DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0088
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
an interesting head: this substratum, which only our most
renowned masters lose sight of on the rare occasions when
they see the nude without dramatizing its activity, does not
exist in Egypt. Once upon a time when captivated by the
baroque I failed to see clearly, or perhaps overlooked, this
substratum in Michelangelo. Now I see it so clearly that it
seems to me the fundamental difference between Egypt and
ourselves; and I track the model like the scent of an animal,
the residue of an exercise in virtuosity which in spite of every
expenditure of effort was in the last instance useless since it
clung obstinately to the surface.
The problem of our sculpture, even at its highest
moments, thus presents itself; and I tremble when I summon
up our most famous achievements in this hall of Chefren.
It is no good hiding our head in the sand and pretending that
it’s no business of ours; it is no good reminding ourselves that
Egypt was something different. No: it is not different, can-
not be different; or we should cease to be anything ourselves.
It is only because Egyptian art has qualities which excite our
senses and lead us to make readjustments which have long
been needed but which would never have come to fruition
without a stimulus from outside, that it has any value for us;
and if we decline to follow where the finger points, we are
no sun-worshippers. These Egyptians mean nothing to Egypt
and the remote past, but for our present world they are of
supreme importance. I am not talking of education, which
is not my affair, but I am announcing the fact of a spiritual
experience. The famous conventions of this art, so far as they
remain impenetrable, have nothing to do with the case, and
become a refuge for those who flee from the responsibility of
thinking. For all the severity of their conventions the
Egyptians of the earlier dynasties expressed themselves in
sculpture as naturally as men of genius in our own day have
done with brush or point. This is one fact, and the most
surprising: the naturalness of their conventional art. And
76
an interesting head: this substratum, which only our most
renowned masters lose sight of on the rare occasions when
they see the nude without dramatizing its activity, does not
exist in Egypt. Once upon a time when captivated by the
baroque I failed to see clearly, or perhaps overlooked, this
substratum in Michelangelo. Now I see it so clearly that it
seems to me the fundamental difference between Egypt and
ourselves; and I track the model like the scent of an animal,
the residue of an exercise in virtuosity which in spite of every
expenditure of effort was in the last instance useless since it
clung obstinately to the surface.
The problem of our sculpture, even at its highest
moments, thus presents itself; and I tremble when I summon
up our most famous achievements in this hall of Chefren.
It is no good hiding our head in the sand and pretending that
it’s no business of ours; it is no good reminding ourselves that
Egypt was something different. No: it is not different, can-
not be different; or we should cease to be anything ourselves.
It is only because Egyptian art has qualities which excite our
senses and lead us to make readjustments which have long
been needed but which would never have come to fruition
without a stimulus from outside, that it has any value for us;
and if we decline to follow where the finger points, we are
no sun-worshippers. These Egyptians mean nothing to Egypt
and the remote past, but for our present world they are of
supreme importance. I am not talking of education, which
is not my affair, but I am announcing the fact of a spiritual
experience. The famous conventions of this art, so far as they
remain impenetrable, have nothing to do with the case, and
become a refuge for those who flee from the responsibility of
thinking. For all the severity of their conventions the
Egyptians of the earlier dynasties expressed themselves in
sculpture as naturally as men of genius in our own day have
done with brush or point. This is one fact, and the most
surprising: the naturalness of their conventional art. And
76