The Tales of Ancient Egypt (10 Historical Novels). Georg Ebers

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER VIII.

       Table of Contents

      It wanted two hours of midnight. Bright light was streaming through the open windows of Rhodopis’ house, and sounds of mirth and gaiety fell on the ear. Her table had been adorned with special care in Croesus’ honor.

      On the cushions around it lay the guests with whom we are already acquainted: Theodorus, Ibykus, Phanes, Aristomachus, the merchant Theopompus of Miletus, Croesus and others, crowned with chaplets of poplar and roses.

      Theodorus the sculptor was speaking: “Egypt seems to me,” he said, “like a girl who persists in wearing a tight and painful shoe only because it is of gold, while within her reach he beautiful and well-fitting slippers in which she could move at ease, if she only would.”

      “You refer to the Egyptians’ pertinacity in retaining traditional forms and customs?” asked Croesus.

      “Certainly I do,” answered the sculptor. “Two centuries ago Egypt was unquestionably the first of the nations. In Art and Science she far excelled us; but we learnt their methods of working, improved on them, held firm to no prescribed proportions, but to the natural types alone, gave freedom and beauty to their unbending outlines, and now have left our masters far behind us. But how was this possible? simply because the Egyptians, bound by unalterable laws, could make no progress; we, on the contrary, were free to pursue our course in the wide arena of art as far as will and power would allow.”

      “But how can an artist be compelled to fashion statues alike, which are meant to differ from each other in what they represent?”

      “In this case that can be easily explained. The entire human body is divided by the Egyptians into 21 1/4 parts, in accordance with which division the proportion of each separate limb is regulated. I, myself, have laid a wager with Amasis, in presence of the first Egyptian sculptor, (a priest of Thebes), that, if I send my brother Telekles, in Ephesus, dimensions, proportion and attitude, according to the Egyptian method, he and I together can produce a statue which shall look as if sculptured from one block and by one hand, though Telekles is to carve the lower half at Ephesus, and I the upper here in Sais, and under the eye of Amasis.”

      [These numbers, and the story which immediately follows, are taken

       from Diodorus I. 98. Plato tells us that, in his time, a law

       existed binding the Egyptian artists to execute their works with

       exactly the same amount of beauty or its reverse, as those which had

       been made more than a thousand years before. This statement is

       confirmed by the monuments; but any one well acquainted with

       Egyptian art can discern a marked difference in the style of each

       epoch. At the time of the ancient kingdom the forms were compressed

       and stunted; under Seti I. beauty of proportion reached its highest

       point. During and after the 20th dynasty the style declined in

       beauty; in the 26th, under the descendants of Psammetichus, we meet

       with a last revival of art, but the ancient purity of form was never

       again attained.]

      “And shall you win your wager?”

      “Undoubtedly. I am just going to begin this trick of art; it will as little deserve the name of a work of art, as any Egyptian statue.”

      “And yet there are single sculptures here which are of exquisite workmanship; such, for instance, as the one Amasis sent to Samos as a present to Polykrates. In Memphis I saw a statue said to be about three thousand years old, and to represent a king who built the great Pyramid, which excited my admiration in every respect. With what certainty and precision that unusually hard stone has been wrought! the muscles, how carefully carved! especially in the breast, legs and feet; the harmony of the features too, and, above all, the polish of the whole, leave nothing to be desired.”

      “Unquestionably. In all the mechanism of art, such as precision and certainty in working even the hardest materials, the Egyptians, though they have so long stood still in other points, are still far before us; but to model form with freedom, to breathe, like Prometheus, a soul into the stone, they will never learn until their old notions on this subject have been entirely abandoned. Even the pleasing varieties of corporeal life СКАЧАТЬ