Sculpture and Painting
Egyptian sculpture displays size, simplicity, stiffness, and little of what modern art calls taste or beauty. Neither did the Egyptians become true artists of the pictorial class. They used simple colors of brilliant hue; but of light and shade only little was known; and of perspective, nothing.
Their monuments prove, however, that they practiced the same mechanic arts, and used the same variety of tools, as the moderns. They were adepts at the finest work in every species of handicraft. We have here ample proof that the ancient Egyptians were a highly ingenious, artistic, tasteful, and industrious race.