This is why we admire ancient art, and why a drawing by Douris tells us so many things. Doubtless Douris has his message. He never suspected it; he did not make it his aim; he was the unconscious instrument of a great people and of a great revolution. This it is which makes works of the past of such great value. Only time can show what they contained of beauty and of fertility, even unknown to their authors. The creative force animating them is beyond the individual; it springs from the depths of the race which produces them. The sculptor who fashioned the Venus of Melos could not foresee the fame his statue would achieve, which he probably executed after many other similar ones. Leonardo da Vinci would be greatly surprised at what we see in his _Gioconda_. Anatole France says: “Each generation imagines anew the antique masterpieces, and in this manner communicates to them a progressive immortality.” It is not that we are duped by a delusion, but time has done its work; moving on, it has discovered unexpected worth in certain objects. Renan made the profound remark, “Admiration is historic.” Indeed, not only is distance necessary, but the wearing effect of centuries, to distinguish the good from the bad, the eternal from the perishable, to recognize the actual importance of a thought or an invention. Those who love to meditate will not go in vain to the Louvre to look at the kylix of _Eos and Memnon_. They will see a reflection of that which formed the grandeur and beauty of Greek painting during the most flourishing period of its history, and they will recognize in one of its noblest expressions an art for ever lost. [Illustration: Fig. 25. A Painter at Work, Boston Museum.] BIBLIOGRAPHY ROULEZ, in _Nuove Memorie dell’ Instituto_, ii., 1865, p. 393. HELBIG, in _Annali dell’ Instituto arch._, xlv., 1873, p. 53. FROEHNER, _Les Musées de France_, 1873, p. 37. RAYET-COLLIGNON, _Hist. de la Céramique Grecque_, 1888, p. 178. LUCKENBACH, in _Jahrbuch für class. Philologie_, suppl. Band xi., 1880, p. 518f. CARL ROBERT, _Bild und Lied_, 1881, pp. 28, 87, 98, 214. ---- _Scenen der Ilias und Aithiopis_, 1891. (XV. Hallisches Winckelmanns Programm.) MEIER, in _Archæol. Zeitung_, 1883, p. 1. W. KLEIN, _Euphronios_, 1886. ---- _Die griech. Vasen mit Meistersignaturen_, 1887. ---- _Die griech. Vasen mit Lieblingsinschriften_, 1898. TSOUNTAS, in _Ephéméris archoléogique d’Athènes_, iii., 1886, p. 40. LOEWY, in _Jahrbuch des deutsch. arch. Instituts_, iii., 1888, p. 139. JANE E. HARRISON, in _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, x., 1889, p. 231. ---- _Greek Vase Paintings_, 1894, p. 21. REISCH, in _Mittheilungen des arch. Inst. Römische Abth._, v., 1890, p. 331. ---- in _Festschrift für Gomperz_, 1902, p. 459. F. DÜMMLER, in _Bonner Studien_, 1890, p. 77. P. HARTWIG, _Die griech. Meisterschalen_, 1893, pp. 200f., 583f.