EGYPTIAN PAINTING.
painting, like Egyptian sculpture, was subordinate to architecture. The painter in Egypt was employed to decorate the walls and ceilings of tombs and temples, and to give brilliancy to col umns, statues, and bas-reliefs, as well as to mummy-cases and funeral-steles. In this way the painter worked in intimate association with the sculptor, and under similar limitations. Bas-reliefs—at least, such as decorated the interior of tomb and temple—were not finished until covered with plaster and colored with the painter's brush. Even wooden statues which were enlivened with color were first covered with fine muslin, over which was laid a coating of plaster to receive the paint.
Thus painting in Egypt was essentially decorative; and, although it has given us many intricate and beautiful ornamental forms whose harmo nious coloring still excites our admiration, as an art it never freed itself from a dependence upon architecture, and in its more elaborate compo sitions always showed the influence of the fixed forms of sculptured relief. The Egyptian painter remained a mere colorist, an artisan working under directions and filling out the designer's outlines with certain designated or conventional colors. In this respect his work may be compared to that of a child who with a picture-book and a box of paints colors the vacant outlines according to his instructions.
/b-specti?e.—Under these conditions it was practically impossible that a sense of perspective, in our use of the term, should have been developed. The Egyptian makes no attempt to paint a scene as it appears to the eye, although in his own way he succeeds in laying before the spectator every portion of the story lie wishes to relate. If he pictures a lake surrounded by trees, the geometrical shape of the lake is exhibited and the trees pro ject from its sides. It matters little if the trees appear to be growing in a horizontal or a downward direction, so long as that state of things is indi cated which the painter wished to portray. In a similar way figures overlapping or placed one above the other tell us that they have been taken from the background; water is indicated by a series of superposed zigzag lines, and other similar conventions take the place of perspective. As soon as the picture-language is intelligible to us we read the meaning of an Egyptian wall-painting with feelings akin to those produced by a written language. What is lacking, in each separate figure as well as in entire compositions, is the indication of solidity. Treated with even 47 ma,ses of color, without light and shade or gradation of tone, each figure is as flat as if it moved in but two dimensions of space.
of this character did not stimulate an elaborate sense of color; a few brilliant tints sufficed. Painters' palettes have been found with spaces for seven pigments, which we learn from the monuments were red, green, bine, yellow, brown, black and white. Upon analysis made by
Dr. Vie the blue appears to be composed of a pulverulent blue glass made by yitrit\ ing the oxides of copper and iron with sand and soda. The yellow pigment was a yellow iron ochre. The mixture of these two gave green. The red was found to be a red earthy bole, and the white contained little else than a very pure chalk. 'rite black appears to have been bone black mixed with a little gum. The mummy-cases were covered with a resinous varnish which injures the tone of the colors, while the wall paintings without this varnish have remained through the centuries in remarkable preservation, though many of them are now being damaged by the smoke from travellers' torches. In his use of color the Egyptian painter does not strive to imitate nature. He cares for brilliancy of effect, and wishes his figures to be readily distinguished, so he paints the faces of divinities and kings in red, blue, brown, and even green. Men in general are painted brown, and women a lighter brown or yellow, but Semites are yellow, Ethiopians dark brown, and negroes black.
Queen Ta7a.—Our Frontispiece, representing Queen TaIa, wife of Amenophis HI., of the eighteenth dynasty, is a fine specimen of painted bas-relief. The coloring is of unusual delicacy, giving expression to the change in the appearance of a dark skin when seen through transparent drapery. The bat is a symbol of maternity, the ring held in its claws is an emblem of duration, and the two urcei arc insignia of royalty.
Evpression.—That the Egyptian draughtsmen saw clearly the outline forms of objects is evident from their ability to distinguish many varieties of animals and the several races of men with whom they came in contact. But the silhouette method which they pursued made it impossible for them to give to the human face any great variety of expression. The same fixed stolidity characterizes a Rameses in the chariot-scenes of Nvar as when seated on his throne or giving adoration to the gods.
The ancient Egyptians were doubtless not far removed in character from the cheerful, easily-amused people who to-dav lire upon the banks of the Nile. They appreciated the ludicrous side of life, as we may infer from the comic compositions in certain papyri preserved in Turin, London, and Paris. In these compositions, cats, rats, dogs, monkeys, goats, and asses are seen in such occupations as playing chess, shooting geese, or storming a fortress. Thus, by varying his subjects and placing them in unexpected situations, the painter evoked a sense of the ludicrous even NVith011t the variation of facial expression. (See /.'rontispicce, Vol. II.)