ttle rough terra-cotta model, and magnifying it in fancy into the
great superb group such as it must have stood on the temple, there comes
home to us, filling, expanding our mind, an almost ineffable sense of
perfection of line and curve, and light and shade, perfection as of the
sweeping wave of some great mountain, distant and deep blue against the
pale sky; perfection as of the pearled edge of the tiny pink cyclamen
petal; as of the single small voice, swelling and diminishing in crisp
exquisiteness every little turn and shake, and again as of the many
chords of multitudinous voices rolling out in great joyous sound
billows; perfection of whole in harmony and graduation of perfect
parts: perfection of visible form.

But by the side of this overwhelming positive sense of beauty there
creeps into our consciousness an irritating little sense of negation.
For the more intense becomes our perception of the form, the vaguer
becomes our recollection of the subject; the strong imaginative
realization of the story of Niobe, conjured up by the mere mention of
her name, dwindles to nothing in the presence of the group representing
the chief incident of history; the skrieks and desperate scuffling of
feet, which we had heard in our fancy, gradually die into silence; our
senses cease to shrink with horror, our sympathies cease to vibrate with
pity, as we look upon this visible embodiment of the terrible tragedy.
We are no longer feeling emotion; we are merely perceiving beauty. How
has this come to pass? Shall we look into ourselves and analyze in the
darkness of our consciousness? Nay, rather first look for an explanation
in the materially visible, the clear, easily examined work of art. Come
and look at the group once more: this time not to understand its beauty,
but to understand why there is in it nothing beyond this beauty.

Certainly, the group answers very well to the general idea of the
massacre of the Niobides: the figures have the attitudes of men and
women overtaken by a sudden danger against which they seek, but vainly,
to shield themselves: the mother clasps the cowering, clinging, youngest
girl, and tries to cover her with her mantle, her arms, her whole body,
to let the child melt into herself and be lost; the youngest son sinks,
panting and helpless, on to one knee; the eldest daughter bends forward
to throw her veil over a dead brother; the younger daughter mechanically
raises her draped arm to ward off the shaft