Gardner, Percy: The principles of Greek art (London, 1924)

CHAPTER V

formation of artistic types

It has been well observed by Brunn, the most illustrious ex-
ponent of Greek art in the last generation, that in the matter of
art the Greeks proceeded on much the same lines as they fol-
lowed in the creation of a literature.

Before the Greeks came upon the stage of the world, chronicles
existed, and myths, and hymns to the Gods. But literature in
the true sense of the word did not exist. And when literature
began to appear, the letters in which it was written were bor-
rowed from other peoples, mostly from the Phoenicians. But
the Greeks used those letters in their own way, to express their
own ideas, so that Greek poetry and oratory and history and
philosophy, while they incorporated some of what was passed
on from the older peoples of the East, were genuine and un-
doubted embodiments of the Greek spirit.

Greek art arose in the same way. Before the seventh cen-
tury sculpture and painting were well known in Egypt and
Babylon. The early art of Mesopotamia mostly runs parallel
to the chronicles of the kings, and records in a kind of picture-
writing their achievements. The art of Egypt is also in part
of this historic character; but it is also largely devoted to the
service of religion. Both of these regions developed a kind of
art suited to their needs, and of great interest. But to us it is
dead; it reached its apex and declined; its value to the modern
world is only historic.

We have learned from the researches of Dr. Schliemann, Sir
A. Evans and others, that in Greece and the Greek islands

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