GREEK SCULPTURE.--It was left to the beauty-loving Greeks to perceive that Sculpture was of all others the art by which they could best express and best immortalise the most perfect of all Nature’s physical beauties. It was the Greeks who made Sculpture what it was, and with their school died out the highest development of the art. The conquests of Alexander, and all that followed in their train--the treasures of the East unfolded, mighty monarchies founded, stately cities built--afforded opportunities for the spread of this art. Thus it became transplanted into strange lands, and was subjected to new influence and aspirations. After the Macedonian and Syrian wars the victorious Romans carried off with them the statues and other art objects from the conquered countries. Following in the train of their conquerors came the Greek artists themselves to Rome, but the art never became naturalised there, it soon lost all its ideality and became merely imitative in treatment. Under Antoninus it lost much of its grace and elegance, but the spirit of the Greek is mighty even in dying, and though it sank under Severus and his successors, its influence was still apparent until close upon the time of Constantine, when the great art of the ancients was entirely lost. ITALIAN SCULPTURE.--Sculpture revived in Italy in the thirteenth century under Nicolo Pisano. All the remains of art which had escaped destruction from barbarian violence, religious fanaticism, and natural causes, were now carefully collected, and the sentiment of reverence and admiration for the antique gradually developed into that great revival which we designate “The Renaissance.” The wealthiest and most powerful Florentine families vied with each other in the encouragement of art in all its branches, and with the artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries raised modern art to its loftiest pitch of splendour. Despite this fact it never attained the sublimity and tranquil grandeur of the antique. After the glorious epochs of Michael Angelo and Raphael a rapid decline set in. True feeling quickly disappeared, giving way to affected grace, extravagance, and excessive ornament. During the eighteenth century, Winckelmann was the first who influenced the revival of modern art, and opened the eyes of his contemporaries to the glories and elevated beauty of the arts of antiquity. Antonio Canova became the founder of the new period, his works being specially marked by pure simplicity and classical ideality, and by his side stands Thorwaldsen, whose artistic productions were as admirable as they were numerous.