A History of Ancient Sculpture, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from A History of Ancient Sculpture, Vol. 1 Fragments of a great artistic past have come down to us, now from their original surroundings, and wrapped in mystery to our changed modern world. For centuries these monuments have lain buried beneath the soil, or, when visible, have too often suffered sadly from neglect. Sundering from this vast treasure what belongs to the plastic art, we find the sculptural monuments widely scattered, and often hopelessly isolated, so that a feeling of discouragement will sometimes come over one attempting to solve the riddles propounded. Here it is that the archaeologist comes to our aid, with his new-born science, which dates hardly farther back than the days of Winckelmann, and bringing to bear upon his subject the patient labor of the excavator and of the conscientious collector, the resources of profound learning and of a comparative spirit, and the breadth of a scientific vision which is able to classify and group the sundered fragments, he makes the disjointed members more and more parts of an organic whole. Following, then, the guidance of the band of scholars who have so gloriously commenced this task, I have attempted in the present work to treat the sculptural monuments of the different nations of antiquity, and to build up some semblance of the stately fabric of old. Many, alas! are the blocks still lacking to complete the structure of an exhaustive history of ancient sculpture, but if we surround the mute monuments existing, with the faiths out of which they sprung, and pour upon them the light of national custom and thought, they will become eloquent witnesses to the art-life of those remote ages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.