CHAPTER I.

EGYPT.

The East the Cradle of Art.--The Antiquity of Egypt: Its Claim to Notice in every Branch of Inquiry.--The Fountains of Oriental and Greek Art.--The Nile Clay.--Egypt’s Early Maturity.--Limitation of Material.--Effect of Religion upon Art.--Two Periods in Art History.--Ancient Religion.--Various Symbols.--UNGLAZED POTTERY--_Sun-dried_: Bricks.--Moulds, Stamps, etc.--Vessels.--_Baked Ware_: Its Early Date.--Color of Vessels and Bricks.--Coffins.--Cones.--Figures.--Sepulchral Vases.--Amphoræ and other Vessels.--Decoration.--Græco-Egyptian Pottery.--GLAZED WARE, miscalled Porcelain: Its Nature, and how Colored.--Wall Tiles.--Inlaying of Mummy Cases.--Personal Ornaments.--Images.--Beads, etc.--Vases.--Bowls.--Glazed Schist.--Stanniferous Enamel.

To the Orient we look for the birthplace of man, and in it we also find the cradle of Art. How it spread eastward to China and westward to Egypt, we may not be able, with precise accuracy, to tell; but this we know, that in and between these two countries the ceramic art had been carried to a lofty eminence long before Europe had awakened from barbaric slumber. Western history was, in fact, scarcely beginning, when Eastern civilization was in one direction fading, and in another was tottering to its fall.

In beginning with Egypt, the most ancient relics of primitive art pass first in review. To that wonderful country, long hidden under a thick cloud of mystery, we must, in fact, first turn, no matter what may be the subject demanding investigation. It had reached antiquity before the oldest countries of the West were born. In the ceramic art, it appears as the centre from which radiated the two great branches, many centuries afterward converging in Southern Europe. On the one hand is the silicious-glazed pottery, which, after moving eastward, reached Europe in a slightly altered form; on the other is the glazed and unglazed terra-cotta, which the Greeks took up and carried forward to a new and higher perfection. Egypt thus appears as the fountain-head of ancient art. The progress it made toward comparative perfection will be hereafter referred to. Meantime it may be pointed out, that, while fortunate in one respect, Egypt was unfortunate in another. The banks of the Nile gave a never-failing supply of pure and plastic clay, admirably suited to all the purposes of the potter. When the periodical inundations took place, they left a deposit of exceptionally pure silt extending from the banks of the river to the furthest margin of the flood. The material was thus ready to the potter’s hand. The counter disadvantage was the absence of the materials required for the finest ware, or their presence in such form as scarcely to suggest their combination. The Egyptians appear to have carried their ceramic art to a full development at a very remote stage of their history, or, in other words, they soon arrived at the point beyond which they never passed. The limitation laid upon them was that of material. The result of this is shown by the other directions in which their art branched off. It seemed impossible to accomplish anything in clay to vie with the precious metals and stones. For purposes of ornament, therefore, clay was discarded. It was worked by slaves (Fig. 30), and fashioned into domestic vessels and bricks; and when the nearest approach to porcelain was made, then only do we meet with ornamental works, or those of a more strictly artistic character.

Their religion also appears to have deadened their ambition to reach a higher excellence. There were two periods in their art history. In studying the works belonging to the first, the observer will frequently be impressed by the desire evinced to follow the forms offered by nature for imitation. Such is the most striking characteristic of what may be called the first school. It aimed at the reproduction of natural forms in the most literal manner. Afterward, when the emblematic school took its rise, the forms were still those of nature, with a religious or spiritual significance superadded. The idea is evidently fatal to art, that it can climb to nothing higher than the figure symbolical of a god. In their efforts toward the production of what was graceful and beautiful, the Egyptians are not, however, to be despised. Before foreign influences made themselves felt, the Egyptian forms were simple, and frequently displayed ideas of beauty which, if ruder than those of the Greeks, are independent. The Egyptians were necessarily original. They had no predecessors whose works they could copy; and in appealing to nature for models, they took the only course open to them. From their originality the Greeks borrowed and improved upon their models, and it is in this view of its being a starting-point for subsequent art that Egyptian pottery demands careful study.

[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Foreign Captives making Bricks in Egypt. 1, Man returning from carrying load; 2, 7, and 10 carry the clay, after it has been dug by 9, 11, 12, and 13, and throw it down at 7 and _j_, for the brickmakers, 8 and 16; 4 and 5 carry them away to the drying-place or furnace; 3 and 6 are taskmasters; 14 and 15 are carrying water from the tank, _h_. At _c_ and _a_ are inscriptions to the effect that the bricks were so made for the Temple of Amun-Ra, at Thebes.]

It is indispensable, in order to understand the highest forms of the art in Egypt, that something should be known of its religion. In that strange land we find an answer--possibly the first--to the question,

“The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills, and the plains-- Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns?”

According to Bunsen, “the mythological system proceeded from ‘the concealed god,’ Ammon, to the creating god. The latter appears first of all as the generative power of nature in the Phallic god Khem, who is afterward merged into Ammon-ra. Then sprung up the idea of a creative power in Kneph. He forms the limbs of Osiris (the primitive soul) in contradistinction to Ptah, who, as the strictly demiurgic principle, forms the visible world. Neith is the creative principle as nature represented under a female form. Finally her son, Ra Helios, appears as the last of the series in the character of father and nourisher of terrestrial things. It is he whom an ancient monument represents as the demiurgic principle creating the mundane egg.” At the head of this Pantheon stands Ammon, the concealed and invisible. The other figures are personifications of his attributes, and appear as separate and individual gods. In order to make the theogony intelligible to the people, these gods are represented by symbols. There is thus a regular gradation from the symbol to the divine attribute, and thence to the Unknown Greatest. It is the sublimity of paganism, presenting us with one god carrying on the infinite works of the universe by means of his various attributes. The symbols were chosen from nature, and are generally expressive, if not always dignified. Firstly, as to the symbols proper, the lotus and scarabæus may be mentioned as of most frequent occurrence. The former, the sacred flower, is often met with in connection with the figures of the divinities, and symbolizes the beneficence of nature’s revivifying powers, water and heat. The scarabæus (Fig. 31) is the symbol of creation, and when represented with out-spread wings, of immortality. It may appear singular that a loathsome insect should thus have been honored, but the explanation is simple. It is to be found in the habits of the insect itself. Placing its egg in a ball, it buried the latter in the sand, where it was hatched by the rays of the sun, and the ball opening with the breaking of the egg, the young insect appeared. It was to the Egyptian a perfect symbol of creation, and hence of the creative god Phtha. When found with outstretched wings, it is an ornament of the dead, and symbolizes the apparent circuit of the sun setting at night to rise in the morning. Thus the sun of life sets in death to reappear in immortality, as the scarabæus, under the influence of its divine warmth, breaks from its egg into insect life. The sun was the symbol of Ra, the sun-god, “the father and nourisher of terrestrial things.” In representing the gods, the figures selected were to a great extent arbitrary. The Egyptians honored themselves by discovering that in the humblest form of nature there was something worthy of honor. They accordingly took the plants and animals of their land and wove them into their religion, by adopting a system of natural symbols too intricate to be here given in detail. The following may, however, be found useful:

[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Scarabæus. Dark-blue Glazed Pottery. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

The vulture was the symbol of divine maternity, because thought to conceive spontaneously; and hence Souvan, the mother of all, is represented with a vulture’s head. This single instance furnishes a key to the system. The symbol is chosen which most nearly represents the principle, and thus becomes a part of the embodied form of the deity possessing the principle as his or her peculiar attribute. The dog and jackal were emblems of Anubis, the guardian of the tombs, and the deity presiding over embalmment. The scarabæus was the emblem of the demiurgic god Phtha. The lion was also the emblem of Phtha and of the goddess Pasht. Cynocephali were emblems of Chous and Thoth.

Throughout the entire system, the birds, fishes, land animals, and plants of Egypt, the hawk, vulture, ibis, uræi snakes, the cat, pig, cow, and so on, are all used as symbols. It will be sufficient now to glance at the converse, and note the forms under which the deities are represented. Ra, the sun-god, appears with the head of a hawk; Athor, the Egyptian Venus, with horns and ears of a cow; Anubis with head of a jackal; Thoth with head of an ibis; Amun-ra, a man with solar disk on head, and plumed; Mut, the mother goddess, crowned; Chous, sou of Amun-ra and Mut, with moon disk, occasionally hawk-headed; Phtha with scarabæus on head, sometimes with two heads, one of which is that of a hawk; Pasht, Bast, and Tafne are all lion-headed goddesses; Her has a lion’s head; Taur appears as a hippopotamus; Osiris sits enthroned with the cap of truth, and holds a staff and scourge; Isis, like the Roman Luna or Diana, appears in two forms, sitting as a terrestrial goddess, suckling Horus or kneeling, or sitting in her celestial character, with disk and horns, nursing her son Horus.

[Illustration: Fig. 32.--Egyptian Gods. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

We are now in a position to give names to the group (Fig. 32), each piece in which is of the blue or green glazed pottery to be noticed hereafter. It may be said, however, that no engraving could give an idea of the exquisite finish of these pieces, especially of the two in the middle. The lower central figure is the plumed Amun. It is turquoise-blue, and is one and three-quarter inches in height. The upper central figure is the lion-headed Pasht, surmounted by the solar disk and the asp. To the left is ibis-headed Thoth, a flat figure intended to be sewn into a mummy covering. On the right are Isis and Nepthys, with Horus between them. From the combination of symbols, the study of the mythology of the Egyptians as found illustrated on their pottery is of deep interest, and of great importance both to the ceramist and the student of the science of religion.

The ceramic productions of Egypt are divisible into two great classes, unglazed and glazed.

[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Earthen-ware Vessels found at Thebes.]

UNGLAZED POTTERY.--This may again be divided into the unbaked, or sun-dried, and baked. Of these the former is unquestionably the more ancient, and Egypt is one of the three countries whose sun-dried pottery has lasted until the present time. Unbaked bricks are the oldest examples. Some of those discovered recall the bondage and wrongs of the Israelites under the “new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph.” The command of Pharaoh will be remembered: “Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves.” The straw was used to bind them together. They were moulded generally in a rectangular shape, and were extensively used in the construction of pyramids of various ages. They vary in size in different edifices, and are marked according to their composition or destined use. In the former case, the marks were used merely to distinguish the quality; in the latter, the marks indicate either the individual’s tomb in the construction of which they were to be employed, or the king in whose reign they were made for public buildings. The whole process can be studied in the engraving (Fig. 30). The stamp for bricks was not used until the fifteenth century before the Christian era.

The vessels of unbaked clay which have been preserved are few in number, and are either religious in character, or devoted to sepulchral uses. The ornamentation is of the simplest kind.

[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Red Pottery Cone. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Fish-shaped Vase of Red Terra-cotta. Egyptian. (British Museum.)]

Egypt was exceptionally favored by nature for advancing in the potter’s art. The Nile mud was abundant and plastic, and was suitable for either moulding or throwing. Specimens of baked earthen-ware (Fig. 33) have accordingly been found belonging to a very remote period. They represent the second step in the manufacture, which was reached nearly three thousand years before our era. From the tombs of that period have been exhumed vessels of various kinds, such as were employed by the Egyptians in their households; and taking these as a starting-point, the art can be traced to its decline under imported ideas and foreign domination. This ware is mostly of a dull red color, verging at times toward purple or yellow, according to the temperature at which it was baked. The baked bricks were of the same red color. They were used, apparently, for purposes for which the less lasting unbaked bricks were not suitable, but were not generally employed. Of the same material coffins, although rare, have also been found. Many of the objects connected with the Egyptian customs regarding the burial of the dead were made of this clay. Among these were the cones (Fig. 34), with inscriptions in hieroglyphics stamped on the base, and giving the name of the deceased. They indicate the resting-places of many civil and ecclesiastical functionaries--clerks or scribes, priests, chamberlains, soldiers, and seldom of women. They appear to have fallen into desuetude in the sixth century before our era. Figures have also been found in the sepulchres of a later period. The vases for holding the entrails of the embalmed dead were of the same ware, and bring up for notice a very singular custom. The viscera were divided into four parts, and deposited in separate jars having the shapes of the genii of the Egyptian Hades, Amset, Hapi, Tuautmutf, and Kebhsnuf. The ibis mummy pots belong to the same class. They were used for holding the embalmed body of the sacred bird, and are very frequently of a conical shape, with a slightly convex lid. Of domestic vases in this ware, the shapes and uses are very numerous. Great numbers have been found in the tombs, varying as much in size as in purpose. The latter may often be divined from the shape of the vessel: thus those for liquids are wide-mouthed for convenience in drawing the contents; those for bread and flesh-meats are wider and more shallow. Ointment pots and oil jars are also fashioned in view of their respective purposes.

Another kind of unglazed ware is of a light gray color, and was common to Egypt and some of the countries of Asia. Amphoræ have been found of this material, with long bodies ornamented with horizontal grooves. Of these the larger ones appear to have been intended for liquids, and the smaller ones, some of which are very diminutive, for solids. The bases of the former are pointed, while those of the latter are occasionally rounded. The handles are both small and large, and the necks open or contracted, according to their use. These are well deserving of notice for the sake of comparison with the amphoræ of the Greeks; and for the same reason reference may be made to the vessels with three handles, which were in all probability the prototypes of the Greek _hydrai_, and to others with only one handle, which were also reproduced in Greece. The former are very frequently oval-bodied, and the position of the handle is arbitrary. The latter were jugs of various shapes, with pointed bases. The further we come down, the more distinct become the proofs of Egypt’s having supplied models to the Grecian potters. It would be impossible to specify all the shapes, but reference may be made to those with handle arching the top from side to side, and of so small a size that they are thought to have been used by children as toys.

[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta.]

The larger vessels, which answered all the purposes of a modern meat-safe, have no handle, and have the usual pointed base for fixing them upright in the floor of the cellar. They taper gradually from the base upward, until their greatest girth is reached, when they curve more suddenly inward to a short neck. From these the forms vary through the intermediate shapes of oval jars, bottles with long necks, and narrow oil vases, to wide bowls or dishes and plates. Reference was made in the introduction to the multitudinous purposes to which clay vessels were put by the Egyptians. They used their ware in many ways which to us appear very primitive and strange--for storing all manner of eatables and drinkables, for cooking and smelting. In fact, whatever one may think of their ideas of beauty in pottery, there can be no doubt that they took a very wide view of its infinite usefulness.

[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Egyptian Red-polished Terra-cotta Bottle. (British Mus.)]

Decoration of a simple kind is occasionally found on both domestic and sepulchral vessels. Colored bands were the usual ornament, and very rarely the entire body was painted with a ground color upon which bands were laid, and the whole was then varnished. It is rarely that a leaf or lotus flower is found. The use of varnish points to a step in advance. It has not yet been determined whether it is really varnish or a glaze applied by firing, but in either case it is found upon the finer and harder kinds of ware. The body color is black, brown, or red, of different shades (Fig. 36). To this class belong the single and double cruses, generally of pale red paste, but sometimes black, used apparently for holding oil or ointment. The best examples of polished ware are red. They show both ornamentation of a higher order and more artistic shapes than the others. The shape of one of these vases resembles the goddess Isis suckling Horus, in the attitude previously mentioned; another is in the form of a woman playing upon a stringed instrument (Fig. 37); a third is shaped like a fish; and many domestic vessels, cups, jugs, and vases are of the same material.

The Græco-Egyptian pottery forms a distinct class, differing in paste, color, and decoration. The outside shows varying shades of gray and red, and the ornamentation consists of lines and animal and floral forms, in colors capable of standing the kiln. At the same period was introduced the custom of making writing tablets of this ware.

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Glazed Pottery Vase. Egyptian.]

[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Egyptian Scarabæi used as Signets. Average, ¾ inch in length. Pale and dark green. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Egyptian Pectoral Tablets. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

GLAZED WARE.--Leaving the unglazed and polished wares, there yet falls to be considered that with an undoubted glaze, to which belong the most artistic works of the Egyptian potters. This is the ware which has been miscalled porcelain (Fig. 38); and as the unglazed ware was never employed for purely ornamental purposes, so we find the glazed seldom used for domestic vessels. Contrary to what might be expected, specimens have been found as old as the Sixth Dynasty, or nearly two thousand years before the Christian era. The ware is not at all close in texture, and the silicious glaze was colored by metallic oxides, of the properties of which the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge. Chief among the colors thus produced are the blue and green, exemplified in some of the finest relics of Egyptian art. Their beauty is occasionally very remarkable, and led to their being highly valued both by the Egyptians and others, and to the ware itself being applied to special purposes of ornamentation. It is found, for example, in the form of tiles as a wall decoration, and as a material for inlaying. Tiles with figures in relief, having parts such as the hair, beard, eyes, or extremities inlaid with glazed ware, are among the most curious specimens discovered. Detached beards are not unlike spirally ribbed hose. Coffins, or mummy cases, are similarly inlaid. The forms the glazed pottery assumes, when employed for this purpose and for figures to be attached to other substances, are very numerous. The moulded ornaments and amulets of both the living and the dead were most frequently of the same material. These take the shape of finger and ear rings (Fig. 39), small images of the gods and of their symbols, and various other ornaments, such as bracelets, necklaces, and hairpins. The nature of the paste leads to the belief that these were more generally devoted to sepulchral purposes, with a religious significance, than to any other. All the minute beads, in a net-work of which the dead were often encased, and also the pectoral or breastplates, were of this material (Fig. 40). In the lower specimen, Ra is represented by the scarab. In the barge, on either side, are Isis and Nepthys. This tablet bears the inscription, “He that is worthy goes over in the barge of Ra.” Of the upper specimen only one-half is preserved, showing the figure of Isis. In the hollow centre has been a scarab, probably of jasper, and in the borders colored stones or glass have been set. The lower border consists of a series of lotus flowers, and the wavy lines represent the water in which they grow. Above was the winged disk of the sun. Figures of the gods and goddesses and their emblems, and sacred animals and plants, which were deposited with the dead, afford some of the most exquisite examples of Egyptian glazed pottery. The images have either a perforated upright support behind, or are otherwise perforated for attachment to the necklaces of the mummies. The scarabæus is very often met with on the breastplates. All these symbols and images were employed for the supposed benefit of the dead, either to save them from evil, or as a direct means of bringing good, and can only be understood through an acquaintance with mythology. Rings of various colors appear properly to belong to the same category of ornaments of the dead. Other sepulchral figures were deposited with the deceased, besides those of the protecting gods. These were supposed to aid the departed in his labors in the future state, and are invariably small representations of a mummied figure, partially covered with hieroglyphics. Like many of the other figures and objects, they are generally of the beautiful Egyptian blue. In the example (Fig. 41) given on the following page, the figure of a bird with human head, appears upon the breast. It is an emblem of the soul leaving or returning to the body. The more usual form is that seen in the central figure in the engraving (Fig. 42), with long beard, a pickaxe and hoe in either hand, and having a cord in the right hand which is crossed to the left, and allows the cord to pass over the left shoulder. At the end of this cord is a bag or basket, which is faintly discernible on the shoulder of the figure on the right. The hieroglyphics are passages from the Ritual, in compliance with which these figures were made. Balls, draughtsmen, and toys were also made of glazed pottery. All the figures and ornaments to which reference has been made were turned out of moulds, the friability of the paste not permitting its being thrown.

[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Egyptian Mummy Figure. Style, XIXth Dynasty. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

For the same reason the glazed vases are diminutive, but often very beautiful, and intended for purely ornamental purposes. They are of different shapes and sizes, generally a few inches in height, and some of them illustrate the peculiar ideas entertained by the Egyptians of personal beauty. One of their customs was that of darkening the eyes with a black powder, sometimes held in a small case resembling a series of reeds. The toilet is otherwise represented by a variety of boxes, jars, bottles, small vases, and oil flasks. The latter are unique, and sometimes elegant in shape, and supply good examples of the greenish glazed-ware to which reference has been made.

Many of the bowls evidently used by the wealthy are of a finer and closer paste, and bear very characteristic ornamentation of flowers, fish, hieroglyphics, or of lines only. Their uses can only be conjectured from their shapes. The inscriptions sometimes point to their owners, and at others to the place of fabrication.

The Egyptians also resorted to a process of glazing vases, figures, rings, and other articles for which pottery was usually employed, made of a variety of hard schists. These, however, as not being properly potter’s ware, are here passed over.

It will thus be seen that the Egyptians did not carry the art to a very high point. They were, however, successful in creating a foreign demand for the productions of their potteries. From discoveries made in Eastern Greece, Nineveh, and elsewhere, it would appear that the fine pottery ornaments of Egypt were in considerable repute in neighboring countries; and, as we shall hereafter see, Egypt contributed its full share to the furtherance of the art by supplying suggestions and models.

[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Egyptian Mummy Figures. Blue or Greenish-blue Enamelled Pottery. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

One important matter remains to be disposed of. It has long been a subject of doubt whether or not Egypt possessed the secret of stanniferous enamel. It has been already intimated that the discovery of the use of tin for a pottery enamel is due to either that country or Assyria. The honor may probably be ascribed to Egypt. In the loan collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York is a fragment (Fig. 43) of a vase exhibited in the Egyptian section, and referable to a very remote antiquity, covered with what is apparently tin enamel, bearing purple decorations. Should this be the case, then this solitary fragment will settle the matter, and we must believe that the Egyptians possessed this secret of the art four thousand years ago. In that event, the Assyrians probably acquired it from Egypt. The fact supplies us with the means of arriving at a very clear idea of the grand antiquity of that civilization under which a valuable art was practised, to which Europe was a stranger for more than three thousand five hundred years afterward.

[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Fragment with White Enamel. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)]

It is, as we have seen, long since the art purely its own reached its culmination. The Egypt of the nineteenth century in this respect scarcely suggests that of the Pyramids. If we were to take that country as it appeared at the Philadelphia Exhibition, we would hardly be prepared to look upon its ceramic products as those of a country in which the art has been practised for four thousand years. A few pieces exhibited were of light, slate-colored body, unglazed, and so brittle that dozens were broken in transit. The ornamentation was laid on the bare surface, and was, as a rule, bright to the verge of gaudiness. The greater portion of the painting was the work of an Italian artist resident in Cairo. Some of the red terra-cotta was more satisfactory; but all that can be said in favor of either kind is that it was, in its way, characteristically Egyptian. One specimen of pale green “porcelain” was sent by the Museum at Cairo. The last is mentioned because it represented the farthest point which the Egyptians reached on the way toward a true porcelain.