DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0136
TAINTING ON PANEL. 119
practised in Egypt more than 2000 years before our era, and
is one of the many proofs of Egypt having been the cradle
of various branches of knowledge long afterwards carried to
such perfection by the Greeks. But the conventional habits
of the Egyptians, who were fettered by prescribed rules, and
afraid of disregarding the veto of orthodoxy, prevented the
arts of painting and statuary from taking their proper place ;
so that they never arrived at a real representation of natural
events, much less at that highest branch of art,—ideal beauty ;
which the Greeks were the first to comprehend, and practise. Nor
did the Egyptians understand the beauty and true province of
bas-relief like the Greeks: in their battle scenes they attempted
to make a picture; and in order to obviate the confusion
resulting from a number of sculptured figures one behind the
other they placed them in all parts of the same field, regardless
of the sky, or of perspective, providing only against everything
which might interfere with the hero of the subject—the king;
who depended on colossal size, instead of art, for his import-
ance. But as they had not yet learnt to distinguish between
the province of painting and sculpture, great excuse may be
found for them ; which may not be so readily conceded to some
later pictures in stone, bronze, and other materials, of medieval
and modern times. In these two the anomaly of a landscape
background is the more unpardonable, as we have learnt the
beautiful and necessary eifect of aerial perspective, which
cannot of course be obtained in such materials.
Painters and sculptors held in Egypt a rank similar to that
of architects and professional scribes,—from which last they can
scarcely be separated. The same kind of wooden palette, or
inkstand, was used by the limner in drawing outlines, as by
the scribe in writing upon a papyrus (woodcut S6, fig. 1) ; and
the same kind of reed pen was employed for both purposes.
practised in Egypt more than 2000 years before our era, and
is one of the many proofs of Egypt having been the cradle
of various branches of knowledge long afterwards carried to
such perfection by the Greeks. But the conventional habits
of the Egyptians, who were fettered by prescribed rules, and
afraid of disregarding the veto of orthodoxy, prevented the
arts of painting and statuary from taking their proper place ;
so that they never arrived at a real representation of natural
events, much less at that highest branch of art,—ideal beauty ;
which the Greeks were the first to comprehend, and practise. Nor
did the Egyptians understand the beauty and true province of
bas-relief like the Greeks: in their battle scenes they attempted
to make a picture; and in order to obviate the confusion
resulting from a number of sculptured figures one behind the
other they placed them in all parts of the same field, regardless
of the sky, or of perspective, providing only against everything
which might interfere with the hero of the subject—the king;
who depended on colossal size, instead of art, for his import-
ance. But as they had not yet learnt to distinguish between
the province of painting and sculpture, great excuse may be
found for them ; which may not be so readily conceded to some
later pictures in stone, bronze, and other materials, of medieval
and modern times. In these two the anomaly of a landscape
background is the more unpardonable, as we have learnt the
beautiful and necessary eifect of aerial perspective, which
cannot of course be obtained in such materials.
Painters and sculptors held in Egypt a rank similar to that
of architects and professional scribes,—from which last they can
scarcely be separated. The same kind of wooden palette, or
inkstand, was used by the limner in drawing outlines, as by
the scribe in writing upon a papyrus (woodcut S6, fig. 1) ; and
the same kind of reed pen was employed for both purposes.