Volume II Part 10 (2/2)

The first attempt to imitate these natural forms would be made in wood and metal, substances which would lend themselves to the unpractised moulder more readily than stone, but in time the difficulties of the latter rooves cut in the shaft would afford a rough iular ones of the papyrus The circular belts at the top would suggest the cords by which they were tied to the shaft

The leaves and flowers painted upon the lowest part of the shaft and upon the capital, may be compared to permanent chromatic shadows of the bouquets of colour and verdure which had once hidden thosesides of the bud and the hollow curves of the corolla those flowing lines which he desired for the proper completion of his column

This hypothesis seems to leave no point unexplained, and it receives additional probability from a detail which can hardly be satisfactorily accounted for by the advocates of the rival theory We mean the cube of stone which is interposed as a kind of abacus between the capital and the architrave If we refer the general lines to those of a plain colu stalks, there is no difficulty The abacus then represents the rigid colu its su heads of lotus and papyrus, and visibly doing its duty as a support Its effect may not be very happy, but its _raison d'etre_ is complete On the other hand its existence is quite inexplicable, if we are to look upon the column as a reproduction in stone, a kind of petrifaction of a single stem

To what, in that case, does this heavy stone die correspond? To those who believe the capital to be the representation of a single floith its circlet of graceful petals, its presence ht structures only do we find the Egyptians frankly is 57, 63, and 64), but even there the ile ”bloom” are often of different colours, soain red or pink, a yptian decorator thought only of decoration He used his tints capriciously from the botanist's point of view, but he often reproduced the foryptian plants with considerable fidelity, especially those splendid lotus-flohich occupied so large a part in his affections long before the poets of India sang their praise In fashi+oning slender shafts which had little weight to support, the artist could give the reins to his fancy, he could mould his metal plates or his precious timber into the semblance of any natural form that pleased his eye, and the types thus created would, of course, be present in the minds of the first architects who attempted to decorate rock-cut toain, however, that neither the stone coluyptians, nor that of the Greeks, in its nified form, resulted froent interpretation of living nature

The coluenius Its forms were determined by the natural properties of the material employed, by structural necessities, and by a desire for beauty of proportion

Different peoples have had different ideas as to what constitutes this beauty; they have had their secret instincts and individual preferences The artist, too, ishes to ornament a column, is sure to borrow motives from any particular fors may have earned distinction In some cases, therefore, his work may resemble carved wood, in others chased or beaten metal He will also be influenced, to some extent, by the features and characteristic forms of the plants and animals peculiar to his country But wherever a race is endoith a true instinct for art, its architects will succeed in creating for stone architecture an appropriate style of its own The exigencies of the idity places a great gulf between it and the elasticity and perpetual yptian architects saw from the first that this difference, or rather contrast, would have to be reckoned with They understood perfectly well that the shaft which was to support a massive roof of stone must not be a copy of those slender stems of lotus or papyrus which bend before the wind, or float upon the lazy waters of the canals The phrase _column-plant_ or _plant-column_, which has sometimes been used in connection with the columns of Luxor and Karnak, is a contradiction in terin? In the history of art, as in that of language, they are nearly always insoluble, especially e have to do with a race who created all their artistic forms and idioms for themselves The case is different e have to do with a nation who came under the influence of an earlier civilization than their own Then, and then only, can such an inquiry lead to useful results The word origin is then a synonym for affiliation, and an inquiry is directed towards establishi+ng the method and the period in which the act of birth took place

In our later voluo into such questions in detail, but in the case of Egypt we are spared that task All that we ypt, so far, at least, as we can tell It is the highest point in the streaenesis of each particular aesthetic lance into its depths takes away our breath, would be a enuity

-- 6 _The Ordonnance of Egyptian Colonnades_

A French writer tells us that uniforive birth to weariness sooner or later, and there are ht about it, that his words exactly apply to the art of Egypt The character which was given to it when its creations first becas to it still Ourfrom the last centuries of the ht study of Egyptian architecture is sufficient, however, to destroy such a prejudice, in spite of its convenience for those who are lazily disposed The pier and column were extremely various in their types, as we have seen, and each type was divided into nuement, or ordonnance, of the colus We cannot prove this better than by placing a series of plans of hypostyle halls and porticos before the eye of the reader, accompanied by a few illustrations in perspective which will suffice to show the freedoyptian architect and the nue

The fullest developyptian columnar architecture is to be found in their interiors

[Illustration: FIG 99--Small chamber at Karnak]

[Illustration: FIG 100--Apartment in the temple at Luxor]

[Illustration: FIG 101--Hall of the temple at Abydos; _Description_, vol ii p 41]

The siement is to be found in the sle row of coluer it contained ts, the space between the rows being wider than that between the coluer halls we find three rows of columns separated fro

101) Finally in those great chambers which are known as hypostyle halls, the number of columns seems to be practically unli 102), at the Raht, at Medinet-Abou twenty-four

[Illustration: FIG 102--Plan of part of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak]

The full effect of the hypostyle hall is to be seen at Karnak and at the Raher than the parts adjoining and is distinguished by a different type of coluement was not confined to Thebes We should no doubt have encountered it in more than one of the temples of Memphis and the Delta had they been preserved to our time Its principle was reproduced in the propylaea of the acropolis at Athens, where the Ionic and Doric orders figured side by side

[Illustration: FIG 103--Tomb at Sakkarah]

[Illustration: FIG 104--Hall in the inner portion of the Great Temple at Karnak]

In the ancient toular pier alone was used to support the roof (Fig 103) In the Theban temples it was combined with the colu 215, Vol I), at Karnak, a row of square piers surrounds an avenue of circular colu 104)

[Illustration: FIG 105--Portico of the first court at Medinet-Abou]

[Illustration: FIG 106--Portico of the first court at Luxor]

The external porticos are no less remarkable for variety of plan At Medinet-Abou we find one consisting of only a single row of colu 105) At Luxor the colu 106), and upon two sides of the second; upon one side of the latter, the side nearest to the sanctuary, there are four rows of colu 107)

[Illustration: FIG 107--The portico of the pronaos, Luxor]

All these are within the external walls of the courts, but the peripteral portico, e the temple walls, like those of Greece, is also to be found in a few rare instances (Fig 108); as, for example, in the small temple at Elephantine which we have already described[120]