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Professor Gardner's second lecture last evening was upon the subject of Greek sculptors portaits. The ancient Greek sculptures portrayed their models not as they actually looked, but as they ought to look. All were made subservient to the general ideal of Hellenic beauty. Individuality in early busts arose not from differences in the subjects, but from peculiarities of different schools of art. Women, because of their seclusion from public life, were not often portrayed, until the time of the famous Alexandrian queens. The women, even more than the men, were conformed to the ideal of beauty.
As Greek art developed, however, actual portraiture gradually supplanted idealization; indeed in the third century before Christ sculptors did many imaginary busts of ancient heroes and poets, merely for the pleasure of expressing individual character; and permanent character was expressed rather than passing emotion.
The next lecture will deal with the late Greek portraits and with those of the Romans and the barbarians.
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