Volume II Part 23 (1/2)

[265] MARIETTE (_Karnak_, p 15) calculated that this temple, whose major axis froth, ranite, and differing but little in size and execution

If placed in rows against the walls, and here and there in a double row, their elboould almost have touched one another

The first and second courts, and the two long corridors which bound the teures is represented in our Fig 39, Vol I

[266] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, vol ii p 25

The position occupied by the statue in the cella of a Greek te like a parallel, however, in the rock-cut teures, carved in the living rock, which have been found seated in the farthest recesses at Ipsaures are now so mutilated that their merit as works of art cannot be decided

We may safely say that if the temples proper, such as those of Karnak and Luxor, had containedin any way to those of the Greeks, they would have been of colossal size But although the soil of Thebes is alle vestige of any gigantic statue of Amen has ever been discovered All that we know of those few divine statues to which special veneration was paid excludes any idea of size exceeding that of man The statues of Amen and Khons, at Thebes and Napata, which nodded their approval when consulted by the king as to his future plans, were certainly not colossi[267] And as for the figure of Khons, which took a voyage into Syria to cure the sister-in-law of one of the latter Ramessids, we can hardly believe it was more than a statuette[268]

[267] MASPERO, _Annuaire de l'association des etudes Grecques_, 1877, p 132

[268] See the often-quoted story of a voyage taken by a statue of Khons to the country of Bakhtan and its return to Egypt DE ROUGe, _etude sur un Stele egyptienne appartenant a la Bibliotheque Nationale_, 8vo, 1856

In spite of their number the statues of the Gods s The Pharaoh who built a teies; his colossi sat before the gate, they helped to forures of sed under the porticos In that part of the Great Tehteenth dynasty, statues of Thothmes III alone have been found to the numents may be identified in every corner[269]

[269] MARIETTE, _Karnak_, p 36 See also his _Abydos, Catalogue General_, -- 2, p 27

Areat building like that at Karnak was filled, there were a few statues of private individuals ”The right to erect statues in the teed (as we should say) to the crown We find therefore that most of the private statues found in the sacred inclosures are inscribed with a special for's favour, to so and so, the son of so and so' Periven as a reward for services rendered The teht be either that of the favoured individual's native town, or one for which he had peculiar veneration Civil and foreign wars, the decay of cities, and the destruction of idols by the Christians, have combined to render statues of private persons from public temples of very rare occurrence in our collections”[270]

[270] MASPERO, in the _Monuments de l'Art Antique_ of Rayet

The tombs were the proper places for private statues; we have seen that at Memphis they were set up in the courtyards and hidden in the serdabs, that at Thebes they were placed, either upright or sitting, in the depths of the hypogea[271]

[271] _Description, Antiquites_, vol iii p 41

Figures in the round, whether Gods, kings, or private persons, were always isolated They were sometimes placed one by the side of the other, but they never forroups in the strict sense of the word

In the whole of Egyptian sculpture there is but one group, that of the father, mother, and children; and this was repeated without yptian artist can hardly be said to have composed or invented it; it was, so to speak, iroups which became so numerous in hellenic art as soon as it arrived at maturity, in which various forms and opposed or complementary movements were so combined as to produce a just equilibriuypt

The Greeks were the first of the antique races to love the human form for itself, for the inherent beauty of its lines and attitudes

Certain traces of this sentiypt, in which enious and picturesque are often met with, but it is almost entirely absent fro s from reality In the sepulchral system the sculptor supplies relays of bodies, stone mummies which may take the place of the embalmed corpse when it is worn out; in the temples his business is to set up concrete symbols of an idea, emblems of one of the divine powers, or of the majesty of Pharaoh

The infinite number of combinations which may be obtained by the association of several persons of different ages and sexes in one action, hest achievement of an art at once passionate and scientific, such as the sculpture of Greece and Florence To such a height the Egyptians never soared, but they well understood the more or less conventional methods which are at the coures in the round by thousands; most of them were smaller than nature, many were life-size, while a few surpassed it with an audacity to which no parallel can be found elsewhere Here and there we find a figure, no h, to which its ive a freedom of attitude, a breadth of execution, and a nobility of presence which are quite astonishi+ng Look, for instance, at the reproduction of a little wooden statuette which borders this page (Fig 234); it is identical in size with the original Its date is unknown, but we should be inclined to refer it to the Ancient Ee is so proud and dignified that he ht well be a reduction from a colossus

[Illustration: FIG 234--Wooden statuette belonging to M

Delaroche-Vernet Drawn by Saint-Elures which consist of nothing but the head and the upper part of the trunk, were not unknown to the Egyptians All the descriptions mention the existence in the Ramesseum of two colossal busts of Rameses II, the one in black, the other in a parti-coloured black and red, granite

It would seem that all the colossi were of stone, especially of the harder kinds Wood was used for life-size figures and statuettes, particularly the latter Terra-cotta coated with enaures It was the saures We do not knohether the Egyptians in their days of independence er than life, as the Greeks constantly did One of the largest pieces known is the Horus in the Posno collection (Fig 44, Vol I)

It is about three feet high It for with the exception of the arms, which were added afterwards The finish of the head is remarkable, and the eyes appear to have been encrusted with enamel or some other precious material, which has since disappeared

The hands see of silver or gold, must have been detached at a very early period The execution recalls the finest style of the eighteenth dynasty

[Illustration: FIG 235--Bronze cat Drawn by Saint-Elhest use to which sculpture can be put is the rendering of the huyptian sculptors did not disdain to employ their chisels upon the portraiture of those animals which were objects of devotion in their country We possess excellent representations of ure of a cat which we take fro 235) The lion was equally well rendered In the bas-reliefs we sometimes find him turned into a sort of heraldic anins upon his flanks and shoulders (Fig 236); but, even where he is eneral movements are truthful in the ular power and sincerity This is the case with a bronze lion which must once have fore from the few links of a chain which are still attached to it[272] Although this anis to the lowest period of Egyptian art, its style is vigorous in no coree