These general remarks will, in some measure, sup ply an explanation of many leading facts, on which much misconception has prevailed, as regards both the perfection and the epochs of sculpture among the Egyptians. Opportunities will occur hereafter of marking the due application of the lights thus obtain ed. In the meantime it may he observed, that the fact so often quoted to prove the excellence of art. amongst this people, and of their posessing unerring canons of proportion, namely, that statues composed of different pieces, worked by distant artists, were yet so accurately wrought as to fit exactly when unit ed,—if it establish any thing, it is the truth of the pre ceding observations, and the existence of that o'crmas tering despotism we have noticed. For granting the fact, of the truth of which many doubts might be sug gested, on any theory of natural imitation, it is impos sible; such mechanical correctness could be attained only where the simplest and most rigid attitudes were fixed by unchanging prescription.
As respects the eras of Egyptian art, accurate dis crimination has rarely been attempted. From the earliest times, down to the reign of the Cxsars, all statues imitating that peculiar manner, have by some been classed as works by Egyptian sculptors, or at least have been adduced as examples of their style; while by others, minute and often imaginary differ ences have been erected into permanent distinctions; and epochs and revolutions of taste and execution as sumed, which cannot be substantiated from the scanty remains of this interesting but mysterious antiquity.
Two sources evidently remain to us of judging, with sufficient accuracy, the labours of the sculptors of Thebes and of Memphis,—in the ruins scattered throughout upper Egypt—and in the numerous speci mens preserved in the galleries of Europe. This lat ter source derives new importance from the recent ad ditions to the British museum; these not only enable us to contemplate some of the most perfect monu ments of' Egyptian art, but likewise afford standards for appreciating and classing the specimens of other collections.
The vestiges of the greatness and refinement of an cient Egypt are dispersed over a narrow district, ex tending on both banks of the Nile from the twenty third to the thirty-first degree of southern latitude. The island of Phylee, near the cataracts and the ruins of Sais, in the western Delta, may be considered as the boundaries on the south and north of this mysteri ous vale;—where, amid the wreck of cities, temples, pyramids, and tombs, monuments of forgotten wisdom and departed power, sleep the early generations of the humane race,—where Moses, and Plato, and Euclid studied.
The progress of colonization or of conquest has fol lowed the course of the Nile northwards: the purest, therefore, because the oldest examples of native taste i and skill in the arts arc to be looked for in the works of the upper Thebaid, in the temples of Phylee, the sculptured excavations of Elephantis, the tombs of the kings, and in the stupendous edifices of Carnac and Luxor. In this view the pyramids, as they adorn the
neighbourhood of Memphis, the second seat of empire, situate much farther north, and built long after the splendour of Thebes, the first capital, had passed away, must be regarded as belonging to a more recent age. Into this question, however, it is not our province to enter; nor particularly to describe these remains which, scattered over a length of more than five hundred miles, still strike with wonder and with awe. But among the people of whom we now speak, sculpture appears to have been inseparably associated with ar chitecture; a mode of determining the relative antiqui ty of works in the former is thus ascertained.
The eras of sculpture in Egypt, as already observed. have been very differently stated. The division of Winklemann is the most simple and perspicuous, and on the whole possesses the greatest share of historical correctness. Still the method is not free from the com mon objection, that it pays not due regard to the revo lutions of native art as distinguished from that excel lence subsequently introduced and engrafted upon the national style. This system, therefore, as well as every other, we are forced to abandon for the same reason. and to adopt the following, which, with some degree of novelty, will, it is hoped, be recommended by the more useful advantages of truth and simplicity, and by at once presenting an argument resting upon, while it discriminates intrinsic distinctions.
I. Era of original or native Sculpture.
II. Era of mixed or Greco-Egyptian Sculpture.
III. Era of imitative Sculpture, improperly denomi nated Egyptian.
I. From the above division of the subject it will ap pear that we admit only one age of art purely Egyp tian; that is, during which sculpture can be consider ed truly indigenous, without any foreign admixture. The two remaining epochas are added, in order to embrace the consideration of those details which have been hitherto regarded as forming constituent parts of the Egyptian school, though in fact but partially connected therewith, and not unfrcquently pertaining to works which, except in rude materials, had never been out of Italy, and never handled, except by Greek or Roman artists. The first or true epoch of sculp ture in Egypt ascends from the conquest of Camby ses, till all records are lost in the remoteness of anti quity. During this period only were original institu tions in full vigour, and public works conducted by national energy, and stamped with national taste.