Excursions in Art and Letters

The hand is but dust, yet the thoughts that it recorded are fresh and living as ever. Since he passed from this world, how little progress have we made in philosophy and moralit...

Raffaelle was of the latter class—sweet of nature, gentle of disposition, gifted with a rare sense of grace, a facile talent of design, and a refinement of feeling which, if it...

“Is it not the duty of any man,” he answered, “especially of one in a responsible position, carefully to consider the arguments and doctrines of all who are sincere and earnest...

Here, too, we see that different portions of the same work were assigned to different artists, each working out his subjects separately, though all working in agreement, to deve...

In many cases, where all else that bore the impress of life had vanished, the hair still remained almost as fresh as ever. Some bodies which had been carefully embalmed were in...

Macbeth and his wife, so far from being the characters above described, are their direct opposites. He is the villain, who can never satiate himself with crimes. She, having com...

The overthrow of the pagan religion was the deathblow of pagan Art. The temples shook to their foundations, the statues of the gods shuddered, a shadow darkened across the pictu...

“Whiles I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee...

The substances on which the ancients painted were wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and perhaps canvas. The best painters, however, rarely painted on anything but tablets o...

During all these scenes, up to the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth is laboring under an excitement of mind which sustains her in carrying out the design of her husband. The time...

Michel Angelo lived to a great age. He was throughout his life a very hard worker, devoting all his time to art. It is true that he was devoted to architecture and fresco-painti...

If it be a fact that the Greeks and Romans knew this process, one would naturally expect to find at least some fragments of casts or moulds in plaster of their great works,—as f...

A slight glimpse at the history of the art will clear up this matter. In the early period of sculpture, only statues of divinities were made, and up to a comparatively late time...

This is all the testimony we have as to any work by Phidias in marble. Has it any real weight? But grant all these statements, vague and visionary as they are, to their fullest...

Mr. Perkins cites all these instances, and says: “They authorize us to believe that the Greeks and Romans practiced casting in plaster.” But in saying this he altogether overloo...

In this view other difficulties also appear, which it would seem impossible to overcome, if we accept all the statues attributed to Phidias as having been executed by him; for i...

What Michel Angelo meant to embody in these statues can only be guessed—but certainly no trivial thought. Their names convey nothing. It was not beauty, or grace, or simple trut...

“It was very different. It wanted the power and massive grandeur of the Zeus; but in its dignity and serenity it had a wondrous charm. It was the true type of wisdom, calm above...

Art, deathblow of pagan, 1; Christianity and, 1; and religion, 2, 4, 208; the golden age of Italian, 4; spirit of Greek and Roman, 19; ancient works of, difficulty of determinin...

[1] Whether this inscription was placed there during the life of Phidias does not appear; but it is highly improbable, and not in harmony with the practice of the Greeks.