Greek sculpture Author:Edmund von Mach 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: CHAPTER III THE APPEAL OF GREEK SCULPTURE It is admitted even by materialists of the most extreme type that a world of bare facts and dry bones is uninterest... more »ing and needless. Thoughts that come with the stillness of the evening are realities, and few are the men who in the majestic solitude of a forest are not impressed by greater forces than their eyes can see. Such observations are as true of one's most familiar surroundings as of the rare opportunities in every one's life. Our friends mean more to us than the pleasure we get from looking at them. ' In fact, we rarely examine them accurately. One glance suffices to tell us they are coming, and after this first announcement through the faculty of eyesight, our enjoyment is almost entirely psychicaI. This does not, however, exclude the possibility of taking also a distinctly physical pleasure in them, provided the lines of their bodies are such that our eyes glide easily and rhythmically over them. What is true of our friends is true also of less well- known persons and even of strangers, f Seeing them means a great deal more than seeing a table or a chair, for these latter objects generally suggest nothing beyond what is actually seen. No thoughtful man,however, can see a person without coming ? to some extent ? in contact with his personality. - ( A picture also, which may call for admiration on account of its perfect technique, is valuable as a work of art only if it conveys ideas. The outer form of an object appeals to the vision, its spiritual essence to the imagination, j The vision is a purely physical faculty; the imagination, a noble acquisition of the human race. The enjoyment through the one is not, however, entirely independent of the other, for the intricacies of human nature are such that it is impossible to say ...« less