DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0340
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
I made an inane grimace. ‘Why?’
He smiled discerningly. ‘It is the only thing you can
say; that is the difference between us. One must grasp the
categories.’
The State could build houses on a history of art like that.
It is a booking-office, a counting-machine, an address-book.
I ask: who is the man? Does he pay his debts? Is he a
lunatic? Can he play the piano? Does he like Proust?
Would you recommend him as a son-in-law? The history
of art replies: 13 Friedrichstrasse, 3rd Floor.
The feminine impression emanates from the whole of
Greek art before the time of the Parthenon, even the famous
boys with the broken arms, even the still more famous head
of a youth which seems to resemble the Apollo of Olympia.
I can quite see why people consider it beautiful; I consider it
so myself. There is nothing else to do but consider it beauti-
ful. That is just what makes it superfluous for people of our
period. They produce the husks of figures — form, well
enough, for their style is perceptible, but passive and, so to
speak, already interpreted form: a mould, whose contents
they reproduce. From the same motives people like certain
tondos of Botticelli’s. The style is genre. The little relief of
the pensive Athena leaning on her spear, the favourite of
every artistic young person, anticipates the Pre-Raphaelite
subject-picture. The relief might serve as the crest to any
Lyceum Club.
One thinks of these feminine traits as marking the
transition and entertains hopes of the early period. True
value must lie in the archaic, if anywhere. The reliefs of the
Ludovisi throne dart through one’s memory, and other
admirable things, especially the one in the Louvre, the poem
in relief: La Fleur Enchantee. The professionals all say: Ah,
wait till you get to Athens! Involuntarily one thinks of the
Acropolis Museum as a lyrical anthology. They can’t all
have been stolen, then. If the highest achievements are
3H
I made an inane grimace. ‘Why?’
He smiled discerningly. ‘It is the only thing you can
say; that is the difference between us. One must grasp the
categories.’
The State could build houses on a history of art like that.
It is a booking-office, a counting-machine, an address-book.
I ask: who is the man? Does he pay his debts? Is he a
lunatic? Can he play the piano? Does he like Proust?
Would you recommend him as a son-in-law? The history
of art replies: 13 Friedrichstrasse, 3rd Floor.
The feminine impression emanates from the whole of
Greek art before the time of the Parthenon, even the famous
boys with the broken arms, even the still more famous head
of a youth which seems to resemble the Apollo of Olympia.
I can quite see why people consider it beautiful; I consider it
so myself. There is nothing else to do but consider it beauti-
ful. That is just what makes it superfluous for people of our
period. They produce the husks of figures — form, well
enough, for their style is perceptible, but passive and, so to
speak, already interpreted form: a mould, whose contents
they reproduce. From the same motives people like certain
tondos of Botticelli’s. The style is genre. The little relief of
the pensive Athena leaning on her spear, the favourite of
every artistic young person, anticipates the Pre-Raphaelite
subject-picture. The relief might serve as the crest to any
Lyceum Club.
One thinks of these feminine traits as marking the
transition and entertains hopes of the early period. True
value must lie in the archaic, if anywhere. The reliefs of the
Ludovisi throne dart through one’s memory, and other
admirable things, especially the one in the Louvre, the poem
in relief: La Fleur Enchantee. The professionals all say: Ah,
wait till you get to Athens! Involuntarily one thinks of the
Acropolis Museum as a lyrical anthology. They can’t all
have been stolen, then. If the highest achievements are
3H