DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12609#0272
PROPORTIONS DETERMINED BY SQUARES. 247
Colour was employed by the Egyptian statuaries,
but to what extent is uncertain. Probably it was
usually applied only to particular parts, as the eyes,
eyebrows, and lips, and perhaps seldom to colossal
figures. We cannot suppose that granite statues
were laboriously polisbed merely to be coated with
paint. Those the size of life, in limestone, were how-
ever sometimes entirely painted, and fitted with glass
eyes.
Diodorus relates as a wonderful proof of Egyptian
skill, that when a statue was to be sculptured it was
customary to distribute it into 21^ parts, and assign
them to different artists; and that such was the
precision with which they worked that the parts
made up a perfect whole. This statement appears
to have been founded on a misunderstanding of a
practice, of which, as applied to relievo, actual ex-
amples remain. The smooth face of the wall was
divided by red lines into squares; these regulated
the proportion of the parts, nineteen being given to
the entire height of the figure; perhaps twenty and
a quarter included the crown or helmet. A similar
method was adopted in sculpturing capitals, and pro-
bably statues. Several of these drawings on squares,
ready for the chisel but fortunately thus left, have
survived two thousand years, as though to form a
commentary on the historian's remark.* Caryatic
* An example occurs in the soffite of the portico of the temple
of Kom Ombo in the Thebaid. See Description de l'Egypte,
R 4
Colour was employed by the Egyptian statuaries,
but to what extent is uncertain. Probably it was
usually applied only to particular parts, as the eyes,
eyebrows, and lips, and perhaps seldom to colossal
figures. We cannot suppose that granite statues
were laboriously polisbed merely to be coated with
paint. Those the size of life, in limestone, were how-
ever sometimes entirely painted, and fitted with glass
eyes.
Diodorus relates as a wonderful proof of Egyptian
skill, that when a statue was to be sculptured it was
customary to distribute it into 21^ parts, and assign
them to different artists; and that such was the
precision with which they worked that the parts
made up a perfect whole. This statement appears
to have been founded on a misunderstanding of a
practice, of which, as applied to relievo, actual ex-
amples remain. The smooth face of the wall was
divided by red lines into squares; these regulated
the proportion of the parts, nineteen being given to
the entire height of the figure; perhaps twenty and
a quarter included the crown or helmet. A similar
method was adopted in sculpturing capitals, and pro-
bably statues. Several of these drawings on squares,
ready for the chisel but fortunately thus left, have
survived two thousand years, as though to form a
commentary on the historian's remark.* Caryatic
* An example occurs in the soffite of the portico of the temple
of Kom Ombo in the Thebaid. See Description de l'Egypte,
R 4