vol. i. p. 108.
Whatever we may think of these conjectures and assertions, the
sculptors of the First Theban Empire and of the Hyksos period took up
and carried on the traditions of the Ancient Empire. The processes are
the same except that in a few particulars they are improved. More
frequent use is made of the harder rocks such as granite, basalt, and
diorite, and a commencement is made in the art of gem-cutting.
Even the bas-relief carries on the themes which had been in favour in
the first years of the monarchy. We have already illustrated two
steles of this period (Figs. 86 and 164, Vol. I.). In the second, and
especially in the woman, may be noticed those elongated proportions
which characterize the sculpture of the first Theban dynasties. Apart
from the steles, which come mostly from Abydos, we have few
bas-reliefs which may be referred to this epoch. The mastabas with
their sculptured walls were no longer constructed, and the most
interesting hypogea of the middle Empire, those of Beni-Hassan, were
decorated with paintings only. The sepulchral grottos of El-Bercheh
possess bas-reliefs dating from the twelfth dynasty, and the quality
of their workmanship may be seen in our Fig. 43, Vol. II. The style is
less free and more conventional than that of the mastabas. The men who
haul upon the ropes and those who march in front of them, are all
exact repetitions one of another, causing an effect which is very
monotonous. The paintings of Beni-Hassan, which are freer and more
full of variety, are more able to sustain a comparison with the
decorations of the mastabas. Even then, however, we find too much
generalization. Except in a few instances there is a less true and
sincere feeling for nature, and a lack of those picturesque motives
and movements caught flying, so to speak, by an artist who seems to be
amused by what he sees and to take pleasure in reproducing it, which
are so abundant in the mastabas.
§ 4. _Sculpture under the Second Theban Empire._
The excavations at Tanis have helped us to understand many things upon
which our information had been and still is very imperfect. We are no
longer obliged to accept Manetho's account of the Shepherd invasion.
In his desire to take at least a verbal revenge upon the conquerors of
his country the historian seems to have greatly exaggerated their
misdeeds. We know now not only that the native princes continued to
reign in Upper Egypt, but also that the interlopers adopted, in the
Delta, the manners and customs of their Egyptian subjects. So far as
we can tell, there were neither destructions of monumental buildings
nor ruptures with the national traditions. Thus the art of the three
great Theban dynasties, from Ahmes to the last of the Rameses, seems a
prolongation of that of the Ousourtesens and Sebek-hoteps. There are
no appreciable differences in their styles or in their processes, but,
as in their architecture, their works of art as a whole show an
extraordinary development, a development which corresponds to the
great and sudden increase in the power and wealth of the country. The
warlike kings who made themselves masters of Ethiopia and of Western
Asia, had aspirations after the colossal. Their buildings reached
dimensions hitherto unknown, and while their vast wall spaces gave
great opportunities to the sculptor they demanded efforts of invention
and arrangement from him to which he had previously been a stranger.
These great surfaces had to be filled with historic scenes, with
combats, victories, and triumphal promenades, with religious scenes,
with pictures of homage and adoration. The human figure in its natural
size was no longer in proportion to these huge constructions. In order
to obtain images of the king which should correspond to the extent and
magnificence of the colonnades and obelisks, the slight excess over
the real stature of human beings which contented the sculptors of the
Ancient Empire was no longer sufficient. Whether they were cut, as at
Ipsamboul, out of a mountain side, or, as at Thebes, Memphis, and
Tanis out of a gigantic monolith, their proportions were all far
beyond those of mankind. Sometimes the mortals who frequented the
temples came nearly as high as their knees, but oftener they failed to
reach their ankle-bones. The New Empire had a mania for these colossal
figures. It sprinkled them over the whole country, but at Thebes they
are more thickly gathered than elsewhere. In the immediate
neighbourhood of the two seated statues of Amenophis III., the
_savants_ of the French Commission found the remains of fifteen more
colossi.[221]
[221] _Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités_, vol. ii. p. 182.
There were at least as many on the right bank. On the avenue leading
through the four southern pylons at Karnak, the same explorers found
twelve colossal monoliths, each nearly thirty-five feet high but all
greatly mutilated, and the former existence of others was revealed to
them by fragments scattered about the ground. They were able to reckon
up eighteen altogether on this south side of the building.[222]
[222] _Description, Antiquités_, vol. ii. p. 105.
Similar stone giants peopled the other religious or political capitals
of Egypt--Abydos, Memphis, Tanis, Sais, etc. The largest of all,
however, are the colossi at Ipsamboul representing Rameses II. They
are about seventy feet high. Among those cut from one enormous block
brought from Syene or elsewhere, the best known are those of Amenophis
III. at Thebes. They are fifty-two feet high without the pedestal. But
the statue of Rameses II., which stood in the second court of the
Ramesseum, must have been more than fifty-six feet high, as we may
calculate from the fragments which remain. The head is greatly
mutilated but the foot is over thirteen feet long.[223]
[223] CH. BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 208. It has
been calculated that this colossus weighed about 1220 tons.
These statues were generally seated in the attitude which we have
already described in speaking of Chephren and Sebek-hotep. Some,
however, were standing, such as the colossal figure of Rameses which
stood before the Temple of Ptah at Memphis. This figure, which is
about forty-four feet high, is cut from a single block of very fine
and hard limestone. It lies face downwards and surrounded by palm
trees, in a depression of the soil near the village of Mitrahineh. In
this position it is covered by the annual inundation. The English, to
whom it belongs, have hitherto failed to take possession of it owing
to the difficulty of transport, and yet it is one of the most careful
productions of the nineteenth dynasty. The head is full of
individuality and its execution excellent.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN TAIA
BOULAK MUSEUM
J. Bourgon del. Imp. Ch. Chardon Ramus sc.]
In spite of their taste for these colossal figures, the Egyptian
sculptors of this period rivalled their predecessors in the skill and
sincerity with which they brought out their sitter's individuality. It
was not, perhaps, their religious beliefs which imposed this effort
upon them. The readiness which successive kings showed in
appropriating the statues of their ancestors to themselves by simply
placing their ovals upon them, proved that the ideas which were
attached by the fathers of the Egyptian race to their graven images
had lost their force. Effigies which were brought into the service of
a new king by a mere change of inscription, were nothing more than
monuments to his pride, destined to transmit his name and glory to
future generations. The early taste, however, was not extinguished.
When the sculptor was charged with the representation of one of those
kings who had made Egypt great, or one of the queens who were often
associated in the sovereign power, he took the same pains as those of
the early Empire to make a faithful copy of his august model.
[Illustration: FIG. 214.--Thothmes III. Boulak. Granite.]
Among the monuments of faithful portraiture which this period has left
us the statues of Thothmes III. are conspicuous. The features of this
prince are to be recognized in a standing figure at Boulak (Fig. 214),
but they are much more strongly marked in a head which was found at
Karnak and is now in the British Museum (Fig. 215). It formerly
belonged to a colossal statue erected by that prince in the part of
the temple built by himself. The features seem in no way Egyptian.
The form of the nose, the upturned corners of the eyes, the curves of
the lips, and the general contours of the face are all suggestive of
Armenian blood.[224] Others have thought it showed traces of negro
descent. In the first-named statue these characteristics are less
conspicuous because its execution as a whole is less careful and
masterly. The same physiognomy is to be found in a porphyry sphinx
belonging to the Boulak collection.[225]
[224] GABRIEL CHARMES, _La Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak_.
[225] MARIETTE, _Notices du Musée_, Nos. 3 and 4.
There is a strong contrast between the features of Thothmes and those
of Amenophis III. the founder of Luxor. Of this we may judge by a
head, as well preserved as that of Thothmes, which was found behind
one of the statues of Amenophis at Gournah. It also is in the British
Museum. The face is long and finely cut, with an expression and
general appearance which we should call _distinguished_; the nose is
long and thin; the chin well chiselled and bold in outline.[226]
[226] The head of Amenophis III. may be recognized in the
bas-relief reproduced in our Fig. 33, Vol. I. The fine profile
and large well-opened eye strongly resemble those of the London
statue.
Obliged to draw the line somewhere we have not reproduced this figure,
but in Plate XI. we give a female head, discovered by Mariette at
Karnak, and believed to be that of Taia, the queen of Amenophis III.
Whether rightly named or not, this colossal fragment is one of the
masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture.[227]
[227] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. ii. p. 31.
Mariette enumerates various reasons for believing Taia to have been
neither of royal nor even of Egyptian blood. She might have been
Asiatic; the empire of her husband extended as far as Mesopotamia. The
point has little importance, but as M. Charmes says, "when we stop in
admiration before the head of Taia, at Boulak, we feel ourselves
unconsciously driven by her charms ... to forge a whole history, an
historical romance, of which her enigmatic personality is the centre
and inspiration, and to fancy her the chief author of these religious
tragedies which disturbed her epoch and left a burning trace which has
not yet disappeared."[228]
[228] G. CHARMES, _De la Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak_.
M. Charmes here alludes to the changes which Amenophis IV. wished to
introduce into the national religion when he attempted to destroy the
name and images of Amen, and to replace them with those of a solar
god, who was represented by a symbol not previously encountered in the
monuments (Fig. 2). If Mariette's hypotheses remain uncontradicted by
later discoveries, we may admit Taia to be the mother of Amenophis
IV., and to her influence in all probability would her son's denial
and persecution of the great Theban deity be due. Our present
interest, however, is with the features of Amenophis. They have been
faithfully handed down to us by the artists employed at
Tell-el-Amarna.[229] By the help of these bas-reliefs a statuette in
yellow steatite, now in the Louvre (Fig. 216), has been recognized as
a portrait of this Pharaoh. Its workmanship is very fine.
[229] _Denkmæler_, vol. vi. plates 91-111. The curious ugliness
of this king is most clearly shown in plate 109.
[Illustration: FIG. 215.--Thothmes III. British Museum. Red granite.
Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
Some have thought that in these bas-reliefs, and in the Louvre
statuette, the "facial characteristics and the peculiar shapes of
breast and abdomen by which eunuchs are distinguished, are to be
found."[230] On the other hand, we know that while still very young
Amenophis IV. married the queen Nowertiouta, and that he had seven
daughters by her. "It is probable, therefore, that if the misfortune
alluded to really befell him, it was during the wars waged by
Amenophis III. against the negro races of the south." In any case,
Amenophis IV. bore no resemblance to any one of the long procession of
princes whose portraits have come down to us, from the early dynasties
of the Ancient Empire to the Roman conquest. Lepsius devotes a series
of plates to the iconography of the Egyptian kings, and among them all
we find nothing that can be compared to the almost fantastic
personality of Amenophis, with his low, unintellectual forehead, his
pendulous cheeks, his feminine contours, and his general expression of
gloom and melancholy. The fidelity with which all these unpleasing
features are reproduced is extraordinary, and can only be accounted
for by the existence of a tradition so well established that no one
thought of breaking through it, even when the portrait of a
semi-divine monarch was in question.
[230] MARIETTE, _Bulletin Archéologique de l'Athenæum Français_,
1855, p. 57.
There are other works dating from this period which show the same
desire for truth at any price. One of the series of bas-reliefs
discovered by Mariette in the Temple of Dayr-el-Bahari may be given
as an instance. The subject of these reliefs is the expedition
undertaken by the regent Hatasu against the country of Punt.[231]
[231] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, No. 902, and
_Dayr-el-Bahari_, plates.
[Illustration: FIG. 216.--Statuette of Amenophis IV. Height twenty
inches. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
"In the most curious of these sculptures the savage chief advances as
a suppliant. His wife walks behind him. Her hair is carefully dressed
and plaited into a thick tail at the back; a necklace of large discs
is round her neck. Her dress is a long yellow chemise, without
sleeves, and reaching to the middle of her legs. Her features are
regular enough, but virile rather than feminine, and all the rest of
her person is repulsive. Her arms, legs, and chest, are loaded with
fat, while her person projects so far in the rear as to result in a
deformity over which the artist has dwelt with curious complacence."
The legs, so far as the chemise allows them to be seen, are so large
that they suggest incipient elephantiasis. The Egyptian artist was
induced, no doubt, to dwell upon such a monstrosity by the instructive
contrast which it presented with the cultivated beauty of his own
race.[232]
[232] MARIETTE, _Dayr-el-Bahari_, p. 30, believed that Punt was
in Africa, probably in the region of the Somali. He quotes
various passages from the writings of modern travellers to show
that this strange obesity is rather an African than an Arabian
characteristic. See SPEKE'S description of the favourite wife of
Vouazerou, _Discovery of the Source of the Nile_, chap. viii.,
and SCHWEINFURTH'S account of the Bongo women, _Heart of Africa_
(3rd edition) pp. 136 and 137.
Realist as he was when he chose to take up that vein, the Egyptian
sculptor attained, however, to a high degree of grace and purity,
especially in his representations of historic and religious scenes.
When he had not the exceptional ugliness of an Amenophis IV. to deal
with, he gave to the personages in his bas-reliefs a look of serious
gravity and nobility which cannot fail to impress the greatest
enthusiast for Greek models. He was no longer content with the sincere
imitation of what he saw, like the artists of the Early Empire; his
efforts were directed to giving everlasting forms to those superhuman
beings, the Egyptian gods and Egyptian kings, with their sons and
favourites, who lived in hourly communion with them. Egyptian art at
last had an ideal, which it never realized with more success than in
certain bas-reliefs of this epoch.
Mariette quotes, as one of the most learned productions of the
Egyptian chisel, a bas-relief at Gebel-Silsilis representing a goddess
nourishing Horus from her own breast. "The design of this composition
is remarkable for its purity," he says, "and the whole picture
breathes a certain soft tranquillity which both charms and surprises a
modern connoisseur."[233]
[233] MARIETTE, _Itinéraire_, p. 246.
We have not reproduced this work, but an idea of its style and
composition may be formed from a bas-relief of the time of Rameses
II., which we have taken from the speos of Beit-el-Wali (Fig. 255,
Vol. I.). The theme is the same. A scene of adoration taken from a
pier at Thebes (Fig. 176, Vol. I.) and, still more, a fine bas-relief
in which Amenophis III. does homage to Amen, to whom he is presented
by Phré, may also be compared with the work at Gebel-Silsilis. The
movements are free and elegant, and nothing could be more expressive
than the gestures of the two deities, than the attitude, at once proud
and respectful, of the kneeling prince. The whole scene is imbued with
sincere and grateful piety (Fig. 33, Vol. I.).
We find the same theme, with some slight variations, in the bas-relief
at Abydos figured on page 390, Vol. I. The sculptures in the temple
with which Seti I. adorned this city may be considered the
masterpieces of Egyptian art in their own _genre_. Their firm and
sober execution, and the severe simplicity of their conception, are
well shown in our third plate. This royal figure, which we were
compelled to detach from its companions in order that we might give it
on a scale large enough to be of service, forms part of a composition
which has been thus described by M. Charles Blanc: "Seated upon the
round base of a column, we examined the noblest bas-reliefs in the
world. Seti was present in his own temple. His noble head, at once
human and heroic, mild and proud, stood out from the wall and seemed
to regard us with a gentle smile. A wandering ray of sunlight
penetrated into the temple, and, falling upon the gentle salience of
the sculptured figures, gave them a relief and animation which was
almost illusive. A procession of young girls, whose graceful forms are
veiled only by their chastity, advance towards the hero with as much
freedom as respect will allow.... Their beauty attracts us while their
dignity forbids all approach. The scene lives before us, and yet the
stone is but grazed with the chisel and casts but the gentlest shadow.
But the delicacy of the workmanship is combined with such vigour of
design and such true sincerity of feeling that these young women, who
represent the provinces of Egypt, seem to live and breathe before
us."[234]
[234] CH. BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 265.
The same qualities are found, though in less perfection, in those
bas-reliefs which commemorate the conquests and military exploits of
the great Theban Pharaohs on the pylons and external faces of the
temple walls. The space to be covered is larger, the scene to be
represented more complicated, than in the religious pictures, which,
as a rule, include very few actors. The artist is no longer working
for a narrow audience of gods, kings, and priests. His productions are
addressed to the people at large, and he attempts therefore to dazzle
and astonish the crowd rather than to please the more fastidious
tastes of their social leaders. His execution is more rapid and less
thoughtful, as may be seen in our illustrations taken from the battle
scenes of Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum, and Medinet-Abou (Figs. 13,
85, 173, 174, 253, and 254, Vol. I.). In each of these scenes there is
a central figure to which our attention is immediately attracted. It
is that of the king, and is far larger than those of his subjects and
enemies.
Sometimes he is on foot, his threatening mace raised above the heads
of his prisoners, who kneel before him and raise their hands in
supplication, as in a fine bas-relief at Karnak (Fig. 85, Vol. I.);
more often he is represented standing in his chariot and dominating
the tumult about him like a demi-god, driving a panic-stricken crowd
before him sword in hand, or about to cleave the head of some hostile
chief, whose relaxed members seem already to have felt the mortal
stroke (Fig. 13, Vol. I.). Elsewhere we see him bending his bow and
launching his arrows against the flying barbarians (Fig. 174, Vol.
I.). "We could never look at this beautiful figure without fresh
admiration," say the authors of the _Description_, "it is the Apollo
Belvedere of Egypt."[235] Again we see the king returning victorious
from his wars, long rows of prisoners march behind and before him,
their hands tied at their backs and attached by a rope to the chariot
of the conqueror. The horses which, in the battle scenes, we saw
rearing and trampling the dead and dying beneath their feet, advance
quietly and under the control of the tightened rein, and their dainty
walk suggests that they too have a share in the universal satisfaction
that follows a war well ended.
[235] _Antiquités_, vol. ii. p. 110.
In all these reliefs the principal figure, that of the prince, is free
and bold in design, and full of pride and dignity. These
characteristics are also found in some of the secondary figures, such
as those soldiers of the enemy who still resist, or the prisoners who
resign themselves to the sovereign's mace (Figs. 13 and 85, Vol. I.).
But the wounded and fugitives in these battle pictures are curiously
confused in drawing and arrangement. If we take these little figures
separately many of them are drawn and modelled well enough, but, taken
as a whole, they are huddled up into far too narrow a space, and seem
heaped upon each other in impossible fashion. The Egyptian sculptor
has been fired with the desire to emulate with his chisel the great
deeds of his royal master, and, in his ignorance, he has passed the
limits which an art innocent of perspective cannot overleap without
disaster.
The persistent tendency towards slightness of proportion, which we
have already noticed in speaking of the First Theban Empire, is even
more conspicuous in the figures of these reliefs than in the royal
statues (Figs. 13, 50, 53, 84, 165, and 175, Vol. I.). Neither in
these historical bas-reliefs, nor in those of the tombs, do we ever
encounter the short thickset figures which are so common in the
Ancient Empire.
In the paintings and bas-reliefs of Thebes this slenderness is more
strongly marked in the women than in the men, and everything goes to
prove that it was considered essential to beauty in the female sex.
Goddesses and queens, dancing girls and hired musicians, all have the
same elongated proportions. This propensity is more clearly seen
perhaps in the pictures of the Almees and Gawasi of Ancient Egypt than
anywhere else. Look, for instance, at our reproduction of a bas-relief
in the Boulak Museum (Fig. 217). It represents a funeral dance to a
sound of tambourines, accompanied in all probability by those
apologetic songs, called θρῆνοι by the Greeks, of which M.
Maspero has translated so many curious fragments.[236] All these
women, who are practically naked in their long transparent robes, wear
their hair in thick pendent tresses. Two young girls, quite nude, seem
to regulate the time with castanets. A number of men, coming from the
right, appear to reprove by their gestures the energetic motions of
the women. This bas-relief is an isolated fragment, and without a
date. It was found in the necropolis of Memphis and from its style
Prisse ascribes it to the nineteenth dynasty, "a time when artists
were mannered in their treatment of the female form, combining great
softness of contour with an impossible slenderness of build. The
execution is careless, but the movements and attitudes are truthful
enough."[237] Our Plate XII. shows figures of the same general
proportions, though rather better drawn.
[236] MASPERO, _Études sur quelques Peintures Funéraires_.
Mariette, in describing this bas-relief (_Notice du Musée_, No.
903), observes that these funeral dances are still in vogue in
most of the villages of Upper Egypt. The bas-reliefs from
Sakkarah could not, however, as he says, render the piercing
shrieks with which these dances are accompanied.
[237] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_. Text, p. 418. This
bas-relief has also been reproduced by MARIETTE, _Monuments
Divers_, pl. 68.
This curious mannerism began to establish itself during the first
renascence of Egyptian art under the twelfth dynasty. It was to last,
and even to grow more conspicuous, until the centuries of final
decadence. The growing influence of conventionality is to be seen in
other signs also. As art repeated and multiplied its representations,
and the spaces which it had to decorate increased in number and size,
it had at its disposal, as we may say, a larger number of moulds and
made more frequent employment of certain groups and figures which were
repeated without material change. In the decorations of this period we
find long rows of figures which are practically identical with each
other. They look as if they had been produced by stencil plates. With
all their apparent richness and their wealth of imagery the sculpture
and painting of Thebes show a poverty of invention which is not to be
found in the art of the early dynasties.[238]
[238] Some of our illustrations allow the justice of this
observation to be easily verified (Figs. 172, 253, and 254, Vol.
I.). In one of these the porters and in another the prisoners of
war seem to be multiplied by some mechanical process. A glance
through the _Denkmæler_ of Lepsius leaves a similar impression.
We may mention especially plates 34, 35, 175, 125, and 135 of
the third Part.
The gradual falling off in their powers of observing and reproducing
natural forms is singularly well shown in their imperfect treatment of
those animals which had been unknown to their predecessors. The horse
does not seem to have been introduced into Egypt until the time of the
shepherd kings, but he soon conquered a high place among the servitors
of the upper classes of Egyptians. He became one of the favourite
themes of contemporary art. In all the great pictures of battle he
occupies a central position, and he is always associated with the
prowess of the sovereign. And yet he is almost always badly drawn. His
movement is sometimes not without considerable vigour and even
nobility, but his forms lack truth, he is generally far too thin and
elongated. His head is well set on and his neck and shoulders good,
but his body is weak and unsubstantial (Figs. 13 and 174, Vol. I.).
The bad effects of conventionality are here strongly felt. The same
horse, in one of the two or three attitudes between which the Egyptian
sculptor had to choose according to the scene to be treated, appears
everywhere. The sculptors of the Memphite tombs saw with a very
different eye when they set themselves to surround the doubles of
their employers with the images of the domestic animals to whom
they were accustomed in life.
[Illustration: FIG. 217.--Funeral Dance. Bas-relief in limestone.
Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
The difference can be seen, however, without going back to the Ancient
Empire. Compare the great historical bas-reliefs of the temples and
royal cenotaphs with the more modest decorations of certain private
sepulchres, such as those which were found in the tomb of Chamhati,
superintendent of the royal domains under the eighteenth dynasty (Fig.
218). The sculptors return with pleasure to those scenes of country
life of which the pyramid builders were so fond. The fragment we
reproduce shows the long row of labourers bending over their hoes, the
sower casting his seed, the oxen attached to the plough and slowly
cutting the furrow under the whip and voice of their drivers. Neither
men nor beasts are drawn with as sure a hand as in the tomb of Ti, but
yet the whole appears more sincere than productions of a more official
kind. The oldest and most faithful assistant to the Egyptian fellah,
the draught ox, is at least much more like nature than the charger of
the Theban battle pictures.
[Illustration: FIG. 218.--Bas-relief from the tomb of Chamhati.
Boulak.]
The dangers of routine and of a conventional mode of work seem now and
then to have been felt by the Theban artists. They appear to have set
themselves deliberately to rouse attention and interest by introducing
foreign types into their eternal battle pieces, and by insisting upon
their differences of feature, of complexion, of arms and costume. They
were also fond of depicting other countries and the strange animals
that inhabited them, as in the bas-relief which shows a giraffe
promenading among tropical palms.[239] But in spite of all these
meritorious efforts, they do not touch our feelings like the primitive
artists of Gizeh and Sakkarah, or even of Beni-Hassan. Try as they
will, they cannot conceal that soulless and mechanical facility which
is so certain to fatigue the spectator. If we turn over the pages of
Lepsius, we always find ourselves dwelling with pleasure upon the
sculptures from the mastabas, in spite of their apparent similarity,
while we have soon had enough of the pompous and crowded bas-reliefs
from Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum and Medinet-Abou.
[239] So, at Dayr-el-Bahari the decorator has taken pains to
give accurate reproductions of the fauna and flora of Punt. See
the plates of MARIETTE (_Dayr-el-Bahari_) and the remarks of
Prof. EBERS (_Ægypten_, vol. ii. p. 280).
These defects are less conspicuous in figures in the round, and
especially in the statues of kings. I do not know that the sculptors
of the Setis and the Rameses ever produced anything equal to the
portraits of Thothmes, Amenophis, and Taia, but there are statues of
Rameses II. intact, which may be reckoned among the fine examples of
Egyptian art. The features of no prince that ever existed were
reproduced more often than those of this Rameses, who built so much
and reigned so long. These reproductions, as might be supposed, differ
very greatly in value.
In the huge colossi which sit before the Great Temple at Ipsamboul
(Fig. 248, Vol. I.), the limbs are not modelled with the careful
precision which would be required in the case of a life-size statue.
The arms and legs appear rather heavy on close inspection, and in a
photograph those parts which are nearest to the camera, namely, the
legs and the knees, seem too large for the rest of the figure. But the
heads are characterized by a breadth and freedom of execution which
brings out the desired expression with great effect when looked at
from a proper distance. This expression is one of thoughtful mildness
and imperturbable serenity. It is exactly suited to the image of a
deified king, sitting as eternal guardian of the temple which his
workmen had hewn out in the bowels of the mountain.
Some discrimination must be exercised between the statues of Rameses
which approach the natural size. We do not look upon his portrait when
a child, which is now in the Louvre, as a masterpiece (Fig. 219). The
noble lines of the profile, recalling his father Seti, are indeed his,
but the eye is too large and the hands are treated with an elegance
which is more than a little mannered. The uræus on his brow and the
titles engraved by his side show that he was already king, but we can
see that he was still very young, not so much by the juvenile contours
of his body, as by the finger in his mouth and the lock of hair
hanging upon his right shoulder. A statue at Boulak (Fig. 220) shows
signs of carelessness rather than of affectation. In it Rameses is
still a young man. The eyes, the small mouth, the calm and smiling
visage, are all well modelled, but the legs are quite shapeless.
[Illustration: FIG. 219.--Portrait of Rameses II. while a child,
actual size. Limestone. In the Louvre.]
[Illustration: FIG. 220.--Statue of Rameses II. Boulak.]
Some good bas-reliefs date from this reign. Among others we may name
those prisoners of war bound together, which Champollion copied from
the plinth of a royal statue in the Ramesseum (Fig. 221). The race
characteristics are very well marked. The prognathous negro, with his
thick lips, short nose, sloping brow, and woolly poll; the Asiatic,
an Assyrian perhaps, with his regular, finely-chiselled profile and
his knotted head-dress, are easily recognized. The movement of these
two figures is also happy, its only defect is its want of variety. The
same remarks may be applied to those sculptures on the external walls
of the small temple at Abydos, which represent the soldiers belonging
to the legion of the Chardanes or Sharuten, the supposed ancestors of
the Sardinians. Their picturesque costume and singular arms have been
described more than once. A metal stem and a ball between two
crescent-shaped horns surmount their helmets; they are tall and
slender, with small heads and short round noses.[240]
[240] CH. BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 74, pl. 31.
The finest statue of Rameses II. that has come down to our time is,
perhaps, the one in the Turin Museum (Fig. 222). Its execution is most
careful, and its state of preservation marvellous. The head is full of
individuality and distinction. One of the king's sons is shown, on a
very small scale, leaning against the foot of his father's seat.
[Illustration: FIG. 221.--Prisoners of war; Ramesseum. From
Champollion, pl. 322.]
Boulak possesses the upper part of a broken statue of Rameses, which
is not inferior to this in artistic merit. The contours are singularly
pure and noble.
Most of those who are authorities on the subject agree that art fell
into decay towards the end of Rameses the second's long reign of
sixty-seven years. Carried away by his mania for building, the king
thought more of working rapidly than well. In his impatience to see
his undertakings finished, he must have begun by using up the
excellent architects and decorative artists left to him by his father.
He left them no time to instruct pupils or to form a school, and so in
his old age he found himself compelled to employ mediocrities. "The
steles, inscriptions, and other monuments of the last years of Rameses
II. are to be recognized at a glance by their detestable style," says
Mariette.[241] With the fine bas-relief at Abydos which is reproduced
in our Plate III., Vol. I., Mariette contrasts another which is to be
found in a neighbouring hall and represents Rameses II. in the same
attitude. In the former, the figure of Seti is expressed in the most
delicate low relief, in the latter the contours of Rameses are
coarsely indicated by a deeply-cut outline.[242] So too M. Charles
Blanc: "As we pass from the tomb of Seti I. to those of Seti II. and
Rameses IV., the decadence of Egyptian art makes itself felt, partly
in the character of the pictures, which no longer display the
firmness, the delicacy, or the significance, of those which we admired
in the tomb of the first-named monarch, partly in the exaggerated
relief of the sculptures."[243]
[241] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. i. p. 72.
Plates 23 and 24.
[242] CHAMPOLLION makes the same remark (_Lettres d'Égypte et de
Nubie_, p. 326).
[243] CH. BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 178.
Unless Mariette was mistaken in his identification of one of the most
remarkable fragments in the Boulak Museum, Thebes must have possessed
first-rate artists even at the death of Rameses. M. Charmes thus
speaks of the fragment (Fig. 223) in question: "By a happy
inspiration, Mariette has given the bust of Queen Taia a pendant which
equals it in attractiveness, which surpasses it, perhaps, in delicacy
of treatment ... it is the head of a king surmounted by a huge cap which
weights it without adding to its beauty. It formerly belonged to a
statue which is now broken up. The young king was standing; in his
left hand he held a ram-headed staff.... It is impossible to give an
idea of the youthful, almost childish grace, of the soft and
melancholy charm in a countenance which seems overspread with the
shadow of some unhappy fate. How did its author contrive to cut from
such an unkindly material as granite, these frank and fearless eyes,
that slender nose with its refined nostrils, and these lips, which are
so soft and full of vitality, that they seem modelled in nothing
harder than wax. We are in presence of one of the finest relics of
Egyptian sculpture, and nothing more exquisite has been produced by
the art of any other people. The inscription is mutilated by a fissure
in the granite, but Mariette believes that the statue represents
Menephtah, the son of Rameses II."[244]
[244] GAB. CHARMES, _De la Réorganisation du Musée de
Boulak_.--MARIETTE, _Notice_, No. 22.
[Illustration: FIG. 222.--Statue of Rameses II. in the Turin Museum.
Granite. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
[Illustration: FIG. 223.--Head of Menephtah. Boulak. Drawn by
Saint-Elme Gautier.]
There is a colossal statue of Seti II., the son of this Menephtah, in
the Louvre (Fig. 224). Although the material of which it consists,
namely sandstone, is much less rebellious than granite, the features,
which have a family resemblance to those of Menephtah, are executed in
a much more summary fashion than in the Boulak statue, and yet the
execution is that of a man who knew his business. The modelling of the
muscular arms is especially vigorous.[245]
[245] Louvre. Ground-floor gallery, No. 24.
[Illustration: FIG. 224.--Seti II. Sandstone statue, fifteen feet
high. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
There are hardly any royal statues left to us which we can ascribe
with certainty to the twentieth dynasty, but at Medinet-Abou, both on
the walls of the temple and in the Royal Pavilion there are
bas-reliefs which show that the sculpture of Rameses III., the last of
the great Theban Pharaohs, knew how to hold its own among the other
glories of the reign. We have given a few examples of the pictures in
which the king is shown as a warrior and as a high priest (Figs. 172
and 173, Vol. I.); other groups should not be forgotten in which he is
exhibited during his hours of relaxation in his harem, among his wives
and daughters.
Under the last of the Rameses the Egyptians lost their military spirit
and, with it, their foreign possessions in the South and East.
Inclosed within its own frontiers, between the cataracts in the South
and the Mediterranean in the North, and enfeebled by the domination of
the priests and scribes, the country became divided into two kingdoms,
that of Thebes, under a theocratic dynasty, and that of Tanis in which
the royal names betray a strong Semitic influence.
That worship of Asiatic divinities which, though never mentioned in
official monuments, is so often alluded to in the steles, must then
have taken hold of the people of Lower Egypt. Among these were Resheb,
the Syrian Apollo; Kadesh, who bore the name of a famous Syrian
fortress, and was but one form of the great Babylonian goddess Anahit,
the Anaitis of the Greeks. Kadesh is sometimes represented standing
upon a lion _passant_ (Fig. 225).
Exhausted by its internal conflicts, Egypt produced few monumental
works for several centuries. Many kings, however, of this barren
period, and especially Sheshonk, have left at Karnak records of their
military victories and of their efforts to re-establish the national
unity. After the twenty-fourth dynasty Egypt became the vassal of that
Ethiopian kingdom whose civilization was no more than a plagiarism
from her own. During the half century that this vassalage endured,
the southern conquerors gave full employment to such artists as Egypt
had preserved. The latter were set to reproduce the features of the
Ethiopian kings, but the works which resulted are very unequal in
merit.
Sabaco caused the sides of the great door in the pylon of Rameses at
Karnak to be repaired. The execution of the figures is by no means
satisfactory. "The relief is too bold; the muscular development of the
heroes represented is exaggerated to a meaningless degree; coarse
vigour has taken the place of graceful strength."[246]
[246] CH. BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 153.
[Illustration: FIG. 225.--The Goddess Kadesh; from Wilkinson, Fig.
55.]
But although these bas-reliefs, the only ones of the period which have
been encountered, are evidently inspired by the decadence, the
Egyptian sculptors seem to have still preserved much of their skill in
portraiture. Mariette believes that a royal head in the Museum at
Cairo represents Tahraka, the third of the Ethiopian sovereigns. It is
disfigured by the loss of the nose. The remaining features are coarse
and strongly marked and the general type is foreign rather than
Egyptian.[247] However this may be, it cannot be denied that in the
alabaster statue of Ameneritis, which was found at Karnak by Mariette,
we have a monument of this phase in Egyptian art remarkable both for
taste and knowledge (Fig. 226).[248]
[247] MARIETTE, _Notice_, No. 20.
[248] MARIETTE, _Notice_, No. 866. There is a cast of this
statue in the Louvre, but, like that of the statue of Chephren,
which forms a pendant to it, it has been coloured to the hue of
fresh butter and the result is most disagreeable. Even when
placed upon a cast from an alabaster figure this colour is bad
enough, but when the cast is one from a statue in diorite, like
that of Chephren, it is quite inexcusable. It would have been
better either to have left the natural surface of the plaster or
to have given to each cast a colour which should in some degree
recall that of the originals and mark the difference between
them.
During the Ethiopian occupation Queen Ameneritis played an important
_rôle_ in the affairs of Egypt. While her brother Sabaco was yet alive
she was dignified with the title of regent, later she brought her
rights to the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt to the usurper
Piankhi, whom she married and made the father of Shap-en-Ap, who
afterwards became the mother of Psemethek I.
[Illustration: FIG. 226.--Statue of Ameneritis. Alabaster. Boulak.
Drawn by G. Bénédite.]
The head of Ameneritis is covered with the full-bottomed wig worn by
goddesses. She holds a whip in her left hand and a sort of purse in
her right; there are bangles upon her wrist and ankles and the
contours of her body are frankly displayed beneath the long
chemise-like robe, which falls almost to her ankles.
The features are resolute and intelligent rather than beautiful, the
squareness of the lower jaw and the firm line of the mouth being
especially significant.
We have, then, every reason to believe this to be a good portrait.
Both form and expression are just what might be expected in a
high-born Egyptian female possessed of sovereign power. The treatment
of the body is rather conventional. The bust, so far as it can be
traced under the clinging robe, is younger than the head, which is
that of a woman in middle life. With these reserves the statue is very
pleasing. The arms are a little stiff, but the figure as a whole is
characterized by a chaste and sober elegance. The modelling is not
insisted upon too much, but its undulating contours are discreetly
indicated under the soft though by no means transparent drapery. The
whole work is imbued with the spirit of Saite art, an aftermath which
was characterized by grace and refinement rather than by freedom and
power.
§ 5. _The Art of the Saite Period._
After the last of the Ramessids the decadence of Egypt was continuous,
but in the seventh century B.C. while the Ethiopians and Assyrians
contended for the possession of the country, it was particularly
rapid. Under Psemethek, however, there was a revival. The foreigners
were driven out, the national unity was re-established, and Syria was
again brought under the Egyptian sceptre. An artistic renascence
coincided with this restoration of political well being, and the
princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty set themselves to restore the
monuments which had perished during the intestine troubles and foreign
inroads. Their attention was mainly directed to the architectural
monuments of Lower Egypt; but little now remains of the buildings
which drew so much praise from the Greek travellers. Their sculptured
achievements have been more fortunate. Their statues were sprinkled
over the whole country, and many of them have been found at Memphis,
at Thebes, and even among the ruins of cities which have long ago
disappeared. Thus we find that most Egyptian collections contain
figures which may be assigned to this time, or rather to this school,
for the style held its own even as late as the first two or three
Ptolemies. Among them may be mentioned the _pastophorus_[249] of the
Vatican, the _Arsaphes_[250] of the British Museum, the statues of
serpentine found at Sakkarah in the tomb of a certain Psemethek, a
high officer under the thirtieth dynasty,[251] and the fine bronzes
of Osiris discovered at Medinet-Abou.[252] All the bronzes found in
the Serapeum belong to the same category.[253]
[249] For the meaning of this word see PIERRET, _Dictionnaire_,
&c.
[250] For illustrations of this statue and an explanation of the
name here given to it, see BIRCH, _Gallery of Antiquities_,
London, 4to.--ED.
[251] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 385.
[252] _Notice_, Nos. 196-7.
[253] _Ibid._, Nos. 105-15.
By means of secondary remains, such as sphinxes, steles, and scarabs,
we can just contrive to get a glimpse at the features of those
brilliant sovereigns who, after dazzling Egypt and the surrounding
countries early in the seventh century B.C., fell before the first
attacks of the Persians.[254] Many of their effigies must have been
destroyed by the invaders, either at their first conquest, or during
the three subsequent occasions when they were compelled to
re-establish their ascendency by force. A similar fate must have
overtaken the statues of Inarôs and Nectanebo, who succeeded for a
time in restoring the independence of their country. For the whole of
this period the royal iconography is much more scanty than for the two
Theban empires.
[254] The Boulak Museum possesses a very fine scarab which shows
Nechao between Isis and Neith, one of whom hands him a mace and
the other a small figure of Mentou-Ra, the God of Battles. Two
chained prisoners are prostrate at the base of the scarab.
MARIETTE, _Notice_, No. 556.
We shall not dwell upon the figure in green basalt which stands in the
middle of the _Salle Historique_ in the Louvre. We know from the
inscription upon its girdle that it represents the king Psemethek II.
The execution is careful, but the work has suffered great mutilation,
the head and parts of the limbs being modern restorations.[255] On the
other hand, the two little bronze sphinxes which stand upon the
chimney-piece in the same room are in excellent condition. According
to De Rougé their heads reproduce the features of Ouaphra, the Apries
of the Greeks (Fig. 227).[256] In the ground-floor gallery there are
several sphinxes which, according to their inscriptions, should
include portraits of some of those princes who between 527 and 332
B.C. temporarily freed Egypt from the Persian yoke; Nepherites,
Achoris, Nectanebo, &c. None of them, however, show enough
individuality in their features to suggest that they were copied from
nature. Their heads are all clothed indiscriminately in the same
elegance of contour, and in looking at them we find ourselves far
indeed from the admirable portraits of the early empire, or even from
that statue of Ameneritis which closes the series of royal effigies.
[255] PIERRET, _Catalogue de la Salle Historique_, No. 269.
[256] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice Sommaire_, p. 59.
[Illustration: FIG. 227.--Bronze Sphinx. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme
Gautier.]
The chief pre-occupation of the Saite sculptor was to obtain
suppleness of modelling and an apparent finish of execution, both of
which, in his opinion, were effective in proportion as the material
used was hard and unyielding.[257] His chisel was employed much more
than formerly in fusing together the various layers of muscle which
form the walls of the human structure. He did not lay so much stress
on the skeleton, or on the leading lines of the figure, as his early
predecessors. His care was mainly devoted to rendering the subtle
outward curves and contours, and this he often carries to such excess
as to produce a result which is simply wearisome from its want of
energy and accent. There is a group at Boulak upon which too much
praise has been lavished, to which this stricture thoroughly applies.
It represents one of the Psemetheks, clothed in a long robe, standing
before the goddess Hathor who is in the form of a cow. The head and
torso are finely chiselled, but, through an exaggerated desire for
elegance, the arms have been made far too long, and the divine cow is
entirely without truth or expression. This defect is still more
conspicuous in the two figures of Isis and Osiris that were found with
this group. Their execution has reached the extremity of coldness
through the excessive use of file and sand-paper.[258]
[257] It would appear that wood-carving was never so popular in
Egypt as it was under the Second Theban Empire. The numerous
wooden statues which fill our museums date from that period. We
have given an example of them in Fig. 50, Vol. I.
[258] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, Nos. 386 and 387. Mariette
seems to estimate these two statuettes far too highly.
[Illustration: FIG. 228.--Statue of Nekht-har-heb, Louvre. Drawn by
Saint-Elme Gautier.]
Sometimes the sculptor knows where to leave off, and the result is
better. The sandstone statue of Nekht-har-heb, in the Louvre, is one
of the best productions of the Saite artists (Fig. 228).[259] The
execution of hands and feet is sketchy, and the countenance is without
much expression, but the attitudes of the arms and legs, the modelling
of the trunk, and the pose of the head, unite breadth with facility
and dignity to such a degree, that we are reminded, for a moment, of
a Greek marble. In spite of the singular attitude there is much in the
execution which recalls a much more ancient work, the statue of
Ouah-ab-ra, which dates from the twenty-sixth dynasty (Fig. 51, Vol.
I.)[260]
[259] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice des Monuments Exposés au
Rez-de-chaussée_, No. 91.
[260] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice des Monuments Exposés au
Rez-de-chaussée_, No. 94.
[Illustration: FIG. 229--Statue of Horus, Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme
Gautier.]
Not less remarkable is the headless statue of a personage called
Horus, which dates from about the same period (Fig. 229).[261] It is
of black granite and yet both limbs and torso are as delicately
modelled as if they were of the softest limestone. The attitude of the
arms is unusually easy and natural, and the whole figure is freer and
less constrained than anything we find in the ancient statues. There
is, too, a certain spirit of innovation discoverable in the feet. The
toes are well separated and slightly bent, instead of being flat and
close together.
[261] _Ibidem_, No. 88.
[Illustration: FIG. 230.--Bas-relief from Memphis. Length forty
inches, height ten inches, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
[Illustration: FIG. 231.--Continuation of Fig. 230.]
The same style, taste, and general tendency are to be found in the
steles and in the decoration of the tombs. In a few sepulchral
bas-reliefs we can detect a desire to imitate the compositions on the
walls of the mastabas. Such attempts were quite natural, and we need
feel no surprise that the Egyptians in their decline should have
turned to the artistic form and motives which had been invented in
their distant and vigorous youth. The old age of many other races has
shown the same tendency in their arts and literature.
The beautiful band of sculpture in low relief which was found,
together with another very similar to it, at Mitrahineh, upon the
site of ancient Memphis, might easily be taken at first sight for a
production of the early centuries (Figs. 230 and 231). It formed the
lintel to the door of a house dating from the Greek or Roman period,
for which purpose it had doubtless been carried off from some
tomb.[262] At one end a dignified individual is seated upon a
low-backed chair, in his left hand he holds the long wand of office,
in his right a ribbon. His name and titles are engraved in front of
him: he was a writer, and was called Psemethek-nefer-sam. A scribe
bends respectfully before him and introduces a procession of men,
women, and children, who bring offerings of various kinds, jars of
liquid, coffers, flowers, birds, and calves led by a string. It is the
favourite theme of the mastabas over again. The attitudes are similar,
but the execution is different. There is a lack of firmness and
rotundity in the modelling, and considerably more striving after
elegance. The children especially should be noticed; the fashion in
which they all turn towards their elders betrays a desire on the part
of the artist to give freshness and piquancy to his composition.
[262] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, Nos. 35-6.
Most of those bronze figures of the gods, which are so plentiful in
the European museums, date from this period. We have reproduced
several of them in our chapter upon the Egyptian pantheon (Figs.
34-37, Vol. I.). With the advent of Alexander and his successors, a
number of Greek artists became domiciled in Egypt; they employed their
talents in the service of the priests and scribes without attempting
in any way to affect the religion, the institutions, or the habits of
the people. The Egyptian artists were heirs to the oldest of all
civilizations, their traditions were so firmly established, and their
professional education was so systematic, that they could hardly
consent to modify their ideas at the first contact with a race whom
they secretly despised, although they were compelled to admit their
political and military supremacy. Many years had to pass before
Egyptian sculpture, and with it the written character and language,
became debased as we find it in certain Roman and Ptolemaic temples.
Several generations had to come and go before a hybrid Egypto-Greek
style, a style which preserved the most unhappy forms and conventions
of Egyptian art while it lost all its native freshness and
originality, imposed itself finally upon the country.
The worst of the Saite statues are still national in style. It is an
Egyptian soul that inhabits their bodies, that breathes through the
features, and places its mark upon every detail of the personality
represented. This is no longer the case with the figures which, from
the time of Augustus to that of Hadrian, seem to have been
manufactured in such quantities for the embellishment of Roman villas.
Costumes, accessories, and attitudes are all Egyptian, but the model
upon which they are displayed is Greek. Until the beginning of the
present century archæologists were deceived by the masquerade, and
were unable to distinguish between pasticcios, many of which may not
even have been made in Egypt, and the really authentic works of the
unspoiled Egyptian artists. Such mistakes are no longer probable, but
even now it is difficult to say exactly where the art of Sais was
blended into that of the Ptolemies. When there is no epigraph upon
which to depend the most skilful archæologist may here make mistakes.
There are, however, a few figures in which the influence of the Greek
works brought to Alexandria by the descendants of Lagus, may be
detected in an incipient stage. The motives and attributes are still
purely Egyptian, but the modelling, the carriage of the head, and the
attitude are modified, and we see, almost by intuition, that the Greek
style is about to smother the Egyptian. This evidence of transition
is, we think, very marked in a bronze group of _Isis suckling Horus_
in the Louvre (Fig. 55, Vol. I.), and in _Horus enthroned supported by
lions_ (Fig. 232). And yet the difference between these things and
those which are frankly Græco-Roman is great, and at once strikes
those who come upon the latter in the galleries of Boulak, where they
are mixed up with so many creations of Egyptian genius. The
distinction is equally obvious in works produced by foreign sculptors
established in Egypt, and in those by Egyptians working under Greek
masters. Look at the head found at Tanis, which is reproduced both in
full face and profile in Fig. 233. It is of black granite, like so
many Egyptian statues, but we feel at once that there is nothing
Egyptian about it but the material. It is obviously a portrait of a
man of mature age; the face is beardless, the curly hair cut short.
During the Greek and Roman period the temple of San was enriched by
the statues of private individuals, and doubtless this fragment
belonged to one of them. Tradition says that the statue was placed in
front of a pier with which it was connected by the Ionic moulding
which is still to be traced upon the right side of the head. With this
exception the treatment is that of the best Augustan period. The
person represented may very well have been one of the first Roman
governors of Egypt.[263]
[263] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, No. 18.
[Illustration: FIG. 232.--Horus enthroned. Bronze. Louvre.]
[Illustration: FIG. 233.--Roman head, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
§ 6. The Principal Themes of Egyptian Sculpture.
When we come to study Greek sculpture we shall find that the
masterpieces in which its highest powers are displayed, are statues of
divinities, such as the Athené of the Parthenon and the Olympian Zeus.
In our review of the Egyptian works of the same kind we have not had
occasion to call attention to a single god or goddess. Their
representation was not, as in Greece, the aim of the highest art. The
figures of deities were, indeed, numerous enough in Egypt, but the
national artist did not show such originality in their conception as
in those of kings and private individuals. This phenomenon may seem
inconsistent with what we know of the piety of the Egyptians and the
place occupied by religion in their daily life; it is to be easily
explained, however, by the origin of Egyptian sculpture and the part
which the statues of the gods played in it.
Egyptian art began with portraiture. As soon as it was capable of
carving and painting stone it was realistic, not so much by instinct
and taste as by duty. After such a beginning it found great difficulty
in raising itself above intelligent and faithful reproduction of fact.
Such inventive powers as it possessed were spent in creating a type
for the royal majesty, and in that case it had concrete reality as a
starting point. When it came to representing the gods it had no such
help. It could not fall back upon fidelity to fact, and, unlike the
Greeks of after ages, it was unable to give them distinction by the
superior nobility and dignity of their physical contours and features.
It was reduced to differentiating them by the variety of their
attributes. By such a proceeding it obtained an almost infinite number
of divine types, but each type was only recognizable on condition that
its pose and accessories, once determined, should remain without
material change. There was none of the mobility and elasticity which
distinguishes the dwellers on the Greek Olympus, as may be clearly
seen by comparing the poverty and want of variety of a Horus or a Bast
with the infinite diversity of an Apollo or an Artemis.
When the Egyptian sculptor had to endow the national gods with
concrete forms he found himself, then, in a condition much less
favourable than that of his Greek successors. This position, too, was
materially affected by the fact that the best site in the temple, the
centre of the naos, was reserved for a symbol, sometimes living,
sometimes inanimate, which was looked upon as the true representative
of the god. It was to this symbol, jealously hidden from all but the
high priest and the king, that the prayers of the faithful were
addressed. It has been called a survival from the early fetish
worship. Perhaps it was so. But at present we are only concerned with
its unfortunate results upon artistic development. His statues being
excluded from the place of honour, the sculptor was not, as in Greece,
stimulated to combine all the qualities ascribed by the nation to its
gods in one supreme effort of his knowledge and skill; he was not
raised above himself by the desire to produce a work which might give
point to the magnificence of a temple and augment the piety of a race.
Mariette was right in insisting upon this difference. "The temples,"
he says, "hardly contain a statue which is not votive. Sometimes these
statues are found irregularly distributed about the foundations or in
the sand, sometimes they are of large size and are arranged along the
walls, but they hardly ever exceed the life-size of a man. _I cannot
say that each temple had a figure which could be specially called the
statue of that temple._ The divine images were plentiful enough; but
each had its own particular ministration. In the prayers addressed to
it the name of its consecrator was always included. _Such a thing as a
statue forming the central object of a temple and representing its god
without votive appropriation did not, perhaps, exist._"[264]
[264] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, p. 16. See also his
_Catalogue Général_, c. i.
Figures of Sekhet, the goddess with the head of a lioness, have been
discovered in hundreds in the building at Karnak known as the Temple
of Mouth, or Maut. This mine of statues has been worked ever since
1760, and all the museums of Europe have shared the results.[265]
Being so numerous these statues could not have reached great
excellence of execution. They were devotional objects produced in
mechanical fashion, and there is little chance of finding a
masterpiece of sculpture among them. In an inscription at Karnak we
find Thothmes III. boasting of having endowed the temple with a statue
of Amen "such that no other temple could show one equal to it."[266]
This Amen must have excelled its rivals in richness of material and in
perfection of polish. It is unlikely that it was much superior to them
in nobility or true beauty.
[265] MARIETTE (_Karnak_, p. 15) calculated that this temple,
whose major axis from the pylon to the sanctuary hardly exceeded
300 feet in length, must have contained 572 statues, all in
black granite, and differing but little in size and execution.
If placed in rows against the walls, and here and there in a
double row, their elbows would almost have touched one another.
The first and second courts, and the two long corridors which
bound the temple to the east and west, were full of them. One of
these figures is represented in our Fig. 39, Vol. I.
[266] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. ii. p. 25.
The position occupied by the statue in the cella of a Greek temple
finds something like a parallel, however, in the rock-cut temples of
Nubia. We allude to these groups of three or four figures, carved in
the living rock, which have been found seated in the farthest recesses
at Ipsamboul, Derri, and elsewhere. These figures are now so mutilated
that their merit as works of art cannot be decided.
We may safely say that if the temples proper, such as those of Karnak
and Luxor, had contained master-statues corresponding in any way to
those of the Greeks, they would have been of colossal size. But
although the soil of Thebes is almost paved with the fragments of
royal colossi, not a single vestige of any gigantic statue of Amen has
ever been discovered. All that we know of those few divine statues to
which special veneration was paid excludes any idea of size exceeding
that of man. The statues of Amen and Khons, at Thebes and Napata,
which nodded their approval when consulted by the king as to his
future plans, were certainly not colossi.[267] And as for the figure
of Khons, which took a voyage into Syria to cure the sister-in-law of
one of the latter Ramessids, we can hardly believe it was more than a
statuette.[268]
[267] MASPERO, _Annuaire de l'Association des Études Grecques_,
1877, p. 132.
[268] See the often-quoted story of a voyage taken by a statue
of Khons to the country of Bakhtan and its return to Egypt. DE
ROUGÉ, _Étude sur un Stèle Égyptienne appartenant à la
Bibliothèque Nationale_, 8vo, 1856.
In spite of their number the statues of the gods must have attracted
much less attention than those of the kings. The Pharaoh who built a
temple filled it with his own effigies; his colossi sat before the
gate, they helped to form those structural units which we call Osiride
piers, and figures of smaller size were ranged under the porticos. In
that part of the Great Temple at Karnak which dates from the
eighteenth dynasty, statues of Thothmes III. alone have been found to
the number of several dozens; their broken fragments may be identified
in every corner.[269]
[269] MARIETTE, _Karnak_, p. 36. See also his _Abydos, Catalogue
Général_, § 2, p. 27.
Among the countless votive offerings with which a great building like
that at Karnak was filled, there were a few statues of private
individuals. "The right to erect statues in the temples belonged (as
we should say) to the crown. We find therefore that most of the
private statues found in the sacred inclosures are inscribed with a
special formula: 'Granted, by the king's favour, to so and so, the son
of so and so....' Permission to place a statue in a temple was only
given as a reward for services rendered. The temple might be either
that of the favoured individual's native town, or one for which he had
peculiar veneration.... Civil and foreign wars, the decay of cities,
and the destruction of idols by the Christians, have combined to
render statues of private persons from public temples of very rare
occurrence in our collections."[270]
[270] MASPERO, in the _Monuments de l'Art Antique_ of Rayet.
The tombs were the proper places for private statues; we have seen
that at Memphis they were set up in the courtyards and hidden in the
serdabs, that at Thebes they were placed, either upright or sitting,
in the depths of the hypogea.[271]
[271] _Description, Antiquités_, vol. iii. p. 41.
Figures in the round, whether gods, kings, or private persons, were
always isolated. They were sometimes placed one by the side of the
other, but they never formed groups in the strict sense of the word.
In the whole of Egyptian sculpture there is but one group, that of the
father, mother, and children; and this was repeated without material
change for thousands of years. The Egyptian artist can hardly be said
to have composed or invented it; it was, so to speak, imposed upon him
by nature. Those groups which became so numerous in Hellenic art as
soon as it arrived at maturity, in which various forms and opposed or
complementary movements were so combined as to produce a just
equilibrium, are absolutely wanting in Egypt.
The Greeks were the first of the antique races to love the human form
for itself, for the inherent beauty of its lines and attitudes.
Certain traces of this sentiment are to be found in the decorative art
of Egypt, in which motives that are at once ingenious and picturesque
are often met with, but it is almost entirely absent from sculpture.
Modelled forms are hardly ever anything more than skilful tracings
from reality. In the sepulchral system the sculptor supplies relays of
bodies, stone mummies which may take the place of the embalmed corpse
when it is worn out; in the temples his business is to set up concrete
symbols of an idea, emblems of one of the divine powers, or of the
majesty of Pharaoh.
The infinite number of combinations which may be obtained by the
association of several persons of different ages and sexes in one
action, makes the group the highest achievement of an art at once
passionate and scientific, such as the sculpture of Greece and
Florence. To such a height the Egyptians never soared, but they well
understood the more or less conventional methods which are at the
command of the sculptor. They produced figures in the round by
thousands; most of them were smaller than nature, many were life-size,
while a few surpassed it with an audacity to which no parallel can be
found elsewhere. Here and there we find a figure, no more than some
three or four inches high, to which its maker has contrived to give a
freedom of attitude, a breadth of execution, and a nobility of
presence which are quite astonishing. Look, for instance, at the
reproduction of a little wooden statuette which borders this page
(Fig. 234); it is identical in size with the original. Its date is
unknown, but we should be inclined to refer it to the Ancient Empire.
The air of this little personage is so proud and dignified that he
might well be a reduction from a colossus.
[Illustration: FIG. 234.--Wooden statuette belonging to M.
Delaroche-Vernet. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
What we call busts, that is, figures which consist of nothing but the
head and the upper part of the trunk, were not unknown to the
Egyptians. All the descriptions mention the existence in the Ramesseum
of two colossal busts of Rameses II., the one in black, the other in a
parti-coloured black and red, granite.
It would seem that all the colossi were of stone, especially of the
harder kinds. Wood was used for life-size figures and statuettes,
particularly the latter. Terra-cotta coated with enamel was hardly
used for anything but very small figures. It was the same with bronze,
which was seldom employed in large figures. We do not know whether the
Egyptians in their days of independence made bronzes as large and
larger than life, as the Greeks constantly did. One of the largest
pieces known is the Horus in the Posno collection (Fig. 44, Vol. I.).
It is about three feet high. It forms a single casting with the
exception of the arms, which were added afterwards. The finish of the
head is remarkable, and the eyes appear to have been encrusted with
enamel or some other precious material, which has since disappeared.
The hands seem to have held some vessel for pouring libations which,
being of silver or gold, must have been detached at a very early
period. The execution recalls the finest style of the eighteenth
dynasty.
[Illustration: FIG. 235.--Bronze cat. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
The highest use to which sculpture can be put is the rendering of the
human figure, but Egyptian sculptors did not disdain to employ their
chisels upon the portraiture of those animals which were objects of
devotion in their country. We possess excellent representations of
most of these; the figure of a cat which we take from the cases of the
Louvre is an average specimen (Fig. 235). The lion was equally well
rendered. In the bas-reliefs we sometimes find him turned into a sort
of heraldic animal by the addition of emblematic designs upon his
flanks and shoulders (Fig. 236); but, even where he is most
simplified, his outlines and general movements are truthful in the
main. Sometimes we find him in full relief, modelled with singular
power and sincerity. This is the case with a bronze lion which must
once have formed a part of some kind of padlock, if we may judge from
the few links of a chain which are still attached to it.[272] Although
this animal bears the ovals of Apries, and therefore belongs to the
lowest period of Egyptian art, its style is vigorous in no common
degree.
[272] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, No. 1010.
[Illustration: FIG. 236.--Lion, from a Theban bas-relief; from
Prisse.]
The Egyptians were as much impressed as other eastern peoples by the
strength and beauty of these animals, which in their days must have
abounded in the deserts of Syria and Ethiopia. They were chosen to be
the emblems of royal courage;[273] a lion's head was placed upon the
shoulders of Hobs, and that of a lioness upon the shoulders of Sekhet.
Finally it was from the lion that the first idea of that fictitious
animal which the Greeks called a sphinx, was taken.
[273] At Tell-el-Amarna we find the lion marching by the side of
the king (LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, vol. vi. pl. 100).
"At first the sphinx can have been nothing but a lion placed to guard
the entrance to a temple. The combination of a man's head, which was
always that of a king, with a lion's body, must have been a result of
the national love for symbolism. The king himself, as represented by
this association of physical with intellectual strength, acted as
guardian of the building which he had founded. There was a radical
distinction between the Greek sphinx and that of the Egyptians. The
latter propounded no enigma to the passer-by, and the author of the
treatise, _Upon Isis and Osiris_, was in sympathy with his times when
he wrote: 'There was nothing behind the mysteries of the Egyptians but
their philosophy, which was seen as if through a veil. Thus they
placed sphinxes before the gates of their temples, meaning by that to
say that their theology contained all the secrets of wisdom under an
enigmatic form.' Evidently, the Egyptians did not mean so much as is
sometimes thought."[274]
[274] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. ii. p. 9.
[Illustration: FIG. 237.--Bronze lion, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
We have already reproduced many examples of what may be called the
classic form of sphinx, his head covered with the _klaft_ and his paws
extended before him (Figs. 41 and 157, Vol. I.). But the type included
several secondary varieties. Sometimes the forepaws are replaced by
human hands holding symbolic objects (Figs. 227 and 238); sometimes
the head of a hawk is substituted for that of a man. The animals which
form many of the _dromoi_ at Karnak are called crio-sphinxes (Fig.
205, Vol. I.), but the name is an unhappy one, because they have
nothing in common with a sphinx but the position. They are rams and
nothing else.
The Greek word σφίγξ is feminine. The sphinx with female
breasts is, however, very rare in Egypt. Wilkinson only knew of one,
in which the Queen Mut-neter of the eighteenth dynasty was
represented.[275]
[275] Upon the significance of the sphinx and its different
varieties, see WILKINSON, _Manners and Customs_, etc. vol. iii.
pp. 308-312. Wilkinson brings together on a single plate (vol.
ii. p. 93) all the fantastic animals invented by the Egyptians.
See also MASPERO, _Mémoire sur la Mosaïque de Palestrine
(Gazette Archéologique, 1879)_.
[Illustration: FIG. 238.--Sphinx with human hands. Bas-relief; from
Prisse.]
The Egyptians were not content with confusing the figures of men and
animals in their images of the gods, they combined those of quadrupeds
and birds in the same fashion. Thus we sometimes find wings upon the
backs of gazelles and antelopes, and now and then a curious animal
compounded of a hawk's head and a nondescript body (Fig. 239). Whether
such fantastic quadrupeds were consciously and deliberately invented
by the Egyptian artists or not, we have no means of deciding. In a
period when there was none of that scientific culture which alone
enables men to distinguish the possible from the impossible, they may
well have believed in winged and bird-headed animals with four legs.
For the Greeks of Homer's time, and even for their children's
children, the chimera and his kindred were real. They knew where they
lived, and they described their habits. In a picture at Beni-Hassan,
these imaginary beasts are shown flying before the hunter, and mixed
up with the undoubted denizens of the mountains and deserts.[276]
Such representations must have been common upon those objects--partly
manufactured in Egypt, partly imitated in Phœnicia--which the
enterprising inhabitants of the latter country distributed all over
Western Asia, and the basin of the Mediterranean. They had a large
share of that mystic and enigmatic character which has always been an
attraction in the eye of the decorator. They may have helped to
develop a belief that the curious beings represented upon them existed
in some corner of the world, and they certainly did much to form those
decorative types which have been handed down through Greece to the
modern ornamentist.
[276] MASPERO, _Les Peintures des Tombeaux Égyptiens et la
Mosaïque de Palestrine_, p. 82 (_Gazette Archéologique_, 1879).
[Illustration: FIG. 239.--Quadruped with the head of a bird. From
Champollion, pl. 428 _bis_.]
§ 7. _The Technique of the Bas-reliefs._
Work in low relief held such an important place in the affections of
the Egyptian sculptor that we must study its processes in some detail.
In the first place, it was almost invariably painted. Those
bas-reliefs which show no trace of colour may be looked upon as
unfinished.
Secondly, the depth of the relief varied as much as it could, from the
almost detached figures of the Osiride piers to the delicate salience
of the carvings upon the steles and tomb-walls. A few works in very
high relief have been found in the mastabas (Fig. 120, Vol. I.),[277]
but they are quite exceptional; the depth is usually from two to
three millimetres. It is the same with the Theban tombs. It is only in
the life-size figures that the relief becomes as much as a centimetre,
or a centimetre and a half in depth; articulations, the borders of
drapery, and the bounding lines of the contour, are indicated with
much less salience.
[277] See also LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part ii. pl. 11, and a tomb
at El Kab (_Eilithyia_). MARIETTE (_Voyage dans la
Haute-Égypte_, plate 6 and page 37) cites, as a curious example
of a bolder relief than usual, the scenes sculptured upon the
tomb of Sabou, especially the picture showing the servants of
the defunct carrying a gazelle upon their shoulders.
The processes used in Egyptian reliefs were three in number, one of
those three, at least, being almost unknown elsewhere.
The commonest of the three is the same as that in favour with the
Greeks, by which the figures are left standing out from a smooth bed,
which is sometimes slightly hollowed in the neighbourhood of their
contours. When limestone was used, this method was almost always
preferred, as that material allowed the beds to be dressed without any
difficulty.
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.
[Illustration: 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
knobs of flint and the petrified shells with which the sculptor's
chisel was continually coming in contact, must have embarrassed 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'Égypte, Antiquités_, 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 principal 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 illustrated, 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'être_ 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 _Hellenistic_, 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
entitled _Les Peintures des Tombeaux Égyptiens et la Mosaïque de
Palestrine_.
§ 8. _Gems._