and vitality by means of a deliberate obtrusion of science in the configuration and muscular development of the human body, and no less is anxious to please by refined excess in its executive elaboration. The step from the ingenuous ease and greatness of art to a mere mannerism is already taken. (_γ_) Works of sculpture may be set forth in very various places, such as in the entrances to columned halls, forecourts, landings of staircases, niches, and so forth. It is just in this variety of local position and architectural setting, which, on its account too, is variously related to human circumstances and conditions, that the content and object of such works of art are for ever changing, approaching as such art does in the group yet more closely our humanity. It is, however, a serious defect to place groups that embody much movement and variety of figure on the top of a building without further background against the sky. In other words the colour of the sky may sometimes be gray, at others blue and dazzlingly bright, so that it is impossible to see the outlines of the figures. Yet these outlines, that is, the silhouette we find in them, is just what is most important; it is the main thing which we recognize, and which simply makes the rest intelligible. For in the case of a group we find that many portions stand in front relatively to others, an arm before the trunk of the body, or one leg in front of another. Now the fact of distance alone disturbs the clearness and intelligible articulation of such parts, or at least tends to do this more emphatically than in the case of outlined portions which are independent. We have only to imagine a group depicted on a piece of paper in which certain parts of a figure are strongly and sharply indicated, while others on the contrary are marked with lines of less defined and arresting definition. This is precisely the effect of a statue's lines, and yet more those of groups, which have no other background but that of the sky; in the latter case we only see a sharply indicated silhouette, in which, so far as what is within the compass of that outline, only relatively weaker articulation is visible.