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Show 144 TilE NATIONS OF TilE disjointing a calf; 1:38 but all this is dono before the tent of tho king: it is tho royal stable and tho 1·oyal kitchen which we see before us,-in fact, "court-life below stairs." '!'he rich Asiatic costume of the .As yrians, wide and :flowing, decorated with embroidery, fringes and tassels, contrasts most strikingly with the prevalent nakedness of IDgyptian and Gr ok art. Wo a.ro always reminded of tho pomp, splendor and etiquette of eastern courts. Tho proportions of the human body arc somewhat short and heavy, less animated in their action, but more correctly modelled than in Egyptian reliefs. Nothing but an occasional want of correctness about tho shoulders and the eyes, which, in the bas-reliefs, are dt'awn in tho front-view, reminds us of tho infancy of art or of a traditionary hieratic style. Tho anatomical knowledge, however, with which the muscles are scnlptut· d, even whore tho execution is rather coarse, surpasses the art of Egypt in the time of tho XVIIth dynasty. Tho composition is generally clear, tho space conveniently and symmetrically filled with figures, and the relief, to a certain degree, has ceased to bo a mere architectural decoration: on the palace of EssARIIADDON, it l1as even become a real tableau. For all this, wo cannot appreciate the merit of tho sculptures, if wo pass our judgment upon them independently of the place. for which. they were originally destined. Accordingly, the pccuharly .As ynan exaggeration in representing the muscles of the body has often been criticized; 130 since it escaped the attention of our modern art-critics, that this fault is only apparent, not real, being produ •od exclusively by the different way in which tho bas-reliefs wore lit in antiquity and modern times. In the hot climate and under tho gladng sun of Mesopotamia, the palaces were built principally with the view to afford cooln ss and shade; and therefore all tho royal halls were long, high and narrow, in order to exclude the rays of tho .sun. They could, in consequence, but very imperfectly have bc.cn hghtod from above, through apertures in tho colonnade supportmg the beams of tho roof. .A cool cltiaroscu1·o reign d in all tho apartments; and unless the reliefs on the wall were intended al~og. thor :o be lost to beholders, it was indispensable to have the prn~c~pnl h~Jes deeply cut into the alabaster, in order to produce a suflic1 ntly-mtcnso shadow for making the composition and its details apparent. Tho .Assyrian sculptors, with true arlistical f, cling, calculntcd upon the effect their works wore to make in the king's palaces; but could not dream that their compositions were to bo Ull DoNoMr M' h a · p, z ,1 , 1. 'f Dmeve an tis a aces, P· 228-29; an octavo which admira,bly popularizes tho cos. Y •O 10s o OTl'A and FLANDJN's Ninive. tall DoNoMr, Ninevel1 and its Palaces, p. 815. CUNEU'ORM WRITING. 143 exposed, 28 centuries later, to tho close inspection of tho critics of our day itt well-lighted museums. When we ·!aim a peculiar national type for Assyrian art, altogothct · independent of Egyptian, we do not mean to deny accidental l~<rypLian influence, which, however, could not transform .Assyrian sculptur· into a branch of Nilotic art. The beautiful embossed bronze bowls, ivory bas-t·cliofs and statuettes found at Nineveh, arc certainly imitations of Egyptian models; but we encounter similar artistical fashions at Rome in the time of lladl'ian. They remained a1tog th or on tho sud~tco, and did not affect tho national style. Still, we do find some artistic "motives," even on tho best reliefs of Nimrood and Khorsabad, which show on the one hand, that tho .Assyrian sculptors were acqnaintod with some Egyptian monuments of art; and on tho other, that this acquaintance ever continued to be superficial. Thus, for instance, we often meet on Pharaonic battle-scones, wiLh tho vulture, holding a sword in its claws, soaring above tho king, as a symbol of vi ctory. The NinevHo artists copied this representati on., but, unacquainted with its hieratic symbolical moaning, sculptured tlre vulture simp'ly as the hideous bird of prey, f, cding upon the corps on the battle-fi.cld, and carrying the limbs into its eyrie. In a similar way, the wi rr O'Ccl solar di sc, the symbol of tho heavenly sun, was transformed in Assyria into the guardian-angel of tho king hims l f, and Ll'ansfcrrod at a lat t' age to Persia as tho Jleruer. The following representation of an .Assy rian [24] gives us a fair Fig. 24. idea of the A1·ian typo of tho Ninevito aristocracy. It is the head of a statue of tho God NEBO, in the Bri Li sh Museum, bearing across its br ast an inscription, staLing that tho statue was executed by a sculptor o(' Calah, and dedicated by him to his lord PrrAr~uiWA, (Belochus, Pul,) king of Assyria, and to his lady AMMU.RAMIT (Semirami11) queen ofthe pabco (about 750 n. o.). Th same general cast of features is clearly discernible in an inoditod portrait of EssARTIADDON [25] (about 6GO n. o.) taken from tho great tri- '\lmphal tableau at Kouyunujik, NPmo. now in the British Museum. The Nincvito artists.-who, about tho time of this king, introduced a 10 |
