The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, December 1883Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, December 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The advocates of free trade, on the other hand, present the following
arguments in its favor, and objections against protection:
(1) Free trade is said to be the method of nature.
(2) It is objected that protection violates the right of every man to do
what he will with his own.
(3) It is said to be of the nature of a tax on all the other industries
for the support of those protected.
(4) It is objected that the restrictive system causes a diminution of
exports from the protected country, on the principle that if the latter
does not buy of the former, then the former can not pay for the goods of
the latter.
(5) Another argument is that “infant industries” under protection never
come to maturity.
(6) Finally, the case of the United States is cited as an instance of
free trade on a large scale between widely remote sections, with the most
satisfactory results.
READINGS IN ART.
III.—MODERN SCULPTURE.
The ten centuries following the second have no sculptural remains of
value. The dark ages threw their shadow over art, as over literature and
society. No doubt the feeling prevalent in the early Church that the
“graven image” might become an idol, hindered the progress of the plastic
art quite as much as the general decay that pervaded every form of human
undertaking.
In the first half of the thirteenth century lived Nicola Pisano, the
founder, one might say, of modern sculpture. Nicola is supposed to have
been influenced by his study of the remains of Greek sculpture to be
seen at Pisa, his home. Applying the principles of the Greek work to
the modern subjects, his sculpture inaugurated the Italian renaissance.
Church decoration was the field of labor to which all artists of
those centuries betook themselves, and Pisano executed his best work,
bas-reliefs, on the façades and pulpits of the churches of Pisa, Siena,
and other Italian cities. A marble urn of St. Dominic, now at Bologna, is
among his celebrated works. Pisano had many followers, among whom were
his son (more famous, however, as an architect), and Andrea Orcagna. The
latter belonged to Florence, to whose churches he devoted his genius.
His masterpiece in sculpture is the tabernacle of the Virgin in the
church of San Michele, at Florence. It is a pyramid-shaped altar in white
marble; the profusion of reliefs which cover it represent the life of
the Virgin. A little before the time of Orcagna lived Giotto, at one
time a leader of artistic activity in Florence. He is known well by his
beautiful campanile, or bell-tower, and the bas-reliefs with which it is
decorated are his best-known sculptures. The basement story is decorated,
and, says a writer, speaking of these ornamentations, “This rich cycle
of works represents with perfect clearness, and in simple and truly
artistic treatment, the whole progress, from the creation of the first
man, through the successful conflict with the forces of nature, up to the
climax of a life illumined by learning and art, and secured under the
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