documents are, they give a
very insufficient idea of the ability and technical methods of the artists
of ancient Egypt. It is to the walls of their temples and tombs that we
must turn, if we desire to study their principles of composition.

[Illustration: Figs. 164 and 165.--Scenes from the tomb of Khnumhotep at
Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.]

[Illustration: Fig. 166.--From a tomb-painting in the British Museum,
Eighteenth Dynasty.]

Their conventional system differed materially from our own. Man or beast,
the subject was never anything but a profile relieved against a flat
background. Their object, therefore, was to select forms which presented a
characteristic outline capable of being reproduced in pure line upon a
plane surface. As regarded animal life, the problem was in no wise
complicated. The profile of the back and body, the head and neck, carried
in undulating lines parallel with the ground, were outlined at one sweep of
the pencil. The legs also are well detached from the body. The animals
themselves are lifelike, each with the gait and action and flexion of the
limbs peculiar to its species. The slow and measured tread of the ox; the
short step, the meditative ear, the ironical mouth of the ass; the abrupt
little trot of the goat, the spring of the hunting greyhound, are all
rendered with invariable success of outline and expression. Turning from
domestic animals to wild beasts, the perfection of treatment is the same.
The calm strength of the lion in repose, the stealthy and sleepy tread of
the leopard, the grimace of the ape, the slender grace of the gazelle and
the antelope, have never been better expressed than in Egypt. But it was
not so easy to project man--the whole man--upon a plane surface without
some departure from nature. A man cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by
means of mere lines, and a profile outline necessarily excludes too much of
his person. The form of the forehead and the nose, the curvature of the
lips, the cut of the ear, disappear when the head is drawn full face; but,
on the other hand, it is necessary that the bust should be presented full
face, in order to give the full development of the shoulders, and that the
two arms may be visible to right and left of the body. The contours of the
trunk are best modelled in a three-quarters view, whereas the legs show to
most advantage when seen sidewise. The Egyptians did not hesitate to
combine these contradictory points of view in one si