Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/205

 Decoration. 119 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 sub- ordinate buildings ; but yet it should not be passed 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. 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 fashion. § 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 buildinfjs, 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 constituents. In these picture decora- tions, man is seen in every attitude or vocation, side by side with