  In contrast to architecture, sculpture works heavy matter into the concrete expression of spiritual freedom by giving it the shape of the human being. The high point of sculpture, for Hegel, was achieved in classical Greece. In Egyptian sculpture the figures often stand firm with one foot placed before the other and the arms held tightly by the side of the body, giving the figures a rather rigid, lifeless appearance. By contrast, the idealized statues of the gods created by Greek sculptors, such as Phidias and Praxiteles, are clearly alive and animated, even when the gods are depicted at rest. This animation is apparent in the posture of the figure, in the nuanced contours of the body and also in the free fall of the figure’s garments. Hegel greatly admired the sculpture of Michelangelo—a cast of whose Pietà he saw in Berlin (Aesthetics, 2: 790)—but it was the Greeks, in his view, who set the standard for “ideal” sculptural beauty. Indeed, Greek sculpture, according to Hegel, embodies the purest beauty of which art itself is capable. (For a more detailed study of Hegel’s account of sculpture, see Houlgate 2007,  56–89).