Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/325

The Principal Conventions in Egyptian Sculpture. 295 are rendered with as much care and detail as if there were no veil between their beauty and the eye of the spectator (Fig. 247). An arbitrary combination of a similar character is employed by the Egyptian artist when he wishes to show a number of persons behind one another on a horizontal plane ; he places them vertically one above the other. The great battle pictures at Thebes are an instance of this (Fig. 13, Vol.1.). Enemies still fighting are mingled with dead and wounded into one confused heap in front of Pharaoh's car, and reach from top to bottom of the relief. The same con- vention is to be found in the ranks of prisoners, workmen, or Fig. 246. — Bas-relief from Sakkarah. Fifth dynasty. soldiers, marching over a flat surface ; they are arranged in a kind of echelon upon the field of the relief (Fig. 42).^ ' For other conventional methods, of a similar though even more remarkable kind but of less frequent occurrence, see Wilkinson, Mariners and Customs, etc., vol. ii. p. 295. The same ruling idea is found in those groups in the funerary bas- reliefs, which show husband and wife together. The wife's arm, which is passed round the body of the husband, is absurdly long (Lepsius, Denkmceler, part 11, plates 13, 15, 91, 105, etc.; and our Figs. 164 and 165, Vol. I). This is because the sculptor wished to preserve the loving gesture in question without giving up the full view of both bodies to which his notions committed him. One could not be allowed to cover any part of the other, they could not even be brought too closely together. They were placed, therefore, at such a distance apart that the hand which appears round the husband's body is too far from th.e shoulder with which it is supposed to be connected.