Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 186=230.= Art an Emanation of Religious Affection
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The spirit, conscious of an emotion of reverence for some unseen subject of its own apprehension, desires to substantiate and fix its deity, and to bring the senses into the same adoring attitude; and this can be done only by setting before them a material representation of the divine. This is illustrated in the universal and inveterate tendency of early nations to idolatry….
How and why was it that the sculpture of the Greeks attained a character so exalted that it shines on through our time, with a beam of glory peculiar and inextinguishable? When we enter the chambers of the Vatican, we are presently struck with the mystic influence that rays from those silent forms that stand ranged along the walls. Like the moral prestige that might encircle the vital presence of divine beings, we behold divinities represented in human shapes idealized into a significance altogether irresistible. What constitutes that idealizing modification we know not; but we feel that it imparts to the figures an interest and impressiveness which natural forms possess not. These sculptured images seem directly to address the imagination. They do not suffer the cold and critical survey of the eye, but awaken an instant and vivid mental consideration.
… It has sometimes been suggested that the superiority of the Greeks in delineating the figure, arose from the familiarity with it which they acquired from their frequent opportunities of viewing it nude,—on account of their usages, costumes, climate, &c. This is too superficial an account of that vital faculty of skill and knowledge upon this subject, which was a part of the inherent capacity of the Greek…. The outflow and characteristic exercise of Grecian inspiration in sculpture, was in the representation of their mythology, which included heroes, or deified men, as well as gods of the first rank. Later, it extended to winners at the public games, athletes, runners, boxers;—but this class of persons partook, in the national feeling, of a heroic or half-divine superiority. A particular type of form, highly ideal, became appropriate to them, as to the heroes, and to each of the gods. It may be added, that a capacity thus derived from religious impressibility, extended to a great number of natural forms, which were to the Greeks measurably objects of a divine regard. Many animals as connected with the gods, or with sacrifices, were sacred beings to them, and became subjects of their surpassing gift in sculpture. In general, nature,—the visible, the sensible, the actual, was to the Hellenic soul, Religion; as inward and reflective emotions were and are, to the modern European.
[Footnote 55: A young writer of great cultivation and of uncommon promise. His premature death occurred while on a tour in Europe. A native of Philadelphia.]
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=Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862.= (Manual, p. 532.)
From "Autumnal Tints."
=231.= DESCRIPTION OF "POKE" OR GARGET, (Phytolacca Decandra.)
Some which stand under our cliffs quite dazzle me with their purple stems now, and early in September. They are as interesting to me as most flowers, and one of the most important fruits of our autumn. Every part is flower, (or fruit,) such is its superfluity of color,—stem, branch, peduncle, pedicel, petiole, and even the at length yellowish purple-veined leaves. Its cylindrical racemes of berries of various hues, from green to dark purple, six or seven inches long, are gracefully drooping on all sides, offering repasts to the birds; and even the sepals from which the birds have picked the berries are a brilliant lake-red, with crimson, flame-like reflections, equal to anything of the kind,—all on fire with ripeness. Hence the lacca, from lac, lake. There are at the same time flower-buds, flowers, green berries, dark purple or ripe ones, and these flower-like sepals, all on the same plant.
We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year. On warm hill-sides its stems are ripe by the twenty-third of August. At that date I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of one of our cliffs, where they ripen early. Quite to the ground they were a deep brilliant purple with a bloom, contrasting with the still clear green leaves. It appears a rare triumph of Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, as if this were enough for a summer. What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the Poke! I confess that it excites me to behold them. I cut one for a cane, for I would fain handle and lean on it. I love to press the berries between my fingers, and see their juice staining my hand. To walk amid these upright, branching casks of purple wine, which retain and diffuse a sunset glow, tasting each one with your eye, instead of counting the pipes on a London dock,—what a privilege! For Nature's vintage is not confined to the vine. Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers. Indeed, this has been called by some the American grape, and though a native of America, its juices are used in some foreign countries to improve the color of the wine; so that the poetaster maybe celebrating the virtues of the Poke without knowing it. Here are berries enough to paint afresh the western sky, and play the bacchanal with, if you will. And what flutes its ensanguined stems would make, to be used in such a dance! It is truly a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the Poke-stems. And perchance amid these groves might arise at last a new school of philosophy or poetry.
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From "Walden, or Life in the Woods."