DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0106
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
this. One day, as we discovered some scanty vestiges of
coloured pattern on the dress of the woman in our Family,
our first feeling was one of perplexity rather than pleasure.
We came to see, however, that the remains of colour had a
certain charm and with their help we succeeded in clothing
the figures without spoiling their beauty; it was an experi-
ment, one may say, in which the lack of material evidence
left plenty of play to the imagination in its attempt to supply
the figures with clothes. But even on this occasion we notice
a real and unmistakable difference between the texture and
colour of our group and that of Rahotep. The colour must
have been richer and more mobile and the layer of paint
much less thick. There was no crude naturalism about our
Family.
The supposition that this crudity was general is contra-
dicted by the Egyptians’ respect for laws which they can
never have disobeyed or their sculpture would never have
reached the height we know. In painting we speak of plastic
effect without thinking of sculpture, and mean to imply the
painter’s ability to convert a flat surface into space. But as
soon as the painter begins to take the idea of plasticity literally
the spatial magic disappears and painting becomes a banal
imitation of another art. In the same way we can talk of the
flatness of good sculpture when it converts objects created
in space into reliefs, and prize the pictorial play of light
without thinking of painting. The ancient Egyptians dis-
covered how to effect these changes. They taught the
sculptor compactness, the fundamental condition of sculp-
ture; and they practised this art in its entirety and brought
it to the height of perfection. Can we suppose that so
inventive a people offered perfection with one hand and with
the other deprived the finished product of its finality? That
is what we must suppose if we regard as typical the sort of
painting found on those two overpraised show-pieces. It is
credible, of course; what is not? One can imagine a clumsy
90
this. One day, as we discovered some scanty vestiges of
coloured pattern on the dress of the woman in our Family,
our first feeling was one of perplexity rather than pleasure.
We came to see, however, that the remains of colour had a
certain charm and with their help we succeeded in clothing
the figures without spoiling their beauty; it was an experi-
ment, one may say, in which the lack of material evidence
left plenty of play to the imagination in its attempt to supply
the figures with clothes. But even on this occasion we notice
a real and unmistakable difference between the texture and
colour of our group and that of Rahotep. The colour must
have been richer and more mobile and the layer of paint
much less thick. There was no crude naturalism about our
Family.
The supposition that this crudity was general is contra-
dicted by the Egyptians’ respect for laws which they can
never have disobeyed or their sculpture would never have
reached the height we know. In painting we speak of plastic
effect without thinking of sculpture, and mean to imply the
painter’s ability to convert a flat surface into space. But as
soon as the painter begins to take the idea of plasticity literally
the spatial magic disappears and painting becomes a banal
imitation of another art. In the same way we can talk of the
flatness of good sculpture when it converts objects created
in space into reliefs, and prize the pictorial play of light
without thinking of painting. The ancient Egyptians dis-
covered how to effect these changes. They taught the
sculptor compactness, the fundamental condition of sculp-
ture; and they practised this art in its entirety and brought
it to the height of perfection. Can we suppose that so
inventive a people offered perfection with one hand and with
the other deprived the finished product of its finality? That
is what we must suppose if we regard as typical the sort of
painting found on those two overpraised show-pieces. It is
credible, of course; what is not? One can imagine a clumsy
90