ago Egypt was
unquestionably the first of the nations. In Art and Science she far
excelled us; but we learnt their methods of working, improved on them,
held firm to no prescribed proportions, but to the natural types alone,
gave freedom and beauty to their unbending outlines, and now have left
our masters far behind us. But how was this possible? simply because the
Egyptians, bound by unalterable laws, could make no progress; we, on the
contrary, were free to pursue our course in the wide arena of art as far
as will and power would allow."

"But how can an artist be compelled to fashion statues alike, which are
meant to differ from each other in what they represent?"

"In this case that can be easily explained. The entire human body is
divided by the Egyptians into 21 1/4 parts, in accordance with which
division the proportion of each separate limb is regulated. I, myself,
have laid a wager with Amasis, in presence of the first Egyptian
sculptor, (a priest of Thebes), that, if I send my brother Telekles, in
Ephesus, dimensions, proportion and attitude, according to the Egyptian
method, he and I together can produce a statue which shall look as if
sculptured from one block and by one hand, though Telekles is to carve
the lower half at Ephesus, and I the upper here in Sais, and under the
eye of Amasis."

[These numbers, and the story which immediately follows, are taken
from Diodorus I. 98. Plato tells us that, in his time, a law
existed binding the Egyptian artists to execute their works with
exactly the same amount of beauty or its reverse, as those which had
been made more than a thousand years before. This statement is
confirmed by the monuments; but any one well acquainted with
Egyptian art can discern a marked difference in the style of each
epoch. At the time of the ancient kingdom the forms were compressed
and stunted; under Seti I. beauty of proportion reached its highest
point. During, and after the 20th dynasty, the style declined in
beauty; in the 26th, under the descendants of Psammetichus, we meet
with a last revival of art, but the ancient purity of form was never
again attained.]

"And shall you win your wager?"

"Undoubtedly. I am just going to begin this trick of art; it will as
little deserve the name of a work of art, as any Egyptian statue."

"And yet there are single sculptures here which are of exquisite
workmanship; such, for instance, as the one Amasi