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| SCULPTURE HALL, IRISH NATIONAL GALLERY. -The scene represents the grand sculpture hall of the National Gallery of Ireland, situated in the handsome Irish metropolis. The statues and models shown on both sides of the spacious apartment are classics of the Greco-Roman school of sculpture, which generally ran to realistic reproduction of mythological characters. Most of the figures are represented in action of some kind, and the attitudes serve to reveal those fine outlines of "the human form divine," in which all true artists have delighted and will continue to delight to the end of time. The Greeks and Romans, unhampered by the stiff, absurd garments of what is called modern fashion, allowed the human frame to grow in beauty as nature intended. Tight coats and back-destroying corsets were unknown to the ancients, happily for them. Men with uneven shoulders and women with deformed ribs were strangers to the country people of Pericles and Cieero. Therefore, after 2,000 years, or more, "the martial form that stood Platea's (or Philippi's) battle storm," comes down to us in marble as a model for men; and the resurrected statues of the Junos and the Heras for women. While the Gallery of Ireland is praiseworthy, there is truth in the statement of its directors, who confess that their collection is incomplete, as yet, particularly in the works of modern sculpture. |
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