Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/112

 90 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. were not to be found co-existing in reality. But, with these reserves, we think it more than probable that the columns shown in their paintings have preserved the general aspect of the supports employed in those curiously elegant pavilions to which they belonged. The forms in Fig. 62 are explained, on the one hand, by the imitation of vegetable forms, on the other by the behaviour of a metal plate under the hand of the workman. The curve which was afterwards, under the name of a volute, to play such an important part in Greek architecture, was thus naturally obtained. It will thus be seen that during the Ancient Empire the lighter forms of architecture were far in advance of that which made use of stone. It possessed a richness and variety of its own, which were rendered possible by the comparative ease with which wood and metal could be manipulated, an ease which gradually led the artist onwards to the invention of forms conspicuous for their playful originality and their singular diversity. As for the quadrangular pier, with which the stone architecture of the Ancient Empire was contented, we are assured that it had its orio-in in the rock-cut tombs. In the oldest works of the kind in Egypt, the funerary grottos of Memphis, " these piers (we are told) owe their existence to the natural desire to cause the light from without to penetrate to a second or even to a third chamber. In order to obtain this result, openings were made in the front wall on each side of the door, and the parts of the rock which were left for support became for that reason objects of care, and finally took the form of piers. The rock over these piers was the prototype of the architrave." ^ It may be so. But, on the other hand, the pier of dressed stone may have had a still more simple origin. It may have resulted from the obvious requirements of construction. As soon as wooden buildings began to be supplemented by work in stone, it became necessary to find supports strong enough for the weight of stone roofs. Nothing could be more natural than to take a ^ Ebers, ALgypten, vol. ii., p. 186. All this passage of Ebers is, how- ever, nothing more than an epitome of a paper by Lepsius, entitled : Ueber einige /Hgyptische Kunstfornien und ihre Entwickehmg (in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy^ 187 1, 4to). This paper contains many just observations and ingenious notions; but, to our mind it is over systematized, and its theories cannot all be accepted.