es and limbs contrasted with the
spiral and radiating folds of drapery, or rich clusters of leaves and
fruits, the forms of animals and the wings of birds--these are his
decorative resources.

[Egyptian Reliefs]

The early stages of sculpture in relief may be seen in the monumental
work of ancient Egypt.

Simple incised work appears to have been the first stage, and the
forms afterwards slightly modelled or rounded at the edges into the
hollow of the sunk outline.

Large figures and tables of hieroglyphic inscription were thus cut upon
vast mural surfaces, and carried across the joints of the masonry,
without disturbing the flatness and repose of the wall surface (p.
195[f106]). The Egyptians, indeed, seem to have treated their walls more
as if they were books for record and statement, symbol and hieroglyphic.

[Illustration (f106): Egyptian System of Sculptured Relief: Thebes.]

Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez, in their "History of Ancient Art in Egypt,"
speak of three processes in the treatment of Egyptian reliefs (vol. ii.,
p. 284):

1. That followed by the Greeks, in which the figures are left standing
out from a smooth bed, sometimes slightly hollowed near the contours
(see illustration, p. 196[fig106]).

2. Where the figures are modelled in relief in a sunk hollow, from an
inch to one and a half inch deep.

3. Where the surface of the figures and the bed or field of relief are
kept on one level (see illustration, p. 196[f107]), the contours
indicated by hollow lines cut into the stone; very little modelling,
little more than silhouette, in which the outline is shown by a hollow
instead of by the stroke of a pencil or brush.

One would be inclined to reverse the order of these three processes, on
the supposition that No. 3 was the earliest process, and that it arose,
as I have conjectured, from the practice of representing forms by
incised lines only.

There is certainly a strong family likeness as to method between the
Egyptian reliefs and the Assyrian, the Persian, and the archaic Greek;
and there is a far greater difference in treatment between archaic Greek
relief sculpture and the work of the Phidian period than between the
archaic work of the three races named.

The strictly mural and decorative conditions which governed ancient
sculpture no doubt gave to Greek sculpture in its perfection a certain
dignity, simplicity, and restraint, and also a