DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0144
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
The six pillar-statues with crossed arms, representing the
same Sesostris as Osiris, along the two main walls of the same
room, are far more to our taste; and one sees why immediately.
The costume of Osiris helps to enclose them, and the use of
the pillar-figures as architectural accessories practically turns
them into reliefs. The decorative replaces the static. Their
architectural function has still the freshness of an unhack-
neyed device and the fluency of the line compensates for the.
lack of plastic amplitude. But the lack is there right enough.
The expansion of the Middle Kingdom into the realm of
ornament became the regular mode of escape open to the
survivors of a great tradition in every period, and here
displayed for the first time the perils of the smooth and easy
way. Its renaissance provided every facility in this direction.
It was assisted by the pious caution with which the advance
took place, and the virtuous resolve to neglect no opportunity
of taking deeper root. There were artists who resisted this
dangerous temptation and refused to be enslaved by archi-
tecture: indeed their number was considerable, for the
manifold activities of the age insured it. They gained in
surface-extent what they lost in depth. Miniature sculpture
flourished; the cases in the third room are full of attractive
specimens. This is the moment when the bibelot was invented:
the product of a taste which aimed at largeness of style even
in small matters and understood the secret properties of
materials. The artist extended the boundaries of his origin-
ality and discovered the connoisseur. If all these miniature
sculptures in everv sort of material also served the cult of the
dead, one imagines the tomb must have been a positive show-
case. Works on a larger scale which can hold their own
beside the older things are unknown to me.
The seated Amenemhet hi, in sandstone, opposite the
dark priest in the corridor, has a certain charm: an agreeable
young man, upon whom your eye rests willingly enough,
without paying much attention. He is the kind of man who
128
The six pillar-statues with crossed arms, representing the
same Sesostris as Osiris, along the two main walls of the same
room, are far more to our taste; and one sees why immediately.
The costume of Osiris helps to enclose them, and the use of
the pillar-figures as architectural accessories practically turns
them into reliefs. The decorative replaces the static. Their
architectural function has still the freshness of an unhack-
neyed device and the fluency of the line compensates for the.
lack of plastic amplitude. But the lack is there right enough.
The expansion of the Middle Kingdom into the realm of
ornament became the regular mode of escape open to the
survivors of a great tradition in every period, and here
displayed for the first time the perils of the smooth and easy
way. Its renaissance provided every facility in this direction.
It was assisted by the pious caution with which the advance
took place, and the virtuous resolve to neglect no opportunity
of taking deeper root. There were artists who resisted this
dangerous temptation and refused to be enslaved by archi-
tecture: indeed their number was considerable, for the
manifold activities of the age insured it. They gained in
surface-extent what they lost in depth. Miniature sculpture
flourished; the cases in the third room are full of attractive
specimens. This is the moment when the bibelot was invented:
the product of a taste which aimed at largeness of style even
in small matters and understood the secret properties of
materials. The artist extended the boundaries of his origin-
ality and discovered the connoisseur. If all these miniature
sculptures in everv sort of material also served the cult of the
dead, one imagines the tomb must have been a positive show-
case. Works on a larger scale which can hold their own
beside the older things are unknown to me.
The seated Amenemhet hi, in sandstone, opposite the
dark priest in the corridor, has a certain charm: an agreeable
young man, upon whom your eye rests willingly enough,
without paying much attention. He is the kind of man who
128