d superstition, and the
degradation of the people.

But this cannot be said of the statues which the Greeks created, or
improved from ancient models. In the sculptures of the Greeks we see the
utmost perfection of the human form, both of man and woman, learned by
the constant study of anatomy and of nude figures of the greatest
beauty. A famous statue represented the combined excellences of perhaps
one hundred different persons. The study of the human figure became a
noble object of ambition, and led to conceptions of ideal grace and
loveliness such as no one human being perhaps ever possessed in all
respects. And not merely grace and beauty were thus represented in
marble or bronze, but dignity, repose, majesty. We see in those figures
which have survived the ravages of time suggestions of motion, rest,
grace, grandeur,--every attitude, every posture, every variety of form.
We see also every passion which moves the human soul,--grief, rage,
agony, shame, joy, peace. But it is the perfection of form which is most
wonderful and striking. Nor did the artists work to please the vulgar
rich, but to realize their own highest conceptions, and to represent
sentiments in which the whole nation shared. They sought to instruct;
they appealed to the highest intelligence. "Some sought to represent
tender beauty, others daring power, and others again heroic grandeur."
Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of deities; then it
produced the figures of gods and goddesses in mortal forms; then the
portrait-statues of distinguished men. This art was later in its
development than architecture, since it was directed to ornamenting what
had already nearly reached perfection. Thus Phidias ornamented the
Parthenon in the time of Pericles, when sculpture was purest and most
ideal In some points of view it declined after Phidias, but in other
respects it continued to improve until it culminated in Lysippus, who
was contemporaneous with Alexander. He is said to have executed fifteen
hundred statues, and to have displayed great energy of execution. He
idealized human beauty, and imitated Nature to the minutest details. He
alone was selected to make the statue of Alexander, which is lost. None
of his works, which were chiefly in bronze, are extant; but it is
supposed that the famous _Hercules_ and the _Torso Belvedere_ are copies
from his works, since his favorite subject was Hercules. We only can
judge of his great merits from his tran