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501 | e
proportions, or to reduce them to a system. Nothing in what remains to us
of their works justifies the belief that they ever possessed a canon based
upon the length of the human finger or foot. Theirs was a teaching of
routine, and not of theory. Models executed by the master were copied over
and over again by his pupils, till they could reproduce them with absolute
exactness. That they also studied from the life is shown by the facility
with which they seized a likeness, or rendere |
502 | d the characteristics and
movements of different kinds of animals. They made their first attempts
upon slabs of limestone, on drawing boards covered with a coat of red or
white stucco, or on the backs of old manuscripts of no value. New papyrus
was too dear to be spoiled by the scrawls of tyros. Having neither pencil
nor stylus, they made use of the reed, the end of which, when steeped in
water, opened out into small fibres, and made a more or less fine brush
according to the size of |
503 | the stem. The palette was of thin wood, in shape a
rectangular oblong, with a groove in which to lay the brush at the lower
end. At the upper end were two or more cup-like hollows, each fitted with a
cake of ink; black and red being the colours most in use. A tiny pestle and
mortar for colour-grinding (fig. 160), and a cup of water in which to clip
and wash the brush, completed the apparatus of the student. Palette in
hand, he squatted cross-legged before his copy, and, without any kin |
504 | d of
support for his wrist, endeavoured to reproduce the outline in black. The
master looked over his work when done, and corrected the errors in red ink.
[Illustration: Fig. 160.--Pestle and mortar for grinding colours.]
[Illustration: Fig. 161.--Comic sketch on ostrakon in New York Museum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 162.--Vignette from _The Book of the Dead_, Saïte
period]
[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Vignette from _The Book of the Dead_, from
the papyrus of Hûnefer.]
The few des |
505 | igns which have come down to us are drawn on pieces of
limestone, and are for the most part in sufficiently bad preservation. The
British Museum possesses two or three subjects in red outline, which may
perhaps have been used as copies by the decorators of some Theban tomb
about the time of the Twentieth Dynasty. A fragment in the Museum of Gizeh
contains studies of ducks or geese in black ink; and at Turin may be seen a
sketch of a half-nude female figure bending backwards, as about t |
506 | o turn a
somersault. The lines are flowing, the movement is graceful, the modelling
delicate. The draughtsman was not hampered then as now, by the rigidity of
the instrument between his fingers. The reed brush attacked the surface
perpendicularly; broadened, diminished, or prolonged the line at will; and
stopped or turned with the utmost readiness. So supple a medium was
admirably adapted to the rapid rendering of the humorous or ludicrous
episodes of daily life. The Egyptians, natura |
507 | lly laughter-loving and
satirical, were caricaturists from an early period. One of the Turin papyri
chronicles the courtship of a shaven priest and a songstress of Amen in a
series of spirited vignettes; while on the back of the same sheet are
sketched various serio-comic scenes, in which animals parody the pursuits
of civilised man. An ass, a lion, a crocodile, and an ape are represented
in the act of giving a vocal and instrumental concert; a lion and a gazelle
play at draughts; the |
508 | Pharaoh of all the rats, in a chariot drawn by dogs,
gallops to the assault of a fortress garrisoned by cats; a cat of fashion,
with a flower on her head, has come to blows with a goose, and the hapless
fowl, powerless in so unequal a contest, topples over with terror. Cats, by
the way, were the favourite animals of Egyptian caricaturists. An ostrakon
in the New York Museum depicts a cat of rank _en grande toilette_, seated
in an easy chair, and a miserable Tom, with piteous mien and |
509 | tail between
his legs, serving her with refreshments (fig. 161). Our catalogue of comic
sketches is brief; but the abundance of pen-drawings with which certain
religious works were illustrated compensates for our poverty in secular
subjects. These works are _The Book of the Dead_ and _The Book of Knowing
That which is in Hades_, which were reproduced by hundreds, according to
standard copies preserved in the temples, or handed down through families
whose hereditary profession it was t |
510 | o conduct the services for the dead.
When making these illustrations, the artist had no occasion to draw upon
his imagination. He had but to imitate the copy as skilfully as he could.
Of _The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades_ we have no examples earlier
than the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, and these are poor enough in point
of workmanship, the figures being little better than dot-and-line forms,
badly proportioned and hastily scrawled. The extant specimens of _The Book
of the |
511 | Dead_ are so numerous that a history of the art of miniature
painting in ancient Egypt might be compiled from this source alone. The
earliest date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, the more recent being
contemporary with the first Caesars. The oldest copies are for the most
part remarkably fine in execution. Each chapter has its vignette
representing a god in human or animal form, a sacred emblem, or the
deceased in adoration before a divinity. These little subjects are
sometimes ranged h |
512 | orizontally at the top of the text, which is written in
vertical columns (fig. 162); sometimes, like the illuminated capitals in
our mediaeval manuscripts, they are scattered throughout the pages. At
certain points, large subjects fill the space from top to bottom of the
papyrus. The burial scene comes at the beginning; the judgment of the soul
about the middle; and the arrival of the deceased in the Fields of Aalû at
the end of the work. In these, the artist seized the opportunity to |
513 | display
his skill, and show what he could do. We here see the mummy of Hûnefer
placed upright before his stela and his tomb (fig. 163). The women of his
family bewail him; the men and the priest present offerings. The papyri of
the princes and princesses of the family of Pinotem in the Museum of Gizeh
show that the best traditions of the art were yet in force at Thebes in the
time of the Twenty-first Dynasty. Under the succeeding dynasties, that art
fell into rapid decadence, and duri |
514 | ng some centuries the drawings continue
to be coarse and valueless. The collapse of the Persian rule produced a
period of Renaissance. Tombs of the Greek time have yielded papyri with
vignettes carefully executed in a dry and minute style which offers a
singular contrast to the breadth and boldness of the Pharaonic ages. The
broad-tipped reed-pen was thrown aside for the pen with a fine point, and
the scribes vied with each other as to which should trace the most
attenuated lines. The |
515 | details with which they overloaded their figures, the
elaboration of the beard and the hair, and the folds of the garments, are
sometimes so minute that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them
without a magnifying glass. Precious as these documents are, they give a
very insufficient idea of the ability and technical methods of the artists
of ancient Egypt. It is to the walls of their temples and tombs that we
must turn, if we desire to study their principles of composition.
[Il |
516 | lustration: Figs. 164 and 165.--Scenes from the tomb of Khnûmhotep at
Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 166.--From a tomb-painting in the British Museum,
Eighteenth Dynasty.]
Their conventional system differed materially from our own. Man or beast,
the subject was never anything but a profile relieved against a flat
background. Their object, therefore, was to select forms which presented a
characteristic outline capable of being reproduced in pure line upon a
plan |
517 | e surface. As regarded animal life, the problem was in no wise
complicated. The profile of the back and body, the head and neck, carried
in undulating lines parallel with the ground, were outlined at one sweep of
the pencil. The legs also are well detached from the body. The animals
themselves are lifelike, each with the gait and action and flexion of the
limbs peculiar to its species. The slow and measured tread of the ox; the
short step, the meditative ear, the ironical mouth of the |
518 | ass; the abrupt
little trot of the goat, the spring of the hunting greyhound, are all
rendered with invariable success of outline and expression. Turning from
domestic animals to wild beasts, the perfection of treatment is the same.
The calm strength of the lion in repose, the stealthy and sleepy tread of
the leopard, the grimace of the ape, the slender grace of the gazelle and
the antelope, have never been better expressed than in Egypt. But it was
not so easy to project man--the who |
519 | le man--upon a plane surface without
some departure from nature. A man cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by
means of mere lines, and a profile outline necessarily excludes too much of
his person. The form of the forehead and the nose, the curvature of the
lips, the cut of the ear, disappear when the head is drawn full face; but,
on the other hand, it is necessary that the bust should be presented full
face, in order to give the full development of the shoulders, and that the
two arm |
520 | s may be visible to right and left of the body. The contours of the
trunk are best modelled in a three-quarters view, whereas the legs show to
most advantage when seen sidewise. The Egyptians did not hesitate to
combine these contradictory points of view in one single figure. The head
is almost always given in profile, but is provided with a full-face eye and
placed upon a full-face bust. The full-face bust adorns a trunk seen from a
three-quarters point of view, and this trunk is supp |
521 | orted upon legs
depicted in profile. Very seldom do we meet with figures treated according
to our own rules of perspective. Most of the minor personages represented
in the tomb of Khnûmhotep seem, however, to have made an effort to
emancipate themselves from the law of malformation. Their bodies are given
in profile, as well as their heads and legs; but they thrust forward first
one shoulder and then the other, in order to show both arms (fig. 164), and
the effect is not happy. Yet, i |
522 | f we examine the treatment of the farm
servant who is cramming a goose, and, above all, the figure of the standing
man who throws his weight upon the neck of a gazelle to make it kneel down
(fig. 165), we shall see that the action of the arms and hips is correctly
rendered, that the form of the back is quite right, and that the prominence
of the chest--thrown forward in proportion as the shoulders and arms are
thrown back--is drawn without any exaggeration. The wrestlers of the Beni
H |
523 | asan tombs, the dancers and servants of the Theban catacombs, attack,
struggle, posture, and go about their work with perfect naturalness and
ease (fig. 166). These, however, are exceptions. Tradition, as a rule, was
stronger than nature, and to the end of the chapter, the Egyptian masters
continued to deform the human figure. Their men and women are actual
monsters from the point of view of the anatomist; and yet, after all, they
are neither so ugly nor so ridiculous as might be suppo |
524 | sed by those who
have seen only the wretched copies so often made by our modern artists. The
wrong parts are joined to the right parts with so much skill that they seem
to have grown there. The natural lines and the fictitious lines follow and
complement each other so ingeniously, that the former appear to give rise
of necessity to the latter. The conventionalities of Egyptian art once
accepted, we cannot sufficiently admire the technical skill displayed by
the draughtsman. His line w |
525 | as pure, firm, boldly begun, and as boldly
prolonged. Ten or twelve strokes of the brush sufficed to outline a figure
the size of life. The whole head, from the nape of the neck to the rise of
the throat above the collar-bone, was executed at one sweep. Two long
undulating lines gave the external contour of the body from the armpits to
the ends of the feet. Two more determined the outlines of the legs, and two
the arms. The details of costume and ornaments, at first but summarily
indi |
526 | cated, were afterwards taken up one by one, and minutely finished. We
may almost count the locks of the hair, the plaits of the linen, the
inlayings of the girdles and bracelets. This mixture of artless science and
intentional awkwardness, of rapid execution and patient finish, excludes
neither elegance of form, nor grace of attitude, nor truth of movement.
These personages are of strange aspect, but they live; and to those who
will take the trouble to look at them without prejudice, t |
527 | heir very
strangeness has a charm about it which is often lacking to works more
recent in date and more strictly true to nature.
[Illustration: Fig. 167.--Funerary repast, tomb of Horemheb, Eighteenth
Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 168.--From a wall-painting, Thebes, Ramesside period.]
We admit, then, that the Egyptians could draw. Were they, as it has been
ofttimes asserted, ignorant of the art of composition? We will take a scene
at hazard from a Theban tomb--that scene which |
528 | represents the funerary
repast offered to Prince Horemheb by the members of his family (fig. 167).
The subject is half ideal, half real. The dead man, and those belonging to
him who are no longer of this world, are depicted in the society of the
living. They are present, yet aloof. They assist at the banquet, but they
do not actually take part in it. Horemheb sits on a folding stool to the
left of the spectator. He dandles on his knee a little princess, daughter
of Amenhotep III., who |
529 | se foster-father he was, and who died before him. His
mother, Sûit, sits at his right hand a little way behind, enthroned in a
large chair. She holds his arm with her left hand, and with the right she
offers him a lotus blossom and bud. A tiny gazelle which was probably
buried with her, like the pet gazelle discovered beside Queen Isiemkheb in
the hiding-place at Deir el Baharî, is tied to one of the legs of the
chair. This ghostly group is of heroic size, the rule being that gods are
|
530 |
bigger than men, kings bigger than their subjects, and the dead bigger than
the living. Horemheb, his mother, and the women standing before them,
occupy the front level, or foreground. The relations and friends are ranged
in line facing their deceased ancestors, and appear to be talking one with
another. The feast has begun. The jars of wine and beer, placed in rows
upon wooden stands, are already unsealed. Two young slaves rub the hands
and necks of the living guests with perfumes ta |
531 | ken from an alabaster vase.
Two women dressed in robes of ceremony present offerings to the group of
dead, consisting of vases filled with flowers, perfumes, and grain. These
they place in turn upon a square table. Three others dance, sing, and play
upon the lute, by way of accompaniment to those acts of homage. In the
picture, as in fact, the tomb is the place of entertainment. There is no
other background to the scene than the wall covered with hieroglyphs, along
which the guests we |
532 | re seated during the ceremony. Elsewhere, the scene of
action, if in the open country, is distinctly indicated by trees and tufts
of grass; by red sand, if in the desert; and by a maze of reeds and lotus
plants, if in the marshes. A lady of quality comes in from a walk (fig.
168). One of her daughters, being athirst, takes a long draught from a
"gûllah"; two little naked children with shaven heads, a boy and a girl,
who ran to meet their mother at the gate, are made happy with toys
b |
533 | rought home and handed to them by a servant. A trellised enclosure covered
with vines, and trees laden with fruit, are shown above; yonder, therefore,
is the garden, but the lady and her daughters have passed through it
without stopping, and are now indoors. The front of the house is half put
in and half left out, so that we may observe what is going on inside. We
accordingly see three attendants hastening to serve their mistresses with
refreshments. The picture is not badly composed, |
534 | and it would need but
little alteration if transferred to a modern canvas. The same old
awkwardness, or rather the same old obstinate custom, which compelled the
Egyptian artist to put a profile head upon a full-face bust, has, however,
prevented him from placing his middle distance and background behind his
foreground. He has, therefore, been reduced to adopt certain more or less
ingenious contrivances, in order to make up for an almost complete absence
of perspective.
[Illustrati |
535 | on: Fig. 169.--From wall-scene in tomb of Horemheb.]
[Illustration: Fig. 170.--From wall-scene, Ramesseum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 171.--Archers, as represented on walls of Medinet
Habû.]
Again, when a number of persons engaged in the simultaneous performance of
any given act were represented on the same level, they were isolated as
much as possible, so that each man's profile might not cover that of his
neighbour. When this was not done, they were arranged to overlap each
other, |
536 | and this, despite the fact that all stood on the one level; so that
they have actually but two dimensions and no thickness. A herdsman walking
in the midst of his oxen plants his feet upon precisely the same ground-
line as the beast which interposes between his body and the spectator. The
most distant soldier of a company which advances in good marching order to
the sound of the trumpet, has his head and feet on exactly the same level;
as the head and feet of the foremost among his co |
537 | mrades (fig. 169). When a
squadron of chariots defiles before Pharaoh, one would declare that their
wheels all ran in the self-same ruts, were it not that the body of the
first chariot partly hides the horse by which the second chariot is drawn
(fig. 170). In these examples the people and objects are, either
accidentally or naturally, placed so near together, that the anomaly does
not strike one as too glaring. In taking these liberties, the Egyptian
artist but anticipated a contrivan |
538 | ce adopted by the Greek sculptor of a
later age. Elsewhere, the Egyptian has occasionally approached nearer to
truth of treatment. The archers of Rameses III. at Medinet Habû make an
effort, which is almost successful, to present themselves in perspective.
The row of helmets slopes downwards, and the row of bows slopes upwards,
with praiseworthy regularity; but the men's feet are all on the same level,
and do not, therefore, follow the direction of the other lines (fig. 171).
This mod |
539 | e of representation is not uncommon during the Theban period. It
was generally adopted when men or animals, ranged in line, had to be shown
in the act of doing the same thing; but it was subject to the grave
drawback (or what was in Egyptian eyes the grave drawback) of showing the
body of the first man only, and of almost entirely hiding the rest of the
figures. When, therefore, it was found impossible to range all upon the
same level without hiding some of their number, the artist fre |
540 | quently broke
his masses up into groups, and placed one above the other on the same
vertical plane. Their height in no wise depends on the place they occupy in
the perspective of the tableau, but only upon the number of rows required
by the artist to carry out his idea. If two rows of figures are sufficient,
he divides his space horizontally into equal parts; if he requires three
rows, he divides it into three parts; and so on. When, however, it is a
question of mere accessories, they |
541 | are made out upon a smaller scale.
Secondary scenes are generally separated by a horizontal line, but this
line is not indispensable. When masses of figures formed in regular order
had to be shown, the vertical planes lapped over, so to speak, according to
the caprice of the limner. At the battle of Kadesh, the files of Egyptian
infantry rise man above man, waist high, from top to bottom of the phalanx
(fig. 172); while those of the Kheta, or Hittite battalions, show but one
head abo |
542 | ve another (fig. 173).
[Illustration: Fig. 172.--Phalanx of Egyptian infantry, Ramesseum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 173.--Hittite battalion, Ramesseum.]
It was not only in their treatment of men and animals that the
Egyptians allowed themselves this latitude. Houses, trees, land and
water, were as freely misrepresented. An oblong rectangle placed upright,
or on its side, and covered with regular zigzags, represents a canal. Lest
one should be in doubt as to its meaning, fishes and cr |
543 | ocodiles are put in,
to show that it is water, and nothing but water. Boats are seen floating
upright upon this edgewise surface; the flocks ford it where it is shallow;
and the angler with his line marks the spot where the water ends and the
bank begins. Sometimes the rectangle is seen suspended like a framed
picture, at about half way of the height of several palm trees (fig. 174);
whereby we are given to understand a tank bordered on both sides by trees.
Sometimes, again, as in the |
544 | tomb of Rekhmara, the trees are laid down in
rows round the four sides of a square pond, while a profile boat conveying
a dead man in his shrine, hauled by slaves also shown in profile, floats on
the vertical surface of the water (fig. 175). The Theban catacombs of the
Ramesside period supply abundant examples of contrivances of this kind;
and, having noted them, we end by not knowing which most to wonder at--the
obstinacy of the Egyptians in not seeking to discover the natural laws o |
545 | f
perspective, or the inexhaustible wealth of resource which enabled them to
invent so many false relations between the various parts of their subjects.
[Illustration: Fig. 174.--Pond and palm-trees, from wall painting in tomb
of Rekhmara, Eighteenth Dynasty.]
When employed upon a very large scale, their methods of composition shock
the eye less than when applied to small subjects. We instinctively feel
that even the ablest artist must sometimes have played fast and loose with
th |
546 | e laws of perspective, if tasked to cover the enormous surfaces of
Egyptian pylons.
[Illustration: Fig. 175.--Scene from tomb of Rekhmara, Eighteenth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 176.--Scene from Mastaba of Ptahhotep, Fifth Dynasty.]
[Illustration: Fig. 177.--Palestrina mosaic.]
Hence the unities of the subject are never strictly observed in these
enormous bas-reliefs. The main object being to perpetuate the memory of a
victorious Pharaoh, that Pharaoh necessarily plays the l |
547 | eading part; but
instead of selecting from among his striking deeds some one leading episode
pre-eminently calculated to illustrate his greatness, the Egyptian artist
delighted to present the successive incidents of his campaigns at a single
_coup d'oeil_. Thus treated, the pylons of Luxor and the Ramesseum show a
Syrian night attack upon the Egyptian camp; a seizure of spies sent by the
prince of the Kheta for the express purpose of being caught and giving
false intelligence of his m |
548 | ovements; the king's household troops surprised
and broken by the Khetan chariots; the battle of Kadesh and its various
incidents, so furnishing us, as it were, with a series of illustrated
despatches of the Syrian campaign undertaken by Rameses II. in the fifth
year of his reign. After this fashion precisely did the painters of the
earliest Italian schools depict within the one field, and in one
uninterrupted sequence, the several episodes of a single narrative. The
scenes are irregu |
549 | larly dispersed over the surface of the wall, without any
marked lines of separation, and, as with the bas-reliefs upon the column of
Trajan, one is often in danger of dividing the groups in the wrong place,
and of confusing the characters. This method is reserved almost exclusively
for official art. In the interior decoration of temples and tombs, the
various parts of the one subject are distributed in rows ranged one above
the other, from the ground line to the cornice. Thus another |
550 | difficulty is
added to the number of those which prevent us from understanding the style
and intention of Egyptian design. We often imagine that we are looking at a
series of isolated scenes, when in fact we have before our eyes the
_disjecta membra_ of a single composition. Take, for example, one wall-side
of the tomb of Ptahhotep at Sakkarah (fig. 176). If we would discover the
link which divides these separate scenes, we shall do well to compare this
wall-subject with the mosaic at |
551 | Palestrina (fig. 177), a monument of
Graeco-Roman time which represents almost the same scenes, grouped,
however, after a style more familiar to our ways of seeing and thinking.
The Nile occupies the immediate foreground of the picture, and extends as
far as the foot of the mountains in the distance. Towns rise from the
water's edge; and not only towns, but obelisks, farm-houses, and towers of
Graeco-Italian style, more like the buildings depicted in Pompeian
landscapes than the monu |
552 | ments of the Pharaohs. Of these buildings, only the
large temple in the middle distance to the right of the picture, with its
pylon gateway and its four Osirian colossi, recalls the general arrangement
of Egyptian architecture. To the left, a party of sportsmen in a large boat
are seen in the act of harpooning the hippopotamus and crocodile. To the
right, a group of legionaries, drawn up in front of a temple and preceded
by a priest, salute a passing galley. Towards the middle of the f |
553 | oreground,
in the shade of an arched trellis thrown across a small branch of the
Nile, some half-clad men and women are singing and carousing. Little
papyrus skiffs, each rowed by a single boatman, and other vessels fill the
vacant spaces of the composition. Behind the buildings we see the
commencement of the desert. The water forms large pools at the base of
overhanging hills, and various animals, real or imaginary, are pursued by
shaven-headed hunters in the upper part of the pictur |
554 | e. Now, precisely
after the manner of the Roman mosaicist, the old Egyptian artist placed
himself, as it were, on the Nile, and reproduced all that lay between his
own standpoint and the horizon. In the wall-painting (fig. 176) the river
flows along the line next the floor, boats come and go, and boatmen fall to
blows with punting poles and gaffs. In the division next above, we see the
river bank and the adjoining flats, where a party of slaves, hidden in the
long grasses, trap and ca |
555 | tch birds. Higher still, boat-making, rope-making,
and fish-curing are going on. Finally, in the highest register of all, next
the ceiling, are depicted the barren hills and undulating plains of the
desert, where greyhounds chase the gazelle, and hunters trammel big game
with the lasso. Each longitudinal section corresponds, in fact, with a
plane of the landscape; but the artist, instead of placing his planes in
perspective, has treated them separately, and placed them one above the
o |
556 | ther. We find the same disposition of the parts in all Egyptian tomb
paintings. Scenes of inundation and civil life are ranged along the base of
the wall, mountain subjects and hunting scenes being invariably placed high
up. Sometimes, interposed between these two extremes, the artist has
introduced subjects dealing with the pursuits of the herdsman, the field
labourer, and the craftsman. Elsewhere, he suppresses these intermediary
episodes, and passes abruptly from the watery to the s |
557 | andy region. Thus,
the mosaic of Palestrina and the tomb-paintings of Pharaonic Egypt
reproduce the same group of subjects, treated after the conventional styles
and methods of two different schools of art. Like the mosaic, the wall
scenes of the tomb formed, not a series of independent scenes, but an
ordinary composition, the unity of which is readily recognised by such as
are skilled to read the art-language of the period.
2.--TECHNICAL PROCESSES.
[Illustration: Fig. 17 |
558 | 8.--Sculptor's sketch from Ancient Empire tomb.]
[Illustration: Fig. 179.--Sculptor's sketch from Ancient Empire tomb.]
The preparation of the surface about to be decorated demanded much time and
care. Seeing how imperfect were the methods of construction, and how
impossible it was for the architect to ensure a perfectly level surface for
the facing stones of his temple-walls and pylons, the decorator had
perforce to accommodate himself to a surface slightly rounded in some
plac |
559 | es and slightly hollowed in others. Even the blocks of which it was
formed were scarcely homogeneous in texture. The limestone strata in which
the Theban catacombs were excavated were almost always interspersed with
flint nodules, fossils, and petrified shells. These faults were variously
remedied according as the decoration was to be sculptured or painted. If
painted, the wall was first roughly levelled, and then overlaid with a coat
of black clay and chopped straw, similar to the mix |
560 | ture used for brick-
making. If sculptured, then the artist had to arrange his subject so as to
avoid the inequalities of the stone as much as possible. When these
occurred in the midst of the figure subjects, and if they did not offer too
stubborn a resistance to the chisel, they were simply worked over;
otherwise the piece was cut out and a new piece fitted in, or the hole was
filled up with white cement. This mending process was no trifling matter.
We could point to tomb-chambers w |
561 | here every wall is thus inlaid to the
extent of one quarter of its surface. The preliminary work being done, the
whole was covered with a thin coat of fine plaster mixed with white of
egg, which hid the mud-wash or the piecing, and prepared a level and
polished surface for the pencil of the artist. In chambers, or parts of
chambers, which have been left unfinished, and even in the quarries, we
constantly find sketches of intended bas-reliefs, outlined in red or black
ink. The copy was |
562 | generally executed upon a small scale, then squared off,
and transferred to the wall by the pupils and assistants of the master. As
in certain scenes carefully copied by Prisse from the walls of Theban
tombs, the subject is occasionally indicated by only two or three rapid
strokes of the reed (fig. 178). Elsewhere, the outline is fully made out,
and the figures only await the arrival of the sculptor. Some designers took
pains to determine the position of the shoulders, and the centre |
563 | of gravity
of the bodies, by vertical and horizontal lines, upon which, by means of a
dot, they noted the height of the knee, the hips, and other parts (fig.
179). Others again, more self-reliant, attacked their subject at once, and
drew in the figures without the aid of guiding points. Such were the
artists who decorated the catacomb of Seti I., and the southern walls of
the temple of Abydos. Their outlines are so firm, and their facility is so
surprising, that they have been suspect |
564 | ed of stencilling; but no one who
has closely examined their figures, or who has taken the trouble to measure
them with a compass, can maintain that opinion. The forms of some are
slighter than the forms of others; while in some the contours of the chest
are more accentuated, and the legs farther apart, than in others. The
master had little to correct in the work of these subordinates. Here and
there he made a head more erect, accentuated or modified the outline of a
knee, or improved |
565 | some detail of arrangement. In one instance, however, at
Kom Ombo, on the ceiling of a Graeco-Roman portico, some of the divinities
had been falsely oriented, their feet being placed where their arms should
have been. The master consequently outlined them afresh, and on the same
squared surface, without effacing the first drawing. Here, at all events,
the mistake was discovered in time. At Karnak, on the north wall of the
hypostyle hall, and again at Medinet Habu, the faults of the or |
566 | iginal
design were not noticed till the sculptor had finished his part of the
work. The figures of Seti I. and Rameses III. were thrown too far back, and
threatened to overbalance themselves; so they were smoothed over with
cement and cut anew. Now, the cement has flaked off, and the work of the
first chisel is exposed to view. Seti I. and Rameses III. have each two
profiles, the one very lightly marked, the other boldly cut into the
surface of the stone (fig. 180).
[Illustration: |
567 | Fig. 180.--Sculptor's correction, Medinet Habû, Rameses
III.]
[Illustration: Fig. 181.--Bow drill.]
The sculptors of ancient Egypt were not so well equipped as those of our
own day. A kneeling scribe in limestone at the Gizeh Museum has been carved
with the chisel, the grooves left by the tool being visible on his skin. A
statue in grey serpentine, in the same collection, bears traces of the use
of two different tools, the body being spotted all over with point-marks,
and the unf |
568 | inished head being blocked out splinter by splinter with a small
hammer. Similar observations, and the study of the monuments, show that the
drill (fig. 181), the toothed-chisel, and the gouge were also employed.
There have been endless discussions as to whether these tools were of iron
or of bronze. Iron, it is argued, was deemed impure. No one could make use
of it, even for the basest needs of daily life, without incurring a taint
prejudicial to the soul both in this world and the ne |
569 | xt. But the impurity
of any given object never sufficed to prevent the employment of it when
required. Pigs also were impure; yet the Egyptians bred them. They bred
them, indeed, so abundantly in certain districts, that our worthy Herodotus
tells us how the swine were turned into the fields after seed-sowing, in
order that they might tread in the grain. So also iron, like many other
things in Egypt, was pure or impure according to circumstances. If some
traditions held it up to odium |
570 | as an evil thing, and stigmatised it as the
"bones of Typhon," other traditions equally venerable affirmed that it was
the very substance of the canopy of heaven. So authoritative was this view,
that iron was currently known as "_Ba-en-pet_," or the celestial metal.[35]
The only fragment of metal found in the great pyramid is a piece of plate-
iron;[36] and if ancient iron objects are nowadays of exceptional rarity as
compared with ancient bronze objects, it is because iron differs fro |
571 | m
bronze, inasmuch as it is not protected from destruction by its oxide. Rust
speedily devours it, and it needs a rare combination of favourable
circumstances to preserve it intact. If, however, it is quite certain that
the Egyptians were acquainted with, and made use of, iron, it is no less
certain that they were wholly unacquainted with steel. This being the case,
one asks how they can possibly have dealt at will upon the hardest rocks,
even upon such as we ourselves hesitate to att |
572 | ack, namely, diorite, basalt,
and the granite of Syene. The manufacturers of antiquities who sculpture
granite for the benefit of tourists, have found a simple solution of this
problem. They work with some twenty common iron chisels at hand, which
after a very few turns are good for nothing. When one is blunted, they take
up another, and so on till the stock is exhausted. Then they go to the
forge, and put their tools into working order again. The process is neither
so long nor so dif |
573 | ficult as might be supposed. In the Gizeh Museum is a
life-size head, produced from a block of black and red granite in less than
a fortnight by one of the best forgers in Luxor. I have no doubt that the
ancient Egyptians worked in precisely the same way, and mastered the
hardest stones by the use of iron. Practice soon taught them methods by
which their labour might be lightened, and their tools made to yield
results as delicate and subtle as those which we achieve with our own. As
s |
574 | oon as the learner knew how to manage the point and the mallet, his master
set him to copy a series of graduated models representing an animal in
various stages of completion, or a part of the human body, or the whole
human body, from the first rough sketch to the finished design (fig. 182).
Every year, these models are found in sufficient number to establish
examples of progressive series. Apart from isolated specimens which are
picked up everywhere, the Gizeh collection contains a se |
575 | t of fifteen from
Sakkarah, forty-one from Tanis, and a dozen from Thebes and Medinet Habû.
They were intended partly for the study of bas-reliefs, partly for the
study of sculpture proper; and they reveal the method in use for both.[37]
[Illustration: Fig. 182.--Sculptor's trial-piece, Eighteenth Dynasty.]
The Egyptians treated bas-relief in three ways: either as a simple
engraving executed by means of incised lines; or by cutting away the
surface of the stone round the figure, a |
576 | nd so causing it to stand out in
relief upon the wall; or by sinking the design below the wall-surface and
cutting it in relief at the bottom of the hollow. The first method has the
advantage of being expeditious, and the disadvantage of not being
sufficiently decorative. Rameses III. made use of it in certain parts of
his temple at Medinet Habû; but, as a rule, it was preferred for stelae and
small monuments. The last-named method lessened not only the danger of
damage to the work, b |
577 | ut the labour of the workman. It evaded the dressing
down of the background, which was a distinct economy of time, and it left
no projecting work on the surface of the walls, the design being thus
sheltered from accidental blows. The intermediate process was, however,
generally adopted, and appears to have been taught in the schools by
preference. The models were little rectangular tablets, squared off in
order that the scholar might enlarge or reduce the scale of his subject
without |
578 | departing from the traditional proportions. Some of these models
are wrought on both sides; but the greater number are sculptured on one
side only. Sometimes the design represents a bull; sometimes the head of a
cynocephalous ape, of a ram, of a lion, of a divinity. Occasionally, we
find the subject in duplicate, side by side, being roughly blocked out to
the left, and highly finished to the right. In no instance does the relief
exceed a quarter of an inch, and it is generally even les |
579 | s. Not but that
the Egyptians sometimes cut boldly into the stone. At Medinet Habû and
Karnak--on the higher parts of these temples, where the work is in granite
or sandstone, and exposed to full daylight--the bas-relief decoration
projects full 6-3/8 inches above the surface. Had it been lower, the
tableaux would have been, as it were, absorbed by the flood of light poured
upon them, and to the eye of the spectator would have presented only a
confused network of lines. The models des |
580 | igned for the study of the round
are even more instructive than the rest. Some which have come down to us
are plaster casts of familiar subjects. The head, the arms, the legs, the
trunk, each part of the body, in short, was separately cast. If a complete
figure were wanted, the _disjecta membra_ were put together, and the result
was a statue of a man, or of a woman, kneeling, standing, seated,
squatting, the arms extended or falling passively by the sides. This
curious collection was |
581 | discovered at Tanis, and dates probably from
Ptolemaic times.[38] Models of the Pharaonic ages are in soft limestone,
and nearly all represent portraits of reigning sovereigns. These are best
described as cubes measuring about ten inches each way. The work was begun
by covering one face of a cube with a network of lines crossing each other
at right angles; these regulated the relative position of the features.
Then the opposite side was attacked, the distances being taken from the
sca |
582 | le on the reverse face. A mere oval was designed on this first block; a
projection in the middle and a depression to right and left, vaguely
indicating the whereabouts of nose and eyes. The forms become more definite
as we pass from cube to cube, and the face emerges by degrees. The limit of
the contours is marked off by parallel lines cut vertically from top to
bottom. The angles were next cut away and smoothed down, so as to bring out
the forms. Gradually the features become disengag |
583 | ed from the block, the eye
looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed. When the
last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of
the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow. No scholar's model in basalt
has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons,
always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be
turned out complete in a few hours. The hands, feet, and bust needed only a
few last touches; but |
584 | the heads were merely blocked out, and the clothing
left in the rough. Half a day's work then sufficed to transform the face
into a portrait of the purchaser, and to give the last new fashion to the
kilt. The discovery of some two or three statues of this kind has shown us
as much of the process as a series of teacher's models might have done.
Volcanic rocks could not be cut with the continuity and regularity of
limestone. The point only could make any impression upon these obdurate
|
585 | materials. When, by force of time and patience, the work had thus been
finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little
irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and
heterogeneous substances, which the sculptor had not ventured to attack,
for fear of splintering away part of the surrounding surface. In order to
remove these irregularities, another tool was employed; namely, a stone cut
in the form of an axe. Applying the sharp edge of |
586 | this instrument to the
projecting nodule, the artist struck it with a round stone in place of a
mallet. A succession of carefully calculated blows with these rude tools
pulverised the obtrusive knob, which disappeared in dust. All minor
defects being corrected, the monument still looked dull and unfinished. It
was necessary to polish it, in order to efface the scars of point and
mallet. This was a most delicate operation, one slip of the hand, or a
moment's forgetfulness, being enough |
587 | to ruin the labour of many weeks. The
dexterity of the Egyptian craftsman was, however, so great that accidents
rarely happened. The Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, the colossal Rameses II. of
Luxor, challenge the closest examination. The play of light upon the
surface may at first prevent the eye from apprehending the fineness of the
work; but, seen under favourable circumstances, the details of knee and
chest, of shoulder and face, prove to be no less subtly rendered in granite
than in limest |
588 | one. Excess of polish has no more spoiled the statues of
Ancient Egypt than it spoiled those of the sculptors of the Italian
Renaissance.
A sandstone or limestone statue would have been deemed imperfect if left to
show the colour of the stone in which it was cut, and was painted from head
to foot. In bas-relief, the background was left untouched and only the
figures were coloured. The Egyptians had more pigments at their disposal
than is commonly supposed. The more ancient painters' |
589 | palettes--and we have
some which date from the Fifth Dynasty--have compartments for yellow, red,
blue, brown, white, black, and green.[40] Others, of the time of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, provide for three varieties of yellow, three of brown,
two of red, two of blue, and two of green; making in all some fourteen or
sixteen different tints.
Black was obtained by calcining the bones of animals. The other substances
employed in painting were indigenous to the country. The white is made |
590 | of
gypsum, mixed with albumen or honey; the yellows are ochre, or sulphuret of
arsenic, the orpiment of our modern artists; the reds are ochre, cinnabar,
or vermilion; the blues are pulverised lapis-lazuli, or silicate of copper.
If the substance was rare or costly, a substitute drawn from the products
of native industry was found. Lapis-lazuli, for instance, was replaced by
blue frit made with an admixture of silicate of copper, and this was
reduced to an impalpable powder. The paint |
591 | ers kept their colours in tiny
bags, and, as required, mixed them with water containing a little gum
tragacanth. They laid them on by means of a reed, or a more or less fine
hair brush. When well prepared, these pigments are remarkably solid, and
have changed but little during the lapse of ages. The reds have darkened,
the greens have faded, the blues have turned somewhat green or grey; but
this is only on the surface. If that surface is scraped off, the colour
underneath is brilliant |
592 | and unchanged. Before the Theban period, no
precautions were taken to protect the painter's work from the action of air
and light. About the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, however, it became
customary to coat painted surfaces with a transparent varnish which was
soluble in water, and which was probably made from the gum of some kind of
acacia. It was not always used in the same manner. Some painters varnished
the whole surface, while others merely glazed the ornaments and
accessories |
593 | , without touching the flesh-tints or the clothing. This varnish
has cracked from the effects of age, or has become so dark as to spoil the
work it was intended to preserve. Doubtless, the Egyptians discovered the
bad effects produced by it, as we no longer meet with it after the close of
the Twentieth Dynasty.
Egyptian painters laid on broad, flat, uniform washes of colour; they did
not paint in our sense of the term; they illuminated. Just as in drawing
they reduced everything to |
594 | lines, and almost wholly suppressed the internal
modelling, so in adding colour they still further simplified their subject
by merging all varieties of tone, and all play of light and shadow, in one
uniform tint. Egyptian painting is never quite true, and never quite false.
Without pretending to the faithful imitation of nature, it approaches
nature as nearly as it may; sometimes understating, sometimes exaggerating,
sometimes substituting ideal or conventional renderings for strict
r |
595 | ealities. Water, for instance, is always represented by a flat tint of
blue, or by blue covered with zigzag lines in black. The buff and bluish
hues of the vulture are translated into bright red and vivid blue. The
flesh-tints of men are of a dark reddish brown, and the flesh-tints of
women are pale yellow. The colours conventionally assigned to each animate
and inanimate object were taught in the schools, and their use handed on
unchanged from generation to generation. Now and then it |
596 | happened that a
painter more daring than his contemporaries ventured to break with
tradition. In the Sixth Dynasty tombs at Deir el Gebrawî, there are
instances where the flesh tint of the women is that conventionally devoted
to the depiction of men. At Sakkarah, under the Fifth Dynasty, and at Abû
Simbel, under the Nineteenth Dynasty, we find men with skins as yellow as
those of the women; while in the tombs of Thebes and Abydos, about the time
of Thothmes IV. and Horemheb, there oc |
597 | cur figures with flesh-tints of rose-
colour.[41]
It must not, however, be supposed that the effect produced by this
artificial system was grating or discordant. Even in works of small size,
such as illuminated MSS. of _The Book of the Dead_, or the decoration of
mummy-cases and funerary coffers, there is both sweetness and harmony of
colour. The most brilliant hues are boldly placed side by side, yet with
full knowledge of the relations subsisting between these hues, and of the
ph |
598 | enomena which must necessarily result from such relations. They neither
jar together, nor war with each other, nor extinguish each other. On the
contrary, each maintains its own value, and all, by mere juxtaposition,
give rise to the half-tones which harmonise them.
Turning from small things to large ones, from the page of papyrus, or the
panel of sycamore wood, to the walls of tombs and temples, we find the
skilful employment of flat tints equally soothing and agreeable to the eye.
|
599 |
Each wall is treated as a whole, the harmony of colour being carried out
from bottom to top throughout the various superimposed stages into which
the surface was divided. Sometimes the colours are distributed according to
a scale of rhythm, or symmetry, balancing and counterbalancing each other.
Sometimes one special tint predominates, thus determining the general tone
and subordinating every other hue. The vividness of the final effect is
always calculated according to the quality an |
600 | d quantity of light by which
the picture is destined to be seen. In very dark halls the force of colour
is carried as far as it will go, because it would not otherwise have been
visible by the flickering light of lamps and torches. On outer wall-
surfaces and on pylon-fronts, it was as vivid as in the darkest depths of
excavated catacombs; and this because, no matter how extreme it might be,
the sun would subdue its splendour. But in half-lighted places, such as the
porticoes of templ |
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