Egyptian sculpture

INTRODUCTION xix

their square strength served only to accentuate the lines of the building. Of that proud edifice, nothing remains to-day but a small fragment of the foundations; every trace has been swept away, and the level ground stretches back to the encompassing clifis. Only the titanic guardians of the gate still stand, and in themselves they reproduce the lines of that stern background; they rise up from the plain as though they were carved by the hand of Nature herself, so truly do they belong to their natural surroundings. They produce upon the spectator the same impression of strength and duration as the everlasting hills of which they appear to form a part. No Greek statue, no matter how beautiful and lifelike, but must have been dwarfed and belittled in that tremendous setting.

The architecture of Egypt, arising as it did from the lines of the landscape, impressed itself upon the sculpture, and the impress never faded throughout the ages. Not until the Greeks and Romans became the dominant influence in Egypt—the Greek with his sense of the beauty of life and movement, and the Roman with his childlike faith in the perfection of Greek art—not until then did Egyptian sculpture lose its fitness for its surroundings; for it was only then that the Egyptian artist became a copyist of foreign ideals, and so destroyed what remained of the beauty and splendour of his national art. In the pursuit of temporary gain he lost his soul, and his art perished, never to be revived.

In first studying the art of any country, it is important to work on the finest examples of each period; “‘the vulgar replicas made by second-class workmen,” as Capart calls them, are only important later as showing to what depth even the most splendid art can sink. When only the fine examples are chosen, the variations from period to period