I cannot give you any better example, than this modern Academy-work, of
the total ignorance of the very first meaning of the word 'Sculpture'
into which the popular schools of existing art are plunged. I will not
insist, now, on the uselessness, or worse, of their endeavours to
represent the older art, and of the necessary futility of their
judgment of it. The conclusions to which I wish to lead you on these
points will be the subject of future lectures, being of too great
importance for examination here. But you cannot spend your time in more
profitable study than by examining and comparing, touch for touch, the
treatment of light and shadow in the figures of the Christ and sequent
angels, in Plates VIII. and IX., as we have partly examined those of
the subject before us; and in thus assuring yourself of the uselessness
of trusting to any ordinary modern copyists, for anything more than the
rudest chart or map--and even that inaccurately surveyed--of ancient
design.
The last plate given in this volume contains the two lovely subjects of
the Annunciation and Visitation, which, being higher from the ground,
are better preserved than the groups represented in the other plates.
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