File:The Open court (1887) (14587967300).jpg

Identifier: opencourt_oct1911caru (find matches)
Title: The Open court
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Carus, Paul, 1852-1919 Open Court Publishing company, Chicago
Subjects: Religion Religion and science
Publisher: Chicago : The Open Court Pub. Co.
Contributing Library: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Digitizing Sponsor: CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
d finest of human achievements in artistic fields—architecture.All else, painting, sculpture, enameling, pottery, mosaics, textiles,all these agencies were impressed into the service of the great mis-tress, and their resultant works became—if they had not their originas—embellishments, ornaments, mere accessories, to enhance herqueenly splendor. In Greece it was different. The conditions, climate, exceptionalcircumstances, permitted an influence to be made upon its arts thatwas felt nowhere else, and is not apt to make itself felt anywhereagain. I refer to the inordinate love of gymnastics. These exer-cises that developed the human body to its highest perfection gavean impetus to the plastic and drawn representation of the humanform that led to the apotheosizing of those two arts, their elevation THE INFLUENCE OF ORIENTAL ART. 595 far above all the others, and, we may add, led to the corruption ofgood morals and the final debasement of the Greeks. Christianity M f$*^ f% ■-,-,-
Text Appearing After Image:
THE TERMINAL OF THE maDOO TUNNEL. Rather Academic in detail, but its unconventional, unusual lines and minarets remind one of the Orient. 596 THE OPEN COURT. and Mohammedanism found it necessary to suppress this voluptuousdepicting of the human form, but they could not eradicate the loveof perfectly symmetrical and beautiful forms that that influencehad created. Now architecture is the art in which that sentiment finds itshighest expression, its most subtle application. Therefore are we,as de Beaumont so aptly puts it, the more impressed with thecivilization that gave us the magnificent perspectives of Thebes, ofMemphis, of Babylon and of Nineveh, ages before Milos namelesssculptor thought of his Venus or Phidias of his bas-reliefs. In theformer are not only the perfect harmony of the human form, but thesentiment, the evidences and complex significance of a completeand exalted civilization, a symbolism profounder and far more elo-quent than the mere perfection of a representation of h

Note About Images