aside those mastabas , alloted to their
masters by the king's favour, which, are
the actual work of the royal artists.
The groups of sculptured tombs follow
each other regularly enough in chrono-
logical order; the earliest, at Medum
and Dahshur, rose under the protection
of Seneferu , the next towards Gizeh,
in the shadow of the great Pyramids,
the rest on the sandy plateaux of Abusir
and Sakkarah, together with the Pharaohs
of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties; and,
as we descend from one group to another,
the scheme of decoration expands and
becomes more complex. In the first, at Medum and Dahshur,
the mastabas, colossal as they some-
times are in the mass, contain but
a restricted surface of ornamented
wall (Fig. 107). The draughtsman
has been content to make a choice
among the operations most favourable
to the future life; generally speaking,
these elements are, in addition to
the stele which has the dimensions
of a palace door, the procession of
domains bringing tribute, the voyage
in a ship on the waters of the West,
the sacrifice of the bull, the dead
man seated before the table awaiting
offerings, the principal scenes of
the obsequies, and nothing more.
They are spaced out widely, with
but few figures in each, and the
air circulates freely in them. The
62
FIG. 105.ā ONE OF THE LEAN
MEN OK MKIR
(Drawing- by Cledat).
f ("Y-
1 .>sĀ»;
m^-<.
\ -^
% \ ā
k
. kJL
FKi. 10*). ā ONE OK THE FAT MEN
OK MKIR (Drawing by Cledat).
MEMPHITE ART
FIG. 107.ā A WALL IX THE TOMB OF RA-
HKTKP AT MKOLM (After Petrie).
relief is fairly high, the modeiiiiiir precise ann supple, the writing
careful; each of the hieroglyphs is worked with as murh delicacy
as if it were an intaglio on a
precious stone , and to make
the colour more durable, they
are sometimes enlivened with
incrustations of stones or of
paste made of tinted glass. At
Gizeh, a few years later, the
tendency to enrich the com-
position is already perceptible;
it becomes more and more
marked under the Fifth Dynasty,
and under the Sixth, at Abusir
and Sakkarah, the entire book
of the tombs is in use. Here
the artist no longer contents
himself with an abridged re-
presentation of the actual rite
of sacrifice (Fig. 108) and of
homage (Fig. 109); he traces
at great length and with infinite
prolixity the cycle of operations leading up to the consummation ;
thus, dealing with stuffs and ornaments, he shows on the one
hand the reaping of the flax, the
stripping of the stalks, the spin-
ning and glazing of the thread,
and the weaving of linen; on
the other, the weighing of precious
metals, their fusion in the cru-
cible, the making of necklaces
and bracelets, and finally, the
delivery at the shop of chests
containing pieces of stuff and
jewels, introducing here and there
comical episodes which relieve
the austerity of the place, such
as that of the tame monkey who
has fallen out with a bearer of
offerings, and seizes him by the
leg (Fig. 110); there is, in fact,
no longer any limit to the number
of the pictures, save that of the
63
!Ā» r'
ā r^
>r
i>i4^
2^
_i i
FIG. 108. ā S.-URIFICE IN THE TOMB
OF PTAH-HETEP, AT SAKK.ARAH.
ART IN EGYPT
time or money allowed to the artist; and in order to multiply
them without unduly increasing the surfaces, the number of the
registers was augmented, and the inscriptions and figures crowded
together and piled one
above the other. The tombs
look as if they were hung
in the interiors with im-
mense tapestries, not an
inch of which has been
left bare, and if there
are unornamented panels
and chambers, it is because
death snatched away the
master before he had
finished his "eternal dwell-
ing". The effect upon the
modern spectator who
enters these sepulchres
for the first time is that
of stupefaction rather than
admiration. His eye, daz-
zled by the flash of colours
and the exuberance of
episode, fails to grasp
the whole; the general
theme escapes him, and
he perceives only the
amusing detail.
The whole is, however,
less homogeneous than he
might suppose, if he trust-
ed to his own impres-
sion. The small and medi-
um sized tombs were, no
doubt, decorated at a
breath, so to speak, and
we recognise in them the
hand of a single crafts-
man, or at least, the impress of a single enterprise; but this
is by no means true of the larger ones; in every period, but
more especially under the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, we find
in these from room to room, or even in the same room from
wall to wall and from register to register, enough characteristic
64
A W AM, IN" TMK TOMH OK
(Museum, Cairo).
MEMPHITE ART
peculiarities to show that one or more companies of craftsmen
co-operated. In the Tomb of Ti there is identity of work-
manship in the two chapels, and diversity in the corridor, the
FIG, 110.ā HUMOROUS EPISODE (Ml
Cairo). (Pilot. E. Brugsch.)
hypostyle hall, and the exterior portico; but the divergence is
of the kind we notice in persons formed in the same school,
and does not force us to the conclusion that there was a colla-
boration of two independent schools; we may rather suppose
that while the principal chambers occupied the most dexterous
chisels of the company, the less important rooms were left to
less skilful workmen. Such inequalities of treatment are more
strongly marked in the Tomb of Mereruka, and this is hardly
surprising, when we
remember that this
contained over thirty
chambers; three com-
panies at least shared
the work of deco-
ration, and if these
comprised some good
craftsmen , they had
also a proportion of
very indifferent ones.
The examination of
some thirty mastabas
scattered among the
sands of Sakkarah
enables me to affirm
the existence of five, and perhaps even six workshops, which
flourished under Unas and the two Pepis, each possessing its
65 F
-THE SCUT.PTOR PTAH-EXEKH.
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
ART IN EGYPT
FIG. 112.ā COW TURNING ROUND TO HER CALF.
own version of the Book of the Dead, its own fashion of posing
figures and distributing accessories, its own manner of preparing
the drawing and then of
attacking the stone, even
its special colour. Ob-
viously, these were not
the only ones, and others
existed which will be re-
vealed to us, when the
hypogea which are not
yet destroyed have all
become accessible , and
we are able to study their
technique in the originals,
and not only in pencil
sketches and photographs
which fail to express its
subtleties. Meanwhile, we
claim the right to assert that the differences exist solely in
slight degrees and that all were inspired by the same traditions;
they formed a powerful school , the seat of which was in the
Memphite plain, near the royal residences. A few of the masters
it produced are known to us, such as that Ptah-enekh, who re-
presented himself as the guest of Ptah-hetep, served by the
servants of his patron (Fig. Ill), and that other who, taking
advantage of an unoccu-
pied panel in the tomb
where he was working,
used it for his own por-
trait; seated before his
easel, his brush and his
pot of colour in his hands,
he paints industriously,
but he has omitted to
tell us his name. These,
however, are exceptions,
and the finest works of
the Memphite age have
no responsible authors,
as far as we are con-
cerned.
The examples known to us are, however, so numerous now
hat there is no longer any difficulty in defining the characteristics'
66
. I 13. ā I'KRSPKC'l IV
'JOMM OK J'TAII-III/
!ā¢ KKGISTKRS IX
(After Diimlchen).
MEMPHITE ART
of the school. In the first place, their technique is extraordina-
rily perfect, even in hastily executed hypogea, and we are in-
clined to wonder in our surprise, what
kind of discipline the heads of work-
shops can have accepted for them-
selves and imposed upon their pupils,
to produce such confidence and pre-
cision in the handling of brush and
chisel. The line with which they en-
velope bodies and objects is not stiff
and inflexible as we might think at
a first glance; it swells, diminishes,
and contracts according to the nature
of the forms it indicates and the
movements which animate them. Not
only do the flat surfaces contain the
summary indication of the bony struc-
ture and the large planes of the flesh,
but the muscles are suggested, each
in its place, by projections so slight
and depressions so delicate that we
fail to understand how the craftsman
can have produced them with the
poor tools at his command; the fine white limestone of Turah
could alone have enabled him to preserve them in a relief which
in par!:s is no more than two millimetres high. The science of
the composition is, unfortunately, greatly inferior to that of the
material execution.
In most cases the
participants in a
common action,
who would be in-
termingled by an
artist of our own
times, are ar-
ranged separately
one after another,
as in a procession.
Men or beasts, they
present themselves
in profile against
the background, their faces turned to the point of common
interest or attraction, save in cases where an accidental neces-
67 f2
FIG. 114.ā THK MKMPHITE FOR-
ML'LA. PTAH-HKTKF AND HIS
WIFE (After Prisse d'Avesnes).
FIG. 115.ā HERDSMEN' DRIVING BULLS. TOMB OF
PTAH-HETEP. (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
ART IN EGYPT
sity forces them to inflect some portion of the body in the
opposite direction, as when the reaper talks with his neighbour
in the interval between two strokes of his
sickle, or the cow turns her head to look
at the calf she is suckling (Fig. 112), or
the herdsman who is milking her; here the
head and neck are thrown back upon the
shoulder with such force that they would
be dislocated permanently if the animal
were thus posed in reality. When it was
impossible to bring all the figures to the
front without destroying the unity, and con-
sequently the ritual efficacy of the scene,
the artist made no attempt to fix their
relative positions by any artifice of drawing
or perspective, but planted them one against
the other, as if they had all been standing
upon the same vertical plane. The deceased
recognised the propriety of this device in
dealing with all the episodes of the posthu-
mous life and the details of sacrifice; but
he would not tolerate it in the vast pano-
ramas which professed to display to him
the sum of pleasures or occupations neces-
sary to his eternal happiness. The artist
decomposed these into groups which he
staged one above the other; those which with us would occupy
the foreground were placed at the bottom of the wall, and the
FIG. Il6.ā NEFER-
SESHEMPTAH WALKING
(After Capart).
ri<;. 117.ā I'.IJAWI- ()\ Illi; WATKR (Museum, Cairo). (Phot. K. Brugsch.)
more distant episodes at the top : boatmen quarrel on a pond
or a canal, fowlers snare birds in the thickets of the shore, and
68
MEMPHITE ART
carpenters build boats above the fowlers, while hunters press the
animals of the desert up against the ceiling (F'ig. 113). These
FIG. IlS.ā BRAWI. BETWT^N BOAT^rEX. TO^fB OF PTAH-HETEP. (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
are awkwardnesses which we should wonder to find persisting
among the Memphites, if we did not know that at the other
extremity of the Oriental world such consummate draughtsmen
as the Chinese and Japanese were long the slaves of conventions
no less puerile. It would seem as if when once certain habits
of seeing and transcribing the object have been contracted, the
eye of the races most susceptible of progress is for ever sealed
to other impressions, and that it becomes incapable of con-
ceiving representations more consonant with reality than those
which sufficed it in the beginning. The Memphite School, perhaps
the most gifted of those
which flourished on Egyp-
tian soil , accepted the
abnormal structure of the
human person imposed
upon it by its Thinite or
pre-historic precursors, in
default of knowing how
to present the truth cor-
rectly on a flat surface;
it continued obediently
to plant a head in profile
with an eye full to the
front, upon a bust facing
the spectator, and sur-
mounting an abdomen threequarters to the front supported by
legs in profile, and this formula, legitimised, as it were, by
69
FIG. IIQ.ā DANCERS IX THE TOMB OF ANKHMARA
(After Capart).
ART IN EGYPT
the talent of those who employed it, was perpetuated without
any modifications to the end (Fig. 114). Nevertheless, a certain
tW^^^^X-^-^^
^:^-i\^
fc^J
FIG. 120. ā CRAMMING GEESE, IN THE TOIiIB OF TI.
liberty of action is allowed in the case of secondary personages,
workmen, peasants, scribes, fishermen and hunters, servants and
slaves, whose mode of life necessitated attitudes that varied from
moment to moment, attitudes which the craftsman was not, in-
deed, always capable of expressing correctly, as in the case of
a man walking (Fig. 115), which he
has only succeeded in rendering by
dislocating the legs , or by violently
twisting the shoulder nearest to the
spectator and pressing it flat upon
the torso (Fig. 116).
These are faults very well calcu-
lated to repel the modern. But if we
make an effort, and force ourselves to
overcome this initial repugnance, it is
impossible not to be fascinated by
the merits we discover when we analyse
these awkward compositions. As the
decoration of the tombs did not, like
that of the temples, depict grave and
sedate personages, who could not un-
bend without disrespect to the majesty
of the gods, the artists who worked
on the former have allowed their figures
full liberty of action, and have drawn
them with a fidelity which astounds
the student, who, knowing how closely the Egypt of the past
resembles that of the present, is able to appreciate the truth
70
FK;. I2T. ā TIIK AfiKD
CHKHHKKN (Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
MEMPHITE ART
FIG.I22.ā RA-NKFER
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
of llieir observation. These ancient people
of the hypogea, intent on their tasks for
centuries, scribes or servants, shoemakers,
goldsmiths, joiners, potters, are with us still
in their offices or their sheds; we recognise
their manner of walking or crouching, of
preparing their work and handling their tools.
And if, passing from the towns where gesture
is apt to become constrained and the body
to become heavy, we note the outdoor pur-
suits which necessitate incessant vigour and
flexibility, could there be a more rhythmic
march or a more lively impulse than among
those reapers who advance in a line, cutting
down the corn (cf. Fig-. 20), or those moun-
tain hunters with arrow strung to pierce the
prey, or lasso coiled to entangle it (Fig. 113).
Take any one of the brawls between boatmen,
that in the Museum of Cairo (Fig. 117), or
that which we admire in the Tomb of Ptah-
hetep (Fig. 118). Three boats are engaged, that in the middle
against the two others, and while several
of the crew exchange blows , others
continue to work the craft. One is
planted firmly upon his left leg, his
chest expanded, his neck stiffened,
his hand thrown back vigorously behind
his head, and we await the blow with
which he intends to strike down his
antagonist; the latter, however, is
ready for him, and with his knee
against the prow, he thrusts his weapon
straight at his assailant's side. In the
Tomb of Ankhmara there are dancing
girls who, balanced steadily on the
right leg, bend back their bodies and
kick with the left foot above their
heads (Fig. 119). All the bodies are
strained, all the muscles work; the
figures straddle, lean back, thrust them-
selves forward , shove with the boat-
hook, stretching wide their arms or throwing back their legs,
and among all these violent attitudes, there is not one which
71
FIG. 123.ā THE BREWER
(Museum, Cairo). (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
ART IN EGYPT
FIG. IC24.ā WOMAN GRINDING CORN
(Museum, Cairo). (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
does not correspond accurately with the effort made. Our modern
sculptors might treat the subject differently; they could not
treat it better, and how
many among them could
render the aspect of
animals with so much
sincerity? Here, in the
Tomb of Ti, are ducks
and geese which their
keepers are fattening by
cramming them with large
pellets of some appar-
ently unsavoury com-
pound; the ordeal ever,
they are walking about
to get over their agitation
(Fig. 120). The artist has
noted the sex charac-
teristics so well that we
are able to distinguish
his males from his fe-
males by the carriage of the head or the outline of the body,
and in addition, he has marked the wagging of tails, the arching
of necks, the preen-
ing of feathers,
the stretching out
of beaks in which
they betray their
feelings, and their
delight at having
got over the evil
moment. The geese
of Medum are fa-
mous (Fig. 92), and
they show us what
painting might have
done if its fragility
had not discredited
it in the eyes of a
nation where no-
thing impermanent
was esteemed. The
sculptorhasrecount-
72
FIG. 125.ā HUSBAND AND
WIKK STANDING.
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
FIG. 126.ā HU.SBAND AND
WIKK SEATED
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
MEMPHITE ART
ed the life of the desert beasts with the utmost freshness of
design, showing the hare crouching behind a tuft of grass, the
hedgehog emerging from his hole to catch a grasshopper, the
gazelle suckling her fawn, the oryx in full flight and the grey-
hound pulling him down; as to the domestic animals, he who
has seen the Egyptian flocks of to-day returning from pasture,
the sheep and goats in dusty disarray, the donkeys trotting and
shaking their ears, the slow, ruminating oxen,
outlined in a dry silhouette against the slope,
has also seen at a glance the finest bas-reliefs
of Ti or Mereruka.
Statuary developed in a domain less vast
and consequently with less freedom of inspir-
ation than bas-relief. The attitudes between
which the utilitarian tendencies of religion
permitted a choice were of two kinds, and
these were determined by the condition of
the model: either he was noble, and his statue
represents him seated or standing, in the cos-
tume of his class, or he was of plebeian
origin, and in this case it showed him in
the most significant of his professional atti-
tudes. There were, however, exceptions to
this rule: it happened, perhaps, that some noble
attached to the King's household agreed to
be represented in a posture characteristic of
his office, and not in that proper to his rank,
while a low-born scribe or even an artisan
might claim the semblance of a person of
rank for his stone double. But in no case,
not even when workers were represented, was
it legitimate to give to statues those con-
torted and ill-balanced attitudes which abound in the bas-reliefs.
They continue almost invariably to observe the law of frontality,
a convention due, not to the incompetence of the craftsman,
but to ritual obligation. They confront the spectator, and the
top of the skull, the junction of the neck, the navel and the
fork of the legs are in a line on the same vertical plane, without
the slightest deviation to right or left. The Egyptians, in fact,
were a leisurely race, upon whom the fevers of our age would
have had little hold, and to them gravity carried to the verge
of hieratic immobility was the supreme mark of birth and autho-
rity. The effigy of the prince was expected to be what the
73
FIG. 127. ā HL'SRAXD
AND WIFE OF UN-
EyiAL HEIGHTS
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsdi.)
ART IN EGYPT
FIG. 128.ā THK MOST
FREQUENT TYPE OF
THE SEATED STATUE
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot E Brugsch.)
prince himself had been,
at least on days of cere-
monious reception, se-
rious, impassible, the
chin held high, the
bust upright, the thighs
parallel, and the feet
firmly planted on the
same line, if seated
(Fig. 121), or the left
leg advanced and all
the weight concentrated
on the right leg, if
standing (Fig. 122). The
plebeian and the slave
imitated the bearing of
courtiers and nobles,
and their images per-
form their tasks with
a calm and sobriety
scarcely inferior to the
composure of their masters, whether they
toil at the kneading trough (Fig. 123) or
kneel over the stone to grind corn (Fig. l24).
Women were treated according to the class
to which they belonged, and the king's
daughter or the great lady invested with
rights equal to those of her husband pos-
sessed like him, her independent image, or,
if they were associated in a group, she stood
(Fig. 125) or sat on the bench beside him,
laying her arm across his shoulders in token
of affection (Fig. 126). Nevertheless, as he was
the head of the family, round whom all the
other members gathered for worship, she
allowed herself to be represented either of
the same dimensions as he, but standing,
while he was seated on the chair of state,
or on a much smaller scale, her back against
the front of the scat, with her children, or
nestling affectionately against his leg (Fig. 1 27).
She is always clothed, but the boys and
even the men, both free and slaves, are
74
FIG. 129.
CHEOPS IN IVOKY
(Museum, Cairo)
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
FIG 1^0.
IVORY HAS-Ui;i.IKF
(Phot. Boununt.)
MEMPHITE ART
sometimes naked; this may have
been in obedience to some religious
prescription, or perhaps upon certain
occasions these nude figures were
dressed in real garments, like the
Madonnas of the present day in
Italy. Broadly speaking, it may be
said that there are only some fifteen
attitudes, some of which are very
rare, among this nation of statues
derived from Memphite tombs, and
it is hardly surprising that the
visitors to our museums should
end by feeling a certain weariness
as he confronts them (Fig. 128). This
is not altogether the fault of the
Egyptians; we ourselves are to blame
for having crowded together in two
or three gloomy rooms works ori-
ginally dispers-
FTO. 131. ā BT'ST OF A WOOPEX
STATIK (Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
FIO. T32.ā THE TWO
BRONZK STATIES
(Museum, Cairo).
(Phot. E. Brugsch.)
ed in a hundred different places. Those who
visit the galleries in the Louvre devoted to
Greek and Roman sculpture are sometimes
oppressed by a kindred sense of monotony
and disgust, in spite of the greater variety
of types and movements.
Stone was the favourite material , pink
or black granite, diorite, green breccia, schist,
red sandstone, alabaster, the white limestone
of Turah, and the Memphites cut the hardest
of these with a dexterity which amazes us,
when we remember that they had no know-
ledge of steel, and that their tools were of
flint, bronze, and untempered iron. It was
therefore no lack of manual dexterity which
caused them not to disengage certain statues
and groups entirely, but to keep them nearly
always with their backs against a rectangular
slab , which protrudes sometimes on either
side like a wall against which they are leaning,
and sometimes is reduced to the semblance
of a pillar terminating squarely at the level
of the shoulders or the neck, or in a point
75
107083
ART IN EGYPT
which is lost in the hair. They had no difficulty in suppressing
this buttress when they pleased, and if they generally retained
riG.T33.ā BUSTOFTHESTATUEOFPEPII.
(Museum, Cairo). (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
FIG, 134.ā HEAD OF THE STATUETTE
(Museum, Cairo). (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
it, it was out of respect for a tradition established at a time
when the artist would have feared to weaken his work and
diminish its chances of duration by
omitting it. They accordingly continued
to the end not to separate the arms
from the trunk, and to retain a solid
partition between the leg on which the
body rested and that which was in
advance. I am inclined to believe
that the types in which these imper-
fections occur are the most ancient of
those which were invented for the
double, but that, on the other hand,
those in which we do not find them
were created later, when the school,
after long practice, had so far gained
confidence in its strength as to discard
them. The ritual, though it regulated
artistic themes very strictly in the be-
ginning, did not define those of more
ecent mvention with the same rigour ;
76
FIG. 135. TIIK KHASAKHMUI
AT CAIKO. (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
MEMPHITE ART
FIG.I37.-STATUE XO.I AT
CAIRO. (Phot. E. Brugsch.)
great personages accordingly continued to be represented by