ARTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 7 April 1926, Page 5

ARTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

"Most newspaper readers have. 1 imagine, been inclined to doubt whether the wonders of Tutankhamen tomb have not been a little, exaggerated by cntliusinstic archaeologists and descript ivc writers,” writes .Mr J. A. Spender, in the Westminster ' lazciio. ".After seeing them I am tempted to say that the half has not, been told. The. verbal descriptions, no photographs can do justice h the miracles of art and craft, that are now on view in the Cairo Museum. Whether for broad effeits. covering largo spaces, or for the minute intricacies of the jew,idler's and enamellcr's art needing a magnifying glass- to reveal their beauties, these objects are ineonq.arable. There is no age in the history of craftsmanship in which they have been surpassed, arid very few in which they have been equalled. They have, in addition, the peculiar realism of tilings untouched by time and climate, and coming si might from the 3000 year-old tomb as if I heV had been depo.-'tled I here Vrsler dav.”

"'l’liis, from the artistic point of view, may bo a lie!itie,us advantage, and one ought, perhaps to say Hint they aim neither better nor worse because of this faseinat i'tig newness, which makes them not battered relies, but the actual belongings. precisely as they saw and handled them., of men who lived before Alos.es and Agamemnon, or before t trerc 1 arid Rome' arid the Christian era were dreamt of. Vet T del'v anyone of ordinary susceptibilities to stand in fnmt of them arid'not feel a certain awe and wonder at Ibis, thought. ami following it a certain humility at the proof offered that human skill and rrnflsmnnshi i had readied this superb level in the bulb century before Christ. "It 'is surely time Mini artists, craftsmen. and ail 'critics, ns well as rirchaeo legists, should visit Egypt and make-a serious attempt to appraise the conlrihut ion of Egypt to the art of the world. The idea t’-ai Egyptian art was a urnvc nFiona I thing cl stale repel it inns, without interest to the historians of art. could never have survive! any scrams fivn.miiintio.il el the low relit I .‘"mplure of the tombs, but it bero-mr sheer m u sense in view ol the pro-nts now coming to light of the great artistic period whirl? followed the lvfnrn -: d Almna . thou and lasted on into the period ol reaction.”