Secondly, the depth of the relief varied as much as it could, from the almost detached figures of the Osiride piers to the delicate salience of the carvings upon the steles and tomb-walls. A few works in very high relief have been found in the mastabas (Fig. 120, Vol. I.),[277] but they are quite exceptional; the depth is usually from two to three millimetres. It is the same with the Theban tombs. It is only in the life-size figures that the relief becomes as much as a centimetre, or a centimetre and a half in depth; articulations, the borders of drapery, and the bounding lines of the contour, are indicated with much less salience.
The processes used in Egyptian reliefs were three in number, one of those three, at least, being almost unknown elsewhere.
The commonest of the three is the same as that in favour with the Greeks, by which the figures are left standing out from a smooth bed, which is sometimes slightly hollowed in the neighbourhood of their contours. When limestone was used, this method was almost always preferred, as that material allowed the beds to be dressed without any difficulty.
Sometimes, on the other hand, the figure is modelled in relief in a sunk hollow, which is from half an inch to an inch and a half deep (Fig. [240]). This method of proceeding, which is peculiar to Egypt, was doubtless suggested by the desire to protect the image as much as possible. For this purpose it was singularly efficient, the high "bed" of the relief guarding it both from accidental injury, and from the effects of weather and time. It had one disadvantage, however, in the confusing shadows which obscured a part of the modelling. This process was used, as a rule, for the carvings on granite and basalt sarcophagi (Fig. [195], Vol. I.). It would have cost too much time and labour to have sunk and polished the surrounding surfaces. This method, when once taken up, was extended to limestone, and thus we find, among those objects in the Louvre which were discovered in the Serapeum, a stele of extremely delicate workmanship, representing Amasis in adoration before an apis. The head of Amasis is damaged, and we have preferred to give as a specimen the fine head of Rameses II., chiselled in a slab of limestone, which is also in the Louvre (Fig. [240]).
In the third system the surface of the figures and the bed, or field, of the relief are kept on one level. The contours are indicated by hollow lines cut into the stone. In this case there is very little modelling. There is not enough depth to enable the sculptor to indicate different planes, and his work becomes little more than a silhouette in which the outline is shown by a hollow instead of by the stroke of a pencil or brush. When more rapid progress than usual had to be made the Egyptian artist was content with this outline. Most of those vast historical and biographical scenes which cover the walls of the Ramesseum and Medinet-Abou (Fig. [173], Vol. I.), were executed by it.
Fig. 240.—Portrait of Rameses II., Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.
Most of our existing reliefs have come from tombs. In the mastabas their production was easy enough. The sculptor simply carved the faces of their limestone walls. But in the hypogea the difficulties were frequently great, and yet they were always surmounted. The bas-reliefs in such places were, as a rule, on a small scale. Consequently, the knobs of flint and the petrified shells with which the sculptor's chisel was continually coming in contact, must have embarrassed him in no slight degree. Whereever such unkindly lumps were found, they were extracted from the rock, the rough holes which they left were squared and filled up either with a cement which became very hard with time, or with pieces of stone accurately adjusted. In the latter case, the joints have been made with such care that it is very difficult to discover them. In some tomb chambers these insertions are so numerous that they make up not less than a quarter of the whole surface.[278]
As soon as the carvings upon the walls were finished, the latter were covered with a thin layer of stucco. This was hardly ever omitted; it was laid upon rock, cement, and limestone indiscriminately. It afforded a better and a more tenacious ground for coloured decoration than the naked stone.[279]
The principal place in these bas-reliefs is occupied by human figures, and after them by those of animals. The accessories, such as the landscape and inanimate objects are for the most part only slightly indicated, all the labours of agriculture are illustrated, but only so far as the action of man is immediately concerned. There is never more in the way of background than is absolutely necessary for the right comprehension of the scene.[280] The Greeks followed the same rule. In this respect the Egyptians were well advised. Their artistic instincts must have warned them of the true conditions of work in relief, which cannot, without the greatest peril, attempt to rival the complex achievements of painting.