So that Sculpture, even if no Mythology
had preceded it, would of itself have come upon gods, and have
invented such if it found none.
Moreover as the Spirit, on this lower platform, has again the same
relation to Matter that we have ascribed to the Soul (being the
principle of activity and motion, as Matter is that of rest and
inaction), the law that regulates Expression and Passion must be a
fundamental principle of its nature.
But this law must be applicable not only to the lower passions, but
also equally to those higher and godlike passions, if it is permitted
so to call them, by which the Soul is affected in rapture, in
devotion, in adoration. Hence, since from these passions the gods
alone are exempt, Sculpture is inclined from this side also to the
imaging of divine natures.
The nature of Painting, however, seems to differ entirely from that of
Sculpture. For the former represents objects, not like the latter, by
corporeal things, but by light and color, through a medium therefore
itself incorporeal and in a measure spiritual. Painting, moreover,
gives out its productions nowise as the things themselves, but
expressly as pictures. From its very nature therefore it does not lay
as much stress on the material as Sculpture, and seems indeed for
this reason, while exalting the material above the spirit, to degrade
itself more than Sculpture in a like case; on the other hand to be so
much more justified in giving a clear preponderance to the Soul.
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