Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/324

 2 94 ^ History of Art in Ancient Egypt. 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 pre- dominant importance to that organ in the human visage which is the window of the soul." ^ 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-e4-Amarna, a queen who is waiting on Amenophis IV, is dressed in a long robe reaching to her feet, and yet all her forms ^ Ch. IJlan'c, Gra//i!iiai?r des Arts du r>e$s!ii. ). 469.