It is hardly just, therefore, to say, as has been said,[326] that "Egyptian art had only one aim, the exact rendering of reality; in it all qualities of observation are developed to their utmost capabilities, those of imagination are wanting." Egyptian art is not like the sensitized plate of the photographer. It does not confine itself to the faithful reproduction of the objects placed before it. Painters and sculptors were not content, as has been pretended, with the art that can be seen, as opposed to the art that can be imagined, and an injustice is done to them by those who would confine the latter to the Aryan race. The apparent precision of such an assertion makes it all the more misleading. Egyptian art was realistic in its inception and always remained so to a certain degree, but with the passage of time the creative intellect began to play a part in the production of plastic works; it added to and combined the elements which it took from nature, and thus created imaginary beings which differed from natural fact by their proportions, their beauty, and their composition. The Egyptian artist had his ideal as well as the Greek.
In saying, then, that the art of Egypt was realistic, we have only laid the first stone of the definition we wish to establish. Its original character was, perhaps, still more due to another feature, namely to its elimination or suppression of detail. This elimination, far from diminishing with time, went on increasing as the country grew older. It may be traced to the action of two causes. In the first place, the influence of the ideographic writing upon the national style can hardly be exaggerated. The concrete images of things could only be introduced into it by means of simplification and generalization. In such a school the eye learnt to despoil form of all those details which were merely accidental, of all that made it particular. It sought for the species, or even the genus, rather than the individual. This tendency was increased by the peculiar properties of the materials upon which the Egyptians lavished their skill and patience. The harder rocks turned the edges of their bronze chisels, and compelled them to choose between roughly-blocked-out sketches and a laborious polish which obliterated all those minor details of modelling which should vary according to the sex, the age, and the muscular exertion of the persons represented. We see, then, that the rebellious nature of the granite, and the imperfect methods which it imposed, completed the lessons begun by that system of figured writing which dates from the remotest periods of Egyptian civilization.
There is an obvious contradiction between the tendency which we have just noticed, and those habits of realistic imitation whose existence has been explained by the desire to secure a posthumous existence for the dead. The history of Egyptian sculpture, is, in fact, the history of a contest in the mind of the artist between these two opposing forces. In the early years of the monarchy, his first duty was to supply a portrait statue, the chief merit of which should lie in the fidelity of its resemblance. Of this task he acquitted himself most skilfully and conscientiously, reproducing every individual peculiarity, and even deformity of his model. His chief attention was given to the face, as being the member by which men are principally distinguished one from another. Even then, and in the funerary statues, the body was much more general in its forms than the head. In the course of succeeding ages the sculptor was able, whenever he wished to make a faithful portrait either of an individual man or of a race, to bring this faculty into play and to clearly mark the differences between races or between the individuals of a race, by the varying character of the head. But yet his art showed an ever increasing tendency to follow the bent which had been given to it by the practice of glyptic writing, and by the long contest with unkindly materials. After the close of the Ancient Empire Egyptian art became ambitious of a higher style. Under the Theban Pharaohs it worked hard to attain it, and it knew no better means to the desired end than the continual simplification and generalization of form.
This is the great distinguishing characteristic of the Egyptian style. The uniformity, stiffness, and restraint of the attitudes, the over-rigorous symmetry of the parts and of the limbs, and the close alliance of the latter with the bodies, are only secondary features. We shall find them in the works of every race compelled to make use of materials that were either too hard or too soft. Moreover, these are the constant characteristics of archaic art, and it must not be forgotten that even in Egypt many wooden and limestone figures have been unearthed which surprise us by the freedom of their attitudes and movements. The true originality of the Egyptian style consists in its deliberately epitomizing that upon which the artists of other countries have elaborately dwelt, in its lavishing all its executive powers upon chief masses and leading lines, and in the marvellous judgment with which it seizes their real meaning, their proportions, and the sources of their artistic effect.
As figures increased in size this tendency towards the suppression of detail increased also, and so too did their fitness for the architectonic rôle they had to play. The colossi which flank the entrances to an Egyptian temple have been often criticised from an erroneous standpoint. They have been treated as if they were meant to be self-sufficient and independent. Their massiveness and want of vitality have been blamed; it has been said that the seated figures could not rise, nor the standing ones walk. To form a just estimate of their merit we must take them with the monuments of which they formed a part. We must rouse our imaginations, and picture them to ourselves with their flanking colonnades about them, with the pylons at their backs, and the obelisks at their sides. We must close our eyes for a moment and reconstruct this combination of architectural and sculpturesque lines. We shall then readily perceive how entirely these colossi were in harmony with their surroundings. Their vertical and horizontal lines echoed those of the monument to which they were attached. The rhythm of the long colonnades was carried on by their repetition of a single attitude, while their colossal dimensions and immovable solidity brought them into complete accord with the huge structures by which they were surrounded. It has been said that, more than any of its rivals, "the architecture of Egypt impresses us with the idea of absolute stability, of infinite duration." Could anything be in more complete harmony with such an art than the grave and majestic attitudes of these seated Pharaohs, attitudes which from every line breathe a profound calm, a repose without change and without end.
