They represent the human body, in one position.The arms close to the trunk, the legs close to each other, the back applied to the block, of which the statue is a part.This position of the body forms evidently the most easy design, which a novice in the art, when first attempting to shape in stone sorne representation of the human figure, could conceive.That the Egyptian artists should have cormnenced with such figures, seems natural enough, but that, after having learned to execute the prodigious and highly finished works in statuary, which they have left, they should still have adhered to this position, can only, I apprehend, be explained from the influence of the spirit of imitation.The achievements of the ancient Egyptians, in the whole art of shaping stone into forms giving the ideas of sublimity and beauty, may well be supposed to have filled the minds of their descendants with awe and admiration, since their remains so powerfully attract even men of the present day with these sentiments.It is scarcely in human nature greatly to admire any productions of genius, and to form others much surpassing them.Under the influence of such a sentiment, men are rather inclined to confine their efforts to making additions, than to exert them in attempting alterations, prudence whispering, that the former will be received as sufficient proof of their capacity, while the latter might he censured as proceeding from their arrogance.When a certain point has once been gained, future artists seek the principles of their operations, not in the powers of nature and of man, but, in what they term the rules of art.These rules seem to have effectually confined the art of statuary, as far as the human figure was concerned, to the limits marked out by the first essays.Even figures in porcelain had the same character, an appendix being put to the back, indicative of the original stone block.The restraining influence of the spirit of imitation, is rendered more remarkable, from the figures of the inferior animals being executed with considerable spirit.
When the art was transferred to Greece, the change of country undid its trammels, and its productions assumed all the life, grace and beauty, which varying and natural attitudes bestow.
The mechanical part of architecture underwent a revolution among the nations that were finally consolidated into the Roman Empire, by the adoption of the arch, and the employment of cement.The Egyptians and Grecians were stone-cutters; the Romans, masons.The spirit of imitation prevented this change in the material part, from producing, immediately, a correspondent change in the ideal.Under the Romans, the arch and the column were combined.
It was not until after the ruin of the Empire, when architecture recommenced among other races, that it assumed a new form, correspondent to the change in the mechanical part, and suited to the purposes and times.
When arts, other than those of their native wilds, first began to be any thing to our rude ancestors, the art of the mason, received by them from the Romans, was properly the capacity of shaping a stony mass into a form, realizing some of their imaginations, from materials, which could be easily transported to the point required.While the Egyptians and Grecians had bad to apply their powers to changing the figures and positions of masses of rocks, they possessed the art of constructing a rocky mass.The instrument of the former was the chisel, to carve into shape, of the latter, lime, to work out to shape.The beginnings of the former art in Africa, and of the latter in Europe, are marked by the same lavish expenditure of human labor, though in different modes.In the former, the human hand, slowly, by dint of strokes intermitted not for generations, dug out caves, or carved pillars.In the latter, also, the human hand cemented small fragments of rock to small fragments, till in the lapse of years, the mass gradually swelled out into some desired form.The extent of the operations of the one was limited, by the powers of industry, to put large blocks and columns of stone into the requisite positions, and by the strength and durability of these materials.The operations of the other again, were limited, solely, by the cohesive qualities of the mass it formed.The effect at which both aimed, grandeur, the union of power, durability, and useful design, was mainly produced in the former, by the vastness and symmetry of the several parts, in the latter, by the same qualities combined in a whole.
The art was probably at first applied in modern Europe, to the construction of places of strength.Solidity to resist the battering engines, height to prevent the fortress being scaled, and the advantage of having scope to annoy the besiegers, produced the massive battlemented towers and castles of the ancient barons.As its materials were the most durable, principles to which we have already adverted, soon led to its application to structures devoted to the purposes of religion.
