[213] And it gains more than it loses by this limitation to its own
distinguishing motives; it unveils man in the repose of his
unchanging characteristics. That white light, purged from the
angry, blood-like stains of action and passion, reveals, not what is
accidental in man, but the tranquil godship in him, as opposed to
the restless accidents of life. The art of sculpture records the first
naive, unperplexed recognition of man by himself; and it is a
proof of the high artistic capacity of the Greeks, that they
apprehended and remained true to these exquisite limitations, yet,
in spite of them, gave to their creations a mobile, a vital,
individuality.
Heiterkeit--blitheness or repose, and Allgemeinheit--generality or
breadth, are, then, the supreme characteristics of the Hellenic
ideal. But that generality or breadth has nothing in common with
the lax observation, the unlearned thought, the flaccid execution,
which have sometimes claimed superiority in art, on the plea of
being "broad" or "general." Hellenic breadth and generality
come of a culture minute, severe, constantly renewed, rectifying
and concentrating its impressions into certain pregnant types.
The basis of all artistic genius lies in the power of conceiving
humanity in a new and striking way, of putting a happy world of
its own creation in place of the meaner world of our common
days, generating around itself an atmosphere with a novel power
of refraction, selecting, transforming, recombining the images it
transmits, according to [214] the choice of the imaginative
intellect.
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