A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 20

[221] _Description de l'egypte, Antiquites_, 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, Antiquites_, 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-egypte_, p. 208. It has been calculated that this colossus weighed about 1220 tons.

These statues were generally seated in the att.i.tude 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sociated in the sovereign power, he took the same pains as those of the early Empire to make a faithful copy of his august model.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Reorganisation du Musee de Boulak_.

[225] MARIETTE, _Notices du Musee_, 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-egypte_, 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 Reorganisation du Musee 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 G.o.d, 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 steat.i.te, now in the Louvre (Fig. 216), has been recognized as a portrait of this Pharaoh. Its workmans.h.i.+p is very fine.

[229] _Denkmaeler_, vol. vi. plates 91-111. The curious ugliness of this king is most clearly shown in plate 109.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Archeologique de l'Athenaeum Francais_, 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 Musee_, No. 902, and _Dayr-el-Bahari_, plates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sages 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 n.o.bility 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ddess nouris.h.i.+ng 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, _Itineraire_, 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 Phre, 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 att.i.tude, 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 n.o.blest bas-reliefs in the world. Seti was present in his own temple. His n.o.ble 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 chast.i.ty, 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 workmans.h.i.+p 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-egypte_, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.ds, 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 ill.u.s.trations 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-G.o.d, 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] _Antiquites_, vol. ii. p. 110.

In all these reliefs the princ.i.p.al 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 s.p.a.ce, and seem heaped upon each other in impossible fas.h.i.+on. 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.e.x.

G.o.ddesses 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 ?????? 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 att.i.tudes are truthful enough."[237] Our Plate XII. shows figures of the same general proportions, though rather better drawn.

[236] MASPERO, _etudes sur quelques Peintures Funeraires_.

Mariette, in describing this bas-relief (_Notice du Musee_, 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 egyptien_. Text, p. 418. This bas-relief has also been reproduced by MARIETTE, _Monuments Divers_, pl. 68.