Fig. 17.—Chaldæan statue (Louvre).
carved, falls over the whole depth in front; the hands are clasped on the breast in the oriental posture of meditation and devotion; the bare feet are chiselled with an attention to detail never to be surpassed in later times, even by the Ninevite artists. On the knees of the personage lies a tablet intended to receive an inscription or a design. In fact, another statue like this, though of smaller proportions, holds on its knees a similar tablet, on which the plan of a fortress with its bastions and posterns is engraved in outline, just as an architect of the present day would draw it. A graduated rule, that is to say, one subdivided into fractions of unequal but proportional length, 10¾ in. long, is carved in relief beside the plan, for which it serves as a scale; finally, at the side lies the style with which the architect engraved his design (see [fig. 53]). The standing statues answer almost to the same description; they also are bare-footed, with the hands crossed upon the breast but the arrangement of the long shawl, which seems to form the only garment of all these personages, becomes more intelligible. The Arab still drapes himself in the same fashion in his burnoos,—that garment, at once so simple and so dignified, of the shepherd of the desert. It is a piece of woollen stuff, the borders of which are adorned with a fringe; it is folded in two, and wrapped round the body obliquely, so that it covers one arm and leaves the other bare; the upper corner, held fast by wrapping the garment once round, is enough to keep the whole in place. We shall find this large shawl again on the Ninevite bas-reliefs, just as we shall observe the persistence and exaggeration of this sober and nervous style, which, as early as the Proto-Chaldæan epoch, lays too much stress on the muscles, and lingers with an excessive fondness over anatomical details.
The Chaldæan statues were intended to be seen all round, and not laid flat against a wall; they are completely finished behind as well as in front. Compared with the statues found in the temples of Cyprus, for instance, they show us that the artist has sought to spare neither his time nor his trouble. Amid this sobriety of treatment and this uniformity of attitudes we feel that Chaldæan art is already far from the hesitation and incorrectness of the first age; the chisel attacks the hardest stone with vigour and success; the artist’s hand is experienced and sure of itself. This archaic art is above all realistic, and aims at a precise and even affected following of nature. The bare shoulder is modelled and copied with surprising truth, the hands and feet are studied even to the knuckles, the nails, the wrinkles of the skin. At the same time the figures are thick-set and, it may be said, far too short—a fact which contributes to increase the impression of strength and muscular energy produced by an attentive observation of them.
The suppleness of the Chaldæan genius at the time of Gudea appears again in a singular monument of the De Sarzec collection, which may be taken to be the foot of a vase rather than the base of a small column (fig. 18). Small figures in high relief, nude, and seated on the ground, lean against a cylindrical stem. The best preserved figure has an oval face of rare refinement, and of a type entirely foreign to that of the large statues; with his beard cut in a point, and his head covered with a woollen turban, he looks straight in front of him with a smiling aspect; in all Assyrian sculpture no countenance of such originality could perhaps be found. We do not know what is the meaning of these little figures crouched round this sort of basin. They seem to hold the place of the winged bulls and lions or other fantastic genii, whom Assyrian art will soon multiply everywhere in the capacity of architectural supports or ornaments.
Fig. 18.—Foot of Chaldæan vase (Louvre).