Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/538

 442 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. like that of Egypt, of almost infinite extension. Greece never produced anything like Karnak or Luxor ; even in the centuries when the taste for the colossal eclipsed the love for the great, she never dreamed or imao-ined anvthinor of the kind. The Greek temple had the unity of a living organism. Given the main dimensions, and the elements of which it was to be composed could only vary within very narrow limits. In accordance with the degree of luxury desired, the cella would be either surrounded by a simple wall or would be encircled by a portico, but this portico would only be a kind of adornment, a vesture which would be more or less rich and ample according to circumstances. Behind the long files of columns on either side, behind the double or triple rows which veiled the two facades, the body of the temple could always be discerned, just as the modelling of the human form may be distinguished under the drapery of a statue, in spite of the folds which cover it. The cella was proportioned to the sacred figure which was to be its in- habitant, which, again, afforded a standard by which the proportions and subjects of the groups which filled the pediments, and of the bas-reliefs of the frieze, as well as the height of the columns and the projection of the entablature, were determined. Between all these parts there was an intimate and clearly defined connection. When a plant is seen bursting from the seed, we are able, if we know the species to which it belongs, to say beforehand what its leaves, its flower, and its fruit will be like, and to foretell the limits of its height. It is the same, to a great extent, with the Greek temple. The trench dug to receive the footing stones of the cella walls is the hole into which the seed is thrown from . which the whole temple is to spring. These walls rise above the level of the ground, the building progresses to completion, but from the day upon wdiich the seed was sown, from the day upon which the foundation was laid, the temple had been virtually complete. Like an organic body, the Greek temple inclosed within itself the principle of its own growth, the law which governed its development, and forbade it in advance to excede certain definite limits. Such was not the case with the Egyptian temple. In those of small or moderate dimensions this unity and simplicity of plan