A sitting statue, whether of a man or woman, was represented with the hands placed upon the knees, or held across the breast; a kneeling figure sometimes supported a small shrine or sacred emblem; and when standing the arms were placed directly down the sides of the thighs, one foot (and that always the left) being advanced beyond the other, as if in the attitude of walking, but without any attempt to separate the legs.

The oldest Egyptian sculptures on all large monuments were in low relief, and, as usual at every period, painted (obelisks and everything carved in hard stone, some funeral tablets, and other small objects, being in intaglio); and this style continued in vogue until the time of Remeses II., who introduced intaglio very generally on large monuments; and even his battle scenes at Karnac and the Memnonium are executed in this manner. The reliefs were little raised above the level of the wall; they had generally a flat surface with the edges softly rounded off, far surpassing the intaglio in effect; and it is to be regretted that the best epoch of art, when design and execution were in their zenith, should have abandoned a style so superior; which, too, would have improved in proportion to the advancement of that period.

After the accession of the twenty-sixth dynasty some attempt was made to revive the arts, which had been long neglected; and, independent of the patronage of government, the wealth of private individuals was liberally employed in their encouragement. Public buildings were erected in many parts of Egypt, and beautified with rich sculpture; the City of Sais, the royal residence of the Pharaohs of that dynasty, was adorned with the utmost magnificence, and extensive additions were made to the temples of Memphis, and even to those of the distant Thebes.

The fresh impulse thus given to art was not without effect; the sculptures of that period exhibit an elegance and beauty which might even induce some to consider them equal to the productions of an earlier age, and in the tombs of the Assaseef, at Thebes, are many admirable specimens of Egyptian art. To those, however, who understand the true feeling of this peculiar school, it is evident, that though in minuteness and finish they are deserving of the highest commendation, yet in grandeur of conception and in boldness of execution they fall far short of the sculptures of Sethos and the second Remeses.

The skill of the Egyptian artists in drawing bold and clear outlines is, perhaps, more worthy of admiration than anything connected with this branch of art, and in no place is the freedom of their drawing more conspicuous than in the figures in the unfinished part of Belzoni's tomb, at Thebes. It was in the drawing alone that they excelled, being totally ignorant of the correct mode of coloring a figure, and their painting was not an imitation of nature, but merely the harmonious combination of certain hues, which they well understood. Indeed, to this day the harmony of positive colors is thoroughly felt in Egypt and the East, and it is strange to find the little perception of it in Northern Europe, where theories take upon themselves to explain to the mind what the eye has not yet learned, as if a grammar could be written before the language is understood.

A remarkable feature of Egyptian sculpture is the frequent representation of their Kings in a colossal form. The two most famous colossi are the seated figures in the plain of Thebes. One is recognized to be the vocal Memnon (Amunoph III.) mentioned by Strabo. They are forty-seven feet high, and measure about eighteen feet three inches across the shoulders. But the grandest and largest colossal statue was the stupendous statue of King Remeses II., a Syenite granite, in the Memnonium, at Thebes. It represented the King seated on a throne, in the usual attitude of Kings, the hands resting on his knees. It is now in fragments. It measured twenty-two feet four inches across the shoulders. According to Sir G. Wilkinson, the whole mass, when entire, must have weighed about 887 tons. A colossal statue of Remeses II. lies with his face upon the ground on the site of Memphis; it was placed before the temple of Pthah. Its total height is estimated at forty-two feet eight inches, without the pedestal. It is of white siliceous limestone. Another well-known colossus is the statue of the so-called Memnon, now in the British Museum. It is supposed to be the statue of Remeses II. It was brought by Belzoni from the Memnonium, at Thebes.

In the different epochs of Egyptian sculpture, the Egyptian artists were bound by certain fixed canons or rules of proportion to guide them in their labors, and which they were obliged to adhere to rigidly. The following are the canons of three distinct epochs: 1. The canon of the time of the pyramids, the height was reckoned at six feet from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, and subdivisions obtained by one-half or one-third of a foot. 2. The canon from the twelfth to the twenty-second dynasty is only an extension of the first. The whole figure was contained in a number of squares of half a foot, and the whole height divided into eighteen parts. In these two canons the height above the sixth foot is not reckoned. 3. The canon of the age of Psammetici, which is mentioned by Diodorus, reckoning the entire height at twenty-one and one-fourth feet from the sole to the crown of the head, taken to the upper part. The proportions are different, but without any introduction of the Greek canon. The canon and the leading lines were originally traced in red, subsequently corrected by the principal artist in black, and the design then executed. In Egypt, almost every object of sculpture and architecture was painted. The colossal Egyptian statues are generally of granite, basalt, porphyry, or sandstone. The two colossi on the plain of Thebes are, of course, hard gritstone. The Egyptians also worked in dark and red granites, breccias, serpentines, arragonite, limestones, jaspers, feldspar, cornelian, glass, gold, silver, bronze, lead, iron, the hard woods, fir or cedar, sycamore, ebony, acacia, porcelain and ivory, and terra cotta. All objects, from the most gigantic obelisk to the minute articles of private life, are found decorated with hieroglyphics.

Egyptian sculptors were also remarkable for the correct and excellent representation of animals. They may, indeed, be noticed in their representation a freedom of hand, a choice and variety of forms, a truthfulness, and even what deserves to be called imitation, which contrast with the uniformity, the rigidity, the absence of nature and life, which human figures present. Plato mentions a law which forbade the artists to depart, in the slightest degree, in the execution of statues of the human form from the type consecrated by priestly authority. The artist, therefore, not being restricted in his study of the animal form, could thus give to his image greater variety of motion, and by imitating animals in nature, indemnify himself for the constraint he experienced when he represented Kings and priests. The two colossal lions in red granite, brought to England by the late Duke of Northumberland, may be considered as remarkably good specimens of Egyptian art, as applied to the delineation of animal forms. They evince a considerable knowledge of anatomy in the strongly-marked delineation of the muscular development. The form also is natural and easy, thus admirably expressing the idea of strength in a state of repose. They were sculptured in the reign of Amunoph III. The representations of the sacred animals, the cynocephalus, the lion, the jackal, the ram, etc., are frequently to be met with in Egyptian sculpture.

Greek.—The stages of the cycle of development of the art of sculpture in Greece may be given in five distinct periods or epochs, naming these, for greater convenience, chiefly from the name of the principal artist whose style prevailed at that period.

I.The Dædalean, or early( -580 B.C.)
II.The Æginetan, or archaic(580-480 B.C.)
III.The Phidian, or the grand(480-400 B.C.)
IV.The Praxitelean, or the beautiful(400-250 B.C.)
V.The Decline(250- )