Volume I Part 1 (1/2)

A history of art in ancient Egypt

Vol I

by Georges Perrot and Charles Chipiez

PREFACE

M Perrot's naist, and M

Chipiez's as a penetrating critic of architecture, stand so high that any work from their pens is sure of a elcome from all students of the material remains of antiquity These volu which has for its airohich, beginning with the Pharaohs and ending with the Roman Emperors, forms what is called Antique Art The reception accorded to this instaliuyptologist, Professor Georg Ebers, is well deserved; ”The first section,” he says, ”of this work, is broad and comprehensive in conception, and delicate in execution; it treats Egyptian art in a fashi+on which has never previously been approached” In clothing it in a language which will, I hope, enable it to reach a still wider public, my one endeavour has been that it should lose as little as possible, either in substance or form

A certain amount of repetition is inevitable in a work of this kind when issued, as this was, in parts, and in one place[1] I have ventured to oth, but with that exception I have followed M Perrot's words as closely as the difference of idiom would allow Another kind of repetition, hich, perhaps, some readers may be inclined to quarrel, forced itself upon the author as the lesser of two evils He was co to carry on at once the history of all the Egyptian arts and of their connection with the national religion and civilization, or to go back upon his footsteps now and again in tracing each art successively from its birth to its decay The latter alternative was chosen as the only one consistent with the final aie 92, Vol I

Stated in a feords, that aireat plastic evolution which cule of Pericles and came to an end in that of Marcus Aurelius That evolution foranic whole, with a birthday, a deathday, and an unbroken chain of cause and effect uniting the two To objectors who may say that the art of India, of China, of japan, should have been included in the scheme, it may be answered: this is the life, not of two, or three, but of one M Perrot has been careful, therefore, to discriyptian art which may be referred either to the national beliefs and ht, or to undeveloped material conditions, such as the want or superstitious disuse of iron, and those which, being determined by the very nature of the proble point for the arts of all later civilizations By yptians went through the same process of development as those of other and later nationalities, and that the real distinguishi+ng characteristic of the sculptures and paintings of the Nile Valley was a continual tendency to si partly frolyphic writing, partly from the stubborn nature of the chief ht, perhaps, have added another, which is sufficiently remarkable in an art which had at least three thousand years of vitality, namely, its freedoyptians was a broad realisn of that research into detail which distinguishes most imitative art and is to be found even in that of their i centuries of alternate renascence and decay, we find no vestige of an attempt to raise art above imitation

No suspicion of its expressive power seeyptian mind, which, so far as the plastic arts were concerned, never produced anything that in the language of modern criticisypt is more closely allied to those nations of the far east whose art does not coreat civilizations which formed its own posterity

Before the late troubles intervened to draw attention of a different kind to the Nile Valley, the finding of a pit full of royal mummies and sepulchral objects in the western ive a fresh stie those ere doing their best to lead England to take her proper share in the work of exploration A short account of this discovery, which took place after M Perrot's book was complete, and of some of the numerous art objects hich it has enriched the Boulak Museum, will be found in an Appendix to the second voluenerous assistance are due to Dr Birch, Mr

Reginald Stuart Poole, and Miss A B Edwards

W A

INTRODUCTION

I

The successful interpretation of the ancient writings of Egypt, Chaldaea, and Persia, which has distinguished our times, makes it necessary that the history of antiquity should be rewritten Documents that for thousands of years lay hidden beneath the soil, and inscriptions which, like those of Egypt and Persia, long offered theaze of man merely to excite his impotent curiosity, have now been deciphered and uidance of the historian By the help of those strings of hieroglyphs and of cuneifors and sculptured reliefs, we are enabled to separate the truth from the falsehood, the chaff from the wheat, in the narratives of the Greek writers who busied themselves with those nations of Africa and Asia which preceded their own in the ways of civilization Day by day, as new monu their inscriptions elaborated, we have added to the knowledge left us by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, to our acquaintance with those empires on the Euphrates and the Nile which were already in old age when the Greeks were yet struggling to ee from their primitive barbarism

Even in the cases of Greece and Rome, whose histories are supplied in their main lines by their classic writers, the study of hitherto neglected writings discloses etic search for ancient inscriptions, and the scrupulous and ingenious interpretation of their , have revealed to usfacts of which no trace is to be found in Thucydides or Xenophon, in Livy or Tacitus; enabling us to enrich with more than one feature the picture of private and public life which they have handed down to us In the effort to embrace the life of ancient times as a whole, many attempts have been made to fix the exact place in it occupied by art, but those attempts have never been absolutely successful, because the comprehension of works of art, of _plastic_ creations in the widest significance of that word, dereat uage of its ohich obliges those ish to learn it thoroughly to cultivate their taste by frequenting the principal ions at the cost of considerable trouble and expense, by perpetual reference to the great collections of engravings, photographs, and other reproductions which considerations of space and cost prevent the _savant_ fro at home More than one learned author has never visited Italy or Greece, or has found no time to examine their museums, each of which contains but a small portion of the accumulated remains of antique art Some connoisseurs do not even live in a capital, but dwell far from those public libraries, which often contain valuable collections, and sometimes--when they are not packed away in cellars or at the binder's--allow them to be studied by the curious[2] The study of art, difficult enough in itself, is thus rendered still more arduous by the obstacles which are thrown in its way The difficulty of obtaining materials for self-improvement in this direction affords the true explanation of the absence, in modern histories of antiquity, of those laborious researches which have led to such great results since Winckely as we know it To take the case of Greece, many learned writers have in our tiland, Germany, and France have each contributed works which, by various merits, have conquered the favour of Europe But of all these works the only one which betrays any deep study of Greek art, and treats it with taste and competence, is that of M Ernest Curtius; as for Mr Grote, he has neither a theoretic knowledge of art, nor a feeling for it Here and there, indeed, where he cannot avoid it, he alludes to the question, but in the fewest and driest phrases possible And yet Greece, without its architects, its sculptors, and its painters, without in fact its passion for beautiful form, a passion as warm and prolific as its love for poetry, is hardly Greece at all

[2] Our national library at the British Museum is, perhaps, the only one which does not deserve this reproach--ED

Much disappointment is thus prepared for those ithout the leisure to enter deeply into detail, wish to picture to themselves the various aspects of the ancient world They are told of revolutions, of wars and conquests, of the succession of princes; the mechanism of political and civil institutions is explained to them; ”literature,”

we are told, ”is the expression of social life,” and so the history of literature is written for us All this is true enough, but there is another truth which seeotten, that the art of a people is quite as clear an indication of their sentiments, tastes, and ideas, as their literature But on this subjectthemselves with the brief mention of certain works and proper naeneral ideas which do not even possess the merit of precision And where are we to find the information thus refused? Europe possesses several histories of Greek and Roreat talent and eloquence, such as the work, unhappily left unfinished, of Ottfried Muller; there are, too, excellent manuals, rich in valuable facts, such as those of Bernhardy, Baehr, and Teuffel; but where is there, either in England, in France, or in Gerle hich retraces, in sufficient detail, the whole history of antique art, following it throughout its progress and into all its transforin to its final decadence, down to the epoch when Christianity and the barbaric invasions put an end to the ancient forms of civilization and prepared for the birth of the modern world, for the evolution of a new society and of a new art?

To this question our neighbours may reply that the _Geschichte der bildenden Kunst_ of Carl Schnaase[3] does all that we ask But that work has one great disadvantage for those who are not Gerreat bulk will al a translator, while it ner It must, besides, be very difficult, not to say ile writer to treat with equal competence the arts of Asia, of Greece, and of Roht have expected, all the parts of such an extensive whole are by no means of equal value, and the chapters which treat of antique art are the least satisfactory Of the eight volumes of which the work consists, two are devoted to ancient timent, they are not the two best They were revised, indeed, for the second edition, by two colleagues whom Herr Schnaase called in to his assistance; oriental art by Carl von Lutzow, and that of Greece and Rome by Carl Friedrichs But the chapters in which assyria, Chaldaea, Persia, Phnicia, and Egypt are discussed are quite inadequate No single question is exhaustively treated Instead of well-considered personal viee have vague guesses and explanations which do nothing to solve the ists The illustrations are not nuh to be useful, and, in most cases, they do not seem to have been taken from the objects themselves Those which relate to architecture, especially, have been borrowed from other well knoorks, and furnish therefore no new elements for appreciation or discussion Finally, the order adopted by the author is not easily understood For reasons which have decided us to follow the same course, and which ill explain farther on, he takes no account of the extrein with India, which had no relations with the peoples on the shores of the Mediterranean until a very late date, and, so far as art was concerned, rather caht them under its own?

[3] _Geschichte der bildenden Kunst_, 2nd ed, corrected and augs in the text, 8 vols 8vo

1865-1873 The first edition consisted of 7 vols, and appeared between 1843 and 1864

The fact is that Schnaase follows a geographical order, which is very confusing in its results To give but one example of its absurdity, he speaks of the Phnicians before he has said a word of Egypt; noe all know that the art of Tyre and Sidon was but a late reflection froypt; the workshops of those two fayptian art objects for exportation