Of themselves, they almost answer
the question which next arises--Whence did art come to Greece? or was
it a thing of absolutely native growth there? So some have decidedly
maintained. Others, who lived in an age possessing little or no
knowledge of Greek monuments anterior to the full development of art
under [214] Pheidias, and who, in regard to the Greek sculpture of
the age of Pheidias, were like people criticising Michelangelo,
without knowledge of the earlier Tuscan school--of the works of
Donatello and Mino da Fiesole--easily satisfied themselves with
theories of its importation ready-made from other countries. Critics
in the last century, especially, noticing some characteristics which
early Greek work has in common, indeed, with Egyptian art, but which
are common also to all such early work everywhere, supposed, as a
matter of course, that it came, as the Greek religion also, from
Egypt--that old, immemorial half-known birthplace of all wonderful
things. There are, it is true, authorities for this derivation among
the Greeks themselves, dazzled as they were by the marvels of the
ancient civilisation of Egypt, a civilisation so different from their
own, on the first opening of Egypt to Greek visitors.
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