It is hardly just, therefore, to say, as has been said,[326] that "Egyptian art had only one aim, the exact rendering of reality; in it all qualities of observation are developed to their utmost capabilities, those of imagination are wanting." Egyptian art is not like the sensitized plate of the photographer. It does not confine itself to the faithful reproduction of the objects placed before it. Painters and sculptors were not content, as has been pretended, with the art that can be _seen_, as opposed to the art that can be _imagined_, and an injustice is done to them by those who would confine the latter to the Aryan race. The apparent precision of such an assertion makes it all the more misleading. Egyptian art was realistic in its inception and always remained so to a certain degree, but with the passage of time the creative intellect began to play a part in the production of plastic works; it added to and combined the elements which it took from nature, and thus created imaginary beings which differed from natural fact by their proportions, their beauty, and their composition. The Egyptian artist had his ideal as well as the Greek. [326] E. MELCHIOR DE VOGÜE, _Chez les Pharaons_. In saying, then, that the art of Egypt was realistic, we have only laid the first stone of the definition we wish to establish. Its original character was, perhaps, still more due to another feature, namely to its elimination or suppression of detail. This elimination, far from diminishing with time, went on increasing as the country grew older. It may be traced to the action of two causes. In the first place, the influence of the ideographic writing upon the national style can hardly be exaggerated. The concrete images of things could only be introduced into it by means of simplification and generalization. In such a school the eye learnt to despoil form of all those details which were merely accidental, of all that made it particular. It sought for the species, or even the genus, rather than the individual. This tendency was increased by the peculiar properties of the materials upon which the Egyptians lavished their skill and patience. The harder rocks turned the edges of their bronze chisels, and compelled them to choose between roughly-blocked-out sketches and a laborious polish which obliterated all those minor details of modelling which should vary according to the sex, the age, and the muscular exertion of the persons represented. We see, then, that the rebellious nature of the granite, and the imperfect methods which it imposed, completed the lessons begun by that system of figured writing which dates from the remotest periods of Egyptian civilization.