The monotony of Egyptian sculpture was not without some exceptions. Less pretentious works, where the necessity of canonic idealization seems not to have been so imperative—as in the well-fed form of the so-called schoolmaster in the museum of Boulac (Fig. 30.), which shows not only in the head, but in the entire body, an undeniable portrait—make it questionable whether the conventionalized representations may not be more owing to the restraint of religious authority and tradition, to the hieratic laws which exercised so complete a sway over the life of the country in every respect, than to any absolute incapability of the Egyptian artist for individual characterization.
Egyptian sculpture, thus under the ban of religious conservatism, always dealt more successfully with the forms of animals than with human beings and deities. In hunting scenes there is wonderful spirit and character in the drawing of the dogs, and of the animals which they attack. The artist attained an elastic and life-like force in the representation of all animal forms, even when these were compelled into monstrous combinations with human members. The most common of the latter are the androsphinxes, which differ from the Greek sphinx in being male—having the head and breast of a man and the body of a crouching lion. At times the human head is supplanted by that of a ram or hawk. Rams were also treated as sphinxes, especially before the temples of Ammon and Kneph. The most important androsphinx is the well-known colossus of Gizeh with the head of Thothmes IV. The heads of the sphinxes seem usually to have been portraits of kings. This gigantic guardian of the necropolis of Memphis, the most enormous monumental figure of the world, with space between the outstretched front legs for a chapel there built, is now again buried to the neck by the shifting sand of the pyramid plateau after having been excavated with great labor. Its face alone is 12.2 m. long. But it is in cases where the entire lion is represented without deformation that Egyptian sculpture attains its greatest perfection. (Fig. 31.)
A great majority of the Egyptian works of sculpture were cut with marvellous patience in the hardest materials, in variously colored granite, diorite, syenite, and basalt. Limestone and alabaster were rarely employed for colossal or life-size statues, but were used more frequently for works of smaller dimensions; these were also burned in clay with a surface of blue or green glazing, or were cut in more valuable stones, such as agate, jasper, carnelian, and lapis-lazuli. Enamelled clay idols were manufactured in great numbers; modern museums contain hundreds of these little figures of perfectly similar form. The so-called scarabæus is also very common—beetle-shaped bodies of clay, or of the above-named stones—with incised figures or hieroglyphics upon their lower surface. Such amulets were perforated and worn as beads, and were placed loosely in the coffins with the mummies.
The artistic manufacture of colored glass was extensive. Fine metal-work was less common, although ornaments of enamelled gold, silver, and copper of high artistic value have occasionally been found. Wood-carving was practised upon the mummy-coffins. Although the valley of the Nile did not produce large pieces of a satisfactory material, this lack was supplied by gluing together layers of palm or sycamore wood, and hiding the defects of this process by a painted priming of stucco. The coffins themselves are in so far works of sculpture as they represent upon the cover the form of the swathed body placed within them, and even show the face as exposed.
The sculpture of reliefs was less developed and less correct than of the round. As the relief was always very low, and could not express the greater projections, the artist’s desire to represent the human body clearly and completely led to an unfortunate conflict between the profile and front view of the figure. While mostly drawn in profile, and showing particularly the head and legs in side view, which is the more favorable for representation in low-relief, the shoulders and breast are developed in the other direction, and are seen as from in front. It is only in this position that both arms are visible—an important consideration to the artist, whose object was solely to represent some action or attributes. It was also felt as a difficulty that in a relief of the side view the visible shoulder should project farther than any other part of the body, the breadth of the breast and arms being more than double that of the head. The primitive designer, to avoid these objections, resorted to a forced and clumsy torsion of the body, which may be noticed in the childhood of almost every art—in the Assyrian as well as in the most ancient Greek. The head, with exception of the eye, which was represented as in front, was taken in profile; shoulders and breast from in front, but arms and hands, as well as hips, legs, and feet, in profile again. The lower the relief, the less could the surface be modelled, and this led to a sharp demarcation of the outline, which exaggerated the peculiar leanness of the Egyptian race to a hard angularity.
The relief is a transitional stage between sculpture and painting; it works upon a more or less flat surface, seeks its chief effect in outline, and lends itself readily to the heightening of color. The most common Egyptian relief, which has been termed coilanaglyphic, being hollowed out, stands even nearer to painting than to sculpture. In real reliefs the surface is so cut away as to leave the figures embossed; but here the forms do not rise above the background, and the original plane remains untouched: the sculptor contented himself with firmly incising the outlines, and slightly rounding the forms of the body within them. This incised outline is clearly seen only by sharp side light, but it has the advantage of protecting the borders of the figures and thus securing the indestructibility of the representation. In other respects the coilanaglyphics are nothing else than paintings, the space within the carved outlines being colored in the same manner as are all Egyptian wall decorations. The limits of the latter art were thus greatly extended, for all temples were covered with such colored coilanaglyphics, while the stuccoed sides of rock-cut tombs and of brick masonry were richly ornamented by paintings.