to have first suggested the idea of employing them as
the subjects of sculptural ornament: thenceforward, this abuse has been
chiefly characteristic of classical architecture, whether true or
Renaissance. Armor is a noble thing in its proper service and
subordination to the body; so is an animal's hide on its back; but a
heap of cast skins, or of shed armor, is alike unworthy of all regard or
imitation. We owe much true sublimity, and more of delightful
picturesqueness, to the introduction of armor both in painting and
sculpture: in poetry it is better still,--Homer's undressed Achilles is
less grand than his crested and shielded Achilles, though Phidias would
rather have had him naked; in all mediaeval painting, arms, like all
other parts of costume, are treated with exquisite care and delight; in
the designs of Leonardo, Raffaelle, and Perugino, the armor sometimes
becomes almost too conspicuous from the rich and endless invention
bestowed upon it; while Titian and Rubens seek in its flash what the
Milanese and Perugian sought in its form, sometimes subordinating
heroism to the light of the steel, while the great designers wearied
themselves in its elaborate fancy.

But all this labor was given to the living, not the dead armor; to the
shell with its animal in it, not the cast shell of the beach; and even
so, it was introduced more sparingly by the good sculptors than the good
painters; for the former felt, and with justice, that the painter had
the power of conquering the over prominence of costume by the expression
and color of the countenance, and that by the darkness of the eye, and
glow of the cheek, he could always conquer the gloom and the flash of
the mail; but they could hardly, by any boldness or energy of the marble
features, conquer the forwardness and conspicuousness of the sharp
armorial forms. Their armed figures were therefore almost always
subordinate, their principal figures draped or naked, and their choice
of subject was much influenced by this feeling of necessity. But the
Renaissance sculptors displayed the love of a Camilla for the mere crest
and plume. Paltry and false alike in every feeling of their narrowed
minds, they attached themselves, not only to costume without the person,
but to the pettiest details of the costume itself. They could not
describe Achilles, but they could describe his shield; a shield like
those of dedicated spoil, without a handle, never to be waved in the
face of war.