Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/346

 3i6 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. any one of its parts." ^ The idea of proportion, upon which every canon must rest, is a creation of the brain. A canon, therefore, is the result of those searching and comprehensive generahzations of which only races with great intellectual gifts are capable. Each of the arts may have its canon, or rule of proportion, establishing a proper relation between all the elements of its creations and easily expressible in figures. The finest examples of a canon as applied to architecture are furnished by the Greek orders. Given the smallest member of an Ionic or Doric order, the dimensions of all the other members of the column and its entablature may be calculated with almost complete accuracy. There is nothing of the kind in Egyptian architecture. There is no constant proportion between the heights and thicknesses of the shaft, the capital, and the entablature ; there is no constant relation between their shapes. In a single building, and in a single order, we find proportions varying between one hall or court and another. The word canon has an analogous sense when applied to sculpture. We establish a canon when we say that a figure should be so many heads high, and that its limbs should bear a certain proportion to the same unit. It would be the same if, as has often been proposed, the medius of the hand were erected into the unit of measurement, except that the figure would then be divided into a larger number of parts. Both ancients and moderns have investigated this question, but we need not dwell upon the results of their inquiries. The Greeks had the canon of Polycletus ; the Romans that of Vitruvius, while Leonardo da Vinci set an example to the numerous artists who have investigated the question since his time.^ Had the Egyptians a canon ? Did they choose some one part of the human body and keep all the other parts in a constant mathematical relation with it ? Did their canon, if they had one, change with time ? Is it true that, in deference to the said canon, all the artists of Egypt living at one time gave similar proportions to their figures ? It has sometimes been pretended that in each century the priests decided upon the dimensions, or at least upon the proportions, ^ DictioJinaire de V Academie des Beaux-Arts, under the word Canon. 2 These researches are described in the chapter entitled Des Proportions dii Corps Htwiain of M. Ch. Blanc's Grammaire des Arts du Dessin, p. 38.