B. In the _Etruskan Style_, stern simplicity and roughness yield to a freer treatment of the human form. The thick-set, short figures are replaced by better drawn and lighter forms; the subjects are exclusively taken from Etruskan mythology. White and black spirits (angels and devils), armed with big hammers, are represented as fighting for the souls of the departed. In one of the graves (see Dempster and Agincourt) we have a soul hanged, and tormented with iron instruments, roasting over a brisk fire. In these products, in spite of the intervention of the Roman period of history, we find the direct connecting link between the old Assyrian, Egyptian, Etruskan, and early Christian arts. The Etruskans indulged in fantastic conceptions, and rejoiced in forced and cruel scenes, and in bizarre compositions. Art with them was exclusively technical. We may arrange their works into the following five groups:-- 1. The original _Tuscanica_ (as Strabo has it) or Etruskan works. Heavy in form and details; dresses very stiff; figures without beards. Of this group we have many bronze figures, very few sculptures in stone, some gems, and some very old wall-paintings. 2. The Oriental group. Imitations of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian patterns. Tapestry, for floor and wall-decorations, was much used. The imitations were good, but without any effort at originality. Remains plentiful. 3. Caricatures distinguished by grotesque quaintness. This style predominates at periods, when nations look upon art as superfluous; not as one of the most important factors of civilization. Taste degenerates, and the higher aspirations of art are crippled by distorted products. The quaint is preferred to the beautiful, and the dynamic force of the artistic element, driven into this direction, loses itself in a broad grin at everything sacred and elevated in State, religion, and science, fostering a deplorable spirit of vulgar egotism, which looks down upon the sublime exertions of artists, as the mere vagaries of simpletons or madmen. 4. Works in the best Greek style, but only in bronze, as frames and handles of mirrors. Whenever the higher spirit of art is neglected, the power of the artist is directed to small matters; he serves trade and nothing but trade. We have in these ‘Articles of Etruria’ the prototypes of our ‘Articles de Paris.’ 5. Mechanical products, such as helmets, weapons, swords, shields, hatchets, clubs, wall-breakers, cooking utensils, pots, pans, and saucers, were of exquisite workmanship, but without any attempt at artistic forms. The utilitarian incubus is as bad as the hierarchical canon; both expel all higher aspirations from the realm of art.