this style of art carried to greater perfection—­the persons and things represented, though still barbarously coloured, are carved out with more truth and in greater detail:  and in the winged lions and bulls used for the angles of gateways, we may see a considerable advance towards a completely sculptured figure; which, nevertheless, is still coloured, and still forms part of the building.  But while in Assyria the production of a statue proper seems to have been little, if at all, attempted, we may trace in Egyptian art the gradual separation of the sculptured figure from the wall.  A walk through the collection in the British Museum will clearly show this; while it will at the same time afford an opportunity of observing the evident traces which the independent statues bear of their derivation from bas-relief:  seeing that nearly all of them not only display that union of the limbs with the body which is the characteristic of bas-relief, but have the back of the statue united from head to foot with a block which stands in place of the original wall.  Greece repeated the leading stages of this progress.  As in Egypt and Assyria, these twin arts were at first united with each other and with their parent, Architecture, and were the aids of Religion and Government.  On the friezes of Greek temples, we see coloured bas-reliefs representing sacrifices, battles, processions, games—­all in some sort religious.  On the pediments we see painted sculptures more or less united with the tympanum, and having for subjects the triumphs of gods or heroes.  Even when we come to statues that are definitely separated from the buildings to which they pertain, we still find them coloured; and only in the later periods of Greek civilisation does the differentiation of sculpture from painting appear to have become complete.

In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel re-genesis.  All early paintings and sculptures throughout Europe were religious in subject—­represented Christs, crucifixions, virgins, holy families, apostles, saints.  They formed integral parts of church architecture, and were among the means of exciting worship; as in Roman Catholic countries they still are.  Moreover, the early sculptures of Christ on the cross, of virgins, of saints, were coloured:  and it needs but to call to mind the painted madonnas and crucifixes still abundant in continental churches and highways, to perceive the significant fact that painting and sculpture continue in closest connection with each other where they continue in closest connection with their parent.  Even when Christian sculpture was pretty clearly differentiated from painting, it was still religious and governmental in its subjects—­was used for tombs in churches and statues of kings:  while, at the same time, painting, where not purely ecclesiastical, was applied to the decoration of palaces, and besides representing royal personages, was almost wholly devoted to sacred legends.  Only in quite recent times have painting and sculpture become entirely secular arts.  Only within these few centuries has painting been divided into historical, landscape, marine, architectural, genre, animal, still-life, etc., and sculpture grown heterogeneous in respect of the variety of real and ideal subjects with which it occupies itself.