For sitting, there is the group known usually as ‘The Three Fates,’ from the east pediment of the Parthenon; the figures resting, but resting with knowledge, the shoulders square and thorax high
[Illustration: THE VICTORY OF PAIONIOS (Olympia)]
arched, the body not allowed to collapse in an inert mass, but ready at need to spring again at once into active life. Another example is the crouching Venus of the Vatican, set in a position of modest grace which a modern woman would find almost impossible of attainment. With us the cartilages of the breast bone are practically useless and the thorax is left unsupported; Greek women were able to move the entire thorax sideways, a capacity we have lost, and when lowering their bodies they kept them, as does the goddess here, with the longitudinal axis of the torso remaining as far as possible in the vertical plane.
If we need types of more active motion, there is the Amazon from the pediment at Epidaurus, her body perfectly poised as her thigh muscles press the horse’s side; or the Athena of the Æginetan pediment showing us how with proper control of the muscles it is possible to turn the body through three-quarters of a circle without moving the feet; and the exquisite bronze Fortune at Naples, a perfect example of muscular balance--‘drawn up on the extreme points of her toes, she looks as though hovering over the world, light as thistledown, and yet in her tense immobility the very essence of Force.’
It has often been said that the marvellous achievements of Greek sculptors were a result of their daily opportunities of seeing the nude form; but nudity alone does not suffice. The greatest sculptor of our time tried the experiment of studying his nude models as they walked to and fro at their ease in his great room at the Hotel Biron. We saw the result: critics accused him of a love for the grotesque and the uncouth, while Rodin himself was reduced to the theory that for the artist nothing is ugly. The truth is that the naked body of a modern grown man is not beautiful, and therefore a faithful transcription such as Rodin gives cannot be beautiful. But the Greek models were beautiful, because beauty of body had been developed by a system of gymnastics universally applied.