DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0080
60
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
chap.
pus. The great abundance and wide distribution of these
monuments is an important fact in religious history, one among
many facts which show how, towards the beginning of the
Christian era, old world beliefs were reasserting themselves with
the decay of what may be called the established or orthodox
pantheon, the community of deities which still lives for us in
the Homeric poems, and in the splendid works of literary and
plastic art, which can only fall into neglect when modern
civilization is suffocated by materialism, or tries to forget what
is most noteworthy in the past history of Europe.
Fig. 7. — Reclining hero, with worshipper : Athens.
Let us turn to Athens, where, of course, the forces which have
made the art of Greece immortal had fullest play, and trace
there the working of the motives and ideas which informed the
sculpture of the tomb. Our knowledge in this province is
greatly furthered by a very fortunate accident, which has pre-
PRINCIPLES OP GREEK ART
chap.
pus. The great abundance and wide distribution of these
monuments is an important fact in religious history, one among
many facts which show how, towards the beginning of the
Christian era, old world beliefs were reasserting themselves with
the decay of what may be called the established or orthodox
pantheon, the community of deities which still lives for us in
the Homeric poems, and in the splendid works of literary and
plastic art, which can only fall into neglect when modern
civilization is suffocated by materialism, or tries to forget what
is most noteworthy in the past history of Europe.
Fig. 7. — Reclining hero, with worshipper : Athens.
Let us turn to Athens, where, of course, the forces which have
made the art of Greece immortal had fullest play, and trace
there the working of the motives and ideas which informed the
sculpture of the tomb. Our knowledge in this province is
greatly furthered by a very fortunate accident, which has pre-