ade, and as it translated into polishings and rough
hewings and granulations and every variety of cutting, the texture of
flesh, of hair, and of drapery; of the blonde hair and flesh of children,
the coarse flesh and bristly hair of old men, the draperies of wool, of
linen, and of brocade. The sculptors of Antiquity took a beautiful human
being--a youth in his perfect flower, with limbs trained by harmonious
exercise and ripened by exposure to the air and sun--and, correcting
whatever was imperfect in his individual forms by their hourly experience
of similar beauty, they copied in clay as much as clay could give of his
perfections: the subtle proportions, the majestic ampleness of masses,
the delicate finish of limbs, the harmonious play of muscles, the serene
simplicity of look and gesture, placing him in an attitude intelligible
and graceful from the greatest possible distance and from the largest
variety of points of view. And they preserved this perfect piece of
loveliness by handing it over to the faithful copyist in marble, to the
bronze, which, more faithful still, fills every minutest cavity left by
the clay. Being beautiful in himself, in all his proportions and details,
this man of bronze or marble was beautiful wherever he was placed and
from wheresoever he was seen; whether he appeared foreshortened on a
temple front, or face to face among the laurel trees, whether shaded by
a portico, or shining in the blaze of the open street. His beauty must
be judged and loved as we should judge and love the beauty of a real
human being, for he is the closest reproduction that art has given of
beautiful reality placed in reality's real surroundings. He is the
embodiment of the strength and purity of youth, untroubled by the
moment, independent of place and of circumstance.

Of such perfection, born of the rarest meeting of happy circumstances,
Renaissance sculpture knows nothing. A lesser art, for painting was then
what sculpture had been in Antiquity; bound more or less closely to
the service of architecture; surrounded by ill-grown, untrained bodies;
distracted by ascetic feelings and scientific curiosities, the sculpture
of Donatello and Mino, of Jacopo della Quercia and Desiderio da
Settignano, of Michelangelo himself, was one of those second artistic
growths which use up the elements that have been neglected or rejected
by the more fortunate and vigorous efflorescence which has preceded.
It failed in everything in w