Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T02:16:14.702Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CHAPTER I - PREDECESSORS OF GREEK ART

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

Get access

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
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1885

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×