A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 30

[351] JOHN KENRICK, _Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs_, vol. i.

pp. 269, 270.

The drawings in this papyrus are not caricatures as we now understand the word. Caricature is an exaggerated portrait; it founds itself upon reality while turning it into ridicule by the accentuation of its most laughable features. But the drawings in this ma.n.u.script are inspired by the same ideas and the same intellectual bent as our modern caricatures. They respond to the universal taste of mankind for the mental relaxation afforded by parody, for the relief from the serious business of life which is to be found in comedy and burlesque.

Ancient Egypt was a merry country. Its inhabitants were as pleased as children over the simplest and most homely jokes; jests, fantastic tales, and fables in which animals acted like men and women, were as popular with them as with their successors in civilisation. Their comic artists were especially fond of treating scenes of this last description, and their works often remind us of those produced in much later times for the ill.u.s.tration of aesop or La Fontaine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 278.--Battle of the Cats and Rats. From Prisse.]

Prisse reproduces the most interesting part of the Turin papyrus, and we have copied a fragment of his plate (Fig. 278). "In the first group, four animals--an a.s.s, a lion, a crocodile, and a monkey--make up a quartette, playing on such musical instruments as were then in fashion. Next comes an a.s.s dressed, armed, and sceptred like a Pharaoh; with a majestic swagger he receives the offerings brought to him by a cat of high degree, to whom a bull is proud to act as conductor. At the side a unicorn seems to threaten a kneeling cat with its harp..... The scenes drawn below, and on a smaller scale, are no more coherent than these. In the first place we see a flock of geese in open rebellion against its conductors--three cats, one of whom has fallen under the blows of the angry birds. Next we come to a sycamore in which an hippopotamus is perched; a hawk has climbed into the tree by means of a ladder and proceeds to dislodge him; finally, we have a fortress defended by an army of cats, who are without other arms than their claws and teeth, against a storming party of rats provided with arms offensive and defensive, and led by one of their own species, who is mounted on a chariot drawn by two greyhounds.

"The artist's idea--at least in the lower part of the picture--seems to have been to paint the cats defeated by the animals upon which they prey. It is the world turned upside down, or if the painter must be credited with a deeper meaning, it is the revolt of the oppressed against the oppressor."[352]

[352] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, pp. 142, 143.

The lower part of the plate contains a scene of the same kind taken from a papyrus in the British Museum. A flock of geese are being driven along by a cat, and a herd of goats by two wolves with crook and wallet; one of the wolves is playing on the double flute. At the other end there is a lion playing draughts with an antelope.

One of the tombs has upon its walls a picture of a humble and timid cat attempting to propitiate a lion by the offering of a goose.[353]

[353] _Ibid._ p. 144.

In the opinion of some these scenes are satires upon royalty and religion. This is an evident exaggeration. We have no reason to suppose that the Egyptian intellect ever arrived at the maturity required for scepticism. Neither the authority of Pharaoh nor that of the priests seems to have ever been called in question. But although their anger was not stirred by the government of the world, they could find something to laugh at in it. In the cat presented to an a.s.s we cannot fail to see a parody of Pharaoh receiving the homage of some vanquished enemy. Still more personal is the cat offering a goose to a lion. The cat can only be that unlucky fellah who, in the Egypt of the Pharaohs as in that of the Khedives, has never succeeded in keeping clear of the bastinado and the _corvee_ except by giving presents to the _sheikh_ of his village or the _mudir_ of the neighbouring town.

In laying this scene upon the wall the artist was writing a page of his own biography and of the history of all the people about him. He revenged himself in his own way upon the greedy functionary to whom he had been compelled to offer the fatlings of his own farm-yard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 279.--The soles of a pair of sandals. From Champollion.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 280, 281.--The G.o.d Bes. From the Louvre. Actual size.]

Traces of this mocking spirit are to be found in other productions of Egyptian art. Thus the soles of those leathern or wooden sandals which have come down to our times often present a group of two prisoners, the one a negro, and the other a native, perhaps, of Libya or Syria.

There can be no mistake as to the intentions of the artist. The Egyptian seems to have enjoyed a laugh at the expense of his trembling enemies. Not content with thus treading upon them at every step he took, he added insult to injury by making them grotesque (Fig. 279).

The same spirit may be recognized in those figures of Bes which are so numerous in our museums. It was by mere exaggeration of certain not uncommon features that the figure of this paunchy dwarf was arrived at. His animal grin, beady eyes, flat nose, thick lips, and pendent tongue, his short legs and salient b.u.t.tocks, make up a sufficiently droll personality (Figs. 280 and 281). The comic intention is very marked in a composition reproduced by Prisse, in which a person of proportions rather less curtailed than those of the ordinary Bes, but endowed with the features, the head-dress, and the lion-like tail of that G.o.d, is shown playing upon a cithara.[354]

[354] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'egypte_, text, p. 146.

These productions were not always decent. The Turin papyrus contains a long priapic scene.

-- 4._ Ornament._

In the painted decorations with which the Egyptians covered every available surface, the figure played a more important part than in the case of any other people. But yet the multiplication of historical, religious, and domestic scenes, the countless groups of G.o.ds, men, and the lower animals, had their limits. However great their development might be, these traditional themes could only supply a certain number of scenes, which required, moreover, to be framed. Again, there were certain surfaces upon which the Egyptians did not, as a rule, place figures, either because they would be seen with difficulty, or, as in the case of ceilings, because taste warned them that it would be better to treat such a surface in some other fashion. Between the lofty roofs of the hypostyle halls and the sky which covers our heads the Egyptian decorator established a relationship which readily commends itself to the mind. The ceilings of the temples at Thebes had generally a blue ground, upon which vultures with their great wings outspread, floated among golden stars (Figs. 192 and 282).

Side by side with the paintings which deal with living form we find those painted ornaments which cover with their varied tints all the surfaces which are not occupied by the figure. This system of ornament went through a continual process of enrichment and complication. Its appearance in the early centuries is well shown in our two Plates, III. and IV.; the first shows the upper, the second the lower part of the western wall in the tomb of Ptah-hotep at Sakkarah. They confirm the ideas of Semper as to the origin of ornament.[355] That writer was the first to show that the basket-maker, the weaver, and the potter, originated by the mere play of their busy hands and implements those combinations of line and colour which the ornamentist turned to his own use when he had to decorate walls, cornices, and ceilings. The industries we have named are certainly older than the art of decoration, and the forms used by the latter can hardly have been transferred from it to mats, woven stuffs, and earthen vessels. In the regularity with which the lines and colours of early decoration are repeated it is easy to recognize the enforced arrangement of rushes, reeds, and flaxen threads, while chevrons and concentric circles are the obvious descendants of the marks traced by the finger or rude implement of the potter upon the soft clay.

[355] SEMPER (G.), _Der Stil in den Technischen und Tektonischen Kunsten, oder Praktische aesthetik_. Munich, 1860-3, 2 vols. 8vo, with 22 plates, some coloured, and numerous engravings in the text.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 282.--Vultures on a ceiling.]

In these examples the intentions of the decorator are easily grasped.

He has begun with a ground of rush-work, like that which is also found in the tomb of Ti.[356] In the compartments between the vertical bars he has imitated the appearance of mat walls, and of windows closed by the same contrivances (see Fig. 165). As if to prevent mistakes, he has been careful to introduce the cords, rings, and lath, by which the lower ends of the mats are kept in place. The design of the ornament is quite similar to those produced to this day by the basket or mat-maker. They are squares, lozenges, and chevrons. In the middle of the lozenges we find little crosses or circles of a different colour, which help to lighten the effect. Each mat has a red border at its lower end, which forms a satisfactory tailpiece, and unites it with the straight lath. There are narrow grooves between the mats in which the chains for drawing the latter up and down seem to be imitated. In any case, this latter detail is copied from the productions of one of the oldest of civilized industries--that of the blacksmith.

[356] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, p. 418.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRAGMENT OF WESTERN WALL IN TOMB OF PTAH-HOTEP

Drawn in perspective to a scale of one half]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 283, 284.--Details from the tomb of Ptah-hotep.]

Six colours are used in this decoration: black, white, red, yellow, green, and blue. The result is sober, well-balanced, and by no means without harmony.

In other parts of the same tomb we find this taste for literal imitation applied to another theme. As interpreted by the ornamentist, lotus and papyrus were sure in time to put on conventional forms, but here those vegetables found are reproduced with a feeling for truth that could not be excelled by a modern flower painter (Fig. 283).[357]

In Fig. 284 a bird among the lotus-stalks is in the grasp of a human hand.

[357] DUMISCHEN, _Resultate der Archaeologisch-photographischen Expedition_. Berlin, 1869, folio, part i. plate 8.

The ornamentist also borrowed motives from those robes and carpets of varied colour, which are preserved for us in the paintings (see Fig.

285). But with time and experience his hand became more skilful, his imagination more active, and he was no longer contented to convey his ideas wholesale, from nature on the one hand, and on the other from those humble arts which flourish even in the earliest ages of every civilized society. He learnt to create designs for himself--designs which can certainly not be traced to the mats and tissues which formed his first models. Our Figure 286 will give some idea of the variety of motives to be found upon the panels and ceilings of the tombs and other buildings at Thebes. The chess-board pattern which was so much used during the Ancient Empire, is found here also; but by its side appear patterns composed of frets, meandering lines, and rosettes.

Below these, again, are designs in which lines twist themselves into volutes and spirals, crossing each other and enclosing lotus flowers, rosettes, and forms like the shafts of columns. The flowers are in no way imitative; their motives have been suggested, not supplied, by nature. The papyrus may have given the first idea for the sixth of these designs, while in the last we find a motive which afterwards played an important part in Greek and Roman ornament--namely, the skull of an ox. The two specimens of this last-named motive given by Prisse, are taken from tombs of the eighteenth and twentieth dynasties.[358]

[358] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, p. 369.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 285.--Carpet hung across a pavilion.]

These tombs and the mummy cases they contain are often decorated with symbolic ornament, as well as with geometrical designs and those suggested by the national flora. The compartments of ceiling decorations have scarabs in their centres, and upon the mummy cases it is occasionally subst.i.tuted for the uraeus-crowned disk in the centre of a huge pair of extended wings. Beneath it, figures of Isis or Nephthys, the guardians of the tomb, are found (Fig. 287). The effect is similar to that of the winged globes which are found upon cornices. In the latter the disk which represents the sun is red, and stands boldly out from the green of the two wings. The latter, again, are relieved against a striped ground, on which bands of red, blue, and white are laid alternatively. Thanks to the happy choice of these colours, the result is excellent from a decorative point of view, and that in spite of its continual repet.i.tion and the simplicity of its lines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 286.--Specimens of ceiling decorations. From Prisse.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF PTAH-HOTEP

CEILING AND UPPER PART OF WESTERN WALL

Drawn in perspective to a scale of one fifth]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 287.--Painting on a mummy case. _Description_, vol. ii. pl. 58.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 288.--Winged globe. From Prisse.]

Among the original motives to be found in these paintings, there is yet another which deserves to be named for its uncommon character, we mean those tables for offerings which are shown loaded with vases and other objects of a like nature. As if to mark the importance of the funerary gifts, the stems of these tables are made so lofty that they rise high above two trees, apparently cypresses, which grew right and left of their feet (Figs. 289 and 290).

The Egyptians made use of the afterwards common decorative motive of alternate buds and open blooms of lotus, but they entirely failed to give it the lightness and elegance with which it was endowed by the Greeks. Their buds were poor and meagre, their flowers heavy, and the general design not without stiffness.[359]

[359] LEPSIUS, _Denkmaeler_, part iii. plate 62. PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, atlas, plate lettered _Frises Fleuronnees_.

The colours are often well preserved, at least in parts, and, as one combination is repeated several times, it is easy to restore the missing parts by reference to those which are intact. The gilding, however, has disappeared, and left hardly a trace behind. Gold was used pretty generally in order to give warmth and brightness. The obelisks, those of Hatasu for instance, were gilded upon all four faces; the winged globe was sometimes gilded,[360] and so were the bronze plates with which the temple doors were covered. The important part played by the gilders, some of whose books of gold have come down to our time,[361] is chiefly known to us by the inscriptions. Their employment may also be divined here and there by the fashion in which the stone has been prepared, sometimes by the peculiar colour effects in certain parts of the bas-reliefs.

[360] _Description, Antiquites_, vol. ii. p. 533.

[361] There is one of these books in the Louvre (_Salle Funeraire_, case Z); the gold leaf which it contains differs from that now in use only in its greater thickness.