y more ancient than
painting.

What country was the most highly celebrated for its sculpture?

Greece, which produced many celebrated sculptors, of whom the most
eminent were Phidias, an Athenian, the great master of this art, who
lived in the time of Pericles, 408 years before Christ; Lysippus, a
native of Sicyon, near Corinth; and Praxiteles, a native of Magna
Grecia.

What event proved fatal to this art?

The death of Alexander the Great was followed by a visible decline in
all the fine arts; but the fatal blow to their existence was given by
the success of the conquering Romans, who reduced Greece to a Roman
province.

Was Sculpture always performed in Stone?

No; at first statues and other figures were formed of wood or baked
clay, afterwards of stone, marble and metals; though these last were
not brought to any degree of perfection, till about three hundred
years before Christ. The Greeks were famous for their works in ivory;
the great master of the art of carving statues in it was Phidias.

What progress did the Romans make in Sculpture?

Sculpture, during their early history, existed rather as a plant of
foreign growth, partially cultivated by them, than as a native
production of their own land. They collected, indeed, some of the most
exquisite samples of Grecian sculpture, and invited to their capital
the yet remaining sculptors of Greece, by whose labors not only Rome
itself was embellished, but also many of the cities of Asia Minor,
Spain, and Gaul, then under the Roman dominion; yet the taste for
sculpture does not appear to have been cultivated in any measure
corresponding with the advantages thus afforded them in the study of
the best models of the art. The best works were produced by Greek
artists, and chiefly Athenian, while the attempts of the Romans were
unskilfully executed.

_Gaul_, the ancient name of France.

_Model_, pattern.

Did it always continue thus?

No; from the time of the Emperor Constantine, sculpture, and the rest
of the fine arts, gradually revived. While inspired, perhaps, with a
taste for sculpture by means of the scattered remains of Grecian art,
the Roman artists drew, at the same time, from their own resources,
and were by no means servile copyists of the sculptors of a former
age. The first academy of the art was founded at Florence, in 1350,
and at the close of the same century, sculpture was firmly established
in Italy, and itinerant sculpt