DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0044
24 The Beginnings of Art part i
cover the walls of Egyptian temples and run as a
dado round the rooms of Assyrian palaces, certainly do
resemble textile products, and give a colour to Semper’s
theory. They are at any rate thoroughly festal in feeling-
a gay and varied show, representing the glories of the
gods and the deeds of kings or the departed great ones of
the earth. Work of this kind in low relief is not properly
sculpture, and to sculpture proper belongs a somewhat
different character.
§ 16. and of monumental Sculpture ;
When sculpture is not confined to decorative functions
or to the mere imitation of nature, it assumes a monumental
or commemorative character on which a word may be said
in passing. It is obvious that to set up a monument to a
deity or to a human being is a different thing from merely
perpetuating his real or supposed lineaments. It implies
not a record only, but the expression of honouring regard,
and a claim upon future generations that they will share
or at any rate respect the feeling thus perpetuated. This
character, attaching not to all, but to many of the most
important works of sculpture produced in ancient times,
possesses significance for the theory of the art in general
which must be left for treatment to a subsequent page.
The same feeling receives so much more potent an ex-
pression in the monument of Architecture that it is in con-
nection with this art that it will best be noticed here.
§ 17. and especially of Architecture.
It is to the festal celebration that we must look for the
origin of many distinctive features of this most imposing of
the arts of form. Architecture may seem at first sight to
cover the walls of Egyptian temples and run as a
dado round the rooms of Assyrian palaces, certainly do
resemble textile products, and give a colour to Semper’s
theory. They are at any rate thoroughly festal in feeling-
a gay and varied show, representing the glories of the
gods and the deeds of kings or the departed great ones of
the earth. Work of this kind in low relief is not properly
sculpture, and to sculpture proper belongs a somewhat
different character.
§ 16. and of monumental Sculpture ;
When sculpture is not confined to decorative functions
or to the mere imitation of nature, it assumes a monumental
or commemorative character on which a word may be said
in passing. It is obvious that to set up a monument to a
deity or to a human being is a different thing from merely
perpetuating his real or supposed lineaments. It implies
not a record only, but the expression of honouring regard,
and a claim upon future generations that they will share
or at any rate respect the feeling thus perpetuated. This
character, attaching not to all, but to many of the most
important works of sculpture produced in ancient times,
possesses significance for the theory of the art in general
which must be left for treatment to a subsequent page.
The same feeling receives so much more potent an ex-
pression in the monument of Architecture that it is in con-
nection with this art that it will best be noticed here.
§ 17. and especially of Architecture.
It is to the festal celebration that we must look for the
origin of many distinctive features of this most imposing of
the arts of form. Architecture may seem at first sight to