Egyptian Art

In this work Professor Worringer approaches a familiar subject from a new and unfamiliar angle. Since the time of Napoleon’s campaign and the interest aroused by the explorations conducted by his command, a glamour as of something surpassing beyond measure, in grandeur and aloofness, any other of the visible works of man, has been cast upon the art of Ancient Egypt. The frame of mind in which this art has habitually been contemplated is tainted with the romantic wonder that belongs to all things very ancient or distant; this attitude is indeed not very different, as Professor Worringer points out, from the earlier traditional attitude towards Egypt, inherited from classical antiquity—one of superstitious veneration for something mysterious, magical, and almost superhuman. Nor have the events attending quite recent discoveries, with their appeal to the popular appetite for the sensational, by any means diminished the atmosphere of unreality by which, for the world at large, the early ages of Egyptian history are surrounded.