Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/210

124 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. guished or divined, but there is a great difference between painted ornament which is subject to such damage and a woven hanging at any time before the threads of the woof have been discoloured and entirely worn out. The other defect in the system, is its uniformity. It is monotonous and confused in spite of all its Fig. 85. — Seti I. striking prisoners of war with bis mace. Karnak, Thebes. (Champollion, PL 294.) richness. It suffers from the absence of that learned balance between plain and decorated surface which the Greeks understood so thoroughly. In the Greek temples, sculptured figures had the more importance in that the eye of the spectator was drawn forcibly to them by the very limitation of the space reserved for