Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/317

 The Technique of the Bas-reliefs. 2S7 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.^ 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 indis- criminately. It afforded a better and a more tenacious ground for coloured decoration than the naked stone. - 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. '^ 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. To this practice we might suggest a few exceptions, in certain chiselled pictures at Tell-el-Amarna, and even Thebes itself, in which the artist seems to have amused himself by reproducing the beauties of nature, of groves and gardens surrounding palaces and humbler dwellings, partly for their own sake, partly attracted by some unwonted aspects of the scene which seem to have been borrowed from neiehbourino- countries. In most cases the Egyptian sculptor made man the centre and 7'aison d'etre of his work, and yet, here and there, he shows himself curiously solicitous as to the eftective arrangement of the scene 1 Description de VEgypte, Antiqiiites, vol. iii. p. 42. - Belzoni {Narrative of the Operations^ etc. pp. 343-365) mentions the presence of this stucco upon the colossi of Rameses at Ipsamboul as well as on the walls of the tombs in the Bab el-Molouk. 3 This point is very well brought out by Rhixd {Thebes, its Tombs ami their Tenants, etc., pp. 24-25).