The Assyrian, therefore, in consequence of a Semitic prejudice, could never express natural and ideal beauty: herein lies his inferiority in comparison with the Egyptian sculptor; we know from thousands of examples how the artists of Thebes or Memphis treated the human torso, and several of their statues and even of their bas-reliefs are masterpieces. Rarely has the Ninevite sculptor ventured to represent the human form in the state of nudity, except in the case of the goddess Istar, and in that of a few figures of slaves or of corpses lying on the battle-field; and these exceptional cases betray his complete want of experience.
He tried to remedy the defect which we have just indicated by striving after perfection in details. No art has treated with greater complaisance and refinement all the features of the costume, not forgetting a single tress of the hair or a single fringe in the drapery. Here is, for instance, a bas-relief from Khorsabad ([fig. 80]), which represents Sargon attended by an eunuch. Observe with what inimitable perfection the embroidery of the tiara, of the mantle decorated with rosettes, and of the robe with its elegant diaper pattern is rendered; the silky softness of the fringes in the eunuch’s dress is almost to be felt. The hands and feet, beard and hair, of the two figures, are treated with the delicacy of a cameo. Secondary matters thus assume an exaggerated importance detrimental to the effect of the whole; the muscles are so strongly marked that they become monstrous; the relative proportions of the different parts of the body are no longer conformed to nature. In this respect again Assyrian sculpture remains greatly inferior to its rival on the banks of the Nile. It cannot be too often repeated that the minute study of detail and devotion to the infinitely little ruined Assyrian art by helping to make it forget the general features of the work; the sculptor, led astray by this false object, looked at his figures too closely, omitting to improve their proportions and to give them more suppleness, life, and movement; even when most finished, they always give us an impression of geometrical stiffness.
Fig. 81.—Wounded lioness (Bas-relief from Kouyunjik, British Museum).
If the direct study of bodily forms was neglected by the Assyrian artist in the case of human beings, it was not so in the case of animals. Accordingly Ninevite sculpture shows itself to far greater advantage in the representation of the animals of different kinds found in Mesopotamia. In this province it may claim a considerable superiority over Egyptian art, and reaches, in the time of Assurbanipal, that is to say, at the moment before the fall of Nineveh, a degree of perfection which may sustain comparison with the finest creations of Hellenic art. Its masterpiece is the figure of a lioness succumbing to the shafts of the hunters, from the palace of Assurbanipal at Kouyunjik. Her spinal column is broken by an arrow which pierces it through; the blood gushes in streams from the wound, but though on the point of expiring, the savage beast makes a heroic effort to raise herself upon her forelegs and to utter a last roar. In order to render this dramatic attitude with so much truth, the artists must often have followed the royal hunting expeditions and witnessed terrible scenes in the deserts where the wild beasts had their haunts. Other bas-reliefs show us, with an almost equally successful execution, lions springing on to the royal chariot, dashing boldly towards the boats which plough the waters of the river, or, on the other hand, lying carelessly asleep on the plain, and lazily stretching out their limbs, the modelling of which is free and truthful.
