Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1876)
rAf.s wy A. -r&t '' t. NMHtMUMNIMBPM OtfMitiii .; umMmmmmmmMmmwmhs BfT Iff ujyii J, i . -7?z i.-LiLLrzasrr rrmm 11 minn ,i ... ,. ., ,i I Hr many of the most' famous sculptors of Romu never cbisellud u chip from the cel ebrated works iittrlouteil to them. Tltc model was their own, but the rougher labor was dno by men hired for the pur pose. Labor is necessary to make genius available, but it is far from being genius itself. As a cause, it will do a great deal towards the accomplishment of any re suit but it cannot do all. There" is a pow er in the work of a genius which cannot be found as a result of industry and prac tice, unguided by a natural fitness for the work. Why do thousands of admirers annually visit the Apollo Bclvidero at Home, or the Venus de Mcdlcl at Flor. ence? Are these statues so much better finished than many others? No, others arc as smothly chiselled as they. But it is because they are perfect in symmetry. The Grecian ideals from which they sprung havo never been surpassed in the conceptions of human physical beauty. Hcie is the real power, which shows the gifted fashioning of a pchlus. We stand before the Laocoon and see death depicted in the most terrible ago nies. As we gaze upon the marble forms, they seem to assume life and motion We are botli charmed and terrified: and shudder as thu folds of the enormous ser pents arc wound round and round the old priest's writhing body. His two sons cr for help, but Laocoon is powclcss to ren. der it, and ho sees them moan and die almost within his grasp, while his own muscles arc strained and distorted in his vain endeavors to extricate himself from the plicate knots of the serpents. Our own flesh creeps as wo seem to see the ugly heads raised to strike, and then the deadly fangs buried deep in his quivering flesh. What a wonderful poWer is' here hidden away in these cold, inanimate torms of marble. As we look upon this, the work of some unknown artist's hantl, wc see through il his ideal. Wc sec La. ocoon, his two S0113 and their dying ago nies, as he saw them. The bouI of thu ar tist's genius has found lodgement in the wofk of ills hand ; just as the bouI of man finds lodgement in the1 tabcrnaclo of clay which thu divine artist ha modelled for it, and it is this soul of.genius,'if I may so call it, that' we behold through the out ward form which gives such celebrity to Qrcccian aud Roman art. Wc arc told by persons visiting the Vatican that wheyi -looking upon one of those most celebrated paintings of Angel lo, and Raphael they are led to feel themselves before thu living ' reality. So exactly and exquisitely have tho great master painters sketched the ideal creations of their own genius, that in giving them form, they havo almost given them life. lie was a great genius who could lnvo produced the play of Hamlet, and he must be a genius who can fully comprehend it. It is tho excellent ideal character, which makes Shakespeare thu master dramatist; audit was the excellent con. ccptlon of Shakespeare's ideal character, so perfectly acted, which made Roothethe genius of the stage. Neither the Laocoon',' tho play of Ham. let, nor those celebrated paintings of An gcllo and Raphael could have been pro duccd by mere htftor, or the most indefat igablo industry There ias something be hind the form and thp language, which wc feci, and recognize from the uellnea lion, just as PhideuV noble conception of the physical man could be iecn in the Btfttuo of Jupiter Olympus. There are geniuses In every department or human knowcedge. The humblest oc cupation has its chances for the exercise of superior skill and ability. The day has passed when literature, 'oratory, uiili tary tactics and the fine arts alone claim geniuses of the finer metal alouc invite the labor of genius artd scholar. Time has proved that commercial, mechanical and agricultural interests have abundant scodo for tho exercise of tlfo best talcnts. I have no doubt but what il requires as' much genius for n Stewart or a Vandcr hilt to hoard their millions, as for a Scott to write a Waverly, or n Dickens an Oliver EaWJTPS"' 4-.-J iTi-: ' ov
