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Show 118 GENERAL REMARKS ON IOONOGRAPIIY. on Egyptian art. It is at this period that tho misplacement of the Fig. 17. ear becomes habitual with statues. The elegant youthful RAMESSES of tho Turin MLlseum, and the excellent colossus fi·om tho so-called Memnonium at Thebes, (Belzoni's), now in the British Museum, are nevertheless well sculptured; reminding us of the better school of dcsi O'n · but the colossus at Mctrahonny b ' . • (Mcmphis),78 and principally the g1gantiC statues of Ibsambul,79 [17] begin to be heavy and incorrect, remarkable only for their monstrous size. The gradual decline is marked by the position of tho car: right on the earlier statues, it is too high at Me- RAMM~SEs II. trahonny, and resembles horns atibsambul. External grandeur, however, cannot make up for tho decline of artistic feeling and want of careful finish. If we examine tho monument of RAMESSE , we got hwolnntarily the impression that the artists of this period were always hurried on by royal command, without ever having sufficient time fully to complete thoir task. A sketchy roughness is always visible in the later works of RAMESSEB, blended with a conventional mannerism. .Art has doge:q.crated into manufacture. The reliefs of RAMESSES lid (X.Xth dynasty), and the following Ramcssidcs, together with tho monuments of SnESITONK, and his (XXITd) dynasty, arc still loss significant. They look dry and dull in spite of a more minute and laborious, but spiritless and potty execution. During the Sbomitic (or Assyrian) XXITd,8' and succeeding foreign dynasties, down to that called ./Ethiopian in Manetho's and otbor lists, [about B. a. 972 to 695] but evidently not negro, inasmuch as the reliefs of TmrrAKA are t' Caucasian" and somewhat Shcmitic,81 tho infusion of foreign blood and contact with foreign art wero still more dctl'imontal to the Egyptian style. Babylonian representations 78 DoNOMt, 'J!ran8actions of R. Soc. of Literature, London, 184.5 :- LEI•srus, Denkmiiler, Abth. III., bl., 142, e. b. To Cf. Lt:rsws, Op. cit., Abth. III., bl. 190. Tho best popular design of thQse four prodigious strLtuos is in DARTLE1'T's Nile Boat, 1849; the one most resembling Napoleon I. is that of RosF:U!NT, M. R., pl. VI., fig. 22; reduced in the above wood-out. Compare that in CHAm'OI.LtON's folio Monument8 de l'Egypte de la Nubie. 80 llntOJ(, 'J!rans. R. Soc. Lit., III. part I. 1848, pp. 164-70; LA YARD, Nineveh and its Remains, 1848; Discoveries in the ruim of Nineveh and Babylon, 1858; for ample oorroboratious :-confirmed by MARlE'rTN, Op. cit., pp. 89-96. 81 1'ype8 of .Afanki11d, figs. 69, 70, 71. GENERAL REMARKS ON ICONOGRAPIIY. 119 became fashionable on articles of toilet or furniture,-for instance on combs and spoons,-but indigenous art remained lifeless; the Babylonian innovations barren and without lasting results. It is worthy of notice, that about the time of the Bubastito (probably Babylonian) XXIId dynasty, a revolution occuncd likewise in hieroglypbical writing, a great number of ideographs havin()' a signed to them a phonetic vahw.82 Mariette's fresh discovery of tho never-before identified cartoucho of Boconoms, is also noteworthy in connection with this period of Egyptian annals.&J With the Saitic kings, (XA.'VIth dynasty, began 675 B. o.), a national reaction sets in, again accompanied by a new development of sculptUl·c, under PSAME1'IK I. and his successors. During this period of "renaissance," ovcry effort was mad to restore the infltitutions and idea~ of the long-buried IVth dynasty of CHEOPS. Tho fot·ms remain the old ones, but the details become more c1utrming though less grand than in the monuments of L11c XVIJth dynasty. The artists rectify the position of tho car, although extending it too much in the upper part; they abandon the convcn Lional :(i·amc of the eye; they study nature in pt·cforcncc to tho traditional canon; the forms of the human body become less rigid, the muscles are better rounded and more correctly drawn, and a naturali stic tendency supersedes the conventionalism of the preceding epoch of decay. Colossal statues arc still sculptured, but not of such monstrous proportions as undor RAMESSEs; at tho same tirno tl1at tho number of small, charming, sculptures, full of vigour and (J~gyptiau) grace, increases considerably. They arc easily recognized by their finish and sharp precision of workmanship; the aim of the artist being neatness and elegance; as distant from tho somewhat conventional gmndcut' of tho XV II Lh and XVTIIth, as from the refined delicacy of tho XIIth, or tho hon 'SL truthfulness of tho IIId and IVth dynasties. The following incclitcd head, now in the J.ouvrc, is a most excellent specimen of tho style of the Sa'itcs. It is of a g1·ccnish basalt, and was found broken oft' from tho rest of a full-length figure, by M. Mariette, amid some ruins of the Sc,.apoum at Memphis, in tho midst of fragments belonging to the XX:VJth dynasty. He gave a plaster-cast of it (now in my cabinet) to Mr. Gliddon, fr·om which the annexed wood-cut [18] has been drawn. No doubt as to its being a portrait; because tho Egyptian sculptor aimed always to reproduce individuality without idealizing, and possessed both oyc and hand to 82 llrnon, Oryst. Pal. Oatalogue, p. 243. 88 It is to bo hopecl tlmt tho muniliconco of Frnnco in fostering archroological di scoveries will, ere long, place us in full possession of these new data. • |