200 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

the mountains of Syene are not the rocks of Paros.¹ Neither the social habits nor intellectual powers of the Greek had so much share in inducing his advance in Sculpture beyond the Egyptian, as the difference between marble and syenite, porphyry or alabaster. Marble not only gave the power, it actually introduced the thought of representation or realization of form, as opposed to the mere suggestive abstraction: its translucency, tenderness of surface, and equality of tint tempting by utmost reward to the finish which of all substances it alone admits:-even ivory receiving not so delicately, as alabaster endures not so firmly, the lightest, latest touches of the completing chisel. The finer feeling of the hand cannot be put upon a hard rock like syenite-the blow must be firm and fearless-the traceless, tremulous difference between common and immortal sculpture cannot be set upon it-it cannot receive the enchanted strokes which, like Aaron’s incense,² separate the Living and the Dead. Were it otherwise, were finish possible, the variegated and lustrous surface would not exhibit it to the eye. The imagination itself is blunted by the resistance of the material, and by the necessity of absolute predetermination of all it would achieve. Retraction of all thought into determined and simple forms, such as might be fearlessly wrought, necessarily remained the characteristic of the school. The size of the edifice induced by other causes above stated, further limited the efforts of the sculptor. No colossal figure can be minutely finished; nor can it easily be conceived except under an imperfect form. It is a representation of Impossibility, and every effort at completion adds to the monstrous sense of Impossibility. Space would altogether fail us were we even to name one-half of the circumstances which influence the treatment of light and shade to be seen at vast distances upon surfaces of variegated or dusky colour; or of

¹ [Syene (Assouan, in Upper Egypt); the cliffs of dark granite there were quarried by the ancient Egyptians, and gave the name to the species of horneblendic granite known as syenite. For the influence of the marble quarries at Paros and other Grecian sites upon the genius of Greek art, see Aratra Pentelici, § 159, and compare Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p. 38).]

² [See Numbers, ch. xvi.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]