo andJohn of Bologna, we find that exuberance of nervous life whichhas never since ceased to be the ideal of the great sculptors.On the other hand, in the works of the immortal artists ofGreece we moderns make two parts, distinct and unequal inhonor, namely, in the first place, absolute perfection in the syn-thesis of human proportions, and in the second, attitudes, move-ments and gestures inherent in manners and habits of life withwhich we are not familiar. The proportions of Greek statuesrealize forever the ideal of human physical beauty; but theirattitudes and movements, if they convey any meaning to us atall, retain only a vague archaeological interest. The tendency of the French sculptors of the present day isto p

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