Volume II Part 28 (1/2)

This is the great distinguishi+ng characteristic of the Egyptian style

The uniformity, stiffness, and restraint of the attitudes, the over-rigorous symmetry of the parts and of the limbs, and the close alliance of the latter with the bodies, are only secondary features

We shall find them in the works of every race compelled to make use of materials that were either too hard or too soft Moreover, these are the constant characteristics of archaic art, and it ypt ures have been unearthed which surprise us by the freedoinality of the Egyptian style consists in its deliberately epito that upon which the artists of other countries have elaborately dwelt, in its lavishi+ng all its executive powers upon chief , their proportions, and the sources of their artistic effect

As figures increased in size this tendency towards the suppression of detail increased also, and so too did their fitness for the architectonic _role_ they had to play The colossi which flank the entrances to an Egyptian temple have been often criticised from an erroneous standpoint They have been treated as if they were meant to be self-sufficient and independent Their massiveness and want of vitality have been blaures could not rise, nor the standing ones walk To form a just estimate of their merit we must take them with the inations, and picture the colonnades about them, with the pylons at their backs, and the obelisks at their sides We must close our eyes for a moment and reconstruct this combination of architectural and sculpturesque lines We shall then readily perceive how entirely these colossi were in hars Their vertical and horizontal lines echoed those of thecolonnades was carried on by their repetition of a single attitude, while their colossal diht thee structures by which they were surrounded It has been said that, ypt impresses us with the idea of absolute stability, of infinite duration” Could anything be in rave and majestic attitudes of these seated Pharaohs, attitudes which froe and without end

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

PAINTING

-- 1 _Technical Processes_

Most of our observations upon Egyptian sculpture are applicable to the sister art of painting The conventions which foryptian style were established by the sculptor; but when the artist had to draw the outline of a for it upon the naked surface of the wall, the difference of process did not affect hishis models We find the same qualities and the same defects The purity of line, the nobility of pose, the draughtsnorance of perspective, and the constant repetition of traditional attitudes are found in both , in fact, never becaypt It was commonly used to complete sculpturesque effects, and it never freed itself from this subordination It never attempted to make use of its own peculiar resources for the expression of those things which sculpture could not compass--the depths of space, the recession of planes, the varieties of hue which passion spreads over the hus which are thus betrayed We may say that it is only by so_ at all No people have spread yptians; none have had a more true instinct for colour harradation of tone, by the juxtaposition or superposition of tints, the real aspects of the surfaces which present thely ht or shadow, by distance and the state of the at of e call chiaroscuro or of aerial perspective

Their painting rests upon conventions as audacious as those of their sculpture In it every surface has an unifor is shaded A nude figure is all one colour--dark for a ht for a wo to trouble hiht or shadow, or partly in one partly in the other In a few plates in Lepsius, and still estions that an artist here and there, more skilful than his rivals, understood that values differed, and distinguished in his ht One or two contours appear to hint at the rotundity of chiaroscuro In accepting such a suggestion, however, we should be ainst which we have been warned even by such early travellers as the authors of the _Description_[328] The effects in question es in which they appear are painted bas-reliefs, and the slight shadow thrown by their salient grounds gives an appearance of half-tint to their contours Wherever pictures are without relief there is no such appearance, and yet changes of value would in them be more useful than elsewhere

[327] Vol ii plates 41, 66, and 70

[328] _Description, Antiquites_, vol iii p 45

To place unbroken colours in juxtaposition to each other without transitions is to illu in the true sense of the word, and its practitioner is an artisan rather than an artist

The artist is he who traces the design upon the walls, who, chalk in hand, sketches the forms of men and women and the lines of the ornament Many of these sketches are admirable for the freedom and breadth of their outline The portrait of Amenophis III which is to be seen in his toood exa interfered to prevent the completion of the work, the painter came with his palette and brushes to spread colour over the spaces enclosed by these lines Nothing could be easier than his task He was only required to lay his colours s the boundaries laid down for him

The hues of the flesh and of the draperies were fixed in advance as well as those of the various objects which were repeatedly introduced in such works

[Illustration: FIG 263--Outline for a portrait of Amenophis III

Champollion, pl 232]

At Beni-Hassan, and in several of the Theban tombs, there are representations of the painter at work When he had to spread a single tint over a large surface--brown, for instance, upon the whole superficies of a limestone statue--we see him seated upon a kind of stool, his pot of colour in his left hand, his brush in his unsupported right (Fig 54 Vol I) Sometimes his as more complicated than this There are a few royal portraits, and a few scenes with numerous actors, in which the whole scale of tints at his command must have been required He then makes use of a palette

Specimens of these palettes are to be seen in every ular pieces of wood, of alabaster, or of enamelled earthenware

They usually have seven little colour cups, but a few have as e as a crow-quill, have been found with these palettes The use of these has been much discussed

Prisse cut one and steeped it in water It was then discovered that the reed of which it was composed became a brush when its fibres were thus softened by e brushes which must have been used to spread the colour over considerable surfaces have been discovered, but Prisse believes that they too must have been made of fibrous reeds, such as the sarmentose stems of the _Salvadora persica_ Others think that for such purposes the hair pencil must have been eyptien_, text, p 289

Cakes of colour have soether with earthenwarethereen_, _brown_, _white_, and _black_ These correspond to the seven cups hollowed in most of the palettes They each included several varieties Soo; others--and thesethe latter is a certain blue, which has preserved all its brilliancy even after so many centuries Its merits were extolled by Theophrastus and Vitruvius It is an ash onderful power of resisting chereen nor black with exposure to the air It s, and subcarbonate of soda reduced to powder and burnt in an oven Copper is also the colouring principle, at least in our days, of those greens which are more or less olive in tone Different shades of red, yellow, and broere obtained from the ochres Their whites, formed of lime, of plaster, or of powdered enamel, have sometimes preserved a snohiteness beside which our whitest papers seerey[330] As for violet, Champollion tells us that no colour used by the ancients had that value In those few bas-reliefs in which it is now found, it is a result of the changes which tiilded The hue in question is caused, we are told, by the old was laid[331]

[330] Fuller details as to the coiven in PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, pp

292-295 A paper written by the father of Prosper Meriue_ (pp 258, et seq) may also be consulted with profit; its full title is _Dissertation sur l'Emploi des Couleurs, des Vernis, et des eypte_, by M MeRIMeE, _Secretaire Perpetuel de l'ecole Royale des Beaux-Arts_ This paper shows that M Merimee added taste and a love for erudition to the talent as a painter which he is said to have possessed BELZONI shows that the o yptians by much the same processes as those in use to-day (_Narrative of the Operations_, etc p 175) See also WILKINSON, _Manners and Customs_, etc vol ii p 287

[331] CHAMPOLLION, _Lettres d'egypte et de Nubie_, p 130

[Illustration: OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD