PAIrOFKA ' S ANCIENT GREEKS.
Slight in appearance, M. Panofka's series of engravings from the fictile vases is a useful and opportune auxiliary to the study of Greek arcbmology. It will excellently prepare the mind of the student for the use of the vases in the British Museum; of which a catalogue is now in the printer's hands and will shortly appear. By inadvertence, it was said in our bibliographi- sal note on Panofka's book, last week, that the vases from which the plates are taken are found in Asia Minor; whereas they are found in any part of the Grecian territory rather than that—in Greece proper, Sicily, Magna Grmcia, and Etruria, but not in Asia Minor—in short, we stated the excep- tion in lien of the rule. Arranged in a natural order to illustrate the life of a Greek, these plates will suggest to the student what to seek in the figures of original vases. They show, more clearly than any work which we have seen, how many interesting facts touching the modes of Greek life may be illustrated by the vase pictures. For even the mythical person- ages are represented so as to display what is real and historical; and M. Panofka's text explains bow the analysis is to be conducted. To the stu- dent of art, the fictile vases will suggest how much of the vitality of art depends upon its close alliance with real living nature. It is quite possible to paint a retrospective costume; _hitt an exclusive habit of doing so tends to drive the student into the study of art through pictures and books rather than life itself; and hence much of the set, constrained, nnlifelike compo- sition of figures in our own day. The greatest schools of Greece and Italy have drawn largely from contemporary life; and hence, in particular, the extraordinary force, vivacity, and beauty of the design, in the minor art of
the Go*,
Previous page
