Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/237

 1868.] Symbolical Coloring. 193 SYMBOLICAL COLORING. IN presenting a slight abstract of Sym- bolical Coloring, amounting, in- deed, to scarcely more than a hint, it is necessary to premise : that, from its very nature, no subject is so prone to fall into abeyance or disuse. Its repre- sentations are, in one sense, pictures ; yet, if not absolutely bound down to mere symbolical work, men soon acquire facility in executing and skill in judging pictures, which, in carrying art onwards to true representation, have the direct tendency, at first, to confuse, and finally to destroy any symbolical import in coloring. Were symbolical designs to be kept merely flat, something in the style of the Egyptian painted hieroglyphics, this subversive trend might be averted, as the nation capable of executing works of high art would also be capable of dashing off the ruder outlines of sym- bolic art, and the two kinds could not possibly be confounded. Many abbreviated styles exist in the papyrus rolls, and a few upon the mon- uments, of ancient Egypt; but, in the full symbolically painted hieroglyphics of the antique Copts, mostly found in the interiors of temples, or upon the walls of royal tombs — apart from their phonetic power as letters, to decipher which requires a knowledge, both of the ancient Coptic, and of the method of the Champollionists, to say nothing of the arbitrary rules governing the painter-scribe ; — we find, that, even if the general drawing has a stiffness referable to the infancy of pictorial art, yet that stiffness is the stiffness of convention, and does not really bound the national powers. The complexion and features of the natives of different countries, prisoners of war ; the form and color of the strange beasts ; the shape, mark- ings and hues of the foreign fruits of the earth ; are all given with a minute- ness of detail, with an unmistakable exactitude of resemblance, proving that while ancient Mtsr, or Misr, — the land of Mizraim, son of Ham* — abounded in good artists, they remained, generation after generation of them undeveloped, because their country only needed them as sacred scribes. And in fact the an- cient Egyptians used the same word slchai, for writer, painterf and sculp- tor. On the other hand, the men and women, the domestic animals, the im- plements and the indigenous fruits of Egypt were presented in a short-hand style, much resembling the best efforts of the western Indians, upon the flesh side of favorite bison-robes, or the first at- tempts of our own juveniles, with cray- on, chalk, charcoal, or whatever may come handy, upon books, wall-paper, or board fences. For both practices the reason is obvious. They were particular about the unusual, the re- mote, the foreign and the strange, be- cause concerning these it was desira- ble to give an exact idea to their own people; they were conventional, care- less and rapid about persons, animals and things Egyptian, because all their own people knew all about these. Whether elaborating or hurrying, they always drew in profile, except that they squared to the front the shoulders of men and women, and they do not ap- pear to have known any thing of the art of foreshortening. But, — as they de- picted nature only for the purpose of obtaining, either symbols or phonetic letters — the rules of perspective, whether linear or aerial, were not needed. Had they been, such good geometricians, as the primeval Copts, would soon have called Khem. f Including draughtsman. Skhai signified, as well, to write, to draw, to paint and to carve ; also writings, drawings, paintings and carvings or sculpture.
 * From whom all Egypt was by the ancient Copts