Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/67

 of the most civilized portion of the human species. When, at a late hour, these nations entered upon the scene, it was as disturbers and destroyers, —and although they helped to found modern society, they produced none of those elements left to us by antiquity and preserved for us by that Rome in whose hands the heritage of Greece was concentrated.

V. have different, but equally valid, reasons for leaving that which is called the far East—India, China, and Japan—outside the limit of our studies. Those rich and populous countries have, doubtless, a civilization which stretches back nearly as far as that of Egypt and Assyria, a civilization which has produced works both of fine and of industrial art which in many respects equalled those of the nations with which we are now occupied. In all those countries there are buildings which impress by their mass and by the marvellous delicacy of their ornamentation, sculptures of a singular freedom and power, and decorative painting which charms by its skilful use of brilliant colour as well as by the facility and inventive fancy of its design. The representation of the human figure has never reached the purity of line or nobility of expression of a Greek statue, but, on the other hand, the science of decoration has never been carried farther than by the wood-carvers, weavers and embroiderers of Hindostan, and the potters of China and Japan.

These styles have their fanatical admirers who see nothing but their brilliant qualities; they have also their detractors, or at least their severe judges, who are chiefly struck by their shortcomings, but no one attempts to deny that each of those nations possesses an art which is always original, and sometimes of great and rare power. Why then, it may be asked, do we refuse to comprehend the more ancient monuments of India and China, those which by their age belong to the centuries with which we are concerned, in this work? Our motives may be easily divined.

We might allege our incompetence for such an extended task, which would be enough to occupy several lives. But we have a