The art of the
Greeks was a local art; and hence, now, it has no spiritual. Their
gods speak to us no longer as gods, or teach us divinely: they have
become mere images of stone--profane embodiments. False to our
spiritual, Hellenic art wants every thing that Christian art is full
of. Sacred and universal, this clasps us, as Abraham's bosom did
Lazarus, within its infinite embraces, causing every fibre of our
being to quicken under its heavenly truths. Ithuriel's golden spear
was not more antagonistic to Satan's loathly transformation--than is
Christian opposed to pagan art. The wide, the awful gulf, separating
one from the other, will be felt instantly in its true force by first
thinking ZEUS, and then thinking CHRIST. How pale, shadowy, and
shapeless the vision of lust, revenge, and impotence, that rises at
the thought of Zeus; but at the thought of Christ, how overwhelming
the inrush of sublime and touching realities; what height and depth
of love and power; what humility, and beauty, and immaculate purity
are made ours at the mention of his name; the Saviour, the
Intercessor, the Judge, the Resurrection and the Life. These--these
are the divinely awful truths taught by our faith; and which should
also be taught by our art. Hellenic art, like the fig tree that only
bore leaves, withered at Christ's coming; and thus no "happy
discoveries" can flow thence, or "revelations of wisdom," or other
perfections be borne to earth for man.
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