Cultural heritage

“ The communist government had promoted pride in the cultural heritage by restoring and preserving the country's medieval treasures and national revival masterpieces and by promoting traditional folk arts both in their own right and as inspiration to other forms of artistic expression. ”

“ Certain it is that we owe it to them, that the heritage of antique ages was not entirely lost, and it is only by their tradition and imitation that the art of building was kept alive, producing works which we still admire, and which become surprising when we think of the utter ignorance of all science in those dark ages. ”

“ No, if I yet endure, yet live, yet hope,—it is only because I would not die till I have redeemed the noble heritage I have lost—the heritage I took unstained from thee and my dead father—a proud conscience and an honest name. ”

“ At the same time, there will be a careful critical analysis of the origin and development of the several seventeenth and eighteenth century styles that have left us so wealthy an architectural heritage, an heritage based upon a groundwork of traditions brought across the Atlantic by the early craftsmen and artisans. ”

“ It is the country of mediævalism; it is still more the country of paganism, of Greek temples, Phœnician inscriptions and tombs, Roman baths, amphitheatres, aqueducts; it boasts a profusion of exquisite churches, splendid mediæval castles; scenes of troubadour history, of the reputed Courts of Love; of a thousand traditions and stories that have become the heritage of every civilised people. ”

“ The intense value of such a faithful record is worthy of careful consideration by the authorities, either as a national undertaking or under the auspices of one of the learned societies, such as the Society of Antiquaries, or the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Monuments, interested in the safeguarding of the national heritage bequeathed us by our forefathers. ”

“ Buildings are being restored, plant life is being recorded, historic events are being dramatised for schoolchildren. And all of this has implications not just for our past heritage, but for our most important heritage-in-the-making: our young people. ”

“ Your heritage is in a goodly land. Its fields are wide; its skies are bright; and its people free. Choose you out its men of mark—the great and good—as patterns for yourselves. Ask of their experience, if in its silent teachings you may not find reason—nay more—encouragement, to hope for a good name too—a place among them. ”

“ We may indeed rejoice if we are at last to come into our heritage—so long withheld; if we may hope soon to secure our fair share of the treasures of the world. But if our only use for them is to copy them, to use them for models, it were better they should remain across the water. ”

“ It is a heritage not only of local but of national interest, deserving detailed description, analysis and comparison in a book which includes historic facts only to lend true local color and impart human interest to the narrative, to indicate the sources of affluence and culture which aided so materially in developing this architecture, and to describe the life and manners of the time which determined its design and arrangement. ”

“ Monuments and ruins have been disinterred in the ancient seats of human power, in the oriental world, and inscriptions deciphered, which give vitality to ancient history. Ethnology has arisen to hold up the light of her resplendent lamp, amid these ruins, to guide the footsteps of letters, science and piety. ”

“ Proud of this heritage and resolved to maintain it undiminished, they have knitted themselves into a close spiritual and intellectual aristocracy, which stands fast like a lighthouse amidst the darkness and storms of political changes. ”

“ This worshipful feeling, no doubt, comes to us as a heritage from a remote ancestry. In the days of ancient story, groves of noble trees offered primitive man, nature's grandest and most appropriate cathedrals, for the celebration of his worshipful rites. ”

“ Coming into their heritage, which is the accumulated knowledge and experience of their ancestors, before they have acquired a direct and profound grasp of life, they seem to enter the world full-fledged, while it is only that ancestral heritage that works through the impressions of the youthful brain and gives them the color of age. ”

“ A long heritage of decorative folk art, expressed in wood carving, embroidery, weaving, pottery, and other forms, has been important as artistic expression for the peasants and has served as inspiration for the more sophisticated painters, sculptors, and architects. ”

“ We have not to visit distant shores, and to investigate obscure fragments,—the works of races which have vanished from the face of the earth: we are surrounded on every side by original examples of the arts which we would study; they are the productions of our own country and our own race. The temples from which our authorities are derived are not those of an ancient and bygone nation, but those in which we ourselves worship, and within and around whose hallowed walls sleep the remains of our own forefathers. ”

“ But we have reached another of those ancient landmarks, which stand wide apart along the shores of History, the grey monuments which overlook that still sea of death, where nameless millions have for ages been buried. ”

“ While we recognise that national monuments or treasures of art are an asset to the country which produced them, we are accustomed to consider them more as assets of the whole human race, irrespective of nationality. We feel that a beautiful antiquity has an intrinsic value, and it is a matter of conscience with us to hand on to the future the treasures which we have received from the past. ”

“ Just as when sojourning in a country devoid of monuments and ruins, the mind at length absolutely hungers for some grand, ecclesiastical building, some glorious vestige of early ages; so when we have once grown familiar with mediæval towns and outlines, it becomes an absolute necessity occasionally to run away from our prosy nineteenth century habitations, and refresh our spirit, and absorb into our inmost nature all these refining old-world charms. ”

“ The whole is depicted and for the time preserved in bronze and granite; and as generations of the future stand before this consecrated record, it will extort thoughts of the pioneer—his pleasures and his sufferings—with venerated admiration for those whose lives marked out the pathway of our civilization.
Every nation, every country, and every town has historic trees. They are not without influence on the destiny of individuals, societies, and nations. They are objects of reverence—works of time—homes of generations—and the manifest wisdom of creation. ”

“ Independent of natural beauties, our country, being small and having a history, there is scarcely a corner that is not eventful, hung about with traditions, preserving memorials of wood and stone, or lingering names which are relics as imperishable as those more material objects. ”

“ The traditions of the past sixty years were a portion of our heritage, and it never was easy for any great heart and reflective mind even to seem to part with that heritage to enter upon the perilous effort of establishing a new nationality. ”

“ Amidst the ruined monuments of ancient and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored the broken link between the two ages of human civilisation was crowned with the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to him their refinement—from the ancients who owed to him their fame. ”

“ If the descendants of the mound and temple builders yet exist, the traditions of the era have passed from them in the process of their declension. But whoever the builders were, and whether their blood still flows in the existing race or not, they clung, like this race, so firmly to their ancient mythology and religion as to impress it indelibly on the features of their architecture, and in almost every work or labor which they attempted. ”

“ Whole cities of the dead are there, and others where the new civilization rises above or by the side of the old. Temples, palaces, fortifications, ancient statues, mummies, and pottery may be cursorily admired or profoundly studied, and search may still be made for undiscovered monuments of a prehistoric past. ”

“ With these splendid and solemn reminiscences always before their eyes, with all the hallowed and affecting associations that ever linger about the ancient homes of a cultivated people,—the temples of its worship, the palaces of its kings and nobles, the sepulchres of its founders and fathers, always present and constantly renewed to their minds, is it possible they could, in three brief centuries, forget the tale, and lose every clue to their own so gloriously illustrated history. ”

“ Now and then we have heard persons of culture—exaggerated culture, perhaps—complain that this country has no romantic, ivy-clad ruins, no historic castles or cathedrals, and, in general, little that appeals to sentiment or to the cultivated esthetic sense. ”

“ What I wish for, therefore, is that an association should be set on foot to keep a watch on old monuments, to protest against all 'restoration' that means more than keeping out wind and weather, and, by all means, literary and other, to awaken a feeling that our ancient buildings are not mere ecclesiastical toys, but sacred monuments of the nation's growth and hope. ”

“ Although not apparently representing a very wide range of culture or distinctly separated periods of culture, the various groups of relics exhibit considerable diversity in conception and execution, attributable, no doubt, to variations in race and art inheritance. ”

“ But, in any case, whatever may be the future of architecture, in whatever manner our young architects may one day solve the question of their art, let us, while waiting for new monument, preserve the ancient monuments. ”

“ We honour you. And though no sculptured marble transmit your fame, a nobler monument shall be yours—the happy hearts of [Pg 18] unborn millions shall be the shrine in which your names will be treasured. In your high example—in your noble disinterestedness—in your entire subordination of every thought, and act, and scheme, and interest, to the heaven-born purpose of human regeneration and human elevation, we hear the language of encouragement. ”

“ The monument that tells of a civilization whose hieroglyphic records we cannot even decipher, the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and left no sign of its life except the rough tools and utensils buried in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and excites our curiosity. ”

“ The researches made, and the materials gathered, are yet insufficient to enable us to solve satisfactorily the great problem of the origin of the races, that once filled this vast region with the arts and luxuries of civilization, and reared those mighty and magnificent structures, and fashioned those wonderful specimens of sculptured art, which now remain, in ruins, to perpetuate the memory of their greatness, though not of their names.
The exploration and illustration of these marvels of antiquity, belong appropriately to American literature. ”

“ That ancient buildings, being both works of art and monuments of history, must obviously be treated with great care and delicacy: that the imitative art of to-day is not, and cannot be the same thing as ancient art, and cannot replace it ”

“ If tradition may be trusted, every mountain had its tapa, or recluse, and the whole energies and resources of the country would appear to have been applied to the construction of those noble edifices, the ruins of which still strike the spectator with astonishment and veneration. ”

“ The high state of civilization to which this region attained, and its progress in the arts, are manifested by the architectural remains which still adorn its cities,—remains which, in elegance of design and imposing magnificence, are unequalled by even the far-famed ruins of the Eternal City. ”

“ And, what is still more remarkable, the relics of this civilization are more perfect and beautiful in proportion to the remoteness of their date, the earlier of these ancient sculptures being invariably the noblest in design, and the most exquisite and elaborate in execution. ”

“ Nations leave witnesses to their greatness in monuments, and to their happiness in the welfare of individuals. Are modern monuments as fine as those of the ancients? I doubt it. The arts, which are the direct outcome of the individual, the products of genius or of handicraft, have not advanced much. ”

“ The earliest authentic records, drawn as they are from their own monuments, reveal this gifted race as already in possession of a high degree of civilization, with completed systems of national religion, a language already long past its formative period, and a stage of advancement in art that testifies to the existence of a wealthy class of taste and leisure, to whom their nomadic ancestry must have been little more than a vague tradition. ”

“ Their ancestral mansions, adorned with whatever art or science can accumulate of beautiful or curious: their delightful pleasure-grounds, where the picturesque creates a thousand charmingly disposed landscapes: their museums of antiquities—their rich galleries of pictures—their master-pieces of sculpture—their noble and learned private libraries, the chief pride and ornament of every wealthy residence—when, alas! ”

“ To denote the state of art among the aboriginal race, it is necessary closely to examine such monuments of it, as exist. The word “monument” is used to denote any remains of art. Such are their relics in the form of worked shells and amulets, pottery, carved implements and utensils of stone, and other antiquarian remains found in their mounds, graves, fortifications, and other places of ancient occupancy in our latitudes. ”