DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9188#0066
50
Architecture
of the race was in Asia. All we know for certain is that the
earliest civilizations of which actual historical evidence remains
are those of Chaldea and Egypt, and that the art of these
countries reached a high degree of attainment long before we
come upon the earliest traces of art of any sort in Greece.
That both these countries contributed in varying degrees to
the art of Greece is certain, but that is not the whole of the
story. As we shall see, another element comes into play,
which made of that art almost a new creation, differing in
outlook and ideal from any art that preceded it, stamped
by the genius of a vigorous northern race with a character all
its own. The art of the East and the art of the West never
really fused. There is a difference in kind between the joyous
vitality of pure Greek art, and the gloomy vision of Asia, with
its craving for the vast and terrible, its sombre imagination,
its lack of humanity and indifference to the individual.
It is not, however, till far down in the progress of history
that this differentiation asserts itself. Greek art is relatively
a late development. The Great Pyramid at Ghizeh was
built some 2,000 years before a stone was laid of the masonry
of Mycenae. The Hall of Columns of Karnak, with its columns
sixty feet high, was probably coeval with the Treasury of
Atreus : in other words, when the art of Greece and of the
islands was scarcely out of the barbaric stage, a wonderful art
had been in existence across the Mediterranean from time
immemorial. Both Egypt and Chaldea attained a high degree
of civilization long before the Dorians were ever heard of.
At some remote period the Egyptian influence penetrated to
Crete and Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean, and the mainland
of Greece; and the intermediaries were the Phoenicians,
that enterprising race of merchant adventurers, whose home
was in Syria, and whose fleets traversed the Mediterranean
from East to West. The Phoenicians were traders and not
artists. In Egypt they came into contact with a highly
Architecture
of the race was in Asia. All we know for certain is that the
earliest civilizations of which actual historical evidence remains
are those of Chaldea and Egypt, and that the art of these
countries reached a high degree of attainment long before we
come upon the earliest traces of art of any sort in Greece.
That both these countries contributed in varying degrees to
the art of Greece is certain, but that is not the whole of the
story. As we shall see, another element comes into play,
which made of that art almost a new creation, differing in
outlook and ideal from any art that preceded it, stamped
by the genius of a vigorous northern race with a character all
its own. The art of the East and the art of the West never
really fused. There is a difference in kind between the joyous
vitality of pure Greek art, and the gloomy vision of Asia, with
its craving for the vast and terrible, its sombre imagination,
its lack of humanity and indifference to the individual.
It is not, however, till far down in the progress of history
that this differentiation asserts itself. Greek art is relatively
a late development. The Great Pyramid at Ghizeh was
built some 2,000 years before a stone was laid of the masonry
of Mycenae. The Hall of Columns of Karnak, with its columns
sixty feet high, was probably coeval with the Treasury of
Atreus : in other words, when the art of Greece and of the
islands was scarcely out of the barbaric stage, a wonderful art
had been in existence across the Mediterranean from time
immemorial. Both Egypt and Chaldea attained a high degree
of civilization long before the Dorians were ever heard of.
At some remote period the Egyptian influence penetrated to
Crete and Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean, and the mainland
of Greece; and the intermediaries were the Phoenicians,
that enterprising race of merchant adventurers, whose home
was in Syria, and whose fleets traversed the Mediterranean
from East to West. The Phoenicians were traders and not
artists. In Egypt they came into contact with a highly