In speaking of the great style of the Greeks, in painting—a style which vanished with the sixth century,—he says—
"The great style of the Greeks in painting—that style which was theirs before a stage chiaroscuro and imitation of Nature were brought in by the Appellesian school,—rises up before us with ineffaceable regret ... and we cannot refrain from saying that European work, by following the later school, has lost greatly in power of structural composition and line expression, though it has added to the facility of realistic representation."[38]
When it is remembered that the demands of theatrical scenery are generally admitted to have exercised considerable influence over Greek painting, we need feel no surprise at the necessarily vulgar nature of its ultimate development; while in raising this point about chiaroscuro, Okakura-Kakuzo really opens a very serious and needful inquiry.
It may be seriously questioned whether the chiaroscuro which Apollodorus is said to have introduced in the fifth century was not the worst possible blow that has ever been levelled at Ruler-Art, and it is difficult to separate this discovery from the people who made it.
Once it is recognized that chiaroscuro implies a blending of colours together, an elimination of all those sharp contrasts which the compromising spirit of a democratic age cannot abide, and a general hugging and embracing of all colours by each other, at the cost of the life of all definite lines; once it is acknowledged, moreover, that all gradations and blurred zones of contact lead inevitably to the very worst forms of Police Art, such as Zeuxis, Parrhasius and Timanthus practised, and that escape from realism is not only difficult, but almost impossible under such conditions, the question whether Apollodorus is to be praised or cursed becomes a very weighty and vital one; and in saying that he ought to be cursed, I make a very important statement, however unreasonable it may seem to you at present.
You have noticed that until now I have not compared the Periclean art of Greece with the art of any other country, but simply with what is generally called the archaic art of Greece itself. I have spoken Only of the Apollo of Tenea, and of certain promising features in the sixth-century sculptures which were discovered on the Acropolis within recent years.
[32] See Edward A. Freeman, The Chief Periods of European History, p. 6: "The mission of the Greek race was to be the teachers, the beacons, of mankind, but not their rulers." Page 9: "The tale of Hellas shows us a glorified ideal of human powers, held up to the world for a moment to show what man can be, but to show us also that such he cannot be for long."
[33] The attitude of such men as Lübke and Winckelmann to Egyptian art is typical of the lack of understanding with which modern Europeans have approached the monuments of the Nile. See History of Sculpture, by Dr. Wilhelm Lübke, Vol. I, pp. 22-25, and History of Ancient Art, by John Winckelmann, Vol. I, pp. 169, 171, 175.
[34] This view seems quite opposed to that of a great authority on the subject, Mr. A. S. Murray; but how this author comes to the conclusion that "... in describing the progress of sculpture from its early days to its highest development, it is convenient to speak of it as a gradual elimination of realism," I am quite at a loss to understand. See A History of Greek Sculpture, p. 239.