Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
attendants, winged figures and animals, are severally depicted in like
positions, holding like implements, doing like things, and with like
expression or non-expression of face. If a palm-grove is introduced, all
the trees are of the same height, have the same number of leaves, and are
equidistant. When water is imitated, each wave is a counterpart of the
rest; and the fish, almost always of one kind, are evenly distributed over
the surface. The beards of the kings, the gods, and the winged figures, are
everywhere similar: as are the manes of the lions, and equally so those of
the horses. Hair is represented throughout by one form of curl. The king's
beard is quite architecturally built up of compound tiers of uniform curls,
alternating with twisted tiers placed in a transverse direction, and
arranged with perfect regularity; and the terminal tufts of the bulls'
tails are represented in exactly the same manner. Without tracing out
analogous facts in early Christian art, in which, though less striking,
they are still visible, the advance in heterogeneity will be sufficiently
manifest on remembering that in the pictures of our own day the composition
is endlessly varied; the attitudes, faces, expressions, unlike; the
subordinate objects different in size, form, position, texture; and more or
less of contrast even in the smallest details. Or, if we compare an
Egyptian statue, seated bolt upright on a block, with hands on knees,
fingers outspread and parallel, eyes looking straight forward, and the two
sides perfectly symmetrical in every particular, with a statue of the
advanced Greek or the modern school, which is asymmetrical in respect of
the position of the head, the body, the limbs, the arrangement of the hair,
dress, appendages, and in its relations to neighbouring objects, we shall
see the change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous clearly
manifested.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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