[Speech of Heinrich Schliemann at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 5, 1877. Sir Gilbert Scott, the eminent
architect, took the chair in the absence of Sir Frederick Grant,
the President of the Academy. In introducing Dr. Schliemann, Sir
Gilbert Scott spoke as follows: "There is one gentleman present
among us this evening who has special claims upon an expression of
our thanks. Antiquarian investigation is emphatically a subject of
our own day. More has been discovered of the substantial vestiges
of history in our own than probably in any previous age; and it
only needs the mention of the names of Champollion, Layard,
Rawlinson, and Lipsius to prove that we have in this age obtained a
genuine knowledge of the history of art as practised in all
previous ages. Not only have we obtained a correct understanding of
the arts of our own race as exemplified in our own mediæval
antiquities, but lost buildings of antiquity such as the Egyptian
labyrinth, the palace of Nineveh, the mausoleum of Halicarnassus,
the temple and statues of Olympia, and the temple of Diana at
Ephesus have been re-discovered and disinterred. ["Hear! Hear!"]
There remained, however, one great hiatus. We knew something of the
more archaic periods of Greek art, and we knew that on the gate of
Mycenæ there were evidences of an art far more archaic and
apparently not allied with true Hellenic art, but we knew no more
nor had an idea how the great gulf in art history was to be bridged
over. It still remains a great gulf, but Dr. Schliemann by his
excavations, first on the site of Troy and then of Mycenæ, has
brought to open daylight what, without prejudging questions as yet
_sub judice_, seem to be the veritable works of the heroes of the
Iliad; and if he has not yet actually solved the mysteries which
shroud that age, he has brought before us a perfect wealth of fact
at the least calculated to sharpen our antiquarian appetite for
more certain knowledge. Knowing that Dr. Schliemann is like one in
old times, who, while longing to tell of the Atrides and of Cadmus,
yet allowed the chords of his heart to vibrate to softer
influences, I will, while proposing his health, conjoin with his
name that of his energetic fellow-explorer, Madame Schliemann."]
MR. PRESIDENT, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--You have been pleased
to confer upon me two of the greatest honors which this country can
possibly bestow upon a foreigner--first, by your kind invitation to this
hospitable banquet to meet the most illustrious statesmen, the most
eminent scholars, and the most distinguished artists; and secondly, by
your toast to my health. In warmly thanking you, I feel the greatest
satisfaction to think that for these signal honors, I am solely indebted
to my labors in Troy and Mycenæ. ["Hear! Hear!"]
In Troy art was only in its first dawn; color was still completely
unknown, and instead of painting, the vases were decorated with incised
patterns filled with white clay. The productions of sculpture were
limited to carving of small flat idols of Minerva [Greek: glaukôpis][6]
of marble, almost in the forms of two discs, which adhered to each
other, and upon which the owl's face is rudely scratched. The Trojan
treasure certainly shows more art, but it is characterized by an absence
of ornamentation. In Mycenæ, on the contrary, the monuments which I have
brought to light show a high state of civilization, and the skill with
which the gold ornaments are made leads us to pre-suppose a school of
domestic artists which had flourished for ages before it reached such
perfection.
The very great symmetry we see also in the vase-paintings and in the
carvings of spirals and rosettes on stone, whereas representations of
men or animals are exceedingly rude and appear to be the primitive
Mycenean sculptor's first essay. But rude as they are, and childish as
they look, these primitive productions of Greek art are of paramount
interest to science, because we see in them the great-grandfathers of
the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles; they prove to us in the most
certain manner that the artistic genius of the epoch of Pericles did not
come suddenly down from heaven like Minerva from the head of Jove, but
that it was the result of a school of artists, which had gradually
developed in the course of ages.
Once more, I tender my thanks for the patience with which you have
listened to a stranger. ["Hear! Hear!"]