The general character of Etruscan works of art is, on the one hand, a sort of barbaric extravagance in material as well as in style; on the other hand, an utter absence of original development.  Where the Greek master lightly sketches, the Etruscan disciple lavishes a scholar’s diligence; instead of the light material and moderate proportions of the Greek works, there appears in the Etruscan an ostentatious stress laid upon the size and costliness, or even the mere singularity, of the work.  Etruscan art cannot imitate without exaggerating; the chaste in its hands becomes harsh, the graceful effeminate, the terrible hideous, and the voluptuous obscene; and these features become more prominent, the more the original stimulus falls into the background and Etruscan art finds itself left to its own resources.  Still more surprising is the adherence to traditional forms and a traditional style.  Whether it was that a more friendly contact with Etruria at the outset allowed the Hellenes to scatter there the seeds of art, and that a later epoch of hostility impeded the admission into Etruria of the more recent developments of Greek art, or whether, as is more probable, the intellectual torpor that rapidly came over the nation was the main cause of the phenomenon, art in Etruria remained substantially stationary at the primitive stage which it had occupied on its first entrance.  This, as is well known, forms the reason why Etruscan art, the stunted daughter, was so long regarded as the mother, of Hellenic art.  Still more even than the rigid adherence to the style traditionally transmitted in the older branches of art, the sadly inferior handling of those branches that came into vogue afterwards, particularly of sculpture in stone and of copper-casting as applied to coins, shows how quickly the spirit of Etruscan art evaporated.  Equally instructive are the painted vases, which are found in so enormous numbers in the later Etruscan tombs.  Had these come into current use among the Etruscans as early as the metal plates decorated with contouring or the painted terra-cottas, beyond doubt they would have learned to manufacture them at home in considerable quantity, and of a quality at least relatively good; but at the period at which this luxury arose, the power of independent reproduction wholly failed—­as the isolated vases provided with Etruscan inscriptions show—­and they contented themselves with buying instead of making them.

North Etruscan and South Etruscan Art

But even within Etruria there appears a further remarkable distinction in artistic development between the southern and northern districts.  It is South Etruria, particularly in the districts of Caere, Tarquinii, and Volci, that has preserved the great treasures of art which the nation boasted, especially in frescoes, temple decorations, gold ornaments, and painted vases.  Northern Etruria is far inferior; no painted tomb, for example, has been found to the north of Chiusi.