DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0048
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The. Beginnings of Art
PART I
the expression of some great idea that once filled the minds
of their creators. What if this idea was Immortality—that
creed which formed the central point of the religion of
Egypt—what if it were the first clear vision of this idea by
mankind at large or by the different sections of mankind
as each arrived at the necessary stage of culture, that was
commemorated by these everlasting monuments reared over
the perishable bodies of the dead, who would yet live on
eternal as themselves ! We need not speculate upon this
hazardous though fascinating theme, for all which we want
from these ‘ Rude Stone Monuments ’ is evidence that at a
very early date in the history of humanity men felt an im-
pulse to embody the faith that was in them in some vast
and enduring structure, a thing not for material use, but a
witness to such spiritual conceptions as the Family Idea or
the indestructibility of the human Intelligence. So out of
the performance of funeral rites—a family celebration, and
in the larger sense of the word a festival—proceeds the
desire for the permanent expression of the thought that
filled every heart, and with the satisfaction of this desire,
monumental architecture, and not only this, but monumental
sculpture also are born.
§ 19. Survival of the spirit of the earliest monuments
in later Architecture and Sculpture.
For though, as we shall see, the Rude Stone Monument
is not in a technical sense the beginning of architecture
—this art owing its actual forms to other sources —
and though as compared to the speaking image in a
statue the rough stone is but dumbly symbolic, yet all
great architecture, and all great sculpture too, borrow
something of the spell that works here so potently. There
is in fine sculpture an indescribable remoteness and dignity.
The. Beginnings of Art
PART I
the expression of some great idea that once filled the minds
of their creators. What if this idea was Immortality—that
creed which formed the central point of the religion of
Egypt—what if it were the first clear vision of this idea by
mankind at large or by the different sections of mankind
as each arrived at the necessary stage of culture, that was
commemorated by these everlasting monuments reared over
the perishable bodies of the dead, who would yet live on
eternal as themselves ! We need not speculate upon this
hazardous though fascinating theme, for all which we want
from these ‘ Rude Stone Monuments ’ is evidence that at a
very early date in the history of humanity men felt an im-
pulse to embody the faith that was in them in some vast
and enduring structure, a thing not for material use, but a
witness to such spiritual conceptions as the Family Idea or
the indestructibility of the human Intelligence. So out of
the performance of funeral rites—a family celebration, and
in the larger sense of the word a festival—proceeds the
desire for the permanent expression of the thought that
filled every heart, and with the satisfaction of this desire,
monumental architecture, and not only this, but monumental
sculpture also are born.
§ 19. Survival of the spirit of the earliest monuments
in later Architecture and Sculpture.
For though, as we shall see, the Rude Stone Monument
is not in a technical sense the beginning of architecture
—this art owing its actual forms to other sources —
and though as compared to the speaking image in a
statue the rough stone is but dumbly symbolic, yet all
great architecture, and all great sculpture too, borrow
something of the spell that works here so potently. There
is in fine sculpture an indescribable remoteness and dignity.