Let the first and only word of the members of the Berlin Academy of Arts here present be one of thanks for Professor Theodorakopoulos’ greeting, for the invitation on the part of the Greek government and for the hospitality of the Academy of Sciences and Arts [of Athens]. But how to express the visitors’ gratitude to you, the Athenian hosts? We thank you in trying to think along with you. And yet, think about what? What else can we think about, we as members of the Academy of Arts, here in Greece, in the presence of the Academy of Science, and that today, in the era of scientific technology, if not about that world that once granted the Occidental-European arts and sciences their beginning? If we appraise it historiographically [historisch], this world has certainly passed. Historically [geschichtlich], however, when viewed as our destiny [Geschick], it remains present and will always become a new present: it awaits us to think towards it and thereby to evaluate our own thinking and our artistic creation [Denken und Bilden]. Because the beginning of a destiny is its high point it towers in advance over everything that comes in its wake. We meditate on the provenance of art in the Hellenic age. We try to glimpse a view of that domain which essences [waltet] before any art comes to be and which first bestows to art its proper essence. We do not seek a formal definition of art, nor is it for us to recount historiographically the genesis of art in ancient Greece. Since we would like, however, to avoid the arbitrary nature of thought in our meditation, we ask here, in Athens, for the counsel and guidance of the ancient protector of the city and the Attic lands, that is, of the Goddess Athena. To be sure, we are unable to penetrate into the plenitude of her divinity. All we ask is what Athena herself has to tell us about the provenance of art. This is one of the questions that shall occupy our thoughts. The second question imposes itself on its own and can be phrased as follows: where do things stand with art in our days, with respect to its ancient provenance?