DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0092
EGYPTIAN ART
consistent scheme and—and this is the important thing—the aberra-
tions of individual works from the norm are more striking and more
important than the changes in the general tradition. Even so, this ape
remains something of an exception even in this exceptional art. As far
as my enquiries have gone no other animal figure quite comparable to
this in vitality and sensibility emerges in the millennia that follow.
If I am right, one explanation of the relatively unchanging quality of
Egyptian art is the fact of the relief and the wall-painting being so
closely bound to literature. But this one thinks need not affect the
sculpture in the round, and at an early period I suspect that this is true.
For there is another sculpture even earlier than the last—the “Ivory
King of Abydos” (50, 51), one of the pre-dynastic kings—and again we
are astonished at the clear imaginative grasp of the plastic rhythms. It
also is intensely vital; the way the old man’s head is sunk between his
shoulders is consummately felt, and note the subtle feeling which has
dictated the slight break in symmetry, the inclination of the head to one
side. Such a movement seized from life with a clear sense of its signifi-
cancewill not appear again in Egyptian art for something like 2000 years
and then only for a moment. Again there is no struggle with technique.
The artist has full and easy command of everything. See the free sensi-
bility with which the features are modelled without any archaic harsh-
ness. It is true that the greatest works are the least characteristic of
national limitations and style. This figure and the ape are not so very
evidently Egyptian, and we cannot postulate, even for this very early
period, a golden age, for most of the art is, like the palette, deadly polished
craftsmanship. Still these two statues (probably there were many more
which have not survived) remain to show what profound sensibility,
what serene plastic control some early Egyptians possessed. Sculpture at
all events was not yet frozen as hard as the relief.
But the frost was not long in coming. For in the portrait of King
Chephren (52), though there is great realism, it is of an external and
descriptive kind; there is no feeling of inner life and all traces of sensi-
bility in the handling have been polished away. The statues of these
< 56 >
consistent scheme and—and this is the important thing—the aberra-
tions of individual works from the norm are more striking and more
important than the changes in the general tradition. Even so, this ape
remains something of an exception even in this exceptional art. As far
as my enquiries have gone no other animal figure quite comparable to
this in vitality and sensibility emerges in the millennia that follow.
If I am right, one explanation of the relatively unchanging quality of
Egyptian art is the fact of the relief and the wall-painting being so
closely bound to literature. But this one thinks need not affect the
sculpture in the round, and at an early period I suspect that this is true.
For there is another sculpture even earlier than the last—the “Ivory
King of Abydos” (50, 51), one of the pre-dynastic kings—and again we
are astonished at the clear imaginative grasp of the plastic rhythms. It
also is intensely vital; the way the old man’s head is sunk between his
shoulders is consummately felt, and note the subtle feeling which has
dictated the slight break in symmetry, the inclination of the head to one
side. Such a movement seized from life with a clear sense of its signifi-
cancewill not appear again in Egyptian art for something like 2000 years
and then only for a moment. Again there is no struggle with technique.
The artist has full and easy command of everything. See the free sensi-
bility with which the features are modelled without any archaic harsh-
ness. It is true that the greatest works are the least characteristic of
national limitations and style. This figure and the ape are not so very
evidently Egyptian, and we cannot postulate, even for this very early
period, a golden age, for most of the art is, like the palette, deadly polished
craftsmanship. Still these two statues (probably there were many more
which have not survived) remain to show what profound sensibility,
what serene plastic control some early Egyptians possessed. Sculpture at
all events was not yet frozen as hard as the relief.
But the frost was not long in coming. For in the portrait of King
Chephren (52), though there is great realism, it is of an external and
descriptive kind; there is no feeling of inner life and all traces of sensi-
bility in the handling have been polished away. The statues of these
< 56 >