When the desire to imitate natural objects began to make itself felt in man he received his first drawing lesson from the sun. Morning and evening its almost horizontal rays threw his silhouette sharply upon the white rocks and walls, and nothing was easier than to fix the outline of the image thus projected with a piece of charcoal or burnt wood; after this beginning it was easy to imitate such a sun-picture either in large or in small. Such figures were of necessity profiles, as the silhouette given by a head viewed in front would be very uncertain and indistinct.
The profiles of men and of the lower animals must, then, have played a chief part in these early efforts towards design. In this there is nothing at variance with our daily experience. The back view need hardly be taken into account, and there are two lateral positions, the right and left profiles, against one for the front face. Finally, the fact that the front face consists of two parts which have to be kept in absolute symmetry with one another, makes it much more difficult of treatment by the novice. Even in the productions of skilful artists we often find that this symmetry has been missed. It is the profile that is first attacked by beginners in the art of drawing, and it is the profile which always remains most comprehensible for simple intelligences. The fellah who is present at the opening of one of those tombs which were constructed by his remote ancestors, at once recognizes the animals represented and the meaning of their attitudes and grouping. Wilkinson noticed this on several occasions. But if an European drawing be shown to the same man, he will be hopelessly bewildered by the foreshortening, the perspective, and the play of light and shade. He will no longer be able to distinguish a bull from a horse or an ass.
In their bas-reliefs, and in their paintings, the Egyptian artists made almost exclusive use of the profile,[290] but, by a singular compromise, we sometimes find it combined with an attitude of body which would strictly require a full, or at least a three-quarter face. The silhouette in its integrity seems to have been thought insufficient, and the desire to reproduce a more complete image led them to invent the compromise in question.
In Egyptian profiles the eye is drawn as if for a full face. It has been asserted that this is the result of profound calculation, that, "in spite of facts, the Egyptian painter chose to give predominant importance to that organ in the human visage which is the window of the soul."[291] We believe that the true explanation is rather more simple. While the lines of the nose and mouth are more clearly marked in the profile than in the front face, it is in the latter only that the eye is able to display its full beauty. When seen from the side it is small, its lines are short and abrupt, and the slightest change in the position of the head affects its contours in a fashion which is very puzzling to the unlearned artist. When a child attempts to draw a head it gives their true form to the lips and the nose, but in nine cases out of ten it draws the eye as if seen in full face; and art in its childhood did as children do still.
We find a similar want of concord between the trunk and the limbs. Feet and legs are shown in profile while the body to which they belong stands squarely facing us. Both the shoulders are seen in equal fulness, and the attachment of the arms is often faulty (Fig. [246]). Sometimes they seem to be broken at the shoulder. Again, the hands are nearly always in such a position as to exclude all doubt as to the number of fingers they possess.
It appears, therefore, that the artist chose the aspect which seemed to him the most natural for each part of the body. It was the resulting contradiction that was against nature. The feeling from which it sprang was identical with that which led Egyptian artists, to make what we may call "projections" when they wished to represent buildings. The fixed idea of the draughtsman was to show all the sides of his object at a glance, to exhibit details which in reality were partly hidden by each other. Thus we find that, in certain bas-reliefs, both clothes and the nudity which those clothes were intended to cover are carefully portrayed. In a bas-relief at Tell-el-Amarna, a queen who is waiting on Amenophis IV. is dressed in a long robe reaching to her feet, and yet all her forms are rendered with as much care and detail as if there were no veil between their beauty and the eye of the spectator (Fig. [247]).
Fig. 246.—Bas-relief from Sakkarah. Fifth dynasty.
An arbitrary combination of a similar character is employed by the Egyptian artist when he wishes to show a number of persons behind one another on a horizontal plane; he places them vertically one above the other. The great battle pictures at Thebes are an instance of this (Fig. [13], Vol. I.). Enemies still fighting are mingled with dead and wounded into one confused heap in front of Pharaoh's car, and reach from top to bottom of the relief. The same convention is to be found in the ranks of prisoners, workmen, or soldiers, marching over a flat surface; they are arranged in a kind of echelon upon the field of the relief (Fig. [42]).[292]