the visitor should rapidly close his survey of this chamber. These are
rude performances enough, and, as the visitor will see, bear a close
resemblance to those we introduced to him in the Egyptian rooms up
stairs. Mr. Long, while on the subject of Egyptian art, thus mentions
their paintings:--"Sculpture and painting were closely allied, both
among the Egyptians and in the old schools of Greece; and both arts
were intimately associated with architecture. Sculptured and coloured
figures formed in ancient Egyptian edifices the decoration and the
finish of the larger masses of the architecture which served as a
framework within which they were placed. The edifices, from their
massy forms and the magnitude of their component parts, were well
calculated to produce a general impression of grandeur; and this was
not destroyed by the smaller decorated parts, which were always
strictly subordinate to the general design, and were not, like it,
comprehended at a glance, but required to be studied in detail.
"Painting, in the proper sense of the term, that of the
representations of objects by colours on the flat surface, appears to
be an art of less antiquity than that of sculpture. The Egyptians
probably first coloured their reliefs and statues before they
attempted to represent objects with colours on a flat ground. But,
however this may be, paint was most extensively used by them, not only
in making pictures, properly so called, but in painting the surfaces
of tablets and temples, as well as colossal statues and sculptured
figures of all kinds and sizes. Indeed, an Egyptian temple, in its
complete state, bedizened with so many bright unmixed colours, must
have been rather a curious object, and would hardly, perhaps, have
pleased the taste of modern times; though, it must be admitted, that
the effect of these colours under a brilliant sun would be very
different from their appearance in such a climate as this. The
pureness, permanence, and brilliancy of Egyptian colouring are the
only qualities that we can admire; for they never, apparently,
compounded colours so as to produce a greater variety from the simple
colours. It has also been frequently remarked that they did not soften
them off so as to form various degrees of intensity, or to make any
attempt at contrasts of light and shade. This is probably true as to
the representation of human figures, which are coloured pretty much in
the same style that a child paints uncoloured engravings, making one
part all red, another all blue, and so on, without any softening of
the colours at their common boundary. But in the representation of
animals, as we shall afterwards observe, more care was taken in
softening and blenching the colours, so as to produce a better
representation of nature.
"The colours used in the painted relief, and on the stuccoes are
black, blue, red, green, and yellow; these are always kept distinct
and never blended. Of blue, they used both a darker and a lighter
shade. Red was used to represent the human flesh, apparently from its
being nearer the natural tint than any other simple colour; but many
of their colours were evidently applied with a conventional meaning,
for the representation of different races. The conquered people
represented in the great temple of Abonsambel, or Ipsambul, have
yellow bodies and black beards. In the grottoes of El Cab, the men are
red, and the women yellow. Black men also sometimes appear in the
paintings. The five colours above enumerated seldom occur all in one
piece or picture; but in this matter there is perhaps no general rule.
The Nubian temples have often a very rich colouring, as in the case of
one at Kalapsché, where yellow, green, red, and blue, have all been
used in painting the reliefs in one of the inner chambers; and in some
single figures in this temple we may observe all these four colours.
"The materials of which the colours were made would no doubt change
with the improvements in the arts; and after the Macedonian occupation
of the country, new colours, both vegetable and mineral, may have been
introduced. But the tombs of the kings at Thebes may undoubtedly be
considered as containing specimens of ancient Egyptian colouring, as
well as the painted reliefs in the oldest temples, and the colourings
about the ancient mummies. By a careful examination of these
specimens, we may attain a very adequate knowledge of the materials
used, and of the mode of applying them." The first of these frescoes
(169-170-1) are from the walls of a tomb of the western Hills of
Thebes. The tomb is that of a scribe of the royal granaries and
wardrobe, and the pictures represent the inspection of oxen by
scribes, a scribe standing in a boat, the registration of the
delivering of ducks and geese and their eggs. The fragment marked 175
represents an entertainment, with female instrumental performers; here
(176) an old man is leaning upon a staff near a cornfield; there (177)
is the square fish-pond woefully deficient in prospective; there is a
second entertainment (179), where the wine is freely circulating;
dancing is going on to music--the picture of a social evening enjoyed
thousands of years ago; and here, at a third entertainment (181),
servants are bringing in wine and necklaces--a kind of hospitality to
which, as regards the latter object, modern ladies would in no way
object. The ancient Egyptian ladies had their bouquets, their
ornaments, and their couches, and exacted a plainness of costume from
their servants, as in the present time. On passing south from the
Egyptian Saloon, between the two great lions, the visitor at once
gains the central saloon, but without pausing here, or turning to the
right into the tempting Phigalian and Elgin Saloons, he should proceed
rapidly on his way to the south-western extremity of the building, at
which point he will find himself at the entrance to the