DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0358
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
in my mind I regularly pause among the smaller things.
Whenever you go near a case, a herd of schoolboys are on
your track and you can’t keep the crowd at bay. They shriek
and laugh and tread on your toes, put out their tongues and
crack foolish jokes. The girls behave better. Charming
little creatures stand some distance away and flirt with the
big man; they know quite well how their little frocks look
and swing their hips to and fro. Suddenly they twitch their
tunics with a finger here and a finger there and break into
a dance, i The little goddesses sway backwards and forwards,
and you hold your breath.
By a flight of fancy you might call them the vieux Saxe
of ancient Greece; and you would be perfectly wrong, for
what they have in common, the reproduction of the large on
a small scale, is trifling compared with the differences. It
would be more accurate to call them two opposites, quite
apart from material considerations. The contrast is social.
Rich folk stand behind Meissen porcelain; behind the terra-
cotta stands the people. It would be better to compare this
popular sculpture with chap-books, except that their artistic
level is much higher. Tanagras have a perfectly secure
position. They alone give that convincing cross-section of
the period for which one always hoped, though it is not
necessary to come so far for that purpose; they illustrate
that peaceful, natural development which is not determined
by the accidental appearance of genius. Considering the
quantity at our disposal it hardly seems appropriate to invoke
the now common conception of personality. If there were
hundreds of terracottas instead of thousands we should
reverence them as the humorous by-product of genius. It is
a question whether the quantity does not enhance their
value. In these things we find the artistic dowry of the race
in its original form; and the terracottas stand even nearer to
the heart of the people than the vases, are still freer of every
artistic restriction, have a peculiar spontaneity of their own.
328
in my mind I regularly pause among the smaller things.
Whenever you go near a case, a herd of schoolboys are on
your track and you can’t keep the crowd at bay. They shriek
and laugh and tread on your toes, put out their tongues and
crack foolish jokes. The girls behave better. Charming
little creatures stand some distance away and flirt with the
big man; they know quite well how their little frocks look
and swing their hips to and fro. Suddenly they twitch their
tunics with a finger here and a finger there and break into
a dance, i The little goddesses sway backwards and forwards,
and you hold your breath.
By a flight of fancy you might call them the vieux Saxe
of ancient Greece; and you would be perfectly wrong, for
what they have in common, the reproduction of the large on
a small scale, is trifling compared with the differences. It
would be more accurate to call them two opposites, quite
apart from material considerations. The contrast is social.
Rich folk stand behind Meissen porcelain; behind the terra-
cotta stands the people. It would be better to compare this
popular sculpture with chap-books, except that their artistic
level is much higher. Tanagras have a perfectly secure
position. They alone give that convincing cross-section of
the period for which one always hoped, though it is not
necessary to come so far for that purpose; they illustrate
that peaceful, natural development which is not determined
by the accidental appearance of genius. Considering the
quantity at our disposal it hardly seems appropriate to invoke
the now common conception of personality. If there were
hundreds of terracottas instead of thousands we should
reverence them as the humorous by-product of genius. It is
a question whether the quantity does not enhance their
value. In these things we find the artistic dowry of the race
in its original form; and the terracottas stand even nearer to
the heart of the people than the vases, are still freer of every
artistic restriction, have a peculiar spontaneity of their own.
328