ABSTRACT
In 1873, Walter Pater wrote of the unsurpassed beauty of Classical Greek sculpture, from which all subsequent art is a falling away. Following the German art historian Johann Winckelmann, Pater discerned in Greek sculpture a quality of abstraction and light:
(Pater 1915: 224)
Here is a condensation of what has been much discussed in this book. Humanity (and probably only 'man') peaked in ancient Greek civilisation, accepted in the Victorian period as unequivocally white. What makes whites
special is the light within, though modern man must struggle to see, let alone regain this . This light, which is white, is dirtied ('stained') by blood, passion, movement, which is to say, isn't it, life. In the wider representation of whiteness, the very struggle for whiteness is a sign of whiteness, but here in Pater, to recapture whiteness is also to shed life, which can mean nothing else than death.
