Gateway to the Classics: Famous Sculpture by Charles L. Barstow

For convenience, we may think of all the sculpture previous to that of Greece as of one group, distinctly different from it and inferior to it. This early sculpture was the Egyptian and the Oriental, or Eastern. Compared to that of the Greeks, it was rude and lifeless. Yet, if we think of what those primitive sculptors were trying to do, we shall find in their work much to wonder at and admire.

Characteristics of Egyptian Sculpture

Four thousand years before the Christian Era, the Egyptians were one of the most highly civilized races in the world. They worshiped the powers of nature, especially the sun, moon, and stars, and certain animals were sacred to them. They believed in the continuance of life after death, and their sculpture was largely used in connection with the temples to their gods and the tombs of their ancestors. Indeed, it was chiefly to decorate these structures that their sculptures were made.

The Egyptians understood a great deal about the human form, although they failed, for the most part, to give it the appearance of life.

In an Egyptian museum we are struck by the resemblance of all the figures to each other. This is particularly true of the bodies, for the faces show more variation and many of them are evidently portraits. The statues all face front and they have a fixed type of face. The rule was that a vertical line drawn through the nose passing through the center of the breast bone and so on down to the ground would be a straight line and would divide the statue into two equal parts. This rule or law (called the law of frontality) was retained through centuries.

Besides statues in the round, the Egyptians executed many reliefs. These often told the story of the life of the man buried in the tomb, or of the god to whom the temple was built. Nearly every inch of their walls was covered with sculpture or painting. They followed regular rules about their reliefs as well as about their statues. Human beings are shown with the head, legs and feet in profile, but with the eye and shoulders as seen from the front.

The Egyptians used symbols in much of their work to express ideas. One of their symbols, the Winged Sphere, shown in the illustration, is still used to-day as the sign of eternity. They carved it over their gateways again and again.

Another characteristic of Egyptian sculpture is the fact that all their figures rest their weight on the soles of both feet. Such a thing as showing a person resting his weight on one leg, with the other partly free, is unknown in Egyptian art.

Let us remember, too, that duration was one of the chief ends sought by the Egyptians. They wanted their tombs and their monuments to last forever.

The Sphinx

One of the most ancient statues known is the famous Sphinx, near the great pyramid of Gizeh.

Here art has transformed a natural rock into the gigantic form of a fabulous creature. It is 172 feet in length and represents a colossal recumbent lion, with outstretched paws and a human head. This strange combination suggests that it was meant to give expression to some idea. What this may be is the riddle of the Sphinx.

Maspero, a great French authority, says of it: Hewn in the living rock at the extreme verge of the Libyan plateau, it seems, as the representative of Horus [the Egyptian Sun-god] to uprear its head in order to be the first to catch sight of his father, the rising sun, across the valley. The eyes gaze out afar with a look of intense and profound thoughtfulness, the mouth still wears a smile; the whole countenance is full of power and repose.

The Sphinx is also supposed, by other writers, to have been the god of the rising sun, and to be a symbol of the resurrection. But its real meaning has never become precisely known. It is still a riddle as of old. We seem to be met by the famous inscription "I am that which is, that which will be, and which has been: and no mortal has ever raised the veil which covered me."

The Sphinx was copied thousands of times in all sizes, and the head was always that of the sovereign who was reigning at the time the copy was made. That is why we find that some of the heads are male and some female.

The king, or Pharaoh, was an absolute monarch, and was worshiped as a divinity after he reached the throne. Below him was a numerous privileged nobility. Most of the art of the country was under the patronage of these men, while the common people were in a state of comparative slavery, and were compelled to labor upon the Pyramids, and other monuments and public works.

The great Sphinx has a wonderful hold upon the imagination of all who have seen it. Carlyle says that it is the emblem of nature, and so shows the claws of a lioness. Kinglake said that the Sphinx was comely, but that its comeliness was not that of this world, and Dean Stanley wrote that there is "something stupendous in the sight of that tremendous head."

Sculptures of Other Early Nations

The crude works of other ancient nations have been unearthed from their buried cities and from other ruins that have survived these past civilizations. In India, that fairy-land of the East, in China and Japan, in Babylon and Nineveh, in Persia, in Asia Minor and Syria, many sculptures have been found.

Babylonia, also called Chaldæa, is a flat country, its good land having been formed by the deposits of its rivers, as Egypt has been formed by the deposits of the Nile. The works of sculpture found are stiff and imperfect, but show that much care was taken with details.

Assyria is mostly a country of hills and valleys. Most of its sculptures are reliefs carved in slabs of soft alabaster. The Assyrians were particularly skilful in depicting the forms of animals with surprising exactness. The hunting parties of their kings were a favorite subject, and many examples have been preserved to us. They were fond of representing muscular strength. The wounded lioness, in the British Museum, her back broken by a weapon, her hind legs dragging, is one of the most famous and admired of Assyrian animal reliefs.