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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
forms of art that clustered about the centers of worship. Since temples and their structures, temple statues and their votive offerings demanded the supreme creations of the art of Greece, that art should be studied in the illumination of the inspiring mythology.
ARCHAIC PERIOD OF GREEK ART, 7OO-5OO B. C.
By the time of the Persian Wars, 500 B. C., many states had been formed, but we need have in mind only Phocis, the early home of the Dorians, and Attica, the center of the later Ionians. The Dorians were an intellectual people, heroic in conquest and heroic in self-restraint, so that their motto “ Measure is best,” fitly formulated the spirit of the race.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
Through the Dorians, Greek architectural genius began its manifestations, and by the time of the Persian wars they had given to Greece the “ Peripteral Temple.” In other countries columns had been employed in building, but such adjustment of cel la- walls, columns and entablatures as resulted in the “Peripteral Temple” is just as truly an original creation of the Greek brain as were their philosophic systems or their dramas.
The Ionians of Attica were impulsive, restive under restraint, susceptible to external conditions and influences, and through these very characteristics furnishing ground for a spontaneity and elasticity in art forms, that in time promoted compromises with higher graces of form that would not have been possible to the Dorians.
GREEK SCULPTURE.
It was an epoch in the history of sculpture when the Greeks established theirs upon a wood model, as against the stone and metal work of P^gypt and Assyria. Material that could be easily manipulated could easily be made to embody and express the sculptor’s conception, and thus make it possible for each subject to have a personality, an individuality that placed it far above the tiresome sameness in the figures of an Egyptian or an Assyrian procession.
On following the development of Greek sculpture, we find that attempts at independent work commenced in many centers, both in Greece and in her island colonies, and work was continued in these centers with different degrees of progress and excellence.
In general, the early statues were of deities, and such reverence did they inspire that it was deemed sacrilege to make the slightest change in the sacred forms; as a consequence of this “hieratic influence,” images of deities retained their archaic style long after considerable progress had been made in general sculpture.
Even in the early period that we are considering, influences were at work which tended toward the development of what we call “ original Greek sculpture.” Looking at the early statues other than those of deities, though they were almost comical in their crudeness, yet they evince on the part of the sculptor honesty in search of nature’s forms, and a fixed purpose to portray only what he saw, knew or believed. Truth-seeking and sincerity in interpretation marked the spirit of these early artists, and their reward was sure.
TRANSITION PERIOD OF GREEK ART. 5OO-460 B. C.
At the beginning of the Persian wars, the chief religious centers were Delphi, where the Dorians had established the worship of Apollo and Artemis; Olympia, where Pan, Hellenic Zeus, was honored in the Olympian games; Athens, where was established a splendid worship of Pallas Athena. In all these places the general elements were the same. Through the erection of temples and other sacred structures, themselves adorned with statues, also through the accumulation of votive works of art, they became treasuries of the finest productions of the advancing art. Further,