lpture in all its
phases, but to give the distinctive features which characterize the
different styles of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculpture, as they are
visible in statues of the natural or colossal size, in statues of
lesser proportion, and lastly in busts and bas-reliefs.

We shall give also the styles of each separate nation which prevailed
at each distinct age or epoch, styles which mark the stages of the
development of the art of sculpture in all countries. Sculpture, like
architecture and painting, indeed all art, had an indigenous and
independent evolution in all countries, all these arts springing up
naturally, and taking their origin alike everywhere in the imitative
faculty of man. They had their stages of development in the ascending
and descending scales, their rise, progress, culminating point,
decline and decay, their cycle of development; the sequence of these
stages being necessarily developed wherever the spirit of art has
arisen, and has had growth and progress. The first and most important
step in examining a work of ancient sculpture is to distinguish with
certainty whether it is of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, or Roman
workmanship; and this distinction rests entirely on a profound
knowledge of the style peculiar to each of those nations. The next
step is, from its characteristic features, to distinguish what period,
epoch, or stage of the development of the art of that particular
nation it belongs to. We shall further give the various attributes and
characteristics of the gods, goddesses, and other mythological
personages which distinguish the various statues visible in Egyptian,
Etruscan, Greek, and Roman sculpture.

This enumeration will be found of use in the many sculpture galleries
of the various museums both at home and abroad.

Man _attempted_ sculpture long before he _studied_ architecture; a
simple hut, or a rude house, answered every purpose as a place of
abode, and a long time elapsed before he sought to invent what was not
demanded by necessity.

Architecture is a creation of the mind; it has no model in nature, and
it requires great imaginative powers to conceive its ideal beauties,
to make a proper combination of parts, and to judge of the harmony of
forms altogether new and beyond the reach of experience. But the
desire in man to imitate and to record what has passed before his
eyes, in short, to transfer the impression from his own mind to
another, is natural in every stage of