Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/361

CHAPTER IV. PAINTING. ^ I. Te clinical Processes. Most of our observations upon Egyptian sculpture are applic- able to the sister art of painting. The conventions which form the characteristic originality of the Egyptian style were established by the sculptor ; but when the artist had to draw the outline of a form, and to fill it in with colour instead of cutting it upon the naked surface of the wall the difference of process did not affect his method of comprehending and interpreting his models. We find the same qualities and the same defects. The purity of line, the nobility of pose, the draughtsmanship at once just and broad, the ignorance of perspective, and the constant repetition of traditional attitudes are found in both methods. Painting, in fact, never became an independent and self-sufficing art in Egypt. It was commonly used to complete sculpturesque effects, and it never freed itself from this subordination. It never attempted to make use of its own peculiar resources for the expression of those things which sculpture could not compass — the depths of space, the recession of planes, the varieties of hue which passion spreads over the human countenance, and the nature and intensity of the feelings which are thus betrayed. We may say that it is only by some abuse of terms that we can speak of Egyptian painting at all. o people have spread more colour upon stone and wood than the Egyptians ; none have had a more true instinct for colour harmony ; but yet they never attempted to express, by the grada- tion of tone, by the juxtaposition or superposition of tints, the real aspects of the surfaces which present themselves to our eyes, aspects which are unceasingly modified by the amount of light or shadow, by distance and the state of the atmosphere. They had