inted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there
is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by
command of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and his safety
to mortify.

184. The general course of your study here renders it desirable that you
should be accurately acquainted with the leading principles of Greek
sculpture; but I cannot lay these before you without giving undue
prominence to some of the special merits of that school, unless I
previously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though
less disciplined, excellence of Christian art.

In this and the last lecture of the present course,[135] I shall
endeavour, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like
outline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of
the two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison
afterwards; and not answering, observe, at present, for any
generalization I give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and
more qualified statements.

And in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indifferently of works
of sculpture, and of the modes of painting which propose to themselves
the same objects as sculpture. And this indeed Florentine, as opposed to
Venetian, painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly
always did.

185. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest
kind--engravings, or, at least, linear drawings, both; one on clay, one
on copper, made in the central periods of each style, and representing
the same goddess--Aphrodite. They are now set beside each other in your
Rudimentary Series. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus,
authoritatively assigned by Mr. Newton, in his recent catalogue, to the
best period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of
engravings executed, probably, by Baccio Baldini, in 1485, out of which
I chose your first practical exercise--the Sceptre of Apollo. I cannot,
however, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged
to set the restricted type of the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside
the universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air,
earth, and sea; nevertheless the restriction in the mind of the Greek,
and expatiation in that of the Florentine, are both characteristic. The
Greek Venus Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters
symbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the