of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces--the
pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock
with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a
sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue
rimmed with sphinxes.

Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks characterize this
architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense.
Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible.

=Sculpture.=--Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. The
oldest statues are impressive for their life and freshness, and are
doubtless portraits of the dead. Of this sort is the famous squatting
scribe of the Louvre.[14] But beginning with the eleventh dynasty the
sculptor is no longer free to represent the human body as he sees it,
but must follow conventional rules fixed by religion. And so all the
statues resemble one another--parallel legs, the feet joined, arms
crossed on the breast, the figure motionless; the statues are often
majestic, but always stiff and monotonous. Art has ceased to reproduce
nature and is become a conventional symbol.

=Painting.=--The Egyptians used very solid colors; after 5,000 years
they are still fresh and bright. But they were ignorant of coloring
designs; they knew neither tints, shadows, nor perspective. Painting,
like sculpture, was subject to religious rules and was therefore
monotonous. If fifty persons were to be represented, the artist made
them all alike.

=Literature.=--The literature of the Egyptians is found in the
tombs--not only books of medicine, of magic and of piety, but also