258 
EGYPTIAN ART. 
tures, referring to religious, historical, or domestic events. (See Spe¬ 
cimens, Nos. 169-181.) In sculpture, the artists worked in full relief, 
bas-relief very slightly raised, the projecting parts being kept as much 
as possible in one plane, and in a peculiar relief cut below the original 
surface, called cavo-rilievo, or intaglio rilievato ; in the full relief 
of stone, composition, and porcelain, the standing figures have a mass 
of stone between the legs reserved to support the figure, and the arms 
were not detached, but pendent at the sides, or raised to the breast; a 
plinth, resembling the side of an obelisk, was often placed behind, des¬ 
tined to contain the inscriptions. In metal and wood the arms and 
legs were detached. The hair is disposed in very regular masses of 
vertical curls, falling from the crown of the head; the eyes, eyelashes, 
and brows were represented prolonged to the ears, with shelly or acute 
lids; the hole of the ear was on a level with the pupil, the lips 
strongly marked, but expanding like the Nubian, the expression 
smiling, as in the early art of Angina ; the beard not spread along the 
cheek, but platted into a narrow mass of square or recurved form, 
with ribands passing to the cap. In bas-relief and cavo-rilievo, 
profile was generally used as more distinct and simple, the eyes were 
elongated with a full pupil, a peculiarity also of the earliest Greek art. 
The form is on the whole slender, the features calm and smiling, 
not betraying emotion ; the inner markings of the figure w 7 ere not 
given, and indications of muscular movement never fully developed. 
Great regularity, squareness, and repose, well adapted for architecture, 
characterize their art, w T hich occasionally exhibits the delicacy of a 
cameo. Portraiture was early knowm, and a conventional character 
of feature assigned to different divinities, who, however, are often 
made to resemble the reigning monarch. Three canons of Egyptian 
proportions are knowm : 1. The canon of the time of the Pyramids ; 
the height was reckoned at six feet from the sole of the foot to the 
crowm 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 is only 
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 tw T o 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 a 
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, No. 2279, 
and stone figure of a lion, No. 1462.) The canon and the leading 
lines were originally traced in red, subsequently corrected by the prin¬ 
cipal 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, 
