Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/142

 i2o HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. Even before the fall of Nineveh in 622, Syria had begun to escape from the Assyrian rule ; the Egyptian armies again began to appear within its frontiers, and in good time Cyprus was attached to the new empire founded by the Saite princes. This renascence of the political and military power of Egypt had a result at which the historian will feel no surprise ; over the whole eastern basin of the Mediterranean Egyptian fashions came into vogue and re- tained their prestige for some two hundred years, in fact until they were superseded by those of Greece. Even then the conflict was not decided in a moment. Down to the time of the Ptolemies Egyptian forms and motives retained much of their favour on the coasts of Syria and neighbouring countries. To this late period we are tempted to ascribe a figure or two, in which an Egyptian costume is combined with a freedom of handling that could only have been learnt from western example. But in the figures which most strongly recall the art of the Nile valley, there is nothing to justify us in supposing them to be copies of Egyptian models ; they are not pasticcios ; even if we were not warned by the stone, which is unmistakeable, we should not be deceived for a moment in thinking ourselves in presence of an Egyptian work, we should feel none of the doubts easily raised by more than one fragment from Phoenicia proper (Vol. I. Fig. 228). In Cyprus imitation was never servile, and yet in these later pro- ductions the model is more closely followed than in what we have called the Assyrian group. We find the flowing execution which seemed to us to reveal the secret influence of Egyptian taste, even in those monuments by which a quite different origin was at first suggested ; but here the similarity is not only in the general plastic conception and in the character of the modelling ; many of the Cypriot statues repeat the traditional attitudes and fashions of Egypt, with no more than such changes as are naturally caused by local wants and habits. When we pass from figures inspired by Assyrian to those made after Egyptian models, the contrast is very striking. No more long robes hiding all the natural contours ; in some statues we find the semi-nudity of Egypt the schenti about the hips, the bust, arms and legs, bare (Fig. 82) but more often the body is covered with a clinging, short-sleeved tunic, under which the forms are scarcely less visible than if they were nude ; the existence of this garment is only betrayed, in fact, by the edges at the neck and