Head
(Now in the British Museum)
Long after men had attempted to make out the parts of the figure, statues continued to be very rude; the arms were placed directly down the sides to the thighs, and the legs were united together; nor did they pass beyond this imperfect state in Greece until the age of Dædalus. Fortunately for themselves and for the world, the Greeks were allowed to free themselves from old habits; while the Egyptians, at the latest periods, continued to follow the imperfect models of their early artists, and were forever prevented from arriving at excellence in sculpture: and though they made great progress in other branches of art, though they evinced considerable taste in the forms of their vases, their furniture, and even in some architectural details, they were forever deficient in ideal beauty, and in the mode of representing the natural positions of the human figure.
In Egypt, the prescribed automaton character of the figures effectually prevented all advancement in the statuary’s art, the limbs being straight, without any attempt at action, or, indeed, any indication of life: they were really statues of the person they represented, not the person “living in marble”; in which they differed entirely from those of Greece. No statue of a warrior was sculptured in the varied attitudes of attack and defence; no wrestler, no discobolus, no pugilist exhibited the grace, the vigour, or the muscular action of a man; nor were the beauties, the feeling, and the elegance of female forms displayed in stone: all was made to conform to the same invariable model, which confined the human figure to a few conventional postures.
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.
Statuette of Figure with Hawk’s Head
(After Bardon)
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 funereal tablets, and other small objects, being in intaglio); and this style continued in vogue until the time of Ramses II, who introduced intaglio very generally on large monuments; and even his battle scenes at Karnak 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.
Intaglio continued to be generally employed, until the accession of the XXVIth Dynasty, when the low relief was again introduced; and in the monuments of Psamthek and Aahmes are numerous instances of the revival of the ancient style. This was afterwards universally adopted, and a return to intaglio on large monuments was only occasionally attempted, in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.