Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
-- 7 _Of the place held in this work by the monuments of the Memphite period, and of the lie space in the present work, soe a space, is devoted to the pre-conventional art of the ancient e such a course, and reasons that may be easily divined
This early art is reat museums of Europe are filled with statues and reliefs from Thebes, or, at least, contemporary with the Theban and Sait dynasties, ypt Thanks to Mariette and Lepsius, Paris and Berlin are not without reypt itself, at the Boulak museum, that any detailed study must be made It is there that the masterpieces of an art whose very existence was unsuspected by Champollion, are to be found; the Chephren, the two statues from Meidoum, the bas-reliefs from the tomb of Ti, and ures have been drawn for our readers by two skilful artists, MM Bourgoin and Benedite They have rendered with fidelity and sincerity more than one object which had never before been reproduced, either by photography or otherwise A few specimens of these treasures, selected by hiht andmourn, were seen at the Universal Exhibitions of 1867 and 1878, but they soon returned to Cairo, and western archaeologists had but slight opportunity to become acquainted with their characteristics
The art of the early dynasties has thus been practically ignored by those who have never visited Egypt The lifelike and enthusiastic descriptions of M Eugene Melchior de Vogue and others have done so to arouse the attention of connoisseurs; but in such a htest sketch, provided it be correct so far as it goes, is of more value, as a definition of style, than the
These reflections would by thees, reproductions of all the more important objects hich the necropolis at Memphis has enriched the museum at Boulak; but ere impelled by other motives also The extant monuments of the ancient empire are less numerous than those of the Theban and Sait dynasties; they are of comparativelyto one category, that of works relating to death and burial They also have a special interest of their own They enable us to protest, and to give tangible justification for our protestations, against a prejudice which dates back to a remote antiquity; even if all evidence had perished the critic would have no great difficulty in casting doubt upon assertions which were in themselves extremely improbable, but his task is renderedreat in seeing the certainty of his criticalitself, as if of its own motion, under the normal conditions of historic development
[Illustration: FIG 56--Chephren Sketched by Bourgoin See also Fig
460]
This voluyptian art at a length which would seeht out of due proportion to their nues will also be represented by a series ofus down to the Persian conquest This limit will hardly be over-passed in our choice of examples for study, and that for two reasons
The first is, that at the latter period the evolution of Egyptian art was complete, it had created all that it could and had beco under the Ptolereat ees which do not sees, but those changes were of no very great importance and werewe can easily see that it abandoned itself to , to the repetition of a lesson learnt by rote Whatever had to be done, was done in accordance with fixed tradition, and one monument only differed from another in the amount of care and manual dexterity bestowed upon it
[Illustration: FIG 57--Ti, with his wife and son]
Our second reason is this, that Egypt was opened to the Greeks in the time of the Sait princes From the year 650 BC onwards, there was constant communication between Ionia and the cities of the Delta If at any tiypt, it was during the second half of the seventh century and the first half of the sixth By the end of the sixth century, it had becoement of its selected methods of expression that it could not have been very receptive to foreign influences
After the Persian wars such influences would be still s was reversed; Greece iious conceptions and their visible syypt could defend, and even perpetuate itself, by the power of custoh so many centuries, but the day was past when it could provoke is of forh the Phnicians, their transmission had come to an end before the Persian conquest, even before the tiypt was represented, either ih the imitative powers of the Syrian manufacturers, in the first textiles, jewels, and vases of clay or e ancestors of the Greeks In this roundabout manner she had probably more influence over Greece than in their periods of more direct communication The rays kindled upon her hearth, the earliest of civilization, fell upon the hellenic isles as refracted rays, after passing through the varied media of Chaldaea, assyria or Phnicia
Thus if ish thoroughly to understand Greece, we h Babylon and Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon But Greece will be the aiypt will interest us less on her own account than on account of that unique and unrivalled people who inherited her inventions and discoveries, and made them the foundation for a productiveness in which are suyptian art will be followed by us down to the moment in which it lost its creative force and with it its prestige We shall rarely have occasion to speak of the Ptoleo to them for examples when any particular detail which we desire to mention has not been preserved for us by earlier ood reasons for believing that such detail did in fact originate in the creative periods of the national history
The Egypt of the Pharaohs has not even yet been entirely explored Are we to believe that the splendid edifices reared in the cities of the Delta, and especially at Sais, by the twenty-sixth dynasty, have perished to the last stone? We are loth to think that it is so, but no remains have yet been discovered Soht the tereatly admired; and who knows but that we es of the Ptolemies and of the Roman emperors?
CHAPTER II
PRINCIPLES AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE
-- 1--_Method to be Employed by us in our Study of this Architecture_
In the enterprise which we have undertaken the study of oriental art is but an introduction to that of Greece Without an attentive exauish the original eleenius from those which it borrowed from other nations We must pass in review the whole artistic production of several great nations who occupied a vast surface of the globe, and whose fertility was prolonged through a long course of centuries, but we shall not atteypt and assyria, of Persia and Phnicia, as such an atteht of the main object of our work
Our task is no easy one While li our study in the fashi+on which has been described, we must not fail to extend our purview to every fact which may help to justify the comparison which we propose to institute between the arts of Greece and those of the nations by whose teachings she profited There is but one road to success in this double task We reatest possible care to our study of the details in question, and then give the general results of that study; we hly acquainted with all the phenoeneral lahich governed them, such as our minute inquiries have presented them to us
No circumstantial description need, therefore, be looked for in these pages even in the case of the raph upon any tomb or temple will be found, but we shall ourselves have exauratively, have taken thee acquired we shall endeavour to yptians upon sepulchral and religious architecture, and with the changes which those conceptions underwent in the course of centuries
Thus, for exaes of Lepsius[90] and Prisse d'Avennes[91] for infor to the sepulchres of the first six dynasties, and further researches have been made on the spot expressly for the present work, but we shall not give any descriptions or illustrations of those works individually; we shall merely use them for an ideal restoration of the characteristic tombhouse of the ancient empire We may, perhaps, for this purpose, make a more particular reference to one or two sepulchres which are in unusually good preservation, but only for the sake of giving firm definition to the type and to its ypten und aethiopien_ (froypt in 1842, which remained there till 1845), 12 vols folio Berlin, no date
[91] _Histoire de l'Art egyptien d'apres les Monuments depuis les Temps les plus recules jusqu'a la Domination romaine_, 2 vols Paris, Arthus Bertrand, 1878 The text (1 vol 4to), published after the death of Prisse, has this great inconvenience, that it is not always easy to distinguish what belongs to the editor, M Marchandon de la Faye, from the contributions of Prisse, as one of the ists The papers, sketches, and drawings left by Prisse became the property, in 1880, of the Bibliotheque Nationale; when they are classified and published we shall probably find a docuh them, when the illustrations to this ere already prepared It is desirable that a complete inventory of these collections should be made as soon as possible
By this analytical ive an account, which shall be at once accurate and not too long, of the constructive processes eeneral aspect of their buildings, and of the modifications enforced by the decorative forms of which they made use We shall be enabled to see how far those forms were decided by natural conditions, by ancient tradition, or by special wants We shall thus include in a single chapter all that relates to principal or accessory openings, to doors and their construction, to those loftily placed hich were calculated to give so little light In another chapter we shall discuss the column and its capital; we shall describe the variations produced by time and materials upon its proportions and its entasis