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Show GENERAL REMARKS ON ICONOGRAPIIY. 113 Shcmitic blood, suggests tho ethnologist. I do not dare to decide this question, but I simply state tho fact, that not only in Egypt but likewise in Greece, and later again at Constantinople, tho archaic representations were positively shorter; and that each successive canon of art ex~ondod tho logs as well as all the lower parts of the body in relation to the upper ones. 'l'hus the SclinunLian reliefs aro shorter than tho statues of .AJ:gina; which again arc shorter than tho canon of Polyclctes; whilst tho canon of Lysippus is still longcr.06 The barbarous figures upon the triumphal arch of Constantino arc so short that they resemble dwarfs; at the same time that tho human body under Jus tin ian and his successors becomes, on the reliefs, by full one-eighth too long. Contemporaneously with tho more elegant proportions of tho sta.. tuos of the Xllth Dynasty, tho column makes its appearance in Egyptian architecture. In the hypogca of Boni-llassan we behold even the prototype of the· :fluted Doric column.ll7 Tho bas-reliefs of this Dynasty arc more beautifully and deli cately carved than they ever were at other dates in Egypt; the movement of the figures is so truthful, and, in spite of the conventional formation of the eye, chest, and car, so artistically conceived, that we arc led to expect much more from the progressive development of Egyptian art than iL really accomplished. Tho glorious dawn was not followed by the bright day it promised. Art culminated under SESORTASEN J. [22 cont. n. o. ], tho splendid leg of whose granite statue is at Berlin. It was delicate and refined, but the feeling of ideal beauty remained unknown to tho Egyptian race, and the freedom of movement in tho reliefs was never transferred to tho statues, nor did the relief become emancipated from the thraldom of hieratic conventionalism in the doLails of the human body. The development of art ever continued to be imperfect and unfinished in the valley of the Nile. There are but very few statues of this period (XIIth Dynasty) extant in tho collections of Europe; monuments closely preceding the invasion of the llyksos, and therefore mor exposed to their ravages, belong to tho rarest specimens of Rgyptian art. 'l'ho (ineditccl) head of prince AMENEMllA, [11] governor of tho west of Egypt, in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, copied from his dark-basalt statue in the British Museum, and the portrait of king Nrwmt-IhTEP I., of the XIIIth Dynasty [Plate Vill, fig. 2, from tho .Denlcmtiler], may give those interested in these minute comparisons an idea of tho beauty and delicacy of that period, whilst with AMKNEMIIA even the 00 Sco principnlly K. o. MuLL•:u, IIandbttcll der Arclw:ologie, e 02-4, 96, 90, and 822; and PLINY, lfiator. Nat., xxxiv. 10, 206. OT LEPSIUS, Oolonnes-piliers en Egypte, Annal. do l'Jnst. Arch6ol., Romo, 1838. 8 |