Page:Woman in Art.djvu/31

 CHAPTER III

Ancient Types. Queen Hatasu of Egypt. Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. Facial Development from the Fayyum. Greek Ideals.

A Queen was she, in ages buried deep

By nature and by time, when men knew naught

Of spirit life or mind, but only will,

And ruins of her builded art alone

Survive her time.

We have said that representations of woman in art have registered for us the rise and fall of the peoples of earth; so for the types that serve the development there is a distinct line between ancient and pagan, types of early Christian and modern civilization.

Do not judge Princess Nefert and her husband, General Rahotep, who lived some 4500 B. C., by standards and ethics of the twentieth century A. D., rather by the ideals, the time, and the place of which she was a product. Let your imagination place her in her own environment where palm trees overhung the sacred river—a princess whose royal body was painted cream-color and draped in a gossamer stuff, or, judging from the limestone statue, sheathed in a white jeweled garment not unlike those in the fashion books of today. A slave waved a huge fan as her Highness glided through her columned palaces by the Nile. She belonged to the Old Empire when the intellectual status of the people manifested itself in the more rounded head, shorter chin, curved nose, et cetera. The manners, customs, costumes, and warfares are preserved on palace walls in glazed tile.

It is not a soulful art, but ingenious and delicately mechanical. The innate love of finery shows in the head-band set with precious stones, and the collar of jewels strung on gold wire. The feet are not sufficiently civilized to be out of shape. The body of the husband of this royal princess is painted a red-brown, Egyptian style. The cartouche or name-plate gives her name and rank.

Hatasu, of the eighteenth dynasty, was a queen of influence 2750 years later. Amelia B. Edwards tells us that Hatasu is called the "Queen Elizabeth of Egyptian history," an extraordinary woman in the annals of the East. A pylon records the fact that Tothmes I addressed his god Amen face to face, and this is what he said:

"Behold I make offerings unto thee; I prostrate myself before thee; I bestow the Red Lands and the Black Lands upon my daughter, Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, —living eternally—as thou hast done for me." 21