To proclaim the grandeur of the silent inhabitant, once a mighty ruler, to the four quarters of the globe, was the purpose of these pyramids.
Natural caves must have suggested their tombs and catacombs. The sacred Nile with its majestic flow is reflected in the endless horizontal lines of their temples. The rising peaks of mountains seem to have suggested their huge pylons. The rays of the sun were transformed by them into stones, recording, as gigantic obelisks, the deeds of their kings. When did these obelisks shake off the rough shape of mere huge monoliths, placed in plains to commemorate some grand event? To point upwards in isolated forms was the secret tendency of these half-sculptured, half-architectural marvels. Trees and forests were turned by the Egyptian artists into hypostyle halls, with innumerable columns, spreading a mysterious gloom about them.
The Chinese were practical; the Trans-Himâlâyans metaphysical; the Cis-Himâlâyans agricultural, commercial and warlike; and the Egyptians pre-eminently architectural and monumental.
Their whole historical life may be divided into the following art-periods.
A. These four epochs of art-development resemble layers in the earth’s crust. Whilst with other nations the remnants of art are mere skeletons, colourless frames of an extinct social organism, with the Egyptians we have art in all its different phases, with the dried flesh and the scarcely-faded colours, embalmed like a mummy. Life and death were with them so closely allied, that we may say, their life was a continual death, and their death was everlasting life.
The spiritual conceptions of the Egyptians, which might have served to enable us to understand their art thoroughly, were lost with their sacred books, of which, with one exception, we have merely the titles. Plato considered them 10,000 years old in his time. They consisted of:—
1. The two books of the Chanter—like the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta containing hymns in honour of the gods, and a code of laws like those of Manû.
2. The four astronomical books of the Horoskopus; treating of fixed stars, and of solar and lunar conjunctions, making the sun the centre, round which we revolve.
3. The ten books of the Hierogrammatist, or the Sacred Scribe, treating of the art of writing, which was: hieroglyphic (sacred), hieratic (a kind of hieroglyphic tachygraphy—short-hand writing, used by priests only), and enchorial or demotic, used by the people. These books contained, further, the elements of cosmography and geography; tablets, on which the high-roads of the earth were marked; astronomical records, mentioning, according to Diogenes Laertius, 373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses, referring thus to a period of 48,863 years; a chorography of Egypt, and the delineation of the course of the sacred Nile; an inventory of each temple, of the landed property of the priests, and a treatise on weights and measures.
4. The ten ceremonial books of the Stolists, which were entirely devoted to religious worship, containing the ordinances as to ‘the first-fruits, and the sacrificial stamp, sacrifices, prayers, processions,’ and the like. No human sacrifices were offered up from at least 3000 years B.C.
5. The ten books of the prophets, consisting of thirty-six sections, called the hieratic writings, with which the prophets, the first order of the priests, were entrusted. A description of the deities, regulations for the education of the priests, and general laws formed their contents.
The oldest books of law, were attributed to Hermes (Toth), implying, that the first germ of an hierarchical organisation of society sprung from the sacred songs, and that law was entirely based upon the religious conceptions of the secret forces of nature by which man had been impressed. Like the Code of Manû, which took its origin in the Vedas, or the Laws of Zoroaster based on the Zend-Avesta, or the injunctions of Confucius founded on the holy records and songs of by-gone ages, the Egyptian laws took their origin in the first poetical feelings of awakened humanity, excited by the mysteries of nature under the rule of an incomprehensible first cause.
6. The six books of the Dead. The only books still extant, written in hieroglyphs, and divided by Lepsius into 165 sections. The first fifteen chapters form a distinct and connected whole, with the superscription: ‘Here begin the Sections of the glorification in the Light of Osiris.’
It concludes with a book entitled ‘The Book of Deliverance in the Hall of the twofold Justice (Reward and Punishment), and the Book of Redemption.’
With such a deep and mystic literature, encompassing the gods, nature, and man, in life and death, it is no wonder that a mystic and symbolic art should have succeeded in Egypt.
Their mythology was not less profound than that of the Trans-Himâlâyans; there was more of symmetry, at least architectural symmetry, in their conceptions and representations than in those of the Brahmans, though Egyptian priests and Brahmans have apparently taken their conceptions from one and the same source. The Egyptian had eight gods of the first order, twelve gods of the second, and seven gods of the third order, pointing by these very numbers to an astronomical basis, thus:—
1. The cosmical forces of creative nature.
2. The twelve months of the year.
3. The seven days of the week.
Astronomy is the first powerful divisor of time and the supreme lord of agriculture. Only when the ‘Sacred Nile’ deposited its fructifying alluvium on the barren limestone of the valleys, formed by the Libyan and Arabian mountain ranges, man could exist and develop in that region. The regular inundation appeared to have taken place under the influence of the sun, moon, and stars. The sun (Osiris) was, therefore, believed to call forth the Nile (Isis) from regions unknown down to our own days, and sun and water became, as with the Indians (Indra and Agni), the first visible, creative forces of nature.
The eight gods of the first order were:—
I. Amn (Brahm), Am-Ra, Ammon, the Greek Zeus (the son of Kronos and Rhea), the Roman Jupiter; the ‘Concealed God,’ the ‘Lord of Heaven,’ the ‘Lord of Thrones’; the first creative, incomprehensible, invisible force of the universe. The Brahmă of the Indians, the Zeruane-Akerene of the Persians.
II. Khem (Kama), the generative God of Nature, Brahmā. He was worshipped, under the second Thinite Dynasty, under the symbol of the goat. The primitive, active, or male element of nature.
III. Mut (μαῖα {maîa}, matter, Demeter, Leto, Latona, Bhavani), the primitive, passive, or female element of nature.
IV. Num (Nu, Kneph, ChNUbis, the Indian VischNU, Noah, Neptun). In Arabic nef means to breathe. The breath of the universe when condensed—‘water;’ the creative spirit, the Ἀγαθοδαίμων {Agathodaίmôn}; the πνεῦμα {pneûma} (the wind, the air) of the Greeks.
V. Seti (in Koptic Sate), the ray, the arrow; at a later period the frog-headed goddess, the consort of Kneph; the sun-beam, the fructifying heat in union with water (cosmical moisture), producing the inner force of creation.
VI. Phtah (Ptah, Phthah, S’iva, Vulcan), the creator of the world, which sprang from the mouth of Kneph, meaning at his bidding. His symbol became at a later period the scarabæus. The more numerous this animal was in the Nile valley after the subsidence of the inundation, the more fruitful was the year. Phtah was in reality telluric heat.
VII. Net (Neith, Athene, Pallas, Minerva, Doorga), the bright goddess of intellectual power, wisdom, knowledge, virtue, passionless happiness. Isis was her substitute. Her temple at Saïs had no roof, but was vaulted over by the sunny or starry canopy of heaven, and bore the mysterious inscription: ‘I am all that was, and is, and is to be; no mortal has lifted up my veil, and the fruit I bore is Helios.’ Past, present, and future, are mysteriously entwined in the conception of intellect, pervading and ruling the universe.
VIII. Ra (Helios, Apollo, Adonis, Adonaïs, the Lord, Baal, Mithras, Moloch, Teotl, Toth, Hermes, Odin, Thor, Atys, Janus, Kekrops, Endymion, &c.), the sun, the reflected light (with the Cabalists Hachoser, in opposition to the expanding light, Hajashor).
The representations of these divinities were not monstrous, like those of the Indians; the human form predominates, but the symbolic is still the most important element. The outward form has an inward, secret meaning. ‘Meaning’ and ‘meant’ are still in wild conflict. The sublime forces of the deity were to be hewn in stone, or given in outlines, or painted; the result was a grotesque product of art, and as such a complete failure.
The twelve gods of the second order were the children of four of the gods of the first order.
I. Amn had only one son, Khunsu (Chous, Chaos, the prototype of Herkules).
II. Kneph had also only one son, Teth (Toth, Thoth, Hermes), who taught men to write and to read.
III. Phtah had two children, Atumu (Atum, Atmu), and Pecht, the cat-headed goddess of Bubastis (the Greek Artemis or Diana).
IV. Ra had eight children, Hat-her (Athyr, Athor, Aphrodite); Mau (Jao); Ma (Truth); Tefun (the lion-headed goddess); Muntu (Mant); Sebak (Sebek), the crocodile-headed god; Seb (Kronos), and Nutpe (Rhea).
The seven gods of the third order, emanations from those of the second, as these were emanations from those of the first, were:—
1. Set, Nubi, or Typhon, celebrated for his struggle with Horus, the son of Osiris, in the infernal regions. (See what is said of Krishna, p. 70.)
2. Hesiri, Osiris (also the solar year), HSR.
3. Hes or Isis, HS, the Nile, the moon (the lunar year).
4. Nebt-hi or Nephthys, the sister of Isis; sister and wife of Typhon.
5. Her-Her (Aroëris, Arueris).
6. Her (Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, Harpokrates), who, with Isis and Osiris, formed the great, incomprehensible, mystic trinity of the Egyptians, of which we have the following record:—
Osiris was the father, husband, brother, and son of Isis.
Isis was the mother, wife, sister, and daughter of Osiris.
Horus was the brother and son of Osiris and Isis, and was Osiris himself.
7. Anubis (Anupo) the dog-star.
Who does not understand at once that, out of these half-astronomical, half-cosmogonical conceptions, a religion and art full of mysticism, blending into one Fetishism, Astrology, and Anthropomorphism, must have grown? Only through a careful study of Egyptian mythology are we enabled to comprehend that gigantic power which urged the people to construct those temples and palaces, those labyrinths and catacombs, as mystic in themselves, as the hidden powers of nature. The masses in Egypt were kept in a degraded state of passive obedience; they were overawed by metaphysical subtleties, and by huge stone monsters, which filled them with horror, and made them subservient to the dictates of a gloomy priesthood. Religion and art, both supported by a vast store of natural science, were the exclusive property of the priests, of whom the Pharaoh was the merely tolerated head, a kind of stone idol in the flesh. Egyptian art was an echo of priestly caprices, which, wrapt in symbolism, had a powerful hold on the untutored minds of the people. Careful investigations have proved that these priests were of a different race to the aborigines; their mythological analogies point to immigrated Brahmans, who brought some religious notions with them from the Ganges, and transferred them to the Nile.
Egyptian art reflects in every form the gorgeous influences of religion. The whole life of every Egyptian was placed, in seven phases, under the protection of seven divinities. The first period of man’s life was under the influence of Isis, the moon (Luna, Selene). The second was devoted to Hermes; during this period man had to learn to read and to write, to play the harp, to dance, to develop the body in the gymnasium, and to make himself well versed in knowledge according to his station in life; but the only station that granted man an insight into knowledge was that of the priest. During the third period man was under the care of Hat-her (Athyr), or Venus. Love was to rule the youth; the world was to appear to him in the rosy hue of a mystic foam of incomprehensible longing. The fourth period was under the dominion of Ra (Helios); when love had ceased to disturb the mind, and to fill this world with illusions, the light of truth and earnest activity was to ripen man, and to prepare him for the fifth period, under the protection of Man or Mars, the God of War; man was to learn either to conquer others, or to conquer his own passions, and to work in the State as a useful member. Few only reached the sixth period, guided by Amn, the supreme representative of abstract wisdom; during this period man was admitted to act as a judge, to sit at the board of a hierarchical council, or to teach priests as high-priest. At last man became, during the seventh period, vapour—breath—air—under the dominion of Num (Kneph), and was detached from reality; if good, transferred into a state of ideality; if not, doomed to begin life anew as a loathsome animal, till he atoned for his evil deeds, and, purified, reached the bright abode of Osiris.
B. The pyramidal period, the most ancient of Egyptian art, is the outgrowth of these mystic religious conceptions. Nature was to be reproduced, and surpassed in her sublime grandeur. The mountain was brought into a geometrical shape.
The three principal pyramids were built during the reign of the fourth dynasty, 3426 B.C.-3220 B.C.; the first, by Shufu (Cheops), was, in extent, 13 acres 1 rood and 22 perches, more than twice the area of St. Peter’s at Rome. The original quantity of masonry was 89,028,000 cubic feet. Total height 480 feet; 16 feet higher than St. Peter’s, and 120 feet higher than St. Paul’s (London); 360,000 human beings worked at it for twenty years. The stones are from 9 to 12 feet in length, and 6½ to 8 feet in breadth. The second pyramid was smaller, built by Shafra (Chephren), only 454 feet high; and the third by Menkare (Mykerinus), 218 feet high. The mode of fitting the polished stones together is a perfect master-piece of architectural construction.
Osiris was to be worshipped in all halls of festival, in all creation, in all places. Temples were erected in honour of the gods, which were approached through avenues of sphinxes. These sphinxes were of six different kinds. 1. The pure lion (symbol of Amn). 2. The lion with the ram’s head (Krio-sphinx—symbol of Khem or Amn). 3. The lion with hawk’s head (symbol of Ra). 4. The lion with a male human head (the symbol of Osiris or Horus). 5. The lion with a female human head (the symbol of Mut or Isis). 6. The lion’s half-body and legs, with female human head and arms, as in the reliefs of Karnack, and on the Campesian obelisk (probably the symbol of Net).
The tombs were, more or less deeply, hewn into rocks. They generally begin with a small sanctuary, from which an inclined passage leads down into the sepulchral chamber. The decoration is an imitation of wooden trellis-work in very gay colours. The threshold also distinctly bears the traces of a primitive wood construction; a round, trunk-like beam generally unites the two door-posts, and even the ceilings of the apartments are repeatedly made in imitation of wooden boards fastened together. The pillars are square, and united either by a rectangular architrave or by circular beams.
The temples point, by their forms, to a civilisation which took its course from south to north. This bears out the theory that Meroe was once the seat of a colony of priests, who spread religion, and with it science and art, from Upper into Lower Egypt. Thebes appears to have been the most ancient seat of the Egyptian Pharaohs, one of the first of whom was perhaps Osiris, though he has been placed amongst the gods, and was said to have been, like Krishna, an incarnation of the Supreme Being, who revealed himself in love and kindness, and was to put an end to the dominion of Typhon, the Eternal Evil. Might not this myth conceal some historical fact—the advent of a wise hero, who conquers a wild and reckless tyrant? For Osiris had to go through all the sufferings of humanity, and even to suffer death, so as to become the saviour, the deliverer of his people; and then only was he able to turn the earth into a powerful kingdom. By Earth, we may assume, Upper Egypt was meant, where the god-man Osiris presided, who, in spite of his having become man, and belonging to the third order of the gods, was placed on an equality with the gods of the first order. The temple or tomb of Ipsambul may be considered the very oldest rock-hewn construction; it has a figure of Osiris twenty feet high over the entrance door. We pass over the remains of Philæ, Elephantine, and Edfou, and come to those of Karnac and Luxor, the venerable Thebes, which, in the fifth century B.C., during the times of Herodotus, were already in a state of dilapidation.
Upon extensive brick terraces, raised high above the flat banks of the Nile, the Egyptian temple stood, a strictly secluded building. Strong walls, rising in pyramidal form, crowned with an overhanging fluted cornice, gave the mural enclosure a mysterious and stern character. No opening for windows, no colonnade interrupted the monotonous flatness, which is covered, as by one long tapestry, with hieroglyphs, and representations of gods and Pharaohs. The entrance to these buildings, like that of the temple of Edfou, was placed between two tower-like structures called propylæa, the walls of which were decorated with sculptured figures—in three or more rows. Then followed a court, surrounded by pillars, placed at a distance from the walls on both sides, roofed over with stone, and forming a gallery. Thence we reach the pronaos or portico, after which we enter the cell, divided into the naos and adytum. The naos was generally a kind of hypostyle hall, with a flat roof raised in the middle. The pillars and columns had a variety of capitals, but these were generally of one pattern throughout the temple. The quadrilateral Isis-headed capital, as at Denderah, was often used. The monuments of the ‘hundred-gated’ Thebes are the best school for the study of genuine Egyptian art. The temples on the eastern side of the river are symbolical of the dawn of life; on the western side we find tombs, catacombs, and Memnoniums. At Karnac we have one of the grandest constructions of the world in the ruins of the hypostyle hall, with its gigantic stone ceiling supported by 134 columns, of which the twelve middle ones, about 65 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, are larger and taller than the others, supporting a loftier central nave. The width of this hall is 338 feet, the depth 170½ feet, and the area 57,629 feet, or about five times as large as the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Columns and walls are completely covered with sculptured forms of deities; Osiris predominates. Pylons, propylæa, obelisks, colossal statues of red, grey, and black granite cover the courts; chapel-like apartments, connected and unconnected, are strangely intermingled.
Next to the temples we must mention one of the most gorgeous buildings, the Labyrinth, containing between three and four thousand chambers in rows, facing inwards the winding alleys, which ascended in a spiral line to the middle, and descended from it in the same way. It has been minutely described by Herodotus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Ezekiel. The building was to be a strict architectural imitation of the planetary system. The inner 1,500 chambers were divided into twelve courtyards, corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, six of which were towards the north, and six towards the south.
The Memnons were monolith statues of imposing size, symbolic of the rising sun—of Horus or Osiris. Homer mentions Memnon, for his remarkable beauty, as the son of the east. Diodorus speaks of him as Tithonus, a general, sent out to aid Priamus of Troy against the besieging Greeks.
The walls of temples, palaces, tombs, and catacombs were partly decorated with reliefs en creux, and partly with tapestry-like patterns, using geometrical figures, sometimes, though rarely, intermixed with plants, or plants treated with conventional stiffness. The walls with the Egyptians had a different purpose than merely to encircle or to enclose; they served as huge blackboards of stone, on which the priests wrote their mystic records. The superfluous thickness of the walls suggests that they were once made of brick, like those of Nineveh or Babylon, and, further, the overlaying of these immense granite blocks with stucco, serves to bear out this supposition. The walls of the enclosures of temples and the sarcophagi were covered with hieroglyphs or scenes from life, both on the inside and outside; tombs and catacombs were decorated on the inside only. These scenes are framed in with borders, reminding us of the broad seams in woven stuffs. In temples the scenes refer to burial rituals, or the judgment of the dead; in palaces to hunts and conquests of the kings. We see the Asian and African conquests of Ramses II. represented on the walls of Ipsambul (Aboosimbal in Nubia) in bright-coloured pictures. The king brandishes a pole-axe over the heads of Negroes, Hebrews, and Aryans, that is, over one mixed and two pure groups of mankind. Above his head runs the hieroglyphic scroll: ‘The beneficent living God, guardian of glory, smites the South; puts to flight the East; rules by victory, and drags to his country all the earth, and all foreign lands.’ High officials and private persons ornamented the walls of their houses and tombs with scenes of every-day occurrences. We may study in these their whole domestic and public life, their customs and manners, their amusements and toils. The ceilings of the chambers are not covered with symbolic pictures, but generally with patterns of conventional wall-decorations. In temples they are sometimes decorated with zodiacs, as at Denderah—the best-preserved Egyptian temple, of which, however, the date is doubtful.
C. The hieratic style of the Pharaohs substituted a greater amount of very tasteful symbolic ornamentation.
The Hathor-masks, the names of kings in cartouches, the viper as a symbol of divine or royal power; serpents, scarabæi, winged globes, either symbolic of the sun, the moon, or the earth, formed the principal elements of the innumerable variety of severe ornamentation. In addition to these the following were used:—
1. The papyrus, as the symbol of bodily and intellectual food.
2. The lotus, as a symbol of the creative mysteries of the universe.
3. The palm-tree, with its graceful and simple form, served as the prototype of their columns, the capitals of which were either open or closed lotus-buds or flowers.
4. Lastly, the feather ornament, as the emblem of sovereignty.
The columns during the pyramidal, or old style expressed with distinct clearness their purpose to serve as a support; in the hieratic, or new style this purpose is detached from the outer form of the column, which no longer has to support, but merely to serve as an ornament, or to proclaim some mysterious tenet in symbolic types. The face of Isis is to look to the four quarters of the globe; the closed or open lotus to symbolise the mystery of creation, the fountain of life, the cup of plenty, and the fount of all blessings. In this treatment they went so far as to imitate the very dew-drops on the lotus, in granite. A strict naturalism was the foundation of all Egyptian conventionalism, and in many instances they succeeded in producing perfectly astonishing effects. In their columns we recognise the very plant which must have suggested the forms. When made circular and of granite, these columns still retained the triangular shape of the papyrus by means of three raised lines on the round surface. At a later period they were fluted, and apparently tied together under the capital with a strap, cord, or band of a broad fibrous substance; the capital above rose in four divisions in the form of a closed lotus. In the hieratic style the fluting of the columns disappears—they are smooth, round, and covered with hieroglyphs, but the base still discloses the plant origin, disguised in an ornament of palm or reed leaves. Characteristic in these columns is the expression of tension in the swelling shaft, which was probably an unconscious imitation of wood-construction; the heavy cross-beams pressing on the thin posts produced this effect, which has been slavishly copied in stone. With the Greeks this swelling of the column became one of the elements of its beauty, because with them it was an abstraction of symmetrical proportion, consciously done, to express the conflicting powers of pressure and resistance. With a proud obstinacy the Egyptians, during their hieratic period, insisted on separating the ornamental from the architectural part of the building, so that no organic connection existed between sculpture and architecture. This is most striking in those colossal sitting figures which are placed in the front and at the back of propylæa, or before the walls of pylons. It is a clear separation of matter and spirit, of purpose and form, which is altogether contrary to the fundamental principles of good architecture.
Art with the Egyptians was thoroughly polychromatic; they tinted granite, of whatever colour, with a red pigment, so that the stone might have its proper divine colour, hallowed by the priests. They coloured in flat tints, and used no shading or shadow; they had, however, no difficulty in conveying to the mind the original forms which they intended to copy. Priestly canons regulated the size, form, colour, and expression of every statue, and every attribute had its prescribed form, the meaning of which was concealed from the artist, turning him into a mere unconscious machine, a tool in priestly hands. This is the reason why their works of art look monotonous, and everything with them is impressed by the crushing influence of over-regulation. The Typhonic blast of uniformity killed every higher aspiration in the artist. The human figure had to consist of nineteen units; the second finger was that unit. Squares of this unit were drawn on the flat, and according to these measurements the human figure was constructed with geometrical accuracy, looking as flat as possible. Dreary deserts of religious prejudices, gloomy superstitions, and childish formalities hindered all progress, and marked their sculpture and ornamentation with fixed, stereotyped stiffness, until the last period of their art.
D. The Ptolemaic style began to develop a little more life and taste. The statues did not look as if cast in a general mould; the gods were allowed to have their feet asunder, the one in advance of the other, which gave them some appearance of motion. How taste may be degraded by prejudice and custom, can be seen in the fact, that when this innovation in Egyptian art was settled by a general law of the Pharaoh, with the connivance of the high ceremonial courts, the masses, on seeing their gods with legs apart, as if ready to walk, rushed from all sides with strong ropes, and tied the divinities to their pedestals, horrified at the possibility of their leaving the country altogether. And the gods did leave the country. Anything based on superstition or prejudice, anything having for its vivifying element symbolism or mysticism, must die away in time.
What we said of Indian art holds good of Egyptian forms. Take away from the Uræus, the lotus, papyrus, palm, crocodile, cat, and bull their symbolic meaning, and these elements of ornamentation lose their vitality. The Greeks, and more especially the Romans, have shown us how we may use some of their patterns to advantage: how an entrance hall may be decorated with silent and mournful-looking sphinxes, and what an unsurpassed charm there is in the obelisk, directing the thought upwards. A pyramid still remains one of the finest monuments for one who has filled the four quarters of the globe with his fame.
In their every-day ornaments, rings, bracelets, necklaces, head-dresses and furniture, the architectural straight lines prevail; variety is not much required, the forms as well as the patterns must be the same. Just as we reproduce horse-shoe upon horse-shoe because they bring ‘luck,’ the Egyptian jeweller reproduced the scarabæus, and the Turin Museum has not less than 180 different kinds of scarabæi. In their architecture they suffered from one great evil—from a horror of symmetry. Their grand palaces or temples have no ruling element; everything is out of proportion, and though in their detailed ornamentation they were symmetrical, and even eurythmical—the harmony of purpose is often wanting. The thought of building for eternity, however, is always present, whilst no one can deny that in our buildings the ninety years’ lease is to be traced in every corner. The Egyptians tried to represent the forms of monumental architecture, and they certainly succeeded in reaching the sublime, but they did this in neglecting the beautiful. Their symmetrophobia, which many of our architects imitate only too successfully, spoilt everything. Their weavings were excellent; their wood-constructions, as far as furniture was concerned, faultless; music was known to them; they worked gold, and ornamented it in the so-called ‘champ-levé’ manner, and were acquainted with enamel ‘cloisonné.’ They also fixed thin layers of gold thread on metal, and filled the remaining spaces with enamel of different colours, which method the ancients called ‘encaustum.’ Notwithstanding all these advantages Egyptian art never reached the ideal of beauty; it has only the charm of the mysterious for us. To keep this sentiment alive is the duty of any modern artist who wishes to work in the Egyptian style. He must try to convey some mystic cosmogonical or incomprehensible religious thought in diapers, and floral ornament, or in the use of animals or the human frame in outlines, he must place his ideas and forms under a strict linear canon. He may then succeed in reproducing the artistic forms of a nation, during a period, in which humanity did not go beyond the hierarchical in religion, and the practical in art; during which mankind struggled to find forms, but was prevented from the freer exercise of its innate artistic force by the dictates of a despotic priesthood, and was tied with merciless tyranny to monotonous canons, crushing under the weight of symbolism and mysticism every higher artistic aspiration.
Little, or rather nothing, can properly be said of Hebrew art, for it is a non-entity. The Hebrews are a mixed race. They assert themselves to be of the Semitic group of mankind, but ethnologically they are a composition of black, yellow, and white men, and are closely related to the Arabs and Phœnicians. They were generally slaves. For 450 years they were in bondage in Egypt, whence they first emerged into a national existence. From Moses to Saul, for 450 years, they lived under a kind of theocratic democracy: God, the supreme ruler in heaven, and the Jews on earth his chosen people. For another 450 years they had a kind of theocratic monarchy: God ruled in heaven, as the king ruled on earth. This period lasted from Saul to Zedekiah, and gives us—
(α) A period of 100 years under the first three kings, when the twelve tribes were yet united; and
(β) Another period during which they formed two separate kingdoms. Of these
(a) Israel, in this condition, lasted 220 years under twenty kings, who ruled at Samaria, and was destroyed by the Assyrians.
(b) Judæa, as a separate State, existed 350 years under twenty-one kings, and was annihilated by the Babylonians.
Not less than 650 years intervened between the destruction of Jerusalem and its second destruction by the Romans. During this period the chosen people were
1. 200 years under Persian sway.
2. 170 years under the dominion of Alexander the Great and his successors.
3. 130 years they enjoyed a certain independence under the Maccabees.
4. 100 years they were ruled by the Herodes and Romans. After the second destruction of Jerusalem the Jews ceased to have an independent State of their own, and were scattered all over the earth. They in reality enjoyed only 550 years of freedom, as a grand and united nation, out of a period of not less than 6,000 historically-known years.
Intellect came to absolute consciousness for the first time amongst the Jews, and in this their historical importance and weight lie. Man, created in the image of God, lost his state of innocence, absolute contentment and immortality, by eating of the tree of knowledge. The Jews were the first to recognise in a higher sense the double nature of man—his godhead and his animal nature. The country in which they developed is a perfect geological marvel. The region in which they settled was divided by a river and a sea. This sea is 1,400 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The river flows downwards, like the Stygian river, far beneath the level of the ocean. The banks of the Jordan and the lake Asphaltites are the lowest regions of the habitable globe. In the west the Jews found some fertile plains, but they never could obtain full and peaceful possession of them, nor of the sea-coast. They were shut out from the world in a mountainous region as in a gloomy Puritan chapel, and had ample leisure for self-contemplation, and for attempting to solve the riddle of man’s destiny with the help of Egyptian wisdom, Persian, Assyrian and Babylonian theories. Rocks and sand formed the foreground of their earthly existence; the background was made up by a gloomy river and a still gloomier sea—the sea of death, the Acherusian, the Plutonian lake. A sea too low, too mephitic and poisonous for art to exist round it. A region of sorrow, sinfulness, and abject wretchedness cannot be the abode of art and science. The fine art of the Jews was like a migratory bird in its passage over the sea of death.
Not only with the Jews, but also with the Egyptians, Persians, and early Greeks, to represent a god in the likeness of man was considered sinful. The Persians abhorred idols in any shape. The Egyptians gave their gods shape and form, but a merely symbolic form, expressing in concrete signs some higher abstract conception. The human head, the body of a beast or fish, the horns of a ram, or the ears of a cow; the human leg with the foot of a goat, or the human arm with the claws of a bird of prey, were sacred, because symbolical. They had a metaphysical theology written in hieroglyphs. All this was prohibited with the Jews. They allowed some exceptions, and borrowed the figures of the cherubim from the Assyrians, the oxen of the temple from the Egyptians, and the sculptured lions of Solomon’s palace from the Persians; their artists were foreigners, and the imitation of these works was ever after forbidden.
‘All those things,’ says Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel, one of their most learned commentators, ‘which are esteemed holy in the presence of God, or idea of man, may not be imitated in any known form or shape, although made without the intention of adoring them, so as to preclude the possibility of their being worshipped or deified hereafter. Thus the figure of the divine chariot, which Ezekiel saw, may not be made, nor the likeness of angels of any degree, nor of man, for these creatures are all superior from being made in the image of God.’ ... The prohibition is further applied by him to everything appertaining to the holy temple, and no house or palace could be built of its size or proportions.
Poetry and music were exempt from this enactment. The importance and influence of the social and religious condition on the development of art may best be studied in the Jews. They had no great architects, sculptors or painters, no inventors, no philosophers in natural science, but many excellent poets, theologians, cabalists, necromancers, philologists and composers. In our times, however, influenced by the vivifying spirit of Christianity, they count amongst themselves, in addition to an inordinate number of picture-dealers, some creditable painters.
They possessed legitimately only one temple. Their first temple was a portable tent. The second was almost entirely of cedar-wood, richly provided with metallic ornaments, made by artists from Tyre and Sidon. They possessed one palace, that of Solomon. Babylonian or Assyrian architecture was probably reflected in this, and we may thus form a dim idea of what Solomon’s palace must have been. First the temple, then the palace was constructed.
The fact that the first temple was a mere tent, shows at once the nomadic character of the Jews, at a period when the Egyptians had possessed their architectural marvels for thousands of years. To the student of history, architecture is a sure measure of the degree of artistic and social development of a nation. We may boldly say, show us the plans of the houses, palaces, and temples of any nation, and we can determine the degree of its civilisation; we can do even more, we can read its character and religious fervour in these wood, brick, or stone records. That the Jews, having been compelled to witness all the misery and superstitious dulness which the Egyptian hierarchy and theocracy produced, should have detested architecture, and looked upon sculpture or any stone and brick as a curse to humanity, was quite natural; and that, once escaped from the bondage of Egypt, they should have hated any monumental, architectural, or artistic sculptural attempt, is equally obvious.
The egotistical character of the nomadic trader may be traced in the architectural constructions of the Jews. Any nation that loves its god or gods with zeal and self-denial will be sure to build grand temples to his or their glorification. The Persians had no temples, because they spiritualised the divine conception to such a degree, that they thought the first cause present everywhere like light. The Jews borrowed the same idea, and yet to fix the Eternal Spirit visibly amongst themselves, they assigned him a permanent abode, where he was exclusively to dwell; to be near them and to watch over them. Religious egotism was the mainspring of their national existence, and this general egotism made every individual Jew an egotist; and egotists are always bad supporters of anything by which the masses generally may benefit. Such people look only to the satisfaction of their momentary wants; they will collect trinkets, earrings, bracelets, armlets, goblets, gold and silver vessels, but the divine art of architecture, which binds masses together, will be neglected. We see them at first contented with a mere tent, and, when they undertook to construct a lasting building, it was done with all the pomp and gaudiness of a parvenu; they borrowed from all the surrounding rich people anything they could lay hands upon, merely to be able to say, without reason or taste—‘Look, my special God has also his special house.’ In the most powerful period of their national existence, which was a very short one, the Jews roused themselves to the construction of at least one temple to their Javeh. They wished at last to possess an Akropolis like the Egyptians, who had so many, or the Greeks, Persians, Assyrians and Babylonians. Their God was at last to be housed, like the gods of the despised Gentiles.
The temple of Solomon has been much written upon. Prejudice, religious fanaticism, blind faith, and unconscious or voluntary ignorance, dictated the descriptions and guided the reconstructions. Michaelis, one of the greatest Jewish authorities on Scriptural matters, tells us that ‘all the representations which we possess of the temple of Solomon are ornamented with arbitrary forms, and if we ask for authority or proof of this or that ornamental form, we invariably receive the answer: It must have been so, for I would have built in this way.’ It is naturally very difficult to obtain a correct description of the temple of Solomon, for with regard to its construction we must rely on the records of the Jews themselves. Unfortunately the Books of the Kings, Chronicles, Ezekiel, and the writings of Josephus, the varying descriptions of the translators, and the host of commentators, who generally obscure the simplicity of the simplest subject, are all at variance.
We may divide Jewish history into the eight following periods.
During the first period we find them as nomads on the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris.
During the second period they were received as shepherds in Egypt Here they learnt for the first time the arts of a settled people. They found a mighty hierarchy already established; astronomy, chemistry, architecture, and sculpture were practised by priests, who were well-versed theologians, lawyers, physicians, and philosophers. Not only the Jews, who lived amongst the Egyptians, but also the wisest and most learned men of Greece, owed much to the land of hidden wisdom, which was undoubtedly the cradle of the Jewish faith and of Greek philosophy. Moses, Lykurgus, and Solon sat piously listening to the oracular instructions of the Egyptian priests, who taught in mystic symbols. Thales, Pythagoras and Plato borrowed their philosophical theories and systems largely from the Egyptians. The Egyptians worked out the incarnation theory with mystic refinement. Osiris, the concealed Lord of heaven, had to become flesh, to conquer evil. He condescended to become a redeemer—had to suffer a cruel death in order to paralyse the influences of Typhon. The Greeks and Jews never could grasp the mystery of a god changing his almighty subjectivity into an objective human form, in order to attain, through suffering and death, what he could have fulfilled in a thousand other ways. Osiris was not only the supreme ruler in heaven, but he was also the supremely just and inexorable judge in hell. The division of the universe into an abode of bliss for the departed just, and of eternal darkness and fire for the unjust, was an Indian, Persian, and Egyptian dogma. To the blessed it was promised that they should pluck the sweetest fruits in heaven, ‘for they have given food to the hungry, and water to the thirsty; they clothed the naked, and lived in truth; for their heart was with God and God was with them, and they will enjoy eternal life in his presence,’ Of the wicked, on the contrary, it was said: ‘that they could not see the countenance of the Lord of heaven, nor ever hear his voice; they would go about without heads, drag after them their hearts, be boiled for ever in a cauldron, be hanged for ever by their legs.’
From these metaphysical and mystic Egyptians, the immortal Jewish lawgiver borrowed the division of his nation into twelve tribes, in imitation of the twelve zodiacal signs, and the division of Egypt into twelve nomes. In Egypt he learnt to distinguish between clean and unclean animals; to practise circumcision, which was with the Egyptians confined to their priests; but Moses promised to make his compatriots ‘a nation of priests.’ He established the tribe of the Levites, in imitation of the Egyptian priest-caste; and regulated their income, mode of living, and duties according to the ten books of the prophets (see p. 112); he divided the priests into four different classes, which at a later period were called Peshat, exegists, Remes, expounders of dubious points, Derush, composers of homilies, and Sod, the hierophants, or those versed in the real mysteries. The initials of the four names are taken from the Persian word PRDS (paradise) which may be adduced to prove that what Moses originally instituted was worked out, and systematised, at a later period, under Persian influence. The whole arrangement of the tabernacle was Egyptian; the serpent-worship was Egyptian, and so was the idolatrous predilection for the golden calf. Moses in his wise gratitude forbade the Jews ever to be hostile to the Egyptians.
During the third period they left Egypt, and though they were acquainted with all the smaller arts of their Egyptian task-masters, and knew how to weave, to cut stones, to model, to cast, and to found gold and silver, they had to seek and to gain by hard fighting a new home to settle in. During this period they forgot everything; their accomplishments were gone when they settled in the Holy Land. For during times of war the growth of sciences and arts was never fostered.
During the fourth period they reached the very climax of their national glory. David became master of a large empire which extended from the shores of the Euphrates to the frontiers of Egypt; this expansion was accomplished by the force of arms. His successor Solomon administered and consolidated the empire, founded on blood and iron, by wisdom and the culture of the arts of peace. After a Cæsar, the Jews had an Augustus. Solomon lived in friendship and peace with the surrounding mighty kingdoms, especially with Hiram, King of Tyre. It was Solomon who began to build Tadmor (afterwards Palmyra, the queen of the East), to establish in the desert a common emporium for Phœnician wares, and to enable the Jews to trade with them.
During the fifth period the vast empire was divided into two parts, the one of which was altogether annihilated, and the other fell into the hands of the Babylonians, and the temple of Solomon was destroyed. Slaves and captives are rarely good artists.
During the sixth period, after Kyrus had freed the Jews and permitted them to return to their native country, their national position improved. Under Darius, Zorobabel received permission to reconstruct the temple of Solomon on the foundations of the one erected by that wise king, and it was accordingly rebuilt, but this could only be done in accordance with the impoverished condition of freed captives.
During the seventh period, under Alexander the Great and his followers, the Jews, attacked by Persians, Egyptians, and Syrians, showed that they could rise to the very highest deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice.
Finally, during the eighth period, under the Romans, they gave up all hope of maintaining their position as a chosen people; they revolted sometimes, but more for theological than political reasons. Pompey treated them with great kindness and consideration after the capture of Jerusalem. During the reign of Augustus the town attained a grandeur and extension which it had never possessed, even in its brightest days under the sway of Solomon. But stubborn and arrogant as the Jews always were in times of prosperity, though enjoying a certain amount of freedom, they revolted, and the town and temple were destroyed. Nothing was left but the candlestick with seven branches, symbolic with the Egyptians of the seven planets, and with the Jews of seven archangels, or of the seven days of the week, sculptured in marble on the Arch of Titus, together with a facsimile of the holy ark, and some of the trumpets, used in religious ceremonies. It would be most interesting if the original relics, which it is assumed are buried in the Tiber, could be recovered; and, as so many venerable relics of by-gone ages have been brought to light, we do not despair of once seeing these remains.
The tabernacle, or earliest temple of the Jews, was entirely constructed on the plan of an Egyptian temple. To convince ourselves of this truth we need only compare its plan with that of the temple at Edfou. The triple division into a Pronaos, Naos, and Adytum, or the Holy of Holies, was strictly observed in both. The Adytum was a cube 10 cubits, or 15 feet each way; an outer temple, as Naos, consisted of two such cubes, 15 feet broad by 30 feet long. Adytum and Naos were covered by a sloping roof, which projected 5 cubits (7½ feet) in every direction beyond the temple itself, making the whole 40 cubits, or 60 feet, in length, by 20 cubits, or 30 feet, in width. Adytum and Naos stood in an enclosure—the Pronaos, 100 cubits (150 feet) long, by 50 cubits (75 feet) broad. From Moses to Solomon, for 600 years, this tabernacle was the only temple of the Jews. When Solomon began to construct the temple, he adhered strictly to the above arrangement, only doubling all the dimensions. The temple partook more of the character of a square shrine, or a store-house intended to contain precious works in metal; a kind of opisthodomos. The principal ornaments were two brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz (sun and moon), by the skilful Hiram of Tyre. They were said to have been marvels of metal-work. The pillars of Susan or Persepolis, which had capitals of the same relative proportions, may give us some idea of these. In Egyptian temples it was also usual to place propyleæ at the porch of a temple, and the same custom prevailed with the Phœnicians, as in the case of the celebrated Venus (Astarte or Astharote) shrine at Paphos. After the construction of the temple by Solomon, Jerusalem became the holy and exclusive central point of Judaism. There only, and nowhere else, did they allow their God to be present. Zorobabel erected on the very spot another altar and temple in the same spirit, and this is the reason why the erection of a second temple at Heliopolis by Onias, under the Ptolemæians, caused such animosity and jealousy amongst Egyptian and Judaic Jews. It is said that the necessary marble, wood, and stone, and also the gold, silver, and brass vessels had already been weighed and prepared for the construction of the temple during the reign of King David, who gave his son the plan of the whole architectural construction. According to Chronicles, however, it appears that David made little or no preparation, and that Solomon only found some of the brass-work ready for use. This latter assertion is clearly verified by the correspondence between Solomon and Hiram. Solomon asks for wood for building in general, as also cedars and cypress trees from Mount Lebanon; adding that he wishes that Sidonians, as experienced carpenters, should help his own workmen, whom he designates as less able. This does not say very much in favour of the artistic skill of the Jews, who at the period of Solomon’s reign had not yet attained the same degree of proficiency as the pre-historic constructors of pile-dwellings. The request of Solomon was granted by the King of Tyre, and Adoniram was sent as foreman of the Sidonian carpenters, of whom 30,000 were appointed by Solomon; 10,000 of these worked alternately from month to month. Besides the 30,000 carpenters, there were 80,000 sculptors, or rather stone-cutters and masons, and 70,000 journeymen, making altogether 180,000 working men, under 3,300 overseers, employed in the construction of the temple, all tributary strangers whom David had conquered. The construction began 592 years after Exodus, about 975 years B.C. Mount Moreah, or Moriah, was the site chosen, and the temple was completed in seven years. The inner temple was 60 cubits (90 feet) long, 20 cubits (30 feet) broad, and 30 cubits (45 feet) high. Josephus says it was 120 cubits (180 feet) high; this would make the edifice resemble a square tower. The Pronaos may have been 120 cubits high. The space, 60 cubits long and 20 broad, was separated into two divisions. Of these the rear was 20 cubits square, forming the Holy of Holies, the ‘sekos’ of the Egyptian temples. The other division, 40 by 10, formed the Naos, the holy place, which was preceded by a hall, the Pronaos. The division: One God, one priesthood, and one people, was thus expressed. Rooms were constructed round the temple three stories high, corresponding to the rooms in the Egyptian Labyrinth, and the Brahmanic and Buddhistic choultries, or cloisters. There were thirty rooms on each floor. The height of the temple having been 30 cubits, this would give 15 feet for each story, walls included. Josephus doubles all these dimensions, and adopts inconceivable measurements. The ninety rooms were used as receptacles for the sacred vessels, and the temple was thus literally a holy treasury. The Holy of Holies having been only 20 cubits high, a space of 10 cubits, or 15 feet, would have been left above it; of this room no intelligible mention is made. In the Septuagint there is an allusion, which differs from the Vulgate and the different translations. In Chronicles we have upper chambers mentioned, which were overlaid with gold; this might have been the rooms or chambers above the Holy of Holies. No special staircase led to this room. It was undoubtedly a mysterious apartment, and, like all mysteries, excited some writers to very varied speculations on its possible nature. Amongst others the learned Ben David, in a letter to Lichtenberg in the Berlin ‘Archive der Zeit,’ asserted that this chamber must have contained an electric battery, for golden chains connected the room with the pillars of Jachin and Boaz, which were hollow, and could be placed in communication with the altar of brass. The points of the temple were golden. At the consecration of the temple, clouds, produced by incense, suddenly filled the interior of the temple, and a flash of lightning ignited the sacrifice. Michaelis tells us that the temple was never struck by lightning—the lightning, therefore, setting fire to the sacrifice must have been produced within the temple.
No stone roofs or vaults are mentioned in connection with the temple or palace built by the Jews; architecture was, therefore, in its most primitive stage. The inner temple and the Holy of Holies were entered through folding-doors. The Holy of Holies was entirely empty, symbolic of the incomprehensibility of the nature of the Deity. This was also the case in Egypt with the ‘sekos,’ which was, in fact, a shrine either quite empty, or containing a scroll, on which were written the words: ‘I am that was, that is, and that shall be.’ Two courts surrounded the temple, an inner and an outer court. The outer court was open to every Jew, but the inner court to the priests only. The former was surrounded by a double row of pillars overlaid with cedar-wood. It is said that Solomon had valleys filled up in order to make the concrete subconstruction of the length even. Each side of the outer wall surrounding the whole temple was 4 stadia or 1 stadium (606 feet 9 inches English) in length, giving 2,427 feet all round. The pillars Jachin and Boaz stood on the staircase of the inner court; each was 36 feet in circumference, 54 feet in height without the capital, which was 15 feet high. The shafts were hollow and the brass 4 inches thick. On the south-eastern side stood the round brass basin, called the sea, 30 feet in diameter, in which the priests used to wash their hands. Besides the ‘sea,’ there stood on pedestals on either side of the temple five cups, 12 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The altar of the burning sacrifice, in the middle of this space, was 60 feet broad and as many feet long; all these secondary necessaries of the temple stood in the east. The surrounding courts rose in terraces like those of the palace of Persepolis. The temple, whatever its magnificence might have been in precious stones, gold, silver, carved cherubim, brass and silver vessels, washing-basins and candlesticks, was architecturally an utter failure, whether compared with the monumental temples of Egypt, the grand and splendid palaces of Assyria, Babylon, or Persepolis, or the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The latter, which was built on a marsh, that it might not be endangered by earthquakes, was 425 feet in length and 220 in width, and had 127 columns 60 feet high, each the gift of a king. This is the account given by Pliny, who, however, describes either the seventh or eighth temple. Stable as was everything in religious matters with the Jews, they did not venture in rebuilding their temple to make any alterations; a stone displaced, an ornament improved, might have driven their God from his chosen abode. With such ideas art is impossible. The additions made to the temple under the Romans, in order to render the building more in harmony with their street architecture, were only outer courts with rich colonnades of Corinthian columns, and had nothing to do with the temple itself. These formed the Stoa-Basilica, with the court of the Gentiles, which is spoken of as imposing and forming a mighty group, and must not be confounded with the temple itself, which was certainly no specimen of architecture, either in dimension, in plan, or in decoration, if we except some stiff vine foliage on capitals, which was exceptionally characteristic of the Jewish style.
The numerous tombs in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem are rock-hewn, clearly betraying their Egyptian origin; they are provided with numerous hollows for the reception of the bodies. These sepulchres are without any artistic stamp; on some façades we can see the Egyptian fluted corona. The façades of the so-called royal tombs of Jacob or the judges are decorated in a Greek style, as are the tombs of Zacharias and Absalom; the latter stand out from the rock as independent structures, ornamented with Ionic pillars, and above the Egyptian corona rises a pyramidal or conical structure; a combination of the pre-historic tumulus with Egyptian and classic elements. Something is borrowed from everyone to make up a chosen national element.
In books or in conversation this may avail, but in art, where the outer impression is to create a corresponding sensation, assertions must be borne out by visible productions, and to falsify architectural records is much more difficult than to interpolate passages, alter dates, or make assertions in utter defiance of probability and possibility. The Hebrews, whether as Jews or Israelites, had no art, and never pretended to have one; they were contented with the art-products which other nations made for them, in perfect accordance with the clearly-expressed promise of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: ‘That He would give them great and goodly cities, which they would not build; and houses full of good things, which they would not fill; and wells digged, which they would not dig; and vineyards and olive trees, which they would not plant.’ With such principles neither architecture, sculpture, nor ornamentation could flourish. Art in Asia never became master of matter from an esthetical point of view, for, in all these works, matter sways the mind; it is either an exhibition of precious stones on walls, or lace-work in marble, or endless heaps of huge granite blocks and columns without purpose, or decorations in wild, fantastic, and endless combinations. The Eastern mind could not free itself from the influence of a mighty hierarchy. In the East it was the eternal Hermes, the Logos, the priest, who read truth in the stars, manufactured gods and goddesses, wrote the language of heaven, drew up plans for temples, squared out the proportions of the human body, and gave laws to sculptors and painters, to stone-cutters and masons, to joiners and carpenters, weavers and dyers. Hermes, with his followers, was the physician, the lawgiver, and the judge of the masses; he prayed, he sacrificed for them, he prophesied, circumcised, married, embalmed, and buried them. The priest in the East, whether as Brahman, Buddhist, Hierophant, Magi, or Levite, generally placed the idea, the spirit, the word, the λόγος {logos} above the form, which, in itself, crippled the form the more effectually, because the form, however revolting, was the mere symbol of some sacred mystery. The creative genius of art was thus almost extinguished under the stifling and petrifying influence of hierarchical formalism, and, until it had been freed from this, could neither develop nor prosper. The process of freeing humanity from this formalism was first begun and accomplished by the Greeks.
Art has appeared to us till now under peculiar circumstances. We have seen it in Asia and Africa, and in both parts of the world it represented the uninterrupted struggle of humanity for self-consciousness. Humanity was too much under the influence of the marvellous and incomprehensible, and neither the marvellous nor the incomprehensible can be brought into shape. The Indians tried to give forms to the metaphysical phenomena of nature; the Persians were bent on the glorification of the power of one visible earthly despot; the Egyptians tried to copy the realistic phenomena of nature, and inscribed them with mystic signs, uniting Indian abstractions with the real phenomena of nature. When a thought was fixed into a form; the thought, being at the same time a religious conception, could no more be changed; it became in art what a technical name for a natural phenomenon is in science. Oxygen is oxygen, and designates only that element; so when once a form was settled, as that of Vishnu or Amn, S’iva or Osiris—or the serpent fixed as a symbol of eternity, or the hawk as a symbol of light—the inner or spiritual life of the artist was fettered down to outward forms with special inward meanings. Thus the constraining sway of misunderstood nature on one side, and the stationary precepts of an omnipotent hierarchy on the other, entangled the artist’s imagination and paralysed every effort of his subjective power of production. The different nations began to be wrapped up in their different artistic forms, which became by degrees hard and impenetrable national and religious incrustations; the masses, held in abeyance, led by theocratical art, had only to glorify one visible or invisible tyrant, with whom the universe was blessed. Eastern art was to a certain degree plastic, only too plastic as in India; but it was too penetrated with an incomprehensible spiritualism to find the right objects for its plastic tendencies. Even where geometrical figures, flowers, or trees were used, the effect of their simple combination was marred by a want of harmony between thought and form, or idea and body. This harmony between outward form and inner spirit, wherein real beauty consists, this balance between the dynamic and static cosmogonical elements, was wanting in Eastern art. The East rent nature asunder, and looked upon matter as evil; and yet matter was to be used, to bring spirit into form. The element of S’iva, Ahriman, or Typhon was to give visible form to the conceptions of Brahmă, Ormuzd, or Osiris, and could not do this, because the connecting link to blend the apparently-opposed powers into one, was wanting. A uniting force for this mysterious antagonism, a mediator between heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, was sought for, but not found. The Persian unconsciously set Meshiah (man, mensch) down as that element, but Meshiah was not yet allowed to come to any free development, and he sank into the pitiful and degraded position of a slave to despotic oligarchs, or still more intolerant spiritual hierarchs. Meshiah (humanity) was first freed by the Greeks in form and by Christ in spirit.
There can be no doubt that the Greeks were, for a short time at least, the ancient representatives of the well-balanced static and dynamic forces in humanity. Of all the geographical districts of the world, whether in the Eastern or Western hemisphere, none are so admirably adapted for the cultivation of social intercourse as the Grecian isles, and the Grecian peninsula, the classical region of the Ægean Sea. Nowhere is so large a coast-line found, surrounding so small a territorial surface; nowhere such a variety of creeks, capes, promontories, inlets, and harbours as round the Peloponnesus, and the islands uniting Asia Minor with Greece and Italy. No streams like the Ganges, or the Hoang-ho; no mountains like the Belur Tag or Himâlâya. Gorgeous uniformity is the characteristic of China and India; variety and change the very element of the Greek world. Mountains, plains, valleys, streams, are all of a limited size; there rules a sweet, eternal harmony between spirit and form; nothing is exaggerated, nothing overawes man; he feels at home; the dark-blue sky over-arches his verdant, hilly, amiable earth, adorned with brooks and hills, boskets and flowers. Valley chases valley; rivulet pursues rivulet; clouds follow clouds; the morning dawn flies before the bright noon, and the noon dies away, in the cool sighs of the evening breezes, into the embrace of dark night. The self-conscious spirit of youthful humanity came into life for the first time in Greece. Everything with the Greeks was feeling, but a feeling, conscious of a real purpose in religion, the State, the family, and in art. We shall see that intuitive feeling grow by degrees into critical reflection, but in the first instance everything with the Greeks was ingenuous, or, as the French call it, ‘naïve.’ This classical ‘naïveté,’ this unconscious, unaffected simplicity, enabled them to become masters of intuitive productions, and to look upon this world with an unbiassed eye, prone only to see what was harmonious and beautiful. The whole life of the Greeks was thus one long ideal dream of poetical and artistic reality. They took an interest, however, in objective individuality only; the beauties of nature as one great total did not yet affect their subjective comprehension. They could not grasp the pantheistic notion of the Indians, who saw in every detailed phenomenon of the universe the working of ONE indivisible and incomprehensible first cause. They shuddered at the Egyptian monsters, which were to serve as symbols of that sublime conception which lost on the Nile all its primitive grandeur. They found the Persian absorption of the universe into a conflict between light and darkness too dreary, and ascribed to it the loss of all individual freedom. They worked out a system of their own, based on Indian grandeur, Egyptian symbolism, and Persian abstractions. To be thoroughly acquainted with this combination of influences is the very first step towards an understanding of Greek art.
The Greeks were Aryans in language, and in mode of thinking; Aryans who had detached themselves very early from their Cis-Himâlâyan brethren, and peopled Asia Minor and the surrounding islands. They were strengthened by Egyptian and Phœnician immigrations, and invigorated by Thracia’s warlike spirit.
Like a plant that only lives and grows by means of the antithetic activity of air, light, and water, the Greek State-body had air supplied by Orpheus from Thracia, light by Kekrops from Egypt, and water by Kadmus from Phœnicia. Independent freedom and love of the arts were the gifts of the North; the South furnished them with deep knowledge, and Phœnicia gave them the vivifying spirit of commerce. Their language is an offshoot of the Sanskrit, but stands in a more distant relation to it than the Zend—to which it is closely allied. They are principally distinguished from the Asiatic nations by their decided hatred of everything arbitrary and chaotic. From their love for individuality and diversity of customs, manners and modes of thinking, sprang the national unity of the Greeks in the fairy realms of Poetry and Art. When they began to feel themselves a people, they assumed the name of Hellenes; and their first historical deed was the admirable completion of a language which, for simplicity, power, and beauty, has remained up to our own days a model for all other languages, for it alike possesses eurythmy and power of expression. The overwhelming metaphysical subtleties of the Sanskrit are simplified; the variety of consonants and vowels reduced, and the mode of writing corrected; everything proving a deep sense for order, clearness, and moderation.
They had three dialects: the Doric, distinguished by a broader pronunciation; the Ionic, possessed of softness and a melodious richness; and the Æolic, a kind of mixture without a special character. The Dorians came southwards from the hoary mountains of Thessaly, and gained step by step an influence and dominion over the other tribes of Greece. The Ionians occupied the east, and were considered the connecting link between Hellas and Asia; but whatever the Hellenes took from Byblos, Sidon, Tyros or the Libanon, assumed a really Hellenic form, after it had passed through the purifying element of Doric correctness. The south gave ideas, and the north brought them into form.
Whatever the Hellenes touched they beautified. The powerful giant Bhîma of the Mahâbhârata is the prototype of Herakles; but in the myths concerning Herakles we recognise the mere personification of commercial daring and enterprise. Accompanied by his dog, he finds the cochineal; the goblet in which he sails to Erytheia is but the Phœnician merchantman; the Phœnicians are referred to, when it is recorded of him that he had broken the devastating horn of the mountain-streams. Moloch, to whom Assyrians, Indians and Hebrews sacrificed, without ever being capable of investing the fire-spitting monster with anything like poetry, was destroyed by Herakles. The gods of Asia became with the Hellenes demons, from whom they learned some useful trades. Poseidon, the god of the sea, is, like the element over which he rules and in which he dwells, of a sinister, implacable character; he requires human sacrifices, annihilates horses (meaning ships), in fact does, as incarnate divinity, what the sea does in our own times. The Titans are acquainted with astronomy, and are personifications of a certain knowledge in maritime matters. Proteus, the Egyptian Pharaoh, is with them the keeper of the seas, and Atlas the father of nautical astronomy, and both were companions of the Tyrean Herkules. In all the myths and legends of the Greeks we can trace some facts. The divinity they could only comprehend in the well-proportioned form of a human being, and a hero or benefactor of humanity became with them a divinity. This blending into one of the divine and human is the most important feature in Greek thought. Vishnu and Osiris also became incarnate—but their deeds were supernatural; the principal feature of their ‘man-godhead,’ or ‘divine manhood,’ is an incomprehensible mysticism. Their anthropomorphism had in it something gloomy. When the divine Apollo uttered the memorable words: ‘Man, know thyself,’ the Greeks became suddenly conscious of the inborn spark of the divine intellect in man; the gods were intelligible to them, and the Asiatic world of abstractions emerged in a thousand different human forms of divine conceptions.