oportion. Donatello had the
advantage of making these figures for particular places; his sculpture
was eminently adapted to the conditions under which it was to be seen.
In the vast majority of cases modern sculpture is made for
undetermined positions, and is fortunate if it obtains a suitable
_emplacement_. It seldom gets distance, light and proportion in
harmony with the technical character of the carving. Donatello paid
the greatest care to the relation between the location of the statue
and its carving: his work consequently suffers enormously by removal:
to change its position is to take away something given it by the
master himself. The Judith looks mean beneath the Loggia de' Lanzi;
the original of the St. George in the museum is less telling than the
copy which has replaced it at Or San Michele. Photography is also apt
to show too clearly certain exaggerations and violences deliberately
calculated by Donatello to compensate for distance, as on the
Campanile, or for darkness, as on the Cantoria. The reproductions,
therefore, of those works not intended to be seen from close by
must be judged with this reservation. The classical sculptors seem to
have been oblivious of this sense of distance. Cases have been quoted
to show that they did realise it, such as the protruding forehead of
Zeus or the deep-set eyes of the Vatican Medusa. These are accidents,
or at best coincidences, for the sense of distance is not shown by
merely giving prominence to one portion or feature of a face. In Roman
art the band of relief on the Column of Trajan certainly gets slightly
broader as the height increases: but the modification was
half-hearted. It does not help one to see the carving, which at the
summit is almost meaningless, while it only serves to diminish the
apparent height of the column. So, too, in the triumphal arches of the
Roman Emperors little attention was paid to the relative and varying
attitudes of the bas-reliefs. From Greek art the Parthenon Frieze
gives a singular example of this unrealised law. When _in situ_ the
frieze was only visible at a most acute angle and in a most
unfavourable light: beyond the steps it vanished altogether, so one
was obliged to stand among the columns to see it at all, and it was
also necessary to look upwards almost perpendicularly. The frieze is
nearly three feet four inches high and its upper part is carved in
rather deeper relief than the base: but, even so, the extraordinary
delicac