s the stamp of an art so finished in its beauty and
characteristic expression, and yet so perfectly pure and chaste,
as the Ficoroni -cista-.

Character of Etruscan Art

The general character of Etruscan works of art is, on the one hand, a
sort of barbaric extravagance in material as well as in style; on the
other hand, an utter absence of original development. Where the Greek
master lightly sketches, the Etruscan disciple lavishes a scholar's
diligence; instead of the light material and moderate proportions of
the Greek works, there appears in the Etruscan an ostentatious stress
laid upon the size and costliness, or even the mere singularity, of
the work. Etruscan art cannot imitate without exaggerating; the chaste
in its hands becomes harsh, the graceful effeminate, the terrible
hideous, and the voluptuous obscene; and these features become more
prominent, the more the original stimulus falls into the background
and Etruscan art finds itself left to its own resources. Still more
surprising is the adherence to traditional forms and a traditional
style. Whether it was that a more friendly contact with Etruria at the
outset allowed the Hellenes to scatter there the seeds of art, and
that a later epoch of hostility impeded the admission into Etruria
of the more recent developments of Greek art, or whether, as is more
probable, the intellectual torpor that rapidly came over the nation
was the main cause of the phenomenon, art in Etruria remained
substantially stationary at the primitive stage which it had occupied
on its first entrance. This, as is well known, forms the reason why
Etruscan art, the stunted daughter, was so long regarded as the
mother, of Hellenic art. Still more even than the rigid adherence to
the style traditionally transmitted in the older branches of art,
the sadly inferior handling of those branches that came into vogue
afterwards, particularly of sculpture in stone and of copper-casting
as applied to coins, shows how quickly the spirit of Etruscan art
evaporated. Equally instructive are the painted vases, which are found
in so enormous numbers in the later Etruscan tombs. Had these come
into current use among the Etruscans as early as the metal plates
decorated with contouring or the painted terra-cottas, beyond doubt
they would have learned to manufacture them at home in considerable
quantity, and of a quality at least relatively good; but at the period
at which this luxury arose, the powe