SCULPTURE 



preserved the rough experiment* of paln-olithic man, 

 which in character anil expression fall but little 

 short nl tin' misshapen images of archaic Greece. 

 Siu-h luu-kward raci-s tut to day lemain in the state 

 of burWism from \\ hieh the more highly developed 

 emerged countless centuries ago still aim at the 

 innocent realism of prehistoric time*. lint these 

 furtive attempts have naught in common with art ; 

 thoir interest is Mrtkropologiral ; ami .lie pie-Mil 

 article treat* of sculpture as it has lieen pur- 

 sued by craftsmen with a certain control of their 

 material ami a consciousness of the effect it is 

 theirs to produce. The sculpture- of India, for 

 instance, is m.-i.-lv fantastic; lU preoccupation i- 

 religious rather than artistic. When viewed in 

 relation to the great stream of tradition which 

 connects the work of K<xlin or Gilbert with the 

 colossal figures of Kg.M 1 '- it is hut a shallow hack- 

 water. But from tin- time when the great Sphinx 

 was set up at Gi/eh until yesterday a countle-s 

 succession of men have expressed their ideals in 

 clay, bronze, marble, and other more or less 

 stubborn substances, with a deliberate intention 

 and tutored sense of dignity or beauty which 

 entitle them to lie revered as artists and their 

 works to lie treasured as masterpieces. With their 

 achievement we are alone concerned ; the ingen- 

 uous scratching of the savage whether ancient or 

 modern and the fantasies of the Oriental mystic 

 are for the curious to consider. 



The material of sculpture is as various as the 

 methods of its treatment. Wood, marble, basalt, 

 granite, bronze, gold, and ivory are but a few of 

 the substances which have been fashioned into 

 beautiful and stately forms. Here at once we dis- 

 cover one determining element of style. An artist 

 who works in porphyry or granite cannot express 

 his fancy with freedom. A largeness and dignity 

 is forced upon him by the rigid substance upon 

 which he has chosen to work. So we timl in the 

 work" of ancient Kgypt a severe and monumental 

 repose which would lie out of place in figures of a 

 modest size and more malleable material. It has 

 ever been the supreme merit of the sculptor per- 

 fectly to adapt his means to his end. The Greeks 

 of the .1th century expressed in marble the most 

 beautiful lines and shapes which the material could 

 suggest Where there was no place for common 

 or familiar ideas all was simple and restrained. 

 < Mi the other hand, the artiste of Tanagra, working 

 in the ready and pliant medium of terra cotla, 

 did not venture beyond a scale and a technique 

 which, though perfectly consonant to their purpose, 

 have the grace and elegance of the masterpiece in 

 little. The sin of ta-te which renders the hulk of 

 modern sculpture vain and of base effect is ignor- 

 ance of the material's limitations. The Italian of 

 to day who esteem* marble the most apt sulwlance 

 for the presentation of lace-frills and waistcoat- 

 buttons wrecks his craft upon the reef of clever- 

 The artist does not carve and slash his 

 nmrhle an though it were pa|K-r, nor dix-s he break 

 up its surface into a thousand furrows as though 

 it were putty ; but, still within the iHiundsof : 

 and knowledge, he gives to his work a breadth and 

 simplicity which are at \%ir neither with art nor 

 with nature. Indeml the problem of sculpture may 

 IK- dcljned ax the translation of the forms of the 

 visible world into the language suggested by the 

 material employed. Many of the grandest sculp- 

 tures that time ha* spared were coinposed to till 

 certain space* in wall or |*>dimcnt. Their purpose 

 Ix-ing thus decointhe, it follows that there is an- 

 o'her force by which the artist is controlled. The 

 variety of |IH,. arid contour which distinguish the 

 Klgin marbles was xuggwtoil by the varying depth of 

 the |H'dimciit they were destined to adorn. So also 

 the flowing harmony of the I'wthenon frieze pro- 



ceeds from the subtlest adaptation of the design to 

 the space. It is only necessary to contrast the mas- 

 teipieoes of Greek art with the outrages upon taste 

 winch have defaced Westminster Abbey since the 

 18th century ti recognise how much beauty depends 

 upon a sense of titness. Realism, in brief, though 

 the final aim of savage art, is but a snare to the 

 artist in hron/e or marble. To represent chosen 

 a-pi-cts of animal form!) which are in discord neither 

 with their material nor with the site they occupy, 

 this is the end of the sculptor, and in its attainment 

 a sense of beauty must always conquer the inten-t 

 of facts, a respect for tradition must forbid the 

 piny of ingenious artifice. 



The Egyptians, as they were the first, were also 

 the most prolific sculptors. Their temples and pal- 

 aces were covered with reliefs ; innumerable statues 

 of gods and heroes stood ui>on their plains. The 

 Sphinx (q.v.), which M. Maspero places many cen- 

 turies before Menes who flourished so 4(NK) years 



before Christ is the product of an art already 

 mistress of her resources. There is not a tentative 

 touch in this noble monument ; it is not an 

 experiment like the seated figures from Hranchidic, 

 which only preceded the clllorescence of Greek 

 sculpture by a few centuries, but a work as finished 

 in its grand impassiveness as the Theseus (so 

 called) of the Parthenon. Hut Kgypt ian art, as 

 it seems perfect in the beginning, \new no pro- 

 gress but decay. Its purpose was consistently the 

 same. It did not advance, like Greek sculpture, 

 from n.-iiM'ii' to accomplishment, from hieratic 

 restraint to artistic enfranchisement. The school 

 of Memphis is already a school of the deca- 

 dence. And yet its artists are still for the most 

 part bound in the chains of hieratic tradition. 

 Their seated figures are always nosed in the atti- 

 tudes sanctioned by custom, the elbows firmly 

 planted against the sides, the hands set forward 

 upon the knees. Their reliefs also are stiff and 

 archaic. While they display a knowledge of ana- 

 tomy and an observation of the human figure in 

 action, the head and legs are presented in profile, 

 while the upper part oi the body faces the spec- 

 tator. This peculiarity was the result not of in- 

 competence, but of a fierce conservatism. The 

 reliefs, the figures of which cither project from the 

 ground or an- depressed beneath it, were always 

 coloured : indeed polychromy was invariable when 

 the material was noi naturally veined or coloured. 

 lint excavations at Boulak have shown that 

 under the Memphis dynasty, despite the influence 

 of the ancient school, realistic portraiture was 

 practised with amazing succc. Such a figure as 

 the wooden tilieik-cl-Med (see Vol. IV. p. 236) is 

 m itlier stately nor beautiful, yet there is little 

 doubt that it is a shaking likeness ; and so much 

 may lie said for a dozen masterpieces treasured at 

 Houlak. The first Theban school, which flour- 

 ished from the 10th to the 16th dynasty, drew its 

 inspiration from the school of Memphis. The 

 same respect for tradition, the same interest in por- 

 traiture were piously preserved. Indeed l-'.gyptian 

 art clung to the ideals of grandeur and formality 

 until the advance of Greece introduced a fresh 

 science and a fresh civilisation. By its very 

 austerity no less than by its balanced union of 

 observaiion and convention the sculpture of l-'.gypt 

 displays a grandeur and imjircssivcness which it 

 shares with no other manifestation of art. Its 

 hybrid colossi and monstrous deities, hewn out of 

 the stuhliornest material, are still noble in spile of 

 their ugliness; ami that even the formal Kgyptian 

 was not incapable of representing graceful types 

 the portrait of Menephtah and <,>uccn Taia remain 

 to -now. And yet from the classical period the 

 Sphinx alone survives (see figures iu the article 

 EGYPT, and at Vol. I. p. 2-2 J. 



