writer well says, "by an intuitive sense of beauty which was with
them almost a religious principle, aimed at an ideal perfection,
and, by making Nature in her most perfect forms their model,
acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of
form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the
terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost
synonymous." The first specimens of Greek sculpture were rough,
unhewn wooden representations of the gods. These were followed,
a little later, by wooden images having some resemblance to life,
and clothed and decorated with ornaments of various kinds. While
this branch of the art long remained in a rude state, sculptured
figures on architectural monuments were executed in a superior
style as early as the age of Homer.

Long before the period of authentic history, other materials
than wood were used in making statues; and as early as 700 B.C.
a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in bronze. The art
of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of Chios, about
690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, of Samos,
is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting figures of
bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for statues, was
introduced in the early part of the sixth century by Dipoe'nus
and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists celebrated for
works in this material. But, while these improvements were
important, they did not necessarily involve any change in style;
and it was the removal of the restraints imposed by religion and
hereditary cultivation that laid the foundation for the rapid
progress of the art and its subsequent perfection. These changes,
and the results produced by them, are well summed up in the
following extract from THIRLWALL: