GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.(This includes the leading accessible works that treat of painting in general. For works on special periods or schools, see the biblio-graphical references at the head of each chapter. For bibliography of individual painters consult, under proper names, Champlin and Perkins's Cyclopedia, as given below.)
Champlin and Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, New York. Adeline, Lexique des Termes d'Art.
Gazette des Beaux Arts, Paris.
Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel, Paris. L'Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustree, Paris. Bryan, Dictionary of Painters. New edition. Brockhaus, Conversations-Lexikon.
Meyer, Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon, Berlin. Muther, History of Modern Painting. Agincourt, History of Art by its Monuments. Bayet, Precis d'Histoire de l'Art.
Blanc, Histoire des Peintres de toutes les Ecoles. Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil Painting. Lubke, History of Art, trans. by Clarence Cook. Reber, History of Ancient Art.
Reber, History of Mediaeval Art.
Schnasse, Geschichte der Bildenden Kunste.
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Girard, La Peinture Antique.
Viardot, History of the Painters of all Schools. Williamson (Ed.), Handbooks of Great Masters. Woltmann and Woermann, History of Painting. [xvii]
HISTORY OF PAINTING. INTRODUCTION.
The origin of painting is unknown. The first important records of this art are met with in Egypt; but before the Egyptian civilization the men of the early ages probably used color in ornamentation and decoration, and they certainly scratched the outlines of men and animals upon bone and slate. Traces of this rude primitive work still remain to us on the pottery, weapons, and stone implements
of the cave-dwellers. But while indicating the awakening of intelligence in early man, they can be reckoned with as art only in a
slight archaeological way. They show inclination rather than accomplishment--a wish to ornament or to represent, with only a crude knowledge of how to go about it.
The first aim of this primitive painting was undoubtedly decoration--the using of colored forms for color and form only, as shown in the pottery designs or cross-hatchings on stone knives or spear-heads. The second, and perhaps later aim, was by imitating the shapes and colors of men, animals, and the like, to convey an idea of the proportions and characters of such things. An outline of a cave-bear or a mammoth was perhaps the cave-dweller's way of telling his fellows what monsters he had slain. We may assume that
it was pictorial record, primitive picture-written history. This early method of conveying an idea is, in intent,[xviii] substantially the same as the later hieroglyphic writing and historical painting of the Egyptians. The difference between them is merely one of development. Thus there is an indication in the art of Primitive Man of the two great departments of painting existent to-day.
1. Decorative Painting.
2. Expressive Painting.
Pure Decorative Painting is not usually expressive of ideas other than those of rhythmical line and harmonious color. It is not our subject. This volume treats of Expressive Painting; but in dealing with that it should be borne in mind that Expressive Painting has always a more or less decorative effect accompanying it, and that must be spoken of incidentally. We shall presently see the intermin-gling of both kinds of painting in the art of ancient Egypt--our first inquiry.
[1] CHAPTER I.
EGYPTIAN PAINTING.
Books Recommended: Brugsch, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs; Budge, Dwellers on the Nile; Duncker, History of Antiquity; Egypt Exploration Fund Memoirs; Ely, Manual of Archaeology; Lepsius, Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopen; Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria; Maspero, Guide du Visiteur au Musee de Boulaq; Maspero, Egyptian Archaeology; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt; Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.
LAND AND PEOPLE: Egypt, as Herodotus has said, is "the gift of the Nile," one of the latest of the earth's geological forma-tions, and yet one of the earliest countries to be settled and dominated by man. It consists now, as in the ancient days, of the valley of the Nile, bounded on the east by the Arabian mountains and on the west by the Libyan desert. Well-watered and fertile, it was
doubtless at first a pastoral and agricultural country; then, by its riverine traffic, a commercial country, and finally, by conquest, a land
enriched with the spoils of warfare.
Its earliest records show a strongly established monarchy. Dynasties of kings called Pharaohs succeeded one another by birth or conquest. The king made the laws, judged the people, declared war, and was monarch supreme. Next to him in rank came the priests, who were not only in the service of religion but in that of the state, as counsellors, secretaries, and the like. The common people, with true[2] Oriental lack of individuality, depending blindly on leaders, were little more than the servants of the upper classes.
FIG. 1.--HUNTING IN THE MARSHES. TOMB OF TI, SACCARAH. (FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)
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Please click here for a modern color image
The Egyptian religion existing in the earliest days was a worship of the personified elements of nature. Each element had its particular controlling god, worshipped as such. Later on in Egyptian history the number of gods was increased, and each city had its trinity of godlike protectors symbolized by the propylaea of the temples. Future life was a certainty, provided that the Ka, or spirit, did not fall a prey to Typhon, the God of Evil, during the long wait[3] in the tomb for the judgment-day. The belief that the spirit rested in the body until finally transported to the aaln fields (the Islands of the Blest, afterward adopted by the Greeks) was one reason for
the careful preservation of the body by mummifying processes. Life itself was not more important than death. Hence the imposing ceremonies of the funeral and burial, the elaborate richness of the tomb and its wall paintings. Perhaps the first Egyptian art arose through religious observance, and certainly the first known to us was sepulchral.
ART MOTIVES: The centre of the Egyptian system was the monarch and his supposed relatives, the gods. They arrogated to themselves the chief thought of life, and the aim of the great bulk of the art was to glorify monarchy or deity. The massive buildings,
still standing to-day in ruins, were built as the dwelling-places of kings or the sanctuaries of gods. The towers symbolized deity, the sculptures and paintings recited the functional duties of presiding spirits, or the Pharaoh's looks and acts. Almost everything about the public buildings in painting and sculpture was symbolic illustration, picture-written history--written with a chisel and brush, written large that all might read. There was no other safe way of preserving record. There were no books; the papyrus sheet, used extensively, was frail, and the Egyptians evidently wished their buildings, carvings, and paintings to last into eternity. So they wrought in and upon stone. The same hieroglyphic character of their papyrus writings appeared cut and colored on the palace walls, and above them and beside them the pictures ran as vignettes explanatory of the text. In a less ostentatious way the tombs perpetuated history in a similar manner, reciting the domestic scenes from the life of the individual, as the temples and palaces the religious and monarchical scenes.
In one form or another it was all record of Egyptian life, but this was not the only motive of their painting. The[4] temples and palaces, designed to shut out light and heat, were long
