In poetry and
painting, the situation predominates over the character; in sculpture,
the character over the situation. Excluded by the limitations of its
material from the development of exquisite situations, it has to choose
from a select number of types intrinsically interesting--interesting,
that is, independently of any special situation into which they may be
thrown. Sculpture finds the secret of its power in presenting these
types, in their broad, central, incisive lines. This it effects not by
accumulation of detail, but by abstracting from it. All that is
accidental, all that distracts the simple effect upon us of the supreme
types of humanity, all traces in them of the commonness of the world, it
gradually purges away.
Works of art produced under this law, and only these, are really
characterised by Hellenic generality or breadth. In every direction it is
a law of limitation; it keeps passion always below that degree of
intensity at which it must necessarily be transitory, never winding up
the features to one note of anger, or desire, or surprise.
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