Egyptian sculpture

INTRODUCTION

To understand the sculpture of Egypt, it is necessary to realise first of all the appearance of the country. The Nile valley has been cut by the river out of the limestone plateau, leaving an almost continuous line of cliffs on each side throughout its length. The lines of the landscape are therefore peculiar to the country, and, unlike any other landscape, they are horizontal and vertical, without curves. The horizontal line of the top of the cliffs is repeated in the horizontal strata, and again in the flat plain which forms the habitable land of Egypt. In violent contrast to these levels stand the vertical lines of the cliffs, weathered by ages of wind and wind-blown sand into gigantic columns as straight and true as though set there by the hand of man. There are no curves in the Egyptian landscape, no rounded hills, no great peaks to break the level skyline of the cliffs. As Sir Flinders Petrie says: “In the face of such an overwhelming rectangular framing, any architecture less massive and square than the Egyptian would be hopelessly defeated.” Consequently, the architecture which developed in Egypt was in harmony with the landscape in which it was set: the level lines of the roofs and vertical colonnades repeated the horizontal and vertical lines of the cliffs which formed the background.

When sculpture in the round developed from the small carved statuette into a life-sized statue, architecture was already the chief force in the artist’s life, and statues were reckoned as part of the architectural decoration. A statue

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