Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/344

314 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. brought to completion with the sand or emery of the poHsher. No refinement of execution could be hoped for under such conditions. Every surface was flattened and every expressive ridge smoothed down, and the appearance of superficial finish thus obtained involved many sacrifices. The abuse of this latter process is one of the great defects of Egyptian technique ; but there was another, and, perhaps, more potent cause of failure. The method of writing adopted by the Egyptians, and elaborated at a very early date, must have had a greater effect upon their plastic arts than has generally been sup- posed. The characters employed by them, at least in monumental situations, were not merely symbols of sounds, as the characters of later syllabic or alphabetic forms of writing became ; they were direct images of objects. Practical requirements soon led to the simplification of such objects, to the suppression of all details beyond those necessary for identification. The figures employed were thus soon reduced to mere empty outlines. Shadow and colour, all those details which distinguish the species of a genus and the individuals of a species, were carefully and systematically eliminated. The sign which stood for a lion or a man, was the same for all lions and all men, although between one man or one lion and another there are differences of stature, of age, of colour, of strength, and of beauty. Now, in the early ages of Egyptian civilization, when the hieroglyphs in the Memphite necropolis were chiselled in relief, the same hand must have been employed upon the portraits of any particular inhabitants of a tomb and upon the inscriptions which accompanied them. Thus we find upon the panels from the tomb of Hosi (Figs. 174-6), that there is no appreciable difference between the technique of the figures and of the accompanying characters. The same firm and lively handling is visible in both. The images which play the part of written characters are much smaller than ^ the three portraits, and that is all. The crafts of scribe and sculptor were thus combined in one man ; his chisel traced indifferently funerary portraits and hieroglyphs. When the use of papyrus led to much and rapid writing, the two professions were separated. The scribe wrote sometimes with the kalem upon papyrus, sometimes with the brush or the point upon wood, stucco, or stone. But he always found enough to do in his own profession without combining it with another.