Greek painting is represented to us only by its distant reflexion on
the walls of the buried houses of Pompeii, and the designs of
subordinate though exquisite craftsmen on the vases. Of wrought
metal, partly through the inherent usefulness of its material,
tempting ignorant persons into whose hands it may fall to re-fashion
it, we have comparatively little; while, in consequence of the
perishableness of their material, nothing [188] remains of the
curious wood-work, the carved ivory, the embroidery and coloured
stuffs, on which the Greeks set much store--of that whole system of
refined artisanship, diffused, like a general atmosphere of beauty
and richness, around the more exalted creations of Greek sculpture.
What we possess, then, of that highest Greek sculpture is presented
to us in a sort of threefold isolation; isolation, first of all, from
the concomitant arts--the frieze of the Parthenon without the metal
bridles on the horses, for which the holes in the marble remain;
isolation, secondly, from the architectural group of which, with most
careful estimate of distance and point of observation, that frieze,
for instance, was designed to be a part; isolation, thirdly, from the
clear Greek skies, the poetical Greek life, in our modern galleries.
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