A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 29

[346] _Ibid._ pl. 117.

[347] See the Ethiopians in the painting from the tomb of Rekmara, which is reproduced in WILKINSON, vol. i. plate 2.

But although the Egyptian painter made no attempt to imitate the hues of nature in their infinite variety, we find a curious effort in certain Theban paintings to reproduce one of those modifications of local tone which were to attract so many artists of later times. The flesh tints are brown where they are uncovered, and light yellow where they are veiled; the painter thus attempting to show the warm skin shining through the semi-transparence of fine linen.[348]

[348] LEPSIUS, _Denkmaeler_, part iii. pl. 216.

This is, however, but an isolated attempt, and it does not affect the truth of our description of Egyptian painting, and of its conventional methods of using colour. The observations we have made apply equally justly to coloured bas-reliefs and to paintings properly speaking. The latter are only found in the tombs. In the temples the figures which compose the decoration are always engraved upon the walls in some fashion before they are touched with colour, and the office of the painter was restricted to filling in the prepared outlines with colour. It is the same, as a rule, with the steles; but a few exist upon which the painter has had the field to himself. The papyri, too, were ill.u.s.trated by the artist in colour. Those elaborate examples of the _Ritual of the Dead_, which come from the tombs of princes and of rich subjects, are full of carefully executed vignettes (Figs. 97 and 184, Vol. I.).

It is easy to understand why the painter reserved himself for the tomb. The pictures upon the external walls of the temples and upon the pylons were seen in the full glare of a southern sun; so too, at least for a part of the day, were those upon the walls of the courtyards, and upon the shafts of their surrounding columns. Even in the interior many of the decorations would receive direct sunlight from the claustra of the attic, others would be subject to friction from the hands and garments of visitors. Painting by itself would be unfitted for such situations. It would either have its effect destroyed by the direct light, or its colours dulled and damaged by constant touches.

Figures carved in the substance of the walls would have a very different duration. When their colours paled with time, a few strokes of the brush would be sufficient to renew their youth, and the combination of colour with relief would give a much more telling result than could be obtained by the use of the latter alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 264.--Portrait of Queen Taia. From Prisse.]

With the tomb it was very different. In its case neither violent changes of temperature, nor friction, nor the rays of a dazzling sun were to be feared. Its doors were to be ever closed, and the scenes which were entrusted to its walls were to have no spectator but the dead man and his protecting Osiris. To carry out the whole work with the brush was quicker than to a.s.sociate that instrument with the chisel, and we need therefore feel no surprise that many tombs were so decorated.

These paintings are in no way inferior to the sculptural works of the same period; the outlines of both must, in fact, have been traced by the same hands. The wielders of the chisel and brush must have been nothing more than journeymen or artisans; the true artist was he who traced upon the wall the outline which had afterwards to be filled in either in relief or in colour.

We should have liked to have reproduced the best of these paintings with all their richness and variety of tint, but we had no original studies of which we could make use, and, as in the painted architecture, we saw no great advantages to be gained by copying the plates of Champollion, of Lepsius, or of Prisse. The processes which they were compelled to employ have in many cases visibly affected the fidelity of their transcriptions. We have therefore felt ourselves compelled, much to our disappointment, to trust almost entirely to black and white. We have, however, been careful to preserve the relative values of the different tones. Those who have seen Egyptian paintings in the original, or even in the copies which hang upon the staircase of the Egyptian museum in the Louvre, will be able to restore their true colours to our engravings without difficulty; the flesh tints, light or dark according to circ.u.mstances, the blackness of the hair, the whiteness of linen cloth and of the more brilliant colours, the reds and blues which adorn certain parts of the draperies and certain details of furniture and jewellery, may all be easily divined.

Our plates, though less numerous than we could have wished, will help the reader to restore the absent colour. Plate II., in the first volume, gives a good idea of the scale of tints used in the painted bas-reliefs of the temples; we have every reason to believe it accurate.[349] The plate which faces page 334 is a faithful reproduction of a fragment in the Louvre. It comes from a Theban tomb, and shows the elegance and refinement of the contours which the painter had to fill up. The colour has faded, but the most interesting point in all these pictures is the outline, in which alone real artistic talent and inventive power are displayed. Finally, our Plates III. and IV., drawn and coloured from notes and sketches made upon the spot by M. Bourgoin, represent the polychromatic decoration of the Ancient Empire as it was left by those who decorated the tomb of Ptah-hotep. In this case at least we know that we possess the true value of the tones brought together by the artist, for the mastaba in question is one of those which the desert sands have most completely preserved.

[349] The materials for this plate were borrowed from the _Description de l'egypte_. In the complete copies of that work the plates were coloured by hand, with extreme care, after those fine water-colours the most important of which are now in the _Cabinet des Estampes_ of the _Bibliotheque Nationale_. The colours thus applied are far nearer the truth than those of the chromo-lithographs in more modern publications.

-- 2. _The Figure._

In the mastabas colours are applied to figures in relief. It is not till we reach the first Theban Empire, in the tombs at Beni-Ha.s.san, that we find real paintings in which the brush alone has been used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 265.--Painting at Beni-Ha.s.san. Champollion, pl.

374.]

We have already described the style and character of the paintings at Beni-Ha.s.san. In most cases the outlines prepared for the painter do not differ from those meant for the sculptor.

We have already reproduced many works in outline in which there is nothing to show whether they are paintings or bas-reliefs. Their execution is almost identical (see Figs. 2, 5, 25, 98, 170, Vol. I.; Figs. 25, 26, 31, Vol. II). It is the same with the two wrestling scenes which we take from the frescos in which all the gymnastic exercises then in vogue are represented (Figs. 265 and 266), and with the charming group formed by an antelope and a man stroking his muzzle (Fig. 267).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 266.--Painting at Beni-Ha.s.san. Champollion, pl.

371.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 267.--Painting at Beni-Ha.s.san. Champollion, pl.

359.]

Even at Beni-Ha.s.san, however, there are a few paintings in which the peculiar and distinguishing characteristics of that art are to be found. The group of singers and musicians figured on this page is an instance in point. Two of the heads are shown in full face, a view which we hardly ever meet with in the bas-reliefs. The hair and the draperies are also treated in a fashion quite different from that of sculpture, at least in the case of the two musicians on the right.

Their twisted tresses seem to be thrown into disorder by the energetic movements of their heads, which they seem to sway in time to the music of the flute, which is also marked by the hands of two members of the party. The deep shadows cast by their hair give a strong relief to the oval contours of the two faces which look out of the picture. The execution of the drapery is governed by the same idea, its numerous small folds are suggested by lines at slight intervals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 268.--Painting at Beni-Ha.s.san. Champollion, pl.

377 _ter_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 269.--Painting at Thebes. From h.o.r.eau.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 270.--Painting at Thebes. From Prisse.]

In the whole series of Egyptian wall-paintings I know of nothing which is more truly pictorial in character than this picture. A careful study of it might well lead us to believe that its painter deliberately set himself to cast off traditional methods, and to obtain all the effect that the skilful use of colour can give. But the seed thus cast did not spring up. Theban painting is not an advance upon that of Beni-Ha.s.san. It hardly ever attempts the full face. It is only here and there that we can point to a work in which the brush seems to have dwelt upon a few details that would be rendered in a more summary fashion by the chisel. The mandore player in Fig. 270, who comes from the same hypogeum at Abd-el-Gournah as the Amenophis III. upon the knees of a G.o.ddess in Fig. 24, is one of these rare instances. The hair, plaited into narrow tresses and retained in place by a long comb, is carried out with quite unusual care. The areolae of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s are very clearly marked, a detail which Prisse says he never met with elsewhere.[350]

[350] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, p. 424.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 271.--Harpist. From the _Description_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 272.--European prisoner. From Champollion.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 273.--Head of the same prisoner.]

The slender proportions which we have already noticed as characteristic of this period are here strongly marked. They are also conspicuous in the figures 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 similar to that put before us in full by a painting in one of the tombs in the _Valley of Queens_ at Thebes. We there see women with offerings and others playing upon musical instruments, advancing towards 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 tomb of Rameses III. (long called _Bruce's Tomb_, after its discoverer) belong to the same cla.s.s of representations (Fig. 271). Robed in a long black mantle, the musician abandons himself entirely to his music. The draughtsmanship of the arms is faulty, but the pose of the figure is natural and life-like. The harp is very richly ornamented; its base terminates in a royal head rising from a circlet of ample necklaces.

The wood seems to be inlaid with colour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 274.--Ethiopian prisoner. Champollion, pl. 932.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 275.--Head of the same prisoner.]

Among the most interesting 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 costumes and upon the peculiar characteristics of the physiognomies may be appreciated, we have given their figures at full length, and also their heads upon a larger scale.

The first of these two prisoners must have been a European, according to Champollion. His white skin, his straight nose, and the tattooing upon his arms all help to prove this (Figs. 272 and 273). He is dressed in a long robe, bordered with a rich fringe and covered with ornaments. This robe is held up by a large 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 pa.s.sing round the head complete this strange head-dress.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sed 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 ornaments are scattered. The almost negro features are similar to those represented in the bas-relief at the Ramesseum which is reproduced in Fig. 221.

The shape of the head-dress, too, is similar. The artist has had some difficulty with the woolly hair, and has attempted to render its appearance by a series of knots strung together. In this part of the picture, as in Fig. 273, there is some conventionality, but in the outline of the figure 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 const.i.tute a species and allow it to be defined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 277.--Winged figure. _Description_, vol. ii, pl.

87.]

The scenes represented upon the walls of the tomb may be divided into two groups: those which are more or less historical, and those which are purely religious or mystical. Among the latter the figures of winged G.o.ddesses, of Isis and Nephthys, are frequently encountered.

They are either seated or standing, carved upon the sarcophagi or painted upon the wooden mummy cases. One wing is always raised, the other lowered (Figs. 276 and 277). The artists of other Oriental races, and even of the Greeks themselves, loved to endow the figures of men and animals with wings. Egypt was the first to carry out this idea, and the winged figures which had a definite meaning when 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 comes from a royal tomb, and it shows how these winged G.o.ddesses 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 ornamentist, while their wings, which could be either closed or expanded, were useful for covering large s.p.a.ces and helping to "furnish" the decoration.

-- 3. _Caricature._

We have shown the artists of ancient Egypt making nave and sincere transcripts of reality; we have shown them, in their religious and historical scenes, inventing motives, creating types, and even aspiring to 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 tombs at Thebes we find a lion and a donkey singing 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 from the nineteenth dynasty.

The Egyptians, like the Greeks after them, seem to have understood that sculpture properly speaking, the art that produces figures of large size from such materials as bronze and marble, does not lend itself to the provocation of laughter by the voluntary production of ugliness and deformity. They also perceived that such subjects were equally ill-adapted for wall paintings, whether in tombs or palaces.

Among them, as among the Greeks, the grotesque was only allowed to appear where the forms were both very much smaller than life and considerably generalized. The designs traced with a light and airy hand upon such papyri as that of which the Turin Museum possesses an important fragment are examples of this treatment.