DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0171
THE NEW KINGDOM
monarchs. The Ptah outfit is particularly becoming. With-
out a crown, and wearing only a close-fitting piece of material
on his head, Rameses stands in a compact attitude with
both hands resting on his gigantic sceptre. The natural
marking of the brown stone paints long folds on the narrow
garment and decorates it in a masterly fashion; a more
elegant presentment is hardly to be imagined.
There are also representations of a much higher order.
Nearly thirty years ago I saw the great basalt Rameses at
Turin and I remember with what enthusiasm I determined
to visit Egypt that very same year. This Rameses seemed to
me then a pinnacle of achievement. We were in Turin,
attending an international exhibition of arts and crafts,
prepared for quite other impressions. The greatness of this
stone had nothing to do with its mass effect; it was due to a
mysterious grace. Under the fine-ribbed garment you felt
a young body of all-conquering charm. The charm sur-
mounted the format, and the stone surmounted its Egyptian-
ness. A youth, delicate and appealing, smiled proudly and
confidently, smiled with the elegance of one who is complete
master of the situation, to whom nothing in his own time,
and even in the twentieth century, is unfamiliar: an urbane
smile. Afterwards I went on to Florence and Rome. Rameses
kept me company all the way, and his smile kept at bay the
usual intoxication of the Quattrocento and Cinquecento and
exhorted me to aim at higher things. That was my first
intimation: an incomprehensible survival of artistic power.
In the maddest vortex of megalomaniac world-power, race
always tells and wipes out everything proletarian.
Nearly a thousand years later the pride of Berlin — the
‘Green Head’ — came into existence, after the conquest of
the kingdom by Alexander the Great, when the Ptolemies
were enthroned in Egypt. Enthralled by this chiselled,
polished, accurate objectiveness, you might ask whether the
epoch that made such a work can be called decadent. In this
153
monarchs. The Ptah outfit is particularly becoming. With-
out a crown, and wearing only a close-fitting piece of material
on his head, Rameses stands in a compact attitude with
both hands resting on his gigantic sceptre. The natural
marking of the brown stone paints long folds on the narrow
garment and decorates it in a masterly fashion; a more
elegant presentment is hardly to be imagined.
There are also representations of a much higher order.
Nearly thirty years ago I saw the great basalt Rameses at
Turin and I remember with what enthusiasm I determined
to visit Egypt that very same year. This Rameses seemed to
me then a pinnacle of achievement. We were in Turin,
attending an international exhibition of arts and crafts,
prepared for quite other impressions. The greatness of this
stone had nothing to do with its mass effect; it was due to a
mysterious grace. Under the fine-ribbed garment you felt
a young body of all-conquering charm. The charm sur-
mounted the format, and the stone surmounted its Egyptian-
ness. A youth, delicate and appealing, smiled proudly and
confidently, smiled with the elegance of one who is complete
master of the situation, to whom nothing in his own time,
and even in the twentieth century, is unfamiliar: an urbane
smile. Afterwards I went on to Florence and Rome. Rameses
kept me company all the way, and his smile kept at bay the
usual intoxication of the Quattrocento and Cinquecento and
exhorted me to aim at higher things. That was my first
intimation: an incomprehensible survival of artistic power.
In the maddest vortex of megalomaniac world-power, race
always tells and wipes out everything proletarian.
Nearly a thousand years later the pride of Berlin — the
‘Green Head’ — came into existence, after the conquest of
the kingdom by Alexander the Great, when the Ptolemies
were enthroned in Egypt. Enthralled by this chiselled,
polished, accurate objectiveness, you might ask whether the
epoch that made such a work can be called decadent. In this
153