title: A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization
author:  J. C. McKeown 
description: <br />"The selections are, on the whole, intriguing and often delightful... A Classicist will find much to use, and as a gift to a friend who wonders how the ancients can hold our fascination so thoroughly, this cabinet will surely inform and charm the recipient." --<em>Bryn Mawr Classical Review</em>
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  Art Influence in the West  
    
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
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  # Art Influence in the West
  
  
  ### Mary Austin
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  WHOEVER undertakes to discuss art influence brings up sooner or later at the
  Greeks. I prefer to begin there, and
  
  
  to begin with that one of its sources which is not peculiarly Greek, but
  eternal: I mean with Greece. Whatever a
  
  
  people may make will resemble the thing that people look on most; so that the
  first guess as to what is likely to come
  
  
  out of any quarter is a knowledge of the land itself, its keen peaks, round-
  breasted hills, and bloomy valleys. Greek
  
  
  polity had never so much to do with the surpassingness of Hellenic art as the
  one thing the Hellenes had nothing
  
  
  whatever to do with — the extraordinary beauty of the land in which they
  lived.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  However much it is possible to 