A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 24

Sometimes, on the other hand, the figure is modelled in relief in a sunk hollow, which is from half an inch to an inch and a half deep (Fig. 240). This method of proceeding, which is peculiar to Egypt, was doubtless suggested by the desire to protect the image as much as possible. For this purpose it was singularly efficient, the high "bed"

of the relief guarding it both from accidental injury, and from the effects of weather and time. It had one disadvantage, however, in the confusing shadows which obscured a part of the modelling. This process was used, as a rule, for the carvings on granite and basalt sarcophagi (Fig. 195, Vol. I.). It would have cost too much time and labour to have sunk and polished the surrounding surfaces. This method, when once taken up, was extended to limestone, and thus we find, among those objects in the Louvre which were discovered in the Serapeum, a stele of extremely delicate workmanship, representing Amasis in adoration before an apis. The head of Amasis is damaged, and we have preferred to give as a specimen the fine head of Rameses II., chiselled in a slab of limestone, which is also in the Louvre (Fig.

240).

In the third system the surface of the figures and the bed, or field, of the relief are kept on one level. The contours are indicated by hollow lines cut into the stone. In this case there is very little modelling. There is not enough depth to enable the sculptor to indicate different planes, and his work becomes little more than a silhouette in which the outline is shown by a hollow instead of by the stroke of a pencil or brush. When more rapid progress than usual had to be made the Egyptian artist was content with this outline. Most of those vast historical and biographical scenes which cover the walls of the Ramesseum and Medinet-Abou (Fig. 173, Vol. I.), were executed by it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 240.--Portrait of Rameses II., Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

Most of our existing reliefs have come from tombs. In the mastabas their production was easy enough. The sculptor simply carved the faces of their limestone walls. But in the hypogea the difficulties were frequently great, and yet they were always surmounted. The bas-reliefs in such places were, as a rule, on a small scale. Consequently, the k.n.o.bs of flint and the petrified sh.e.l.ls with which the sculptor's chisel was continually coming in contact, must have embarra.s.sed him in no slight degree. Whereever such unkindly lumps were found, they were extracted from the rock, the rough holes which they left were squared and filled up either with a cement which became very hard with time, or with pieces of stone accurately adjusted. In the latter case, the joints have been made with such care that it is very difficult to discover them. In some tomb chambers these insertions are so numerous that they make up not less than a quarter of the whole surface.[278]

[278] _Description de l'egypte, Antiquites_, vol. iii. p. 42.

As soon as the carvings upon the walls were finished, the latter were covered with a thin layer of stucco. This was hardly ever omitted; it was laid upon rock, cement, and limestone indiscriminately. It afforded a better and a more tenacious ground for coloured decoration than the naked stone.[279]

[279] BELZONI (_Narrative of the Operations_, etc. pp. 343-365) mentions the presence of this stucco upon the colossi of Rameses at Ipsamboul as well as on the walls of the tombs in the Bab el-Molouk.

The princ.i.p.al place in these bas-reliefs is occupied by human figures, and after them by those of animals. The accessories, such as the landscape and inanimate objects are for the most part only slightly indicated, all the labours of agriculture are ill.u.s.trated, but only so far as the action of man is immediately concerned. There is never more in the way of background than is absolutely necessary for the right comprehension of the scene.[280] The Greeks followed the same rule. In this respect the Egyptians were well advised. Their artistic instincts must have warned them of the true conditions of work in relief, which cannot, without the greatest peril, attempt to rival the complex achievements of painting.

[280] This point is very well brought out by RHIND (_Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants_, etc., pp. 24-25).

To this practice we might suggest a few exceptions, in certain chiselled pictures at Tell-el-Amarna, and even Thebes itself, in which the artist seems to have amused himself by reproducing the beauties of nature, of groves and gardens surrounding palaces and humbler dwellings, partly for their own sake, partly attracted by some unwonted aspects of the scene which seem to have been borrowed from neighbouring countries.

In most cases the Egyptian sculptor made man the centre and _raison d'etre_ of his work, and yet, here and there, he shows himself curiously solicitous as to the effective arrangement of the scene about him. It is not without reason, therefore, that some have found in the Egyptian bas-relief, the origin, the first rough sketch, of those landscapes of which _h.e.l.lenistic_, or as some would say, _Alexandrian_, art was so fond. One of the most famous of these is the _Palestrina mosaic_, which presents us with an Egyptian landscape during the inundation; its buildings, its animals, and the curious scenes caused by the rising Nile, are rendered with great vivacity.[281]

[281] M. MASPERO was the first to start this theory in his paper ent.i.tled _Les Peintures des Tombeaux egyptiens et la Mosaque de Palestrine_.

-- 8. _Gems._

A highly civilized society like that of Egypt even in the days of the Ancient Empire, must have felt the necessity for some kind of seal.

The names and images engraved upon rings must have been used as signatures even at that early date. We know that from that time forward the impressions thus made upon wax and clay were employed in business and other transactions. No engraved stones have come down to us from the early dynasties, and yet their production must have been easy enough to those who carved the diorite statue of Chephren. Under the first Theban Empire, the Egyptians practised the cutting of amethysts, cornelians, garnets, jasper, lapis-lazuli, green-spar and white feldspar, obsidian, serpentine, steat.i.te, rock crystal, red quartz, sardonyx, &c.[282] We do not know whether those early workmen employed the lapidary's wheel or not,[283] but we may safely say that they produced some of the finest works of the kind which are known to us. The annexed ill.u.s.tration of one of the rarest treasures of the Egyptian collection in the Louvre, will bear out our words (Fig. 241).

[282] BIRCH, _Guide to (British) Museum_, pp. 70-74.--PIERRET, _Catalogue de la Salle Historique_, Nos. 457, 559, _pa.s.sim_.

[283] M. SOLDI remarks, in connection with the Mexicans, that they managed to cut the hardest rocks and to engrave finely upon the emerald with nothing but bronze tools. Prescott and Humboldt bear witness to the same fact. The Peruvians also succeeded in piercing emeralds without iron. Their instrument is said to have been the pointed leaf of a wild plantain, used with fine sand and water. With such a tool the one condition of success was time (_Les Arts Meconnus_, pp. 352-359).

"A gold ring with a movable square stone, a sardonyx, upon which a personage seated before an altar is engraved with extraordinary finish. The altar bears the name _Ha-ro-bes_. The figure is clothed in a _schenti_; a thick necklace is about his neck: his hair is in short thick curls: his legs are largely and firmly drawn.

"We are helped to the date of this little work by the engraving on the reverse, which represents a king wearing the red crown and armed with a mace, with which he is about to strike an enemy whom he grasps by the hair. The name of this king is engraved beside him: _Ra-en-ma_, that is Amenemhat III. The workmanship of this face is, perhaps, inferior to that of the obverse, the forms are comparatively meagre and dry; it is however far from being bad."[284]

[284] PIERRET, _Catalogue de la Salle Historique_, No. 457.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 241.--Intaglio upon sardonyx, obverse. Louvre collection. Twice the actual size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 242.--Reverse of the same intaglio.]

The cornelian statuette of Ousourtesen I., which the Louvre has unhappily lost, belonged to the same period. In the three days of July, 1830, a terrible fire was directed upon the crowd by the Swiss stationed in the colonnade of the Louvre. The a.s.sailants succeeded, however, in penetrating into the palace and invading the galleries.

After their final retirement the only thing which was ascertained beyond a doubt to be missing, was this little statuette, which has never been heard of since. It was equally valuable for its rarity and the beauty of its workmanship.[285]

[285] A description of it will be found in CHAMPOLLION, _Notice Descriptive des Monuments egyptiens du Musee Charles X._, 2nd edition, 1827, D. No. 14, p. 55.

The artists of the Second Theban Empire do not seem to have excelled those of the first, but their works have come down to us in much greater numbers. The Louvre possesses a considerable number of rings engraved with the names Thothmes, Amenophis, and others belonging to the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. Their character may be divined from two examples.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 243.--Intaglio upon jasper. Louvre. Actual size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 244.--Reverse of the same intaglio.]

"In 1877 the Louvre obtained the stone of a ring finely engraved on each side with representations of the Pharaoh Thothmes II. It is a green jasper, quadrangular in shape. On one side the Pharaoh, designated by his name _Aa-kheper-ra_, has seized a lion by the tail and is about to strike it with his mace. This scene is emblematic of the victorious and fearless strength of the sovereign. Its rarity is extreme. Its significance is enforced by the word _kuen_ or valour (Fig. 243). On the other side Thothmes is shown discharging his arrows from the commanding height of his chariot against the enemies who face him; one falls backwards, another is being trampled under the feet of the king's horses (Fig. 244). Such a representation is common enough upon the outsides of the temples, but it is not often found upon little objects like these."[286]

[286] P. PIERRET, _Une Pierre Gravee au Nom du Roi d'egypte Thoutmes II._ (_Gazette Archeologique_, 1878, p. 41). This stone is placed in Case P of the _Salle Historique_ in the Louvre. M.

Lenormant has kindly placed at our disposal the _cliches_ of the double engraving which was made for M. Pierret's article.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 245.--Seal of Armais. Louvre. Actual size.]

Sometimes the ring is all of one material, characters and figures being cut in the metal of which it consists. It is so in the case of the most conspicuous object among the Egyptian jewels in the Louvre (Fig. 245), an object which can never have been intended for the finger; it is too large: it must have been made for use only as a seal. It is thus described by M. Pierret: "Seal formed of a ring and movable bezel, both of gold. Upon one face of the bezel the oval of King Armais, the last prince of the eighteenth dynasty, is engraved.

Upon the other a lion _pa.s.sant_, the emblem of royal power; it is surmounted by the words _Nepkhopesch_, lord of valour. Upon the third and fourth sides are a scorpion and a crocodile respectively. The execution of this little work is admirable; the design and action of the lion are especially fine."[287]

[287] PIERRET, _Catalogue de la Salle Historique_, No. 481.

The ring given by Pharaoh to Joseph as a sign of the authority delegated to him, may have been such as this.[288] The cheapest rings had bezels of faience or schist covered with enamel. The scarabs were cut as a rule from soft stone.

[288] Genesis xli. 42.

In gem-cutting the Egyptians made use both of the intaglio process and of relief, but the greater fitness of the former for the work to be done by a signet made it their especial favourite. They were ignorant of the process we call cameo, in which the differently coloured layers of the sardonyx are taken advantage of to produce contrast of tint between the relief and its bed.

A few Egyptian cylinders, in earthenware or soft stone enamelled, are known. They bear royal ovals; the British Museum has one which seems to date from the twelfth dynasty. Their employment seems never to have become very general.[289]

[289] BIRCH, _History of Ancient Pottery_, p. 72. PIERRET, _Catalogue de la Salle Historique du Louvre_, Nos. 499, 500, 505.

-- 9. _The Princ.i.p.al Conventions in Egyptian Sculpture._

Whether it were employed upon wood, upon limestone, or upon the harder rocks, whether it were cutting colossi in the flanks of the sandstone hills, or carving the minute images of its G.o.ds and kings in the stone of a signet ring, the art of Egypt never shook itself free from those intellectual conceptions which were impressed upon its first creations; it remained true to the tendencies of its infancy; it preserved the same fundamental qualities and defects; it looked upon nature with the same eyes, and interpreted her in the same fashion, from the first moment to the last.

These methods and processes, and the conventionalities of artistic interpretation which maintained themselves through all the changes of taste, have still to be considered. They are the common features by which works which differ greatly in execution are brought into connection, and are to be found as clearly marked in a statue dating from the time of Amasis and Nectanebo as in one from the Ancient Empire.

Some of the conventions of Egyptian art are to be explained by the const.i.tution of the human mind and by the conditions under which it works when it attempts plastic reproductions for the first time; others appear to spring from certain habits of thought peculiar to Egyptian civilization. There is yet a third cla.s.s which must be referred to purely technical causes, such as the capabilities of the materials and tools employed. The influence which these exercised over the artistic expression of thought has been too often underrated. We shall endeavour to recognize their full importance.

When we glance at an Egyptian bas-relief, we perceive in it certain imperfections of rendering which we may have often noticed before, either in the early works of other races or in the formless designs which quite young children scribble upon paper. The infancy of art and the art of infancy have much in common.

We are accustomed to processes which are scientifically exact.

Profiting by the acc.u.mulated learning of so many centuries even the school-boy, among us, understands perspective. We are, therefore, apt to feel too much surprise at the awkwardness and inaccuracy which we find in the works of primitive schools, in transcripts produced by man in the presence of nature without any help from the experience of older civilizations. If we wish to do justice to those early artists, we must endeavour to realize the embarra.s.sment which must have been theirs, when they attempted to reproduce upon a flat surface those bodies which offered themselves to their eyes with their three dimensions of height, width, and depth, and with all the complications arising from foreshortening and perspective, from play of light and shade, and from varied colour. Other perplexities must have arisen from the intersection and variety of lines, from the succession of planes, from the necessity for rendering or at least suggesting the thickness of objects!

When the desire to imitate natural objects began to make itself felt in man he received his first drawing lesson from the sun. Morning and evening its almost horizontal rays threw his silhouette sharply upon the white rocks and walls, and nothing was easier than to fix the outline of the image thus projected with a piece of charcoal or burnt wood; after this beginning it was easy to imitate such a sun-picture either in large or in small. Such figures were of necessity profiles, as the silhouette given by a head viewed in front would be very uncertain and indistinct.

The profiles of men and of the lower animals must, then, have played a chief part in these early efforts towards design. In this there is nothing at variance with our daily experience. The back view need hardly be taken into account, and there are two lateral positions, the right and left profiles, against one for the front face. Finally, the fact that the front face consists of two parts which have to be kept in absolute symmetry with one another, makes it much more difficult of treatment by the novice. Even in the productions of skilful artists we often find that this symmetry has been missed. It is the profile that is first attacked by beginners in the art of drawing, and it is the profile which always remains most comprehensible for simple intelligences. The fellah who is present at the opening of one of those tombs which were constructed by his remote ancestors, at once recognizes the animals represented and the meaning of their att.i.tudes and grouping. Wilkinson noticed this on several occasions. But if an European drawing be shown to the same man, he will be hopelessly bewildered by the foreshortening, the perspective, and the play of light and shade. He will no longer be able to distinguish a bull from a horse or an a.s.s.

In their bas-reliefs, and in their paintings, the Egyptian artists made almost exclusive use of the profile,[290] but, by a singular compromise, we sometimes find it combined with an att.i.tude of body which would strictly require a full, or at least a three-quarter face.

The silhouette in its integrity seems to have been thought insufficient, and the desire to reproduce a more complete image led them to invent the compromise in question.