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| Woman dancing and playing tambourine 3rd century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
"It is established that in the sky nothing originates by chance, nothing hastily, but rather that the universe proceeds by divine laws and established rationale. From these sources it has been inferred by indisputable reasoning that musical sounds proceed from the revolution of the celestial spheres, since sound necessarily comes from movement and the system of reason that appertains to the divine becomes in sound the occasion of euphony. Pythagoras was the first of all the Greek people to conceive these things in his mind, and he also understood that a certain arrangement among the spheres made the sounds because of the force of a 'reason' that does not recede from the heavens; but what that 'reason' was or by what method it was to be observed he did not easily discern, and when the futile and endless investigation of such an extensive and mysterious matter began to wear him out, chance offered what deep contemplation had not revealed."
– from Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius (AD 390-430)
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| Woman dancing 150-100 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
"From earliest times, the dance played an important role in the lives of the Greeks, and was sometimes regarded by them as the invention of the gods. . . . The dance had a place in religious festivals, in the secret rites of mysteries, in artistic competitions, in the education of the young, and even in military training, especially in Sparta. People danced at weddings, at funerals, at the naming-day of infants, at harvests, at victory celebrations, in after-dinner merrymaking, in joyous dance processions through the streets, in animal mummery, and even in incantations. . . . The Romans were much more restrained than the Greeks in their use of the dance. Some of them, including Cicero, openly expressed contempt for dancers."
– from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford, 1996)
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| Woman dancing 200-175 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Maenad dancing 375-325 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Nike 2nd century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman dancing 4th-3rd century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
". . . workes that are sayd to be done by an unspeakable way of Art, delicately, divinely, unfeisably, etc. insinuate nothing else but that there is something in them which doth not proceed from the laborious curiositie prescribed by the rules of Art, and that the free spirit of the Artificer marking how Nature sporteth her selfe in such infinite varietie of things, undertooke to doe the same. "The hand of Myron," sayth Statius Papinius, "played in Brasse." Myron therefore, when he wrought, seemed but to play: no more did his workes professe a laborious and painful way of Art, but a man might perceive in them such a sweet Grace of an unaffected Facilitie, as if the Artificer youthfully playing had made them. The younger Philostratus useth the same manner of speaking: "the Painter," sayth he, "playeth youthfully:" see Callistratus also in his description of the statue of Memnon; for Philostratus and Callistratus use both one word, which signifieth, to doe a thing with such courage, pleasantnesse and ease, that the worke may be perceived to proceede out of a lusty and vigorous youthfulnesse: and certainly, the chiefest and most lively force of Art consisteth herein, that there appeare in the worke that same prosperously prompt and fertile Facilitie which useth to accompany our first endeavours: this is the very life and spirit of Art; which if it be extinguished with too much care of trimming, the whole work will be but a dead and lifeless thing."
– from Book Three (chapter six) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638 – edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991
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| Draped woman 4th century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman with fan 225 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman with fan 300-250 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Young woman 400-375 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
"This is that vertue which gathereth great rings of amazed spectators together; which carrieth them into an astonished extasie, their sense of seeing bereaving them of all other senses; which by a secret veneration maketh them stand tongue-tyed, "the greatnesse of admiration leaving no place for many applauses," sayth Symmachus. "Incredible things finde no voice," sayth Quintilian, "some things are greater, than that any man's discourse should be able to compasse them." Marke Damascius, I pray you, and learne of him what strange effects the sight of Venus dedicated by Herodes wrought in him. "I fell into a sweat," sayth he, "for the very horror and perplexitie of my mind: I felt my soule so much touched with the lively sense of delightsomenesse, that it was not in my power to goe home; and when I went, I found my selfe forced to caste backe mine eyes now and then to the sight." It chanceth therefore very often that the truest Lovers of art, meeting with some rare piece of workmanship, stand for a while speechlesse: see Callistratus in his second description of Praxiteles his Cupid: yet afterwards, having now by little and little recovered their straying senses, they breake violently forth in exclaiming praises, and speake with the most abundant expressions an eye-ravished spectator can possibly devise."
– from Book Three (chapter six) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638 – edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991
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| Muse with scroll 1st century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman dancing 250 BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman wearing garland 3rd century BC Greek terracotta statuette Louvre |
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| Woman holding crotales (cymbals) 4th century BC Greek terracotta puppet Louvre |
"Having outwardly provided what may be good for our eyes, it is next that wee should seriously weigh and consider every part of the work, returning to it again and again, even ten and ten times if need be. For our sense doth seldom at the first judge right of these curiosities, it is an unwary Arbitrator, and mistaketh many things: all the soundnesse and truth of our judgement must proceed onely from reason. . . . This ought therefore to be our chiefest care, that wee should not onely goe with our eyes over the severall figures represented in the worke, but that we should likewise suffer our mind to enter into a lively consideration of what wee see expressed; not otherwise than if wee were present, and saw not the counterfieted image but the reall performance of the thing."
– from Book Three (chapter seven) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638 – edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991