1819.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



75 



The works of the twelfth dynasty are remarkahle, as showing 

 the earliest example of columnar architecture in the world, — and 

 of architecture so like the Doric, that it has been named Proto- 

 Doi-ic. This seems to be fifteen hundred years older than the 

 Greek Doric. J\Ir. Fergusson asserts that these rock-cut columns 

 are copies of buildings, the parts which were of wood and of stone 

 being carefully copied in the rock cutting. Therefore, he does not 

 believe that rock-cut works are the oldest, but that they are copies 

 of earlier buildings; and he thinks the cuttings in Egypt, Petra, 

 Lycia, and India show this to be true. 



Another peculiarity of the works of the twelfth dynasty is that 

 the roofs are slightly coved, almost as if the use of the arch was 

 then known. Our writer thinks, however, that the arch was not 

 then known, hut the coving was made as being ornamental, or per- 

 haps to give lightness to the roofing-stones without lessening their 

 strength, — as indeed was afterwards done at Abydos under the 

 eighteenth dynasty. 



From the twelfth, Jlr. Fergusson passes to the eighteenth dy- 

 nasty, and he gives the architectural history of the several kings. 



The Hypostyle Hall, at Karnac, is the most splendid building of 

 any age of Egyptian art. It is smaller than the Amphitheatre of 

 Titus, or St. Peter's, but covers as much ground as the Temple of 

 Jupiter Olympius at Athens, the Temple of Peace, or Basilica of 

 Maxentius, and the cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, and Cologne. 

 It covers thrice as much ground as the Parthenon. Though not 

 one of the greatest halls, it is therefore great enough for artistic 

 effect. It IS a double square of 340 feet by 170, with a narrow 

 nave running between the two squares and lighted by clerestory 

 windows. On each side of the nave the roof is upheld by columns, 

 thickly clustered. 



The columns of the nave are 64 feet in height, and 30 feet round? 

 and do not stand in the same lines as those of the two sides, which 

 Mr. Fergusson thinks was done for artistic effect, as thereby tlie 

 extent of the building was better hidden. This effect is helped by 

 the nave, as we here term it, being put as a transept. In truth, 

 the hall at Karnac has the nave where the transept would be in a 

 Norman cathedral ; and on each side of the aforesaid transept- 

 nave, the building is filled up with columns. It is to be said fur- 

 ther, that this hall was only part of a great whole, the passage 

 through it being from the Nile to the Propylon beyond the palace 

 of Thothmes. 



On this building our writer says, the proportion of the points of 

 support to open ground is as 1 to 4 or 5j, so that it is not in that 

 way a work of high constructive skill. In mechanics, by multi- 

 plying power by time, or the contrary, we can, by the loss of 

 whichever element is of least worth, get a like quantity of the 

 other. A.like law, says Mr. Fergusson, is to be found in architec- 

 ture, where we can always get immense seeming bulk when we can 

 afford to give up real space; and, on the otiier hand, space can only 

 be got at the cost of seeming bulk. Thus, if every other column 

 at Karnac were taken away, many more people might stand in it; 

 but its seeming bulk would be lessened at least one-third or one- 

 half, its roof \vould be awkwardly low, and its wliole proportion 

 un)iieasing and bud. On the other hand, were the number of co- 

 lumns in Cologne Cathedral doubled, all its dimensions of height, 

 width, and length would be seemingly greater; but at the same 

 time, its proportions would be bad, — the height at least painfully 

 so, and it would be unfit fu<- a Christian church, or for showing the 

 ceremonies carried on vvithin it. He thinks that a further proof is 

 given by St. Peter's, where, with unparalleled linear dimensions, 

 the builders, from not following the true laws of di-awing, have 

 brought forth only a comparatively small-looking building. On 

 the other hand, Karnac has the greatest effect of any building of 

 like dimensions, and it could not be bettered. 



The whole of Mr. Fergusson's remarks on this building may be 

 read with much pleasure, for he applies his laws of criticism with 

 great freedom and fairness. He considers it with regard to fitness 

 and standing, and shows that it complies with all their requisitions. 

 It is, in truth, not the least merit of the Hypostyle Hall that it 

 is lasting, while the cathedral, without the hand of man, would 

 crumble away. Two thousand years have nearly gone by since 

 Karnac has been left in loneliness; and unless active powers of 

 destruction are used, two thousand years will find it nearly as we 

 see it now. 



We have already said how the Hypostyle Hall was lighted, and 

 the smaller buildings were lighted in the same way by a clerestory. 

 Our writer strongly thinks that the Greeks borrowed this from the 

 Egyptians, as they did so many other things, and that they fitted it 

 to their sloping roofs and more rainy climate in a way which he 

 shows when speaking of the Parthenon. Another thing the Greeks 



took was the peristylar temple, which the Mammeisi at Elephan- 

 tine shows to be one thousand years older than the time of the 

 Greeks. One of these small peristylar temples is near each of 

 the greater temples, and Champollion found out that they were 

 dedicated to the mysterious accouchements of the mothers of the' 

 gods. 



One section of the book is given to the carving and painting of 

 the Theban time, and it seems to us worth while to follow Mr. Fer- 

 gusson in some remarks he has here made, for he does not think 

 Egyptian art has been rightly judged or felt; and he says, our 

 judgment must not be by likening it to the art of the Greeks or of 

 any others, but by looking to the ends which were sought after, 

 and the skill brought to bear in doing this. 



Carving was in Egypt only a part of building, as it was in the 

 middle ages; in Greece and with us it is an art by itself. In 

 Egypt, statues always were — or at least always were meant to be — 

 in pairs, and never to be seen unless together with the buildings 

 and other works around them. In the palaces and temples we are 

 told the dromos of sphinxes, the obelisks, the colossi, the propyls 

 and its paintings, were all as essentially parts of one design, as the 

 base, shaft, capital, and entablature of a Greek column. To put 

 between the obelisks and propyla an attitudinizing statue, like 

 those of the Greeks, however good in itself, would have been, as 

 here said, a false concord. 



In Egypt, the architectural shapes of the colossi group well with 

 the neighbouring buildings, and give a oneness and wholeness of 

 design which, if at the cost of the art of the carver, add to the 

 greatness of the architectural effect. Colossi, too, were needed, 

 for a statue the bigness of life would have been utterly lost amid 

 buildings of such bulk as theirs. Mr. Fergusson dislikes Greek 

 colossi, which are only men made bigger, unless put on some 

 height, where they are made smaller to the eye. He says they 

 look like the giants, jotuns, and giant-killers of the children s 

 story-books, whereas the architectural shape of Egyptian statues 

 does away with this e\il. They are stiff and formal, but they are 

 likewise bulky and steady; no limb in work, no part standing free; 

 and the thrones on which they sit, and the pillar at the back, 

 add still further to the solidity of the mass. They seem built up 

 to last for ever. 



Notwithstanding this stiffness, the great end for which they were 

 made is never lost sight of nor given up, for they are all likenesses, 

 and so far as we can tell, striking likenesses; and they have a look 

 of stately stifl'ness which gives them a high bearing, far beyond 

 what the Greeks or Romans reached in such works. The great 

 Egyptian heads at the British Museum will show this when looked 

 at from afar. There is one raised over the doorway leading into 

 the Egyptian Hall, which seems like a half colossus, for the great 

 doorway makes as it were a body to the head; and when the head 

 is seen from the far end of the Hall, it has in its still look the 

 seeming and bearing of a god. 



AV'hat is here said does not bear on the statues of the gods, 

 where the carvers met with other obstacles. Mr. Fergusson gives 

 the reason of the symbolism which prevailed, without, to our mind, 

 helping tlie sculptor. The Egyptians for each attribute of the god- 

 head made a symbol, which was a new god, and as other attributes 

 were given to these, new symbols were made ; so that at length the 

 symbols almost superseded the oi-iginal form of the god. It may 

 be, that the likenesses of their gods were not meant to bi-eathe 

 devotion by their beauty or sublimity, but were tlieological tenets 

 shown in symbolical hieroglyphics, — understood by the initiated, 

 and looked on with awe and worship by the less taught believer. 



Painting, like carving, was in the hands of the Egyptians one 

 with the buildings on which it was brought to bear. What are 

 called paintings in Egypt were car\'ed in outline by the chisel, and 

 only heightened and eked out by the brush. Though sometimes in 

 tombs they are painted on the flat, in all the kingly works and 

 temples the outline is cut in or countersunk. This way was the 

 fitter for the Egyptians, as it was more lasting, as it never inter- 

 fered with the straight, bold lines of their buildings, the faces being 

 practically flat, and as it gave a sharp and good outline to the 

 figures. 



Our writer thinks there is the most likeness between the Egj'p- 

 tian painting and Gothic glass-painting. The Egyptians covered 

 their walls with historical paintings : our forefathers covered their 

 walls and windows with biblical paintings. One was a catoptric, 

 the other a dioptric way of doing the same thing. The Gotliic way 

 was the brighter and more shining, but the other \vas far better, as 

 more lasting and as giving the workman the wide spread of a great 

 unbroken wall. In three hundred years most of the glass-painting 

 has been broken; in three thousand years the Egyptian works are 



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