Part 4

They were real, but not realistic unless there was special necessity. I have repeatedly attempted to define the two chief schools of Egyptian sculpture, the Theban and the Memphian. From the beginning the Theban school tends to copy the model brutally, as it was at the moment when it was portrayed. Take the statues of Sanouosrît I or of Sanouosrît III, which lately came to the Cairo Museum. The family likeness between all of them is indubitable, but, according as they come from a Theban or Memphian studio, the features which constitute the complete resemblance are noted in such divergent ways that at the first glance we are inclined to think that it scarcely exists. The Thebans scrupulously marked the thinness of the cheeks, the hardness of the eye, the harshness of the mouth, the heaviness of the jaw, and have exaggerated rather than diminished those points. The Memphians do not neglect them, but have treated them in a more merciful manner, and, from the haggard faces in which the rival school took pleasure, have brought out the happy smiling expression that its own traditions ascribed without exception to all the Pharaohs. We cannot institute comparisons of that kind for the epoch of Mycerinus: the Theban school, if, as is probable, it was then in existence, still sleeps buried beneath the ruins, and we know nothing belonging to it to place by the side of the Memphian. It is sufficient, however, to walk through the rooms of the Cairo Museum reserved for it to be convinced that if the Cheîkh-el-Beled, the Chephrên statues, the royal couple of Meîdoum, the Rânafir statues are portraits and likenesses, they are at the same time idealized portraits according to the formula, the influence of which we have seen in the monuments of the XIIth Dynasty. Whatever the models presented that was too pronounced, was softened in order to give them the serene bearing fitting the imperishable bodies of such noble and respectable persons. They only departed from this routine when there were monstrosities, the entire suppression of which would have been fraught with danger for the immortality of the subject, as in the case of the two dwarfs in the Cairo Museum; but it is not quite certain if even in those cases some modification of the ugliness has not been contrived. What has happened to Mycerinus renders it probable: have we not seen, in fact, that the artist exerted his ingenuity to dissimulate the disturbing exiguity of the head by an artifice? And he must often have taken similar liberties, although we have no actual means of proving it. I will venture to assert it of Chephrên, although almost the half of one of his two statues, that in green serpentine, is a restoration by Vassalli. For if we compare their profiles, we notice that that of the serpentine statue is weaker than that of the diorite statue: the eye is smaller and the chin less authoritative, the tip of the nose recedes a little, and there is a slight resemblance with Mycerinus. The lofty dignity which I noted just now as appearing in the father in contrast to the son may be the result of the Memphians’ determination to idealize their subjects so as to make each of them an almost abstract type of the class to which they belonged.

As might be expected, the alabasters of Mycerinus are a long way from equalling the schists. Indeed, whenever we find statues of a person in different materials, it is seldom that those most difficult to work in are not also the best. Petrie concluded that in all periods Egypt had a school of sculpture in limestone and soft stones, and one in granite and hard stones. But who would think of classifying modern sculptors in different schools according as they used bronze or marble? In Egypt, as in later times, the instruction given to learners prepared them to practise the complete calling, whatever the special branch to which they later confined themselves might be, but as the handling of certain stones required a more extended practice, care was taken in the workshops to entrust them to the most expert. That is evidently what happened in the case of Mycerinus. His alabasters are certainly very estimable; but those to whom we owe them were not skilled virtuosi, and if they acquitted themselves of their task honourably, they only produced ordinary work. Those who executed the schists were much more skilled. I will not venture to assert that they entirely triumphed over their material: the bodies of princes and gods sculptured in matter so unyielding and of so gloomy a tone present a rigidity of contour which we feel as keenly as we do the lack of colour which would enliven them. They almost repel any one who sees them for the first time, but the repulsion once overcome, they reveal themselves as perfect of their kind. The artist has done what he wished with the ungrateful material, and has handled it with the same suppleness as if he had been kneading the most ductile clay. The women are especially remarkable with their full round shoulders, their small breasts placed low, the belly strong and well designed, the thighs full and graceful, the legs vigorous, one of the most elegant types created by Memphian Egypt. It does not equal the diorite Chephrên, nor the Cheîkh-el-Beled, nor the Crouching Scribe, nor the lady of Meîdoum, but it is not so far removed from them, and few pieces take so high a rank in the work of the old Memphian school.

III

A SCRIBE’S HEAD

OF THE IVTH OR VTH DYNASTY

(_The Louvre_)

The inventories give no indication of the origin of this head. So little was its source suspected that for a long time it was believed to be of Peruvian work: M. de Longpérier with his usual tact restored it to its rightful place in the Egyptian series.[12] At the first glance the style is seen to be that of the ancient Memphian Empire: it has evidently been detached from a statue found in one of the necropolises of Saqqarah. The absence of the plinth and the parts which usually bear the inscription prevents us from knowing the name of the individual it represents, a scribe contemporary, or very nearly, with the celebrated Crouching Scribe. A narrow and somewhat receding forehead, a long prominent eye slightly drawn up towards the temples, snub-nose, thin nostrils, accentuated cheekbones, thin cheeks, large mouth with full lips, a firm rounded chin, do not make a flattering portrait but certainly an exact one. The material is the excellent limestone of Tourah painted bright red: the technique shows delicacy and skill rare even at that period of admirable artists.

Almost all the statues of mere private individuals come from temples or tombs. The right of setting up a statue in the temples belonged exclusively to the king; so the greater number of those we have offer a special formula: “_Granted as a favour_ on the part of the king to a son of so and so,”[13] sometimes too the favour is qualified as _great_ or _very great_. It was then by some exceptional title, in reward of services rendered, or by a caprice of royalty, that an Egyptian was authorized to place his portrait in a temple, whether of his native city or of some other town, to the god for whom he professed a special devotion. The great feudal lords, who all more or less aspired to possess royal rights, sometimes took the liberty of setting up a statue of themselves without the preliminary permission of Pharaoh; but in spite of these usurpations of the royal prerogative, the number is relatively small. Civil wars, foreign invasions, the ruin of towns, the destruction of idols by the Christians, contributed to make private statues coming from temples rare in our museums.[14]

But, on the other hand, those that come from cemeteries are very numerous. Every tomb that was somewhat cared for in the ancient or new empire contained several which represented the defunct alone, or accompanied by the principal members of his family. They were not always placed in the same spot: in the IVth Dynasty they were sometimes placed in the outer court, in the open air, sometimes also in the chapel, where on certain days the family celebrated the worship of the ancestor. Most often they were imprisoned in a narrow chamber, with a lofty ceiling, something like a corridor, and for that reason called _Serdâb_ by the Arabs. Sometimes the _Serdâb_ is lost in the masonry and does not communicate with any of the other chambers. Sometimes it is connected with the funerary chapel by a sort of quadrangular pipe, so small that a hand can scarcely be inserted.[15] The priests would burn incense near the orifice, pour libations, present offerings, murmur prayers, and everything was supposed to penetrate to the little apartment. Some of these _Serdâb_ contained one or two statues at most, others would contain twenty. Some are in wood or hard stone, but the greater number are in painted limestone. Seated or standing, crouching or in the attitude of walking, they all claim to be portraits--portraits of the dead man, of his wife, of his children, of his servants. If they were more often found in places where they would have been visible, their presence would be explained by the pleasure members of a family would feel in seeing the features of those they had loved. But they are generally walled up for all eternity in hidden corners where no one would ever penetrate: we must seek other reasons.

The Egyptians formed a somewhat coarse idea of the human soul. They regarded it as an exact reproduction of the body of each individual, formed of a substance less dense than flesh and bones, but susceptible to the sight, feeling, and touch. The _double_, or to call it by the name they gave it, the _ka_, was subject, though in a lesser degree than its terrestrial type, to all the infirmities of our life: it drank, ate, clothed itself, anointed itself with perfumes, came and went in its tomb, required furniture, a house, servants, an income. A man must be assured beyond the tomb of the possession of all the wealth he had enjoyed in the world, under penalty of being condemned to an eternity of unspeakable misery. His family’s first obligation towards him was to provide him with a durable body; they therefore mummified his mortal remains to the best of their ability, and buried the mummy at the bottom of a pit where it could only be reached with the greatest difficulty. The body, however, in spite of the care taken in preparing it, only very remotely recalled the form of the living person. It was, besides, unique and easily destroyed: it could be broken, methodically dismembered, and the pieces scattered or burnt. If it disappeared, what would become of the _double_? For its support statues were provided, representing the exact form of the individual. Effigies in wood, limestone, hard stone, bronze, were more solid than the mummy, and there was nothing to prevent the manufacture of any number of them desired. One body was a single chance of durability for the _double_: twenty gave it twenty chances. And that is the explanation of the astonishing number of statues sometimes found in one tomb. The piety of the relatives multiplied the images, and consequently the supports, the imperishable bodies, of the _double_ would, by themselves alone, almost assure him immortality.[16]

Both in the temples and hypogeums, the statues of private persons were intended to serve as a support to the soul. The consecration they received animated them, so to speak, and made them substitutes for the defunct: the offerings destined for the other world were served to them. The tomb of a rich man possessed a veritable chapel to which a special body of priests was attached, formed of _hon-ka_ or _priests of the double_. At the sacramental festivals the _priests of the double_ performed the necessary rites, they looked after the upkeep of the edifice and administered its revenues. The statues of the towns themselves demanded particular care. Indeed, the clergy of the temple in which they were placed claimed their part in the advantages derived from ancestor worship: veritable acts of donation were drawn up in their favour, in which were specified the part they were to play in the ceremonies, the quantity of the offerings that fell to their share for the service rendered, the number of days in the year consecrated to each statue. “Agreement between Prince Hapi-T’aufi and the _hour-priests_ of the temple of Anubis, master of Siout, in regard to one white loaf that each must give to the statue of the prince, under the hand of the _ka-priest_, the 18th Thot, the day of the festival of _Ouaga_,[17] and also the gifts which every tomb owes to its lord; afterwards in regard to the ceremony of kindling the flame, and the procession that they ought to make with the _ka-priest_ while he celebrates the service in honour of the defunct, and that they march to the north corner of the temple on the day of kindling the flame. For that Hapi-T’aufi gives the _hour-priests_ a bushel of corn from each of the fields belonging to the tomb, the firstfruits of the harvest of the prince’s domain, as each commoner in Siout is accustomed to do from the firstfruits of his harvest, for every peasant always makes a gift from the firstfruits of his harvest to the temple.”[18] The ceremonial is set out in detail, and the monument tells us how, and under what conditions, a dead person is fed in Egypt. The loaves, meat and corn were placed in front of the statue by the priests: thence they reached the gods, who, after taking their part, transmitted the rest to the _double_.

We now understand why the statues that do not represent gods are always and uniquely portraits as exact as the artists could render them. Each was a stone body; not an ideal body in which only beauty of form or expression was sought, but a real body in which care should be taken neither to add nor take away anything. If the body of flesh had been ugly, the body of stone must be ugly in the same way, otherwise the _double_ would not find the support it needed. The statue from which the head preserved in the Louvre was broken off was, undoubtedly, the faithful portrait of the individual whose name was engraved on it: if the realism of the expression is somewhat brutal, it is the fault of the model, who had not taken care to be handsome, and not that of the sculptor, who would have been guilty of a sort of impiety if he had altered the physiognomy of his model in the least detail.

IV

SKHEMKA, HIS WIFE AND SON

A GROUP FOUND AT MEMPHIS

(_The Louvre_)

Skhemka lived at Memphis at the end of the Vth Dynasty. He was attached to the administration of the domains, and was buried in the necropolis of Saqqarah. His tomb, discovered by Mariette during the excavations of the Serapeum, furnished three pretty statues to the Louvre.[19] I knew the group reproduced here at a time when the coating that covered it had suffered very little; the galleries of Europe possess nothing to be compared with it for finish of execution.

I shall not say much of the principal personage: he possesses all the qualities and all the defects to which we are accustomed in the work of the sculptors of the Ancient Empire. The modelling of the torso, arms, and legs is excellent, of the foot mediocre, of the hands execrable; the head lives, alive and intelligent under the large wig, with its rows of braids one above the other, which frames it. The two accessory statues are charming in design and composition. On the left Ati, the dead man’s wife, stands leaning against the back of the seat embracing her husband’s leg. The face and limbs are painted yellow in accordance with a convention almost always respected in Egypt.[20] A layer of bright red denotes the tan that the sun lays on the men’s skin; the light yellow reproduces the more delicate shade induced by the indoor life of the women. The hair, parted over the forehead, falls in two masses alongside the cheeks. The sleeveless dress is open in front, and the opening extends in a point to between the two breasts: the stuff exactly follows the lines of the body, and the skirt ends a little above the ankle. The position of the breasts is indicated by a special design; all the rest from the waist to the feet is embroidered with ornaments in colour, imitating the network of glass beads to be seen in the museums.[21] A necklace with two rows and bracelets complete the costume. On the right, Knom, son of Skhemka and Ati, serves as a pendant to his mother: he is naked except for a necklace round the bottom of his neck and a little square amulet that falls on his chest. The grace and charm of the figures cannot be too much admired. Although of small dimensions, the artist has endowed them with the physiognomy and features suited to their age with as much exactness as if he had been dealing with a colossus. The firm flesh and rounded but muscular limbs of the woman in her prime, and the chubby flesh and soft limbs of the child, are treated equally happily. The mother’s face has a smiling charm, the son’s a naïve and wondering grace: the Egyptian chisel did not often work with so much intelligence and lightness.

The gesture with which each of the two small people embraces the leg of the big one is not an artifice of composition, a simple way of attaching the subordinate elements of the group to the principal one. It is often to be found in turning over the plates of Lepsius’s fine work.[22] The inscriptions repeatedly state of the wife that “she loved her husband,” and the artists reveal it in action. Seated or standing by his side, she puts her hand on his shoulder or her arm round his neck; crouching or kneeling, she leans against him, her breast pressed against his leg, her cheek leaning against his knee. And it is not only in the privacy of the home that she treats him with this affectionate abandon, but in public, before the servants or the assembled vassals, while he is inspecting his lands and reviewing his possessions.[23]

In the same way it is rare to find a personage without his children, “who love him,” at his feet or by his side, from the little, naked long-haired boy, like Knom, to the grown-up sons and married daughters. To sum up, the sculptor to whom we owe the Louvre monument has carved in stone a scene of contemporary life. He shows us Skhemka, Ati, and Knom grouped as they were every day: and what is conventional in his work is not the grouping of the three people, but the disproportion in stature between the husband and wife, and between the mother and son.

But here, again, he is only conforming to a prevailing tradition of his art. In all the tombs of every period, the master of the hypogeum is generally of the height of the wall, while servants, friends, sons, and wives are only of the height of one of the rows. The king, in the warlike paintings of the temples, is of colossal size, while the others, friends or enemies, beside him, look like a crowd of pigmies. In that case we might imagine that the difference in size showed only the difference of rank, but the explanation does not suffice elsewhere. A slave married for her beauty preserved something of the inferiority of her former condition; a princess of the blood royal, united in marriage to a private individual, did not therefore renounce her royal rank. If inequality of stature corresponded to inequality of rank, the sculptor would have made the first smaller and the second bigger than her husband. They did not, however, do that: slave or princess, they gave the wife a stature sometimes equal but more often lower than that of the husband.[24] Thus the treatment does not show social distinction; the woman was legally on the same level as the man. If the master of the tomb is alone in his height, it is merely because he alone is at home in the tomb, and it was desired to show in him the one master, the personage who must be protected against the dangers of the other world: so he was designed of large size, as we underline a word in a sentence in order to emphasize it.

In fact, the sculptor, in modelling his work, thought of the necessities of the life beyond the tomb. Skhemka’s wife living might be superior to Skhemka by fortune or birth, and so take precedence of him; before the dead Skhemka she was only a subordinate personage. Egyptian theology supposed, it would seem, that the wife was as indispensable to the man after as during life, and that is why she is represented by his side on the walls of his tomb; but, as she is only an accessory there, the sculptor and the painter are free to treat her as they understand the matter. If the husband demanded it, they gave both the same stature, seated them on the same seat, made no sort of difference between them. But if he expressed no wish, they could either suppress her altogether or relegate her to the background and give her the dimensions of her son, as they did with Ati, in order that she may lean against the seat on which her husband is enthroned.

V

THE CROUCHING SCRIBE

VTH DYNASTY

(_The Louvre_)

He was found by Mariette in the tomb of Skhemka in 1851, during the soundings which preceded the discovery of the Serapeum. He is now in the Louvre, in the centre of the “Salle civile” of the Egyptian Gallery, surrounded by show-case tables. His attitude, in conjunction with the unfortunate place assigned him, makes him look like a fellah dealer in antiquities seated in the midst of his goods, patiently waiting for customers. The red paint, which was perfect when he was brought to the Louvre, has worn off in places with the coating on which it was applied, and so the whity colour of the limestone shows through here and there; the cross light from the two windows falls on him in such a way as almost to efface the modelling of the shoulders and chest: ordinary visitors, for whom there is nothing to mark it, scarcely look at it, and pass it by in complete indifference to the fact that one of the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture is before them.