Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/40

Plan and Method pursued in this History. 19 his own personality, making it unlike any other piece. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there are as many plastic entities, if the expression be allowed, as there are works due to Hellenic genius in our museums. In such conditions as these, the work of selection to which we must presently apply ourselves has in it somewhat of a painful nature. When, for each period, each school, each art-section, we have gathered and grouped together a large array of monuments, all of which on some plea or another are worthy of attention, we shall have to make up our mind what we should discard, with the not pleasing prospect that every specimen thus omitted will be held up to us in scorn as proof of our want of taste and thoroughness. Yet what are we to do .^ If a complete tale is out of the question, far more so is a complete reproduction. A very small number of images will have to suffice in conveying some notion of a long series of monuments. On the other hand, we pledge ourselves to sparing no pains in order that these images shall always be faithful, and look as if well chosen, and above all best fitted to represent and make manifest the special characteristics of a technique or style. We dare not hope that our choice will in every instance meet with the approbation of the critic. More than one will express astonishment at the absence of such monuments as he knows best, which by reason of the study bestowed on them have become his particular pets ; he will feel aggrieved and bear us a grudge for what he may consider intended as a personal slight. For the most part, valid reasons might be adduced to justify the line we have taken ; but even when plausible reasons could be put forth against it, we beg the reader to suspend his judgment ere he taxes us with ignorance. It may well be that a monument of real value has dropped out of our notes ; but this, we are not afraid to say boldly, will be the exception not the rule. When, as in our case, the notion of writing the Art-history of Greece has been the day-dream of our life for the last twenty years, whose preface has already appeared in five volumes, and whose first lines we are even now inditing, when, in view of this work, we visited all the great European museums that we might keep ourselves well informed as to excavations and the march of archaeological science, what