History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)Maspero, G. (Gaston)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)
Maspero, G. (Gaston)
Civilization, Ancient; Egypt -- History -- To 640 A.D.; History, Ancient; Middle East -- History
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from photographs by Insinger and
Daniel Héron.
When the draughtsman had finished his picture from the sketch which he
had made, or when he had enlarged it from a smaller drawing, the master
of the studio would go over it again, marking here and there in red the
defective points, to which the sculptor gave his attention when working
the subject out on the wall. If he happened to make a mistake in
executing it, he corrected it as well as he was able by filling up with
stucco or hard cement the portions to be remodelled, and by starting to
work again upon the fresh surface. This cement has fallen out in some
cases, and reveals to our eyes to-day the marks of the underlying
chiselling. There are, for example, two profiles of Seti I. on one of
the bas-reliefs of the hypostyle hall at Karnak, one faintly outlined,
and the other standing fully out from the surface of the stone. The
sense of the picturesque was making itself felt, and artists were
no longer to be excused for neglecting architectural details, the
configuration of the country, the drawing of rare plants, and, in fact,
all those accessories which had been previously omitted altogether or
merely indicated. The necessity of covering such vast surfaces as the
pylons offered had accustomed them to arrange the various scenes of one
and the same action in a more natural and intimate connexion than their
predecessors could possibly have done. In these scenes the Pharaoh
naturally played the chief part, but in place of choosing for treatment
merely one or other important action of the monarch calculated
to exhibit his courage, the artist endeavoured to portray all the
successive incidents in his campaigns, in the same manner as the early
Italian painters were accustomed to depict, one after the other, and on
the same canvas, all the events of the same legend. The details of these
gigantic compositions may sometimes appear childish to us, and we may
frequently be at a loss in determining the relations of the parts, yet
the whole is full of movement, and, although mutilated, gives us even
yet the impression which would have been made upon us by the turmoil of
a battle in those distant days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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