File:A history of art in ancient Egypt (1883) (14792428583).jpg

Identifier: historyofartinan01perruoft (find matches)
Title: A history of art in ancient Egypt
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Perrot, Georges, 1832-1914 Chipiez, Charles, 1835-1901 Armstrong, Walter, Sir, 1850-1918
Subjects: Art -- Egypt History Egypt -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Egypt were lacking- in the skill necessary for all this, or that theygeneralized their forms to such adegree as to leave no scope for suchsubtle differences. But, in fact, wefind in their oldest statues a facilityof execution which suggests that, hadthey chosen, they could have expressedanything which can be expressed bythe chisel. That they did not do so, we know. They con-tented themselves with plastic interpretations so rough andawkward that, perhaps, we should rather seek their explanation Fig. 40.—Isis-Hathor. Louvre.(Bronze. Actual size.) _ - f >^
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o I .S5 > o 4< E rt <uo X 6 The Egyptian Religion and the Plastic Arts. In some hereditary predisposition, some habit of thought andaction contracted In the Infancy of the race and fortified by lono-transmission. We have already spoken of that which we beheve to be thecause of the pecuhar forms under which the Egyptians figuredtheir deities, namely, the fetish worship, which was the earliest, andfor many centuries the only, form of religion which they possessed.That worship had struck Its roots so deeply Into the souls of thepeople, that it could not be torn up even when a large part of thenation had gradually educated itself tothe comprehension of the highest re-ligious conceptions. Its practices neverfell Into total neglect, and Its Influencewas so far maintained that during thedecadence of the nation It aeain becamethe ruling faith, so that foreign observerswere led to believe that the Egyptianreligion began and ended In the adora-tion of plants and sacred animals. Theeyes

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