A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume I Part 12

The following woodcut shows the arrangement of supports, architraves and roof. These simple arrangements const.i.tute a complete system of construction which, belonging exclusively to Egypt, has had results upon which we cannot too strongly insist. Both roof and architraves being horizontal, all the pressure upon the walls is vertical. There is no force tending to thrust the walls outwards nor to affect the immobility of the supports.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--Egyptian construction, epitomized by Ch.

Chipiez.]

Consequently, if the proportions of the vertical and horizontal elements of a building, that is to say, its sections, have been skilfully determined, there is in the building itself no latent cause of disruption; its equilibrium is perfect, and can only be destroyed by external physical causes, by long exposure to the weather, by earthquakes, or by the hand of man.[104]

[104] The vertical support and the architrave form the two vital elements of an Egyptian building, which is therefore enabled to dispense with those b.u.t.tresses and other lateral supports which are necessary to give stability to the edifices of many other nations.

We see then that the first impression caused by the external lines of the architectural monuments of Egypt is confirmed and explained by further study. They are built, as said the Pharaohs themselves, "for eternity." Stability, in a word, in its highest and most simple form is the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic, the true originality, of Egyptian architecture.

This character is most strongly marked in stone buildings, but it is by no means absent from those built of materials created by human industry. Works in brick form the transition between the construction that we have described and that which we call compact. A stone roof is not often found, and the termination is generally a terrace in which wood is the chief element. In some cases the secondary parts of such edifices, and sometimes the whole of them, are covered in by brick vaults, and maintained by walls of a sufficient thickness.

Although the use of monoliths for roofing purposes was general in Egypt, it must not be thought that the architects of that country were ignorant of the art of covering voids with materials of small size, that is to say, of building vaults. There are numerous examples of Egyptian vaults, some of them of great antiquity, and, moreover, the Egyptian builders constructed their vaults after a method of their own. In spite of the facilities which they afforded, they played, however, but a secondary _role_ in the development of art. They were never used in the buildings to which greater importance was attached; they are introduced chiefly in out-of-the-way corners of the building, and in the substructures of great monumental combinations. This method of construction, being confined within such narrow limits, never resulted in Egypt in an architectural system;[105] neither did it give birth to any of those accessory forms which spring from its use.

[105] We may here remark that the modest dwellings of the Egyptian fellah are often covered by vaults of pise, that is to say, of compressed and kneaded clay. None of the ancient monuments of Egypt possess such vaults, which are of much less durability than those of stone or brick. We are, however, disposed to believe that they were used in antique times.

Egyptian vaults may be divided into two great categories, according to the method of their construction.

1. _Off-set vaults._ These vaults are composed of courses off-set one from another, and with their faces hollowed to the segment of a circle. (Fig. 74.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--Element of an off-set arch.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--Arrangement of the courses in an off-set arch.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--Off-set semicircular arch.]

If the face of those stones which, in the form of inverted steps, are turned to the void which has to be covered, be cut into the line of a continuous curve, the superficial appearance of a segmental arch or barrel vault will be obtained; but this appearance will be no more than superficial, the vault will be in fact a false one, because, in such a construction, all the stones which enframe the void and offer to the eye the form of a vault, are really laid horizontally one upon another, and their lateral joints are vertical. (Fig. 76.) When the units of such vaults are properly proportioned they are stable in themselves, and they have no lateral thrust.

2. _Centred vaults._ These are true vaults. They are composed of voussoirs, whose lateral joints are oblique, and radiate towards one centre or more. (Figs. 77, 78, and 79.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--Voussoir.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 78.--Arrangement of voussoirs.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 79.--Semicircular vault.]

This method of construction is very convenient because it enables the builder to utilize constructive units of very small dimensions, such as bricks. But this advantage has a corresponding drawback. These voussoirs thrust one against another and tend towards disintegration.

They are not stable in themselves, and in order to give them stability they must be kept in place by surrounding them with opposing forces which will effectually prevent their setting up any movement in the structure of which they form a part. This function is fulfilled by the wall in Egyptian architecture, which is consequently very thick, but the radiating arch never arrived at such a development in Egypt as to lead to the adoption of any contrivance specially charged with the maintenance of vaults in a state of proper rigidity. The Egyptians not only employed the semicircular arch; they made use, in a few instances, of the pointed form, and many of their underground buildings have roofs cut out of the rock in the form of a segmental vault. The fact that these sepulchral chambers affected the aspect of vaulted halls, can only be explained by the supposition that a similar construction was common in the dwellings of the living.[106]

[106] Another explanation has been given of the employment of the vault in subterranean work. Mariette believed the arch to be symbolic, to signify the canopy of heaven, the heaven of Amen.

One objection to this is the fact that the vault was not universal in tombs; some of those at Beni-Ha.s.san have flat ceilings, others have coves.

--5.--_Compact Construction._

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 80.--Granaries, from a bas-relief.]

The methods employed in what we may call _compact construction_ permit the use, in considerable quant.i.ties, of moulded clay mixed with chopped straw. This material was used in buildings which were h.o.m.ogeneous; it was poured into a mould formed by planks, which was raised as the work progressed and the mixture dried. But the material had little strength, and was far inferior to those modern concretes which have the density and durability of the hardest stone. The Egyptians do not seem to have been acquainted with concrete proper, and unburnt bricks did not differ essentially from pise. Such bricks, when placed one upon another after being imperfectly dried, combined, under the influence of the weather and their own weight, into one h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s so that the separate courses became undistinguishable. This latter fact has been frequently noticed in a.s.syria, by those who had to cut through the thickness of walls in the process of excavation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81.--Modern pigeon house, Thebes.]

If voids have to be covered in pise, one of those self-supporting curves which we have described under the name of vaults, must be made use of, and the vault must be constructed over a centring of wood. But we have no evidence that the Egyptians could carry the art of construction to this point in pise. On the contrary, we have good reason to believe that they generally made use of this material for the quiescent body of the edifice alone, and that voids were mostly covered with stone or wood. In a word, the Egyptians did not carry the use of artificial material far enough to form a complete system based upon it. They made great use of it, but only in a strictly limited fas.h.i.+on. It is only found in certain well-defined parts of buildings, which were never of any very great interest from an artistic point of view (Fig. 80). It deserved to be mentioned, if only for the frequency of its use in Egypt, in the private architecture of both ancient and modern times (Fig. 81), but it need not detain us longer.

-- 6.--_Construction by a.s.semblage._

Carpentry, or construction by a.s.semblage, played a considerable part in ancient Egypt, but, as may easily be understood, few traces of it are to be found in our day. Those edifices which were constructed of wood have, of course, all perished; but, in spite of their disappearance, we can form a very good idea of their aspect and of the principles of their construction. In the most ancient epoch of Egyptian art, the people took pleasure in copying, in their stone buildings, the arrangements which had characterised their work in wood; besides which, their paintings and reliefs often represent buildings of the less durable material. The constructive principles which we have next to notice, have thus left traces behind them which will enable us to describe them with almost as much accuracy as if the carpenters of Cheops and Rameses were working before our eyes.

We need not insist upon the characteristics which distinguish a.s.sembled construction from masonry or brickwork. The different parts of the former are, of course, much more intimately allied than in buildings constructed of large stones. Supports of dressed stone truly fixed with the plumb line are perfectly stable of themselves.

In both Egypt and Greece we often come upon a few columns still standing upright amid their desolate surroundings, and announcing to the traveller the site of some city or famous temple which has been long destroyed. But wooden supports have little thickness in comparison with their height, and the material of which they are formed, being far less dense than stone, cannot maintain itself in place by its own weight. It is the same with wooden architraves. The heaviest beams of wood will not keep their places when simply laid one upon another, and are in that matter far inferior to those well dressed stones which, in so many ancient walls, have resisted change with neither tenons nor cement to help them.

As a general principle, when wood has to be employed to the best advantage, and endowed with all the solidity and resisting power of which it is capable, the separate pieces must be introduced one into another (Fig. 82). But even when thus combined and held in place by mechanical contrivances, such as bolts and nails, they will never form a h.o.m.ogeneous and impenetrable ma.s.s like brick or stone. By such methods an open structure is obtained, the voids of which have afterwards to be filled up by successive additions, and these additions often take the form of what we call panels.

We may look upon the different faces of a wooden building as separate pieces of construction which should be put together upon the ground before being combined with each other. This process, though not always made use of in practice, is at least the most logical method for those who wish to make the best use of their materials. But even when thus put together, one of these single faces has not much more stability than each of its const.i.tuent elements. In order to form a rigid and stable whole, the several faces must be allied by reciprocal interpenetration at the angles.

It was necessary to call attention once for all to these general characteristics of wooden construction, because we shall hereafter have occasion to examine the forms and motives which stone architecture borrowed from wood in the case of other people besides the Egyptians. We must now determine the particular characteristics offered by the material in Egypt, as they may be learnt in the representations to which we have already referred.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 82.--Elements of wooden construction.]

When a wall has to be built of wood so as neither to warp nor give way, it is necessary to make use of a certain number of oblique members. This is one of the elementary rules of the carpenter's art, and to form an idea how it was applied in our own country it is enough to cast an eye over any of the wooden buildings of the middle ages or of the renaissance. The Egyptians were not ignorant of the advantages conferred by the use of these oblique members because they employed them frequently in their furniture; but they seem never to have introduced them into the construction of their buildings. All joints are there made at a right angle. They were probably led to reject oblique lines by their unwillingness to break in upon the simple harmony of vertical and horizontal lines which is the distinguis.h.i.+ng principle of all their architecture. Thus self-deprived of a valuable resource, they were driven to the discovery of some other means of giving the required cohesion and stability to their walls. This requirement they thought they had fulfilled in exaggerating the points of connection between the vertical and horizontal members, which were thus brought into more intimate relation than would in these days be thought necessary.[107] The consequence of this was that their wooden buildings presented much the same closed appearance (Fig. 83) as we have already noticed in their stone constructions; and, moreover, as every joint was made at right angles, the pyramidal form was entirely absent.

[107] In this respect there is a striking resemblance between Egyptian carpentry (see Fig. 83), and much of the joinery of the modern j.a.panese.--ED.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 83.--Wooden building (first system), composed by Charles Chipiez.[108]]

[108] In this figure we have attempted to give some notion of what a wooden building must have been like in ancient Egypt, judging from the imitations of a.s.sembled construction which have been found in the tombs and sarcophagi of the ancient empire.

But the Egyptians also made use of wood for buildings very different from those to which we have hitherto alluded. Those were closed; but we have now to speak of another system, of one which, by contrast, might be called an open system of construction. The edifices upon which it was employed were generally of small size, and in this respect resembled those which we have described, but they were distinguished by a different system of carpentering. We know them only by the figured representations which have come down to us, for they were little calculated to outlast the centuries (Fig. 84). This second system lends itself as little as the first to pyramidal and kindred forms; horizontal lines, also, were in it of but secondary importance.

Composed of a few vertical members bound together at the top, such a building was allied to the portico type which has already been described. This method of carpentry seems to have been used only for subordinate buildings; but yet it should not be pa.s.sed by in silence.

It was frequently used for the construction of light decorative pavilions, and it had a set of principles which are as susceptible of definition as those of the most ambitious architecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 84.--Wooden building (second system), composed by Charles Chipiez.]

Metal must have entered into the construction of these pavilions. It may have furnished either the horizontal or the vertical members, and it is certain that it was partly used for the roofs.

In all wooden structures the roof must also be of wood, because the light walls which are proper to the material could not support the great weight of a flat stone covering, still less could they stand up against the combined weight and thrust of a stone or brick vault, which would destroy them in very summary fas.h.i.+on.

-- 7.--_Decoration._

We have hitherto described Egyptian architecture according to the general character of its forms and principles of construction; we must now attempt to give a true idea of its method of decoration. This may be described in a very few words. For the decoration of the vast surfaces, either plain or curved, which their style of architecture placed at their disposal, the Egyptians made use of paint. They overlaid with a rich system of colour the whole inside and outside of their buildings, and that with no desire to accentuate, by a carefully balanced set of tones, the great constructive lines, contours and mouldings, nor with any wish to produce merely a complicated, polychromatic ornamentation. Groups of figures borrowed from the animal and vegetable kingdoms form its chief const.i.tuents. In these picture decorations, man is seen in every att.i.tude or vocation, side by side with birds, fishes and quadrupeds, and with those composite forms which have been created by himself to represent his G.o.ds.

Intaglio and bas-relief often lend their help to the ornament. Images and explanatory inscriptions are sometimes cut in the stone, sometimes modelled in slight relief; but in either case all figures are distinguished by their proper colour as well as by the carved or modelled outlines.

It will thus be seen that Egyptian decoration is distinguished by the intimate and constant alliance of two elements which are often separated in that of other races. The first is the employment of colour to give variety to surfaces and to distinguish different members of the architecture by the opposition of tones. The second is the employment of colour for the representation of life, for which purpose every surface is seized upon, whether the face of a wall, or the round shaft of a column. The decorator is not satisfied to use colour to give force to the lines of a building and to increase its general effect; he also makes use of it to interpret, to multiply, and to immortalize the ideas which float through his own brain. A building thus ornamented presents us with a series of pictures embodied in its own const.i.tution. From cornice to foundation, upon wall and column, it is covered with an unending series of wall paintings, which, like a gorgeous tapestry, envelop and embellish it without hiding any of the details of its construction.

The polychromatic decoration of the Egyptians is to be explained, like that of the a.s.syrians, of the Greeks, of the Italians, and of all other southern nations, by the quality and quant.i.ty of their daylight and the way in which it affected their visual organs. The more intense the light, the more pleasure does the eye receive from strength and variety of colour. The science of optics gives us an explanation of this fact, but at present we are concerned only with the fact itself, which is a matter of daily experience. It is notorious that the colours of birds and b.u.t.terflies, and of the petals of flowers, become brighter and gayer in exact proportion as we near the equator and leave the pole;[109] the same rule holds good with the habitations of mankind, with his clothes and furniture, which become more brilliant in colour, and more audaciously abrupt in their transitions from one hue to another. Delicate shades of difference are imperceptible by an eye blinded with the southern sun; it sees nothing but the simplest, strongest, and frankest colour notes to the exclusion of all half-tint.[110]