Art for America

s. It is easy to establish the fad that the great artists of all times have been not only men of large endowment, but men who participated in the culture of their times, and had their share in creating whatever ideas were uppermost in civic, political, as well as aesthetic, life. The artist's calling in Greece was held to be respectable and desirable; nay, even more, the artist who achieved success in his profession was treated with the same distinction as the poet, philosopher, and statesman. Artists in that time were men trained, not only in the technique of art, but, moreover, in the art of thinking. It was held of chief importance that the artist should have great ideas to express, as well as sufficient technical ability to embody them. Education in those days meant literally a drawing out, and rounding out of every faculty. From the study of the frieze of the Parthenon, where we may read better than in history what Athenian life actually was, and to what sublime heights it rose, we may know to what order of man Phidias belonged and how to classify him. No man could have produced this work who was not essentially great; and great in the sense of magnanimous. The work exhibits not only masterly intelligence and complete technical achievement, but it shows itself to be the work of a finely organized, great-souled being. This is evident in the breadth and simplicity of the style, and the freedom from all artifice. The petty tricks and short cuts of technical skil... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.