ssss1

ssss1

THE RISE OF GREEK SCULPTURE AND THE

ATHLETIC SCULPTURES OF GREECE

Nowadays sculpture is not an acknowledged queen in the Tourney of the Arts. The writer who has thrust her colours into his casque and would break a lance on her behalf, struggles for some unstoried damsel about whose very existence he has been playfully twitted by the champions of the reigning beauties.

Rightly considered, art is but a form of speech—sculpture speaking through words formed from chiselled marble and moulded bronze. Such a language can only have lost its meaning if the men of to-day differ fundamentally from those of the past. But is this the case? Can any one doubt that human thought and action are ever substantially repeating themselves, since men and women are at all times actuated by substantially the same passions? The twentieth century simply requires to realise that sculpture throbs with the thought and emotion astir in itself. Though it cannot be claimed that the art is popular in the sense that music and painting are popular, our firm conviction is that its peculiar thrill only needs to be felt, for sculpture to become as widely appreciated as the sister arts. Dancing may be a lost art; we are assured sculpture is not.