Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- MAP
- CHAPTER I PREDECESSORS OF GREEK ART
- CHAPTER II CHALDÆO-ASSYRIA
- CHAPTER III PHŒNICIA
- CHAPTER IV THE METOPES OF SELINUS
- CHAPTER V PHEIDIAS AND THE PARTHENON
- CHAPTER VI THE HERMES OF PRAXITELES
- CHAPTER VII THE ALTAR OF EUMENES AT PERGAMOS
- TABLE OF REFERENCES
- Plate section
CHAPTER I - PREDECESSORS OF GREEK ART
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- MAP
- CHAPTER I PREDECESSORS OF GREEK ART
- CHAPTER II CHALDÆO-ASSYRIA
- CHAPTER III PHŒNICIA
- CHAPTER IV THE METOPES OF SELINUS
- CHAPTER V PHEIDIAS AND THE PARTHENON
- CHAPTER VI THE HERMES OF PRAXITELES
- CHAPTER VII THE ALTAR OF EUMENES AT PERGAMOS
- TABLE OF REFERENCES
- Plate section
Summary
Two out of six of the following chapters deal with the art of Egypt, Assyria, and Phœnicia. This for a double reason, which in a few words I wish to make clear.
In bygone days of art-criticism originality was claimed for the Greeks as their especial, distinguishing gift. Original they were, but not in the narrow sense of borrowing nothing from their predecessors. The historic instinct is wide awake among us now. We seek with a new-won earnestness to know the genesis, the origiues of whatever we study, the ancestors of the individual artist, the predecessors of a nation. If critics in the past approached archæology from the artistic and purely contemplative standpoint, critics of to-day incline to its historical, scientific aspect. Hence our first duty in speaking of Greek art is to show by the light of recent discoveries its relation to the art of Egypt, Assyria, and Phœnicia which preceded it.
There is another reason.
We can only see what was really original in Greek art when we have eliminated what was borrowed from others; we only seem to touch the secret springs of Greek genius when we have drunk somewhat of waters that flow from other sources. To drop metaphor, it is only when we know something of what Assyria, Egypt, and Phœnicia effected in art, what problems they solved, what they could, what they could not do, by what limitations they were bound, and in part the why of all this, that we are able to realize wherein what was peculiar to Greek art consisted.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Introductory Studies in Greek Art , pp. 1 - 39Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010