DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0143
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM
permit. But their calculating look dispels the old enchant-
ment, and they are not truly statuesque; their bodies have no
compelling weight. You take them for husks of statues and
forget that they are made of stone. The cold white of the
almost unpainted limestone strengthens this impression.
Here, where the sculptor has to some extent failed, you miss
the completing hand of the painter; colour would have added
movement, or at least a semblance of movement. In no detail
can they bear comparison with earlier works. The ears are
not organic growths, but ornamental shells, conceived in line
like the graceful decoration on the flat side of the throne.
Everything is nice and neat, in the academic taste. Some-
one I know said the other day that we should linger over
these if the old things didn’t exist. Possibly: I don’t know.
They would still have charm; even two thousand years later
Egyptian sculpture has at times an undeniable charm. The
most commonplace Italian ditty of the eighteenth century -
or even of the nineteenth - is pleasant to the ear; and even
belated survivals of Watteau’s school have something of his
light fantastic colour. Without the top notes, however, art
would be a mere dance without spiritual import. We sacri-
fice too much sensibility to substitutes which are ‘almost as
good’ and endure the routine of the successor out of respect
for the predecessor. The old people were never academic.
That is remarkable enough, since there appear to have been
many inducements towards academic naturalism, if not
towards academic stylization. The human being is always
submerged in the sculptor; there are not many works so
distinctive as the Zoser. The great Mykerinos is much more
a craftsman’s job, and so too, I think, is the Chefren. But
the difference lies chiefly in the hardness of the material and
is concerned with the smoothness of the detail; it hardly
touches the main question — the feeling for solidity. Perhaps
the Old Kingdom had merely a better academic tradition; it
all comes to the same thing in the end.
127
permit. But their calculating look dispels the old enchant-
ment, and they are not truly statuesque; their bodies have no
compelling weight. You take them for husks of statues and
forget that they are made of stone. The cold white of the
almost unpainted limestone strengthens this impression.
Here, where the sculptor has to some extent failed, you miss
the completing hand of the painter; colour would have added
movement, or at least a semblance of movement. In no detail
can they bear comparison with earlier works. The ears are
not organic growths, but ornamental shells, conceived in line
like the graceful decoration on the flat side of the throne.
Everything is nice and neat, in the academic taste. Some-
one I know said the other day that we should linger over
these if the old things didn’t exist. Possibly: I don’t know.
They would still have charm; even two thousand years later
Egyptian sculpture has at times an undeniable charm. The
most commonplace Italian ditty of the eighteenth century -
or even of the nineteenth - is pleasant to the ear; and even
belated survivals of Watteau’s school have something of his
light fantastic colour. Without the top notes, however, art
would be a mere dance without spiritual import. We sacri-
fice too much sensibility to substitutes which are ‘almost as
good’ and endure the routine of the successor out of respect
for the predecessor. The old people were never academic.
That is remarkable enough, since there appear to have been
many inducements towards academic naturalism, if not
towards academic stylization. The human being is always
submerged in the sculptor; there are not many works so
distinctive as the Zoser. The great Mykerinos is much more
a craftsman’s job, and so too, I think, is the Chefren. But
the difference lies chiefly in the hardness of the material and
is concerned with the smoothness of the detail; it hardly
touches the main question — the feeling for solidity. Perhaps
the Old Kingdom had merely a better academic tradition; it
all comes to the same thing in the end.
127