“Unless, when one approaches an alien art, one makes a scholarly attempt to grasp its essence, one will grant recognition only to what one feels has a positive effect on one’s own personality and acts as a new and enriching element in one’s life. That is the natural way for a man to approach a strange work of art. In doing this he may calmly take appearance for reality, and fill the form, which would otherwise be dead for him, with new life; this is how many ideas become fruitful only when they are misunderstood. Any man, and that includes any artist, is entitled to do this, but not to make the arrogant assumption that he has found the key to a strange art in what he is thus able to perceive and appreciate of it.”
“The scholar, who struggles to understand the essence of Egyptian art without hoping to find in it some immediate gain in his responsiveness to life, cannot be satisfied with the kind of observation just described. Many people have probably been drawn to this art because at some time it appealed to their emotions. But the scholar must test whether the forms are really created with the intentions suggested to him by his emotions. … In order to achieve this he will have to stand at a distance and abandon his instinctive sympathy for the works.”
“Many people tend to be shocked when it is suggested that they apply their intellects to works of art. Yet for anyone who is seriously engaged in the study of art it is essential. At least the basic principles underlying the rendering of nature in Egyptian art are quite simply comprehensible only through thought; they must necessarily remain closed to unaided sensibility. This is an area where Goethe’s maxim that ‘a work of art should just be enjoyed, not dissected by analysis’ is invalid. “