Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/37

 objects, which were in continual use, were manufactured in prodigious quantities for thousands of years, and their vast numbers gave them a greatly increased chance of being preserved. In spite of the rough usage of man, and the slower progress of destruction due to the action of nature, a certain number of them were sure, from the first, to find means of escape, and, from so many examples, a few of each type have therefore come down to us. The small size of these objects also contributed to preserve them from destruction. In times of war and revolution the poor and humble ones of the earth easily avoid the catastrophes which overwhelm those who are richer, more powerful, and more conspicuous than themselves. So it was with these little memorials of antiquity. Their insignificance was their salvation in the overthrow of the civilisation to which they belonged. More numerous and better sheltered than the masterpieces of fine art, they survived when the latter perished. Thus it is that so many of the lighter and more fragile products of industry have survived to our time, and have made us acquainted with modes of thought and life, and with forms of plastic expression which we should never have known without them. The painted vases, for instance, have preserved for us more than one myth of which no trace can be found in poetry or sculpture; and as for terra-cottas, to which the Tanagra statuettes have directed so much attention, we may judge from the labours of M. Henzey of the value which they possess for archæologists, who, though unable, like some of our amateurs, to buy them with their weight in gold, may compare them one with another and study their smallest details. Those statuettes, which are now classified in museums in the order of their production, have shown us how narrow and inadequate were the formulæ by which the early historians of the plastic arts attempted to define the genius of the Greeks. Even now, the most accomplished and well-informed critics are not always able to repress a feeling of astonishment