The Graces are three youthful, lovely sisters embracing: they represent the tender affections, as their name implies; while their character gives the epithet graceful to undulatory and easy motion. The universe was peopled by genii, good and evil demons, which comprehends every species and gradation from the most sublime and beautiful in Jupiter and Venus, to the most gross in the Satyr, resembling a goat, and in the terrific Pan.
As the public have now an opportunity of consulting many of the objects above referred to, in our great national gallery in the British Museum, those of our readers who can obtain this advantage will do well to pay a visit to that celebrated depository for the relics of antiquity, where they will have it in their power to convince themselves of the truth of the foregoing remarks.
The progeny of Ham, the son of Noah, we find, peopled Egypt, Medea, Chaldea, Phœnicia, and several other adjoining countries. It will be remembered that two of the three sons of Noah possessed these countries which the folly of idolatry overflowed; whilst it was in the line of Shem alone, that the true faith was continued. The Mosaiac narrative is chiefly descriptive of events which occurred in the posterity of that patriarch, because from it the righteous line of the faithful in Abraham, David, Solomon, and ultimately Christ, proceeded. Thus more than two-thirds of the inhabitants of the world were gross idolators: we often find the Omniscience of the Highest forewarning the sacred line to avoid its fascinations. Nay, when, upon more occasions than one, the descendants of the faithful forgot themselves, and those admonitions of the Creator were neglected, we find the sacred race flying before the face of puny foes, which defeat was declared to be from their having prostrated themselves before strange gods: they were bowed thus low in battle. Not to mention their disobedience immediately beneath Mount Sinai, which protracted their journey through the wilderness to forty years, which, perhaps, under other circumstances, would not have required as many days. All those troubles, their subsequent captivities, and national afflictions, were the produce of disobedience. This is one of those means which retributive justice resorts to punish wilful sin; so, however, it was with the seed of Abraham. And so it is presumed to be with the present race of men; either immediate or remote punishment vindicates the Omnipotence of Heaven. From the frequent maledictions we discover in the sacred volume against idol worship, we cannot doubt that it was peculiarly offensive to the Deity. that the great majority of the world were addicted to this proscribed practice is equally certain. And as the Spirit of Truth had declared in the decalogue, that “It would not be worshipped under any form in the heavens above, in the earth below, or in the waters under the earth;” so was image-worship, and consequently the construction of such things, forbidden.
We discover that as this mania infected all nations, tongues, and people, so did not the Israelites escape it; but immediately after their departure from Egypt we find an exact similitude of the sacred calf of the Egyptians, cast in melted gold, which they constructed below Mount Sinai. In Egypt, metallic statues, as well as those of stone, must have existed anterior to that event, as they actually had done to our own knowledge, and long before idolatry had made its appearance in Egypt, it had existed in Chaldea, as already shown.
As that worship had first its being in Chaldea, so had the art of statuary its origin in that country; it was improved, perhaps, in Egypt, and perfected in Greece, from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander, commonly called the Great.
DRAWING.
THE HUMAN FIGURE.
From what has been said in the previous article, it would appear that drawing of the human figure was nearly coeval with the art of statuary, or perhaps prior to it in Greece. As there is ample room to suppose the rude aboriginal inhabitants of Greece borrowed their art, as they did their religious and civil policy, from the Egyptians, and in fact from every nation where they discovered anything worthy their attention, so must we suppose they had also this art, in its infancy it is true, from the same people. Upon reflecting for a single moment, we are fully satisfied that the origin of the art now under contemplation came from Egypt. An ancient philosopher expressed himself with great truth, when he said, “Necessity was man’s first instructor.” We accordingly perceive the necessity of the earliest inhabitants of Egypt to exercise the art of drawing, they having determined to record their transactions by hieroglyphical representation. We have not the slightest doubt but we have now in the British Museum some of the earliest specimens of Egyptian hieroglyphical delineation, in the sarcophagi; from its inscription, it has been discovered that that identical monument cannot be less than three thousand five hundred and ninety-eight years old!
Previous to this, we can have no doubt that the art of drawing must have existed.
Like its sister art, sculpture, it received every improvement of which it was susceptible, from the mature conceptions and the delicate hand of Grecian artisans; words are, perhaps, inadequate to convey this art to a second person. Years of incessant labour, with an attention to principles established and found to correspond correctly with nature, are the only means to obtain a just knowledge of its principles, and to judge tastefully of its correct execution.