Evening star., 1927-10-30
The Story of Civilization

| and announcing, in an almost
| Messianic oracle, the coming OF
savior who will restore the land.
| Nevertheless there is in these relics
nothing to compare with the depth
and delicacy of the Greeks. For the
mind of the Egyptian. as OF the
Roman, was unimaginative and mat
| ter-of- fact. il found it's most con-
genial expression in architecture and
, sculpture. where stone might symbol
ize the strength of the nation and
the permanence for which 1t craved.
| The Pyramids were houses OF eter-
nitv." in which body and soul might
| remain safe forever. The tomb was
made of hardest stone. and the
sarcophagi had walls that would dis
courage any worm. The buried BODY
was mummified with hundred en-
balming cloths and preserVatlVe
chemicals: to this day the flesh and
hair cling to some royal skulls, more
hideous than annihilation.
Not till the days of the empire
was the architect left free to aim at
hea,lty as we'll as at duration. Some
times he produced peripteral colon
naded structures of almost Hellenic
Ioveliness. as in the temple which
Napoleon's expedition found upon the
Isle of Elephantine. and which a
Turkish governor destroyed in 1922.
But far more often he concealed with.
in an exterior of simple stone the
most massive columns and the most
magnificent ornamentation. He de-
veloped the arch, the column and
The clerestory, and so laid the basis
of all later architectural forms; while
the luxurious capitals which he loved
to mold in the shape of the papyrus,
the lotus and the palm are among
the most characteristic and beautiful
things in Egyptian art.
X X X
Only the Greeks have chiseled stone
more nobly; and in all the sculpture
of the Renaissance there is nothing
to equal Egyptian statuary. Again. it
is not their colossi that impress US
today; the Sphinx and the obelisks
and the gigantesque images of
Harnesses II and Amenhotep III move
us to echo the pitiless word of pagan
Goethe before the Strassburg Cathe-
dral--barbarous. In these montroSi
ties, and almost everywhere in the
sculpture of Egypt, we are bored by
repetition. convention and such a lack
of individuality as could come only
from a people priest-ridden and en-
slaved. Sometimes. however, the
artist rises to personality and mastery
in the face of all rules and precedents:
he gives us the delicate beauty of
Prince Ewibre and the masculine
strength of Amenemhet III. But for
the most part it is the lesser figures
that thrill us. the careful portraits
that rival at once the calm Of Peri
clean and the realism of Hellenistic
sculpture at their best. AS we stand
before the limestone statue Of the sit.
ting scribe. or. better, before the mar
velously human figure Of the "Skeikh
El-Beled," or, better still, the gentle
profile of Iknaton. or. best of all land
among the oldest), the head of Cheph-
rem, carved in hardest diorite. we feel
ourselves in the presence of mastery;
the sense of worship comes upon us,
and we long to know and honor the
nameless sculptors who lavished on
these figures that patience which is
the price of perfection.
AS sculpture was in it's origins an
accessory of architecture and an
adornment of the tomb, so out of
sculpture came the bas-relief, and out
of this, painting-both of them de.