RISE AND PROGRESS 



action* of warriors, were carved in nil the reces- 

 or fpace* in the wall. Nay, the columns 

 themieJvea were sometimes covered with low 



r.-li"t"-. I'll- 'inures of the divinities reached 

 often to sixty feet in height, their eyes were 

 enamelled, their robes painted or gilt, their 

 limbs ornamented uith armlets and anklets, and 

 a certain severity of expression was meant to 

 denote the dignity of gods. 



But hills were not always at hand, nor rocks 

 commodiously enough situated for the purposes 

 of architecture, and the convenience of princes ; 

 and man had to exercise his invention in order 

 to bring the palace and temple, with all their 

 statues, to the side of the sea, or the bank of 

 some navigable river, where commerce had begun 

 to spread her sails. It was then that architecture 

 made her second grand movement ; she ceased 

 to bore her way into the obstinate mountain, but 

 turning the rock into a quarry, found materials 

 which enabled her to add external beauty to in- 

 ternal accommodation ; and rear those temples 

 which still triumph over the folly of conquerors 

 and the influence of time. This invention had 

 other merits ; in cutting a temple out of a hill 

 the artist had to take the materials as nature 

 chose to send them; they were often coarse, 

 always unequal, and occasionally ill fitted for 

 delicate carvings or polished workmanship ; 

 {Minting and gilding were applied as remedies, 

 but these were not always effectual. The new 

 invention included choice of materials ; to the 

 freestone of one hill was added the veined and 

 variegated marble of another, and with both was 

 united the dazzling and enduring porphyry ; a 

 substance difficult to carve. How the vast masses 

 which compose those buildings were raised to 

 their places is still a matter of surprise and 

 speculation ; but how the solid porphyry was cut 

 and polished is more surprising still ; it is too 

 hard for ordinary steel, yet it seems to have been 

 wrought with ease by the masons of Egypt. 



These temples were the admiration of the 

 Greeks, as well as of the Romans. Nor were 

 they few in number : Britain has but one St 

 Paul's ; but the banks of the Nile had hundreds 

 of such structures. The character of the exca- 

 vated works was visible in these new erections ; 

 the columns seem capable of sustaining a hill, the 

 figures fit to support a mountain ; nothing is 

 light or graceful, all is heavy, broad, and mas- 

 ive ; the architects seemed still to feel that they 

 were working in the bowels of the rock, and had 

 to leave pillars and supports equal to hold up 

 mount Pel ion. Their solidity and strength was 

 much increased by the absence of the arch ; 

 in all masonry a rent or a settle is sure to 



take place where an arch is, if the foundation 

 be infirm, for a perpetual push is kept up against 

 the abutments : in Egyptian architecture, all 

 is horizontal ; there were neither slopes nor 

 circles, nothing but downright weight. The 

 temples of Hindostan are almost the same in 

 every thing ; both seem to have originated in one 

 mind. " To me it appears," says Erskine, 

 writing of Elephanta, " that while the whole 

 conception and plan of the temple is extremely 

 grand and magnificent, and while the outline and 

 disposition of the separate figures indicate great 

 talent and ingenuity ; the execution and finish of 

 the figures in general though some of them 

 prove the sculptor to have had great merit fall 

 below the original idea. The figures have some- 

 thing of rudeness and want of finish, the propor- 

 tions are sometimes lost, the attitudes forced, 

 and every thing indicates the infancy of the arts 

 though a vigorous infancy." 



These words apply to much of the early sculp- 

 ture of Egypt, as well as to that of Hindostan ; 

 there is something grotesque about both ; yet it 

 seems never to have occurred to those who criti- 

 cised the latter, that a different scale of propor- 

 tion in the manufacture of deities is a sacred rule 

 of the land. This accounts for the exaggerated 

 shapes and inharmonious proportions visible in 

 the statues of Siva, Boodh and others. " The 

 Egyptian statues," observes Flaxman, " stand 

 equally poised on both legs, having one foot ad- 

 vanced, the arms either hanging straight down 

 on each side, or if one is raised, it is at a right 

 angle across the body. Some of the statues sit 

 on seats, some on the ground, and some are 

 kneeling, but the position of the hands seldom 

 varies from the above description ; their attitudes 

 are of course simple, rectilinear, and without 

 lateral movement ; their faces are rather flat, the 

 brows, eyelids, and mouths, formed of simple 

 curves, slightly, but sharply, marked, and with 

 but little expression ; the general proportions are 

 sometimes more than seven heads high ; the form 

 of the body and limbs rather round and effemin- 

 ate, with only the most evident projections and 

 hollows. Their tunics, or rather draperies, are 

 in many instances without folds. Winkleman 

 has remarked that the Egyptians executed quad- 

 rupeds better than human beings." 



The artists of Africa were more learned, if 

 not more poetic, than their brethren of India. 

 They included astronomy, as well as religion 

 and history, in their works. Whatever they 

 made had a meaning, clear to them, though dark 

 to us, yet not more so than much of our own 

 sculpture will prove to foreign nations in a 

 future age, when they sit in judgment upon 



