EGYPTIAN ART. 
25i 
cameo. Portraiture was early known, and a conventional character 
of feature assigned to different divinities, who, however, arc often 
made to resemble the reigning monarch. Three canon of Eg 
proportions are known : i. The canon of the time of the Pyramids ; 
the height was reckoned at six feet from the sole; of the feol to the 
crown of the head, and subdivisions obtain by one-half or one-third 
of a foot. 2. The canon from the 12th to the 22nd dynasty it onh 
an extension of the first. The whole figure was contained in a num- 
ber of squares of half a foot ; and the whole height divided into 
eighteen parts. In these two canons the height above the sixth foot 
is not reckoned. Tablet, No. 579, has a scale of some human figures, 
under the 12th dynasty ; and a board, probably the working drawing 
of a sculptor or painter, may be seen in Case No. 38, representing 7i 
figure of Thothmes III. 3. The canon of the age of the Psammetici, 
which is mentioned by Diodorus, reckoning the entire height at 
twenty-one feet and a quarter from the sole to the crown of the 
head, taken to the upper part. The proportions are different, but with- 
out any introduction of the Greek canon. (See the bust, Case 12, 13, 
and stone figure of a lion, Case 8, 9.) The canon and the leading lines 
were originally traced in red, subsequently corrected by the princi- 
pal artist in black, and the design then executed. ( See tablet, Eg. 
Sal., No. 579.) All objects were painted, both of architecture and 
sculpture, and gilding was occasionally employed. In their paintings 
the simplest colours, such as white, black, an ochrous red, blue, and 
yellow, were only used, green and purple being the introduction of a 
later age. The entire figure was surrounded with a black outline. The 
Egyptians worked in dark and red granites, porphyry, basalts, breccias, 
arragonite, limestones, sandstones, jaspers, feldspar, carnelian, glass, 
gold, silver, bronze, lead, iron, the hard woods, fir or cedar, syco- 
more, ebony, mahogany, porcelain, and ivory and terracotta. All 
objects are found decorated with hieroglyphics, from the most gigantic 
obelisk to the minute articles of private life. In connection with the 
history of the nation, three great periods of art may be distinctly traced 
in Egypt. 
I. The archaic style, reaching from the date of the earliest known 
monuments of the country till the close of the 12th dynasty ; in which 
the hair is in rude vertical curls and heavy masses, the face is broad 
and coarse, the nose long, and forehead receding, hands and feet large 
and disproportionate ; the execution rude, even when details are in- 
troduced ; the bas-reliefs depressed. This style continued improving 
till the 12th dynasty, at which period many of the monuments are 
finished with a purity and delicacy rivalling cameos. ( See the false 
doors from the tomb of Teta , Nos. 157, 157*; the small statue from 
the Pyramids , No. 70 ; and Tablets , No. 1 97 and following. ) 
II. The art from the restoration of the 18th dynasty till the 20th : — 
the hair is disposed in more elegant and vertical curls, a greater har- 
mony is observable in the proportion of the limbs, the details are 
finished with greater breadth and care ; bas-relief becomes rare, and 
disappears after Rameses II.; under the 19th dynasty, however, the 
arts rapidly declined. ( See the colossal head of Thothmes III ., No. 
15, Egyptian Saloon; the statues of Amenophis III., Nos. 14, 17 ; 
the statues and busts of Horus, No. 6 ; Rameses II . , Nos. 1 4— -96 ; 
