[296] M. ÉMILE SOLDI (_La Sculpture Égyptienne_) tells us that during the reign of Napoleon III. such representations of the Emperor as were not taken from the portrait by Winterhalter were forbidden to be recognized officially.
There is one convention peculiar to Egyptian art which is not to be accounted for so easily as the last named. So far as we know, no reason has ever yet been given for the almost invariable habit of making such figures as are supposed to be walking thrust their left legs forward. Almost the only exceptions are in the cases of those figures in the bas-reliefs which are turned to the spectator's left. The right leg is then thrust forward (Figs. 18, 24, &c., Vol. I.). Among works in the round there is hardly an exception to the ordinary rule. Are we to look upon it as the effects of caprice? of accident confirmed into a habit? Or was it a result of a superstition analogous, or, rather, contrary to that of the Romans? The latter always took care to cross a threshold with the right foot foremost; in Egypt they may have attached the same ideas to the left foot. Egyptologists should be able to tell us whether there is anything in the texts to suggest the existence of such a superstition.
Apart from its ethnic characteristics, the work of the Egyptian sculptor is endowed with a peculiar physiognomy by a certain stiffness and rigidity which it hardly ever succeeds in shaking off, even when it represents figures in motion. A support in the shape of a column at the back is nearly always introduced; the arms are held close to the sides; a huge head-dress often enframes the head and hangs down upon the shoulders in two equal masses; a long and narrow beard springs from under the chin and lies upon the chest.
Freedom and variety of attitude is equally absent from the seated statues. The knees are brought together and the hands supported upon them. We never find an arm raised, a hand opened as if to give force to speech, or a leg stretched out to relieve the stiffness of the lines. There is no striving for that suppleness of limb and variety of pose which the Greeks contrived to obtain even in their Iconic figures. The face is often full of animation and individual vitality, the modelling of the trunk and limbs marvellously true and broad, but the body as a whole is too symmetrical in action and entirely without _abandon_. The natural movements which spring from ease and liberty are never employed. Forced and conventional attitudes are universal.