DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6551#0076
RETURN FROM UPPER EGYPT.
47
knee; the countenances are placid, the features those of
Negroes, the mouths prodigiously wide, and altogether
out of proportion. Over the portal of the Great Temple,
a row of grotesque Typhons form an upper cornice.
Mr. Wilkinson has justly remarked, that the doorways of
hoth the temples gradually diminish towards the sanctum,
in order, probahly, to assist the general effect by in-
creasing the perspective. The doors themselves must
have been of vast size, extremely heavy, and, probably,
made of metal; they seem to have been folding, and to
have turned on pummels, like the stone doors belonging
to tombs. It is obviously impossible, in their present
state, and by the light of a wax candle, to determine
precisely the original effect, which these mighty temples
may have produced: the Colossi do not, certainly, at
present, appear to advantage; but I am inclined to
believe that the Egyptians, like their pupils the Greeks,
well understood the principles of effect and of propor-
tion, and that the simplicity and immense size of these
gigantic figures, the grandeur of the door-ways, with
their enormous architraves and mouldings, assisted by
the beauty and variety of the coloured inscriptions, which
must have had the effect of tapestry, together with the
great size of the heroic figures, and the solemnity of the
four deities, seated in the obscurity of the adytum, must
have produced an effect more splendid and finished than
that displayed by any smaller buildings of plain unco-
loured stone, however beautiful their proportions and
exquisite the sculpture might have been.3
' It cannot escape observation that a great similarity exists between
the coloured stucco, with which the interiors of these temples have
47
knee; the countenances are placid, the features those of
Negroes, the mouths prodigiously wide, and altogether
out of proportion. Over the portal of the Great Temple,
a row of grotesque Typhons form an upper cornice.
Mr. Wilkinson has justly remarked, that the doorways of
hoth the temples gradually diminish towards the sanctum,
in order, probahly, to assist the general effect by in-
creasing the perspective. The doors themselves must
have been of vast size, extremely heavy, and, probably,
made of metal; they seem to have been folding, and to
have turned on pummels, like the stone doors belonging
to tombs. It is obviously impossible, in their present
state, and by the light of a wax candle, to determine
precisely the original effect, which these mighty temples
may have produced: the Colossi do not, certainly, at
present, appear to advantage; but I am inclined to
believe that the Egyptians, like their pupils the Greeks,
well understood the principles of effect and of propor-
tion, and that the simplicity and immense size of these
gigantic figures, the grandeur of the door-ways, with
their enormous architraves and mouldings, assisted by
the beauty and variety of the coloured inscriptions, which
must have had the effect of tapestry, together with the
great size of the heroic figures, and the solemnity of the
four deities, seated in the obscurity of the adytum, must
have produced an effect more splendid and finished than
that displayed by any smaller buildings of plain unco-
loured stone, however beautiful their proportions and
exquisite the sculpture might have been.3
' It cannot escape observation that a great similarity exists between
the coloured stucco, with which the interiors of these temples have