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Notes in Fine Arts IV at Harvard University ...
Notes in Fine Arts IV at Harvard University Author:Charles Eliot Norton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: religion he professed. All these religious conceptions are important with relation to arts. The highest development of arts either springs from religious or muni... more »cipal devotion. The Greeks and Egyptians were led by religious motives, the Romans by municipal interests. Rome was trained in war by her early difficulties with surrounding tribes. She finally conquered Etruria. Thus she became the most prominent and strongest city of the time. The Romans of the north and the Greeks and Etruscans of the south were diametrically opposite, one the type of vulgarity, the other the type of refinement, The Romans borrowed the forms without the idea or spirit which was the soul of that form. They never understood or appreciated the delicate beauty of the Doric column. Finally when the Romans became tired of their own barbarism they recognized the superiority of the Greeks and brought Greek artists into Rome. The influence, nevertheless, of the Greeks was slight because the Romans were capable of receiving so little. The numerous cities already founded and wealthy, it would seem, would be the cities which should further the civilization of the future world. Syria, for instance, was peculiarly fitted for this purpose, but it was not so to be. Rome crushed out and snbjugated these cities, thus producing a great loss to humanity By"preventing the perpetuation of the highest civilizations then known. LECTURE VI. In the study of the civilization of America we shall not be surprised to find that we have contributed but little to the intellectual growth and thought of the world. Its loss would be imperceptible. By thought, I mean the development of character, the enlargement of life. True, we have done something politically, but this was largely the result of experience. Our circumstance...« less