Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Meier-Graefe, Julius
Pyramid and temple — London, 1931

DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0107
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A THIRD FAMILY

sculptor touching up a fresco; and the same thing might
happen if production were in the hands of a few artists with
a vision of their own, who subsequently left their works to a
society which did as it pleased with them. Such a thing has
happened in Europe, and may be happening today. Michel-
angelo has been painted over and Rembrandt daubed about,
and mosaics have been covered with plaster and plaster with
paper. And who knows what a modern Maecenas with a
taste for painting mightn’t do with his Cezannes and Renoirs,
were he not restrained by his respect for their market value?
In all these cases art and the rabble are distinct in kind;
and the one is exposed to the incivility of the other. This
hypothesis does not apply to ancient Egypt; you may find
discrepancies among its productions, but its artists were not
isolated individuals. You cannot accuse this art of being
grossly inconsequent. The setting may not be to our taste;
but the Egyptians liked it; that is to say, it answered to their
rhythm. Chess has the same rules at all times and in all
places. The make-up of the princely pair, if transferred to
the reliefs at Sakkara, would not interfere with the real
effect of those admirable decorations. Just as well-preserved
traces of colour, there and elsewhere, are dependent on the
orderly combination of painting and relief, in which the
graphic aspect of the relief plays the leading part, so we may
be sure the sculptor of statues in the round took precedence
of the painter. Colour provided the complementary accom-
paniment. That need not exclude lively colours; and we must
get used to the idea at once. But painting can never have
made a caricature of the sculptor’s work and turned art into
naturalism. The painter too must have obeyed a canon of
laws. Perhaps we shall approximate to the truth if we give
the painting the role of the libretto in an opera. We must
not, of course, think of Richard Wagner, but rather of The
Magic Flute. We are hardly doing the Egyptians too much
honour by transferring to their sculpture such a delicate web

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