Egyptian sculpture

METHODS OF THE ARTIST 17

it has now two heads and four arms. The fault was probably hidden by covering with plaster, so that when the scene was painted and finished the mistake was not visible. In the well-known sketch of the Four Foreigners, the brushwork should be carefully noted, especially in the nearest head. The artist has dipped his brush and then started his line at the base of the hair. He has drawn a continuous line, without lifting the brush, down the forehead and nose, with a second stroke he has put in the upper lip and mouth, with a third he has indicated the lower lip, and the chin is also drawn in one stroke; in other words, the face was outlined in four masterly strokes. The outline of the whole back of the figure also has been put in with simply one line, again without lifting the brush. This is one of the finest pieces of line-drawing in any country; the actual drawing is accurate, and when one realises that it has been put in without any correction, the result is amazing.

Petrie has shown that the quality of the art at any given period depends greatly on the material in which the sculptor worked. This applies only to sculpture in the round, for reliefs were always in limestone or wood. (For materials used in sculpture at different periods, see p. 18.) The artists who worked in one material did not, as far as we know, work in any other. This would be quite in accordance with the Egyptian method of organisation in other walks of life.

There is a considerable difference in texture between red granite and the black or grey varieties. Red granite has a coarse grain with large crystals of felspar, and was worked by hammer-dressing and not by cutting with metal tools. The surface could never be smoothly finished as the crystals were often broken and fell out, leaving holes. The work

was inevitably coarse and the technique inferior. No great 4