Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative (Vol. 1-3). Spencer Herbert

or enchorial; both of which are derived from the original hieroglyphic. At the same time we find that for the expression of proper names, which could not be otherwise conveyed, signs having phonetic values were employed; and though it is alleged that the Egyptians never achieved complete alphabetic writing, yet it can scarcely be doubted that these phonetic symbols, occasionally used in aid of their ideographic ones, were the germs of an alphabetic system. Once having become separate from hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing itself underwent numerous differentiations—multiplied alphabets were produced; between most of which, however, more or less connection can still be traced. And in each civilized nation there has now grown up, for the representation of one set of sounds, several sets of written signs used for distinct purposes. Finally, from writing diverged printing; which, uniform in kind as it was at first, has since become multiform.

      While written language was passing through its first stages of development, the mural decoration which contained its root was being differentiated into Painting and Sculpture. The gods, kings, men, and animals represented, were originally marked by indented outlines and coloured. In most cases these outlines were of such depth, and the object they circumscribed so far rounded and marked out in its leading parts, as to form a species of work intermediate between intaglio and bas-relief. In other cases we see an advance upon this: the raised spaces between the figures being chiselled off, and the figures themselves appropriately tinted, a painted bas-relief was produced. The restored Assyrian architecture at Sydenham exhibits this style of art carried to greater perfection—the persons and things represented, though still barbarously coloured, are carved out with more truth and in greater detail: and in the winged lions and bulls used for the angles of gateways, we may see a considerable advance towards a completely sculptured figure; which, nevertheless, is still coloured, and still forms part of the building. But while in Assyria the production of a statue proper seems to have been little, if at all, attempted, we may trace in Egyptian art the gradual separation of the sculptured figure from the wall. A walk through the collection in the British Museum shows this; while at the same time it affords an opportunity of observing the traces which the independent statues bear of their derivation from bas-relief: seeing that nearly all of them not only display that fusion of the legs with one another and of the arms with the body which is characteristic of bas-relief, but have the back united from head to foot with a block which stands in place of the original wall. Greece repeated the leading stages of this progress. On the friezes of Greek Temples, were coloured bas-reliefs representing sacrifices, battles, processions, games—all in some sort religious. The pediments contained painted sculptures more or less united with the tympanum, and having for subjects the triumphs of gods or heroes. Even statues definitely separated from buildings were coloured; and only in the later periods of Greek civilization does the differentiation of Sculpture from Painting appear to have become complete. In Christian art we may trace a parallel re-genesis. All early works of art throughout Europe were religious in subject—represented Christs, crucifixions, virgins, holy families, apostles, saints. They formed integral parts of church architecture, and were among the means of exciting worship; as in Roman Catholic countries they still are. Moreover, the sculptured figures of Christ on the cross, of virgins, of saints, were coloured; and it needs but to call to mind the painted madonnas still abundant in continental churches and highways, to perceive the significant fact that Painting and Sculpture continue in closest connection with each other where they continue in closest connection with their parent. Even when Christian sculpture became differentiated from painting, it was still religious and governmental in its subjects—was used for tombs in churches and statues of kings; while, at the same time, painting, where not purely ecclesiastical, was applied to the decoration of palaces, and besides representing royal personages, was mostly devoted to sacred legends. Only in recent times have painting and sculpture become quite separate and mainly secular. Only within these few centuries has Painting been divided into historical, landscape, marine, architectural, genre, animal, still-life, &c.; and Sculpture grown heterogeneous in respect of the variety of real and ideal subjects with which it occupies itself.

      Strange as it seems then, we find that all forms of written language, of Painting, and of Sculpture, have a common root in the politico-religious decorations of ancient temples and palaces. Little resemblance as they now have, the landscape that hangs against the wall, and the copy of the Times lying on the table, are remotely akin. The brazen face of the knocker which the postman has just lifted, is related not only to the woodcuts of the Illustrated London News which he is delivering, but to the characters of the billet-doux which accompanies it. Between the painted window, the prayer-book on which its light falls, and the adjacent monument, there is consanguinity. The effigies on our coins, the signs over shops, the coat of arms outside the carriage panel, and the placards inside the omnibus, are, in common with dolls and paper-hangings, lineally descended from the rude sculpture-paintings in which ancient peoples represented the triumphs and worship of their god-kings. Perhaps no example can be given which more vividly illustrates the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the products that in course of time may arise by successive differentiations from a common stock.

      Before passing to other classes of facts, it should be observed that the evolution of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous is displayed not only in the separation of Painting and Sculpture from Architecture and from each other, and in the greater variety of subjects they embody, but it is further shown in the structure of each work. A modern picture or statue is of far more heterogeneous nature than an ancient one. An Egyptian sculpture-fresco usually represents all its figures as at the same distance from the eye; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting that represents them as at various distances from the eye. It exhibits all objects as exposed to the same degree of light; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting which exhibits its different objects and different parts of each object as in different degrees of light. It uses chiefly the primary colours, and these in their full intensities; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting which, introducing the primary colours but sparingly, employs numerous intermediate tints, each of heterogeneous composition, and differing from the rest not only in quality but in strength. Moreover, we see in these early works great uniformity of conception. The same arrangement of figures is perpetually reproduced—the same actions, attitudes, faces, dresses. In Egypt the modes of representation were so fixed that it was sacrilege to introduce a novelty. The Assyrian bas-reliefs display parallel characters. Deities, kings, attendants, winged-figures and animals, are time after time depicted in like positions, holding like implements, doing like things, and with like expression or non-expression of face. If a palm-grove is introduced, all the trees are of the same height, have the same number of leaves, and are equidistant. When water is imitated, each wave is a counterpart of the rest; and the fish, almost always of one kind, are evenly distributed over the surface. The beards of the kings, the gods, and the winged-figures, are everywhere similar; as are the manes of the lions, and equally so those of the horses. Hair is represented throughout by one form of curl. The king's beard is quite architecturally built up of compound tiers of uniform curls, alternating with twisted tiers placed in a transverse direction, and arranged with perfect regularity; and the terminal tufts of the bulls' tails are represented in exactly the same manner. Without tracing out analogous facts in early Christian art, in which, though less striking, they are still visible, the advance in heterogeneity will be sufficiently manifest on remembering that in the pictures of our own day the composition is endlessly varied; the attitudes, faces, expressions, unlike; the subordinate objects different in sizes, forms, textures; and more or less of contrast even in the smallest details. Or, if we compare an Egyptian statue, seated bolt upright on a block, with hands on knees, fingers parallel, eyes looking straight forward, and the two sides perfectly symmetrical in every particular, with a statue of the advanced Greek school or the modern school, which is asymmetrical in respect of the attitude of the head, the body, the limbs, the arrangement of the hair, dress, appendages, and in its relations to neighbouring objects, we shall see the change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous clearly manifested.

      In the co-ordinate origin and gradual differentiation of Poetry, Music, and Dancing, we have another series of illustrations. Rhythm in words, rhythm in sounds, and rhythm in motions, were in the beginning parts of the same thing, and have only in process of time become separate things. Among existing barbarous tribes we find them still united. The dances of savages are accompanied by some kind of monotonous chant, the clapping of hands, the striking of rude instruments: