252 SCULPTORS OF RHODES. of their genius, and achieved that greatest triumph of art, which has crowned with immortal fame the three artists of Rhodes who executed it-Polydorus, Athenodorus, and Agesandra. Whilst gazing on that prodigy of art, we shudder at the mere idea of being subjected to such a climax of agonizing woe, and at the same time we almost envy the trying condition of the Laocoon, which afforded him an opportunity of manifesting such generous resignation, such dignity of deportment, such nobility and sublimity of soul! "Or, turning to the Vatican, go see With an immortal's patience blending". Vain Inforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp". The Greek artists not only copied nature's works in perfection, but their chisels produced works almost superior to those of nature, copied from images of the imagination, and the original creations of genius, "brain born images”, as they are called by Proclus. In all her efforts at sculptural composition, art has also ever manifested a disposition to introduce allegory to aid in its development, and religion herself has sanctioned this introduction which so materially aids in its development. It may be objected that allegory partakes too much of poetry, or simile, or fable, or metaphor-that it is too fanciful or imaginative. But allegory is not poetry, neither is it simile, nor fable, nor metaphor; and the Holy Scriptures themselves in many places sanction the use of allegory, as, for instance, in the history of Sarah's miraculous and Hagar's natural conception, and in the birth and strife of their sons, we are presented with a lively similitude of the two covenants; and in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Galatians it is expressly stated, quæ per allegoriam dicta sunt-" which things are said by an allegory". Allegory is nothing more than telling a real story under a transparent or moveable guise. When the temporary mist is dissipated by the brilliancy of the real object in the distance, the delight of the spectator after the momentary suspense is increased. To weave the allegorical veil of that precise texture that it shall not be too thick or too transparent, is very difficult. In the judicious employment of allegory the resemblance must not be too obvious, for in that case there is no anxious suspense of the mind, and the pleasing surprise is frustrated-the landscape is seen before the screen is withdrawn: neither should it be too obscure, as then the story is untold, and the allegory becomes an unintelligible enigma. It may again be said, that allegory is fanciful and imaginative-that it is so is certain, and without fancy and imagination there can be no artistic taste-they are the elements in which it survives-they are the parents that generate it-judgment is the preceptor that educates it. It is, indeed, highly imaginative, and the artist who has sufficient confidence in his own capabilities to leave the common beaten path, and attempts to climb the dizzy heights of allegory, must be prepared to pass a dangerous crevasse. He stands on the edge of a precipice from which many an artist has shrunk in dismay, and over which many have fallen and been consigned to oblivion, for either the failure of his allegorical design overwhelms him with humiliating discomfiture, or his successful conception immortalizes his name. 254 REGION OF DESIGN. Allegory usually presupposes the introduction of supplementary figures, and the introduction of supplementary figures necessarily supposes a sculpturesque group-an appropriate composition-an expressive design. Design! here we leave the lowly, vulgar region of matter, and ascend to the high-born, exalted region of soul and thought. Design! here we get out of the petty province of mere mechanical efforts, elaboration, manipulation, and we cross the frontiers of the extensive empire of genius. Design is the highest artistic faculty the mind can exercise-if, indeed, it can be at all classified with art-it appears to me more sublime than art itself. Art seems to me as if it were merely its manipulator-its foreman operator. I consider design to be the nearest effort that man can make at creation. It is, in truth, a species of creation-to represent to the senses, clothed in matter, what had previously existed in the inventor's mind. Here are displayed the triumphs of thought-the vigorous ideas of expansive imaginative minds. Many an artist has attempted to explore this unknown region, and, having ventured beyond his limited resources, has lost his way. The great test of a sculptor's superiority is his capability of invention-something original even in little hings or in single figures-not merely in design, but also in the system he adopts in the production of his subjects. This proves he possesses genius, and a mind of his own, and a style of his own, which progresses by practice towards perfection. A mere copyist has no style of his own-he is merely running about in the paths of others, and having no road of his own, no amount of practice will ever lead him to originality, or to a perfect style of beauty. He is weary in journey ADVANTAGES OF PAINTERS OVER SCULPTORS. 255 ing; but not travelling in a direct line, he never reaches the goal. The painter possesses many advantages over the sculptor, and much greater facility in giving effect to the production of his pencil, than is given to the sculptor by his chisel. The total absence of colour in sculpture deprives the artist of the painter's facilities in producing at will contrasts of light and shade and middle tints, foregrounds and distances, lakes, mountains, rocks, foliage, all the varieties of landscape scenery, and those brilliant and diversified tints which invest the painting with all the charms and enchanting beauties of nature. The sculptor's figure must stand detached, and is isolated, deprived of the aid of a background, with which the painter need never dispense, and which he prizes as a powerful auxiliary to effect. The painter can, with the utmost ease, introduce the accessories, or any number of figures he considers desirable to tell his story, whereas the sculptor can, only with difficulty, create a numerous group, and is usually restricted at most to two or three figures, and, circumscribed by those narrow limits, within this small compass must create all the expressiveness demanded of him. The painter, by merely manipulating different grades of colour with his pencil on a smooth plane surface, will produce such optical illusions as to represent foreshortenings, projections, or receding objects like reality, whilst the sculptor has to chisel every limb or object in the round. If a painter make an error, he can obliterate it, and amend the error in his next effort. If the sculptor cut but once too deeply into his marble, the fault is irreparable. The picture exhibits the surface to the observer's eye from one position only, whereas the eye can traverse round the sculptor's work, and scrutinize 56 SUPERIORITY OF SCULPTURE. it from every point and on every side, and all must harmonize to produce a perfect whole. The painter can create any artificial light he pleases or considers most effective to relieve his figures, by the mere mixture of his pigments, and can cast his shadows as he desires by the mere introduction of that light on the opposite side; but the sculptor's work is severely tested by the innumerable rays of the sun's true light, and which will cast no artificial or delusive shades to accommodate pretensions to excellence. The sculptor's art is notwithstanding the most noble of all. There is a truthfulness, a reality, a substantiality, a sentimentality, and an expressiveness associated with it, which the delusiveness of pictorial art can never pretend to. Pigments yield to the destructive influences of the atmosphere-time fades and obliterates them; but the sculptor's work is durable, is perpetuated and transmitted to posterity, an indelible memorial of the personage it represents, or the event it records; and therefore this art has ever been dear to holy Church, which loves ancient traditions, whose cry has ever been "nihil innovetur!" and which proudly points to such indelible records as the indisputable arguments that she is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever!" The Catacombs. LL the pious votaries of the passion of our Blessed Lord, who visit Rome to celebrate these solemn commemorations of the mysteries of redemption, evince at this season the liveliest interest in the Catacombs, and usually make a |