Volume II Part 29 (2/2)

[Illustration: FIG 271--Harpist From the _Description_]

[Illustration: FIG 272--European prisoner From Champollion]

[Illustration: FIG 273--Head of the same prisoner]

The slender proportions which we have already noticed as characteristic of this period are here strongly ures in Plate II This is a funerary scene

Three women stand before the defunct; one hands the cup for the libation, the two others play upon the flute and the harp respectively

This fragment must have formed part of a funerary scene si in one of the tombs in the _Valley of Queens_ at Thebes We there see wo upontowards the deceased, who has his daughter upon his knees and his wife seated at his right hand (Fig 269)

The two often reproduced players upon the harp in the to called _Bruce's To to the sa black mantle, the htsure is natural and life-like The harp is very richly orna from a circlet of ample necklaces

The wood seems to be inlaid with colour

[Illustration: FIG 274--Ethiopian prisoner Champollion, pl 932]

[Illustration: FIG 275--Head of the sa of the painted figures in the royal tombs are the prisoners of war and other representations of foreign and conquered races We reproduce two of these figures from the tomb of Seti I In order that the care expended by the artist both on the costunoures at full length, and also their heads upon a larger scale

The first of these two prisonersto Cha upon his ars 272 and 273) He is dressed in a long robe, bordered with a rich fringe and covered with ornae knot over the left shoulder, but it leaves one half of his body without a covering His profile is very curious; the nose is large and aquiline, his beard curled and wavy, and down by his right ear hangs one of those side locks which were, in Egypt, the peculiar property of infancy Long tresses hanging down on each side of the brow, and two fringe-like bands passing round the head coe head-dress

[Illustration: FIG 276--Winged figure _Description_, vol ii pl

92]

The individual in the second figure appears to be an Ethiopian (Figs

274 and 275) His costume is comparatively simple It consists of a pair of drawers kept in place by a wide band like a baldrick, which is passed over the left shoulder and tied round the loins The end of this baldrick hangs down between the legs; it is decorated with rosettes and edged with a band upon which circular ornaro features are similar to those represented in the bas-relief at the Ra 221

The shape of the head-dress, too, is similar The artist has had some difficulty with the woolly hair, and has atteether In this part of the picture, as in Fig 273, there is soure and especially of the face, we find the characteristic genius of Egyptian art, the power to create types which are at once life-like and general, to epitomize all those attributes which constitute a species and allow it to be defined

[Illustration: FIG 277--Winged figure _Description_, vol ii, pl

87]

The scenes represented upon the walls of the toroups: those which are ious or ed Goddesses, of Isis and Nephthys, are frequently encountered

They are either seated or standing, carved upon the sarcophagi or painted upon the wooden s 276 and 277) The artists of other Oriental races, and even of the Greeks theures of ypt was the first to carry out this idea, and the winged figures which had a definitewhen used in the tombs, came at last to be employed as mere decoration upon the industrial products which she exported through the Phnicians Fig

277 coed Goddesses were sometimes combined with motives, which were either purely decorative or easily used for decorative purposes Like sphinxes and griffins, these composite forms amused the eye and were soon seized upon by the ornas, which could be either closed or expanded, were useful for covering large spaces and helping to ”furnish” the decoration

-- 3 _Caricature_

We have shown the artists of ancient Egyptnave and sincere transcripts of reality; we have shown theto the ideal; we have yet to show that they understood fun and could enjoy a laugh Without this last quality their art would hardly be complete In the royal to to their own accompaniment on the harp and lyre respectively[351] This particular bent of the Egyptian artist is seen at its best, however, in a group of remains which are called the _Satirical Papyri_, and apparently date froyptians, like the Greeks after the, the art that produces figures of large size from such materials as bronze and hter by the voluntary production of ugliness and deformity They also perceived that such subjects were equally ill-adapted for wall paintings, whether in torotesque was only allowed to appear where the foreneralized The designs traced with a light and airy hand upon such papyri as that of which the Turin Museument are examples of this treatment