History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

Religious representations are much rarer than in theocratic Egypt. The kings of despotic Mesopotamia arrogated to themselves the supremacy allowed in Egypt to the gods, who in the latter country had been placed by the priests in relation with every human action, and whose ceremonial scenes were so predominant. The typical winged figure described above occurs continually in small reliefs, and even in diminutive ornaments. In rare instances a griffin or a kind of Pegasos is employed in its place upon purely decorative works. The sacred symbol of the tree of life, or that of the great god Ashur—the winged and encircled figure already mentioned—is worshipped by standing or kneeling human beings and by inferior deities. Processions are represented bearing images upon thrones, and the sacrifice of lambs is shown, the animals being slaughtered and burned piecemeal. These purely ceremonial reliefs differ fundamentally from the historical scenes. In the former the figures are over life-size; they are carved with great attention to detail, and are never grouped, but placed at regular distances: in the latter the human beings do not receive the attention devoted to the inanimate objects occurring in the pictured story, and especially to the indications of its locality. The fortifications of besieged towns are mapped out with scrupulous exactness, and are easily understood when it is borne in mind that the effect of distance, from the lack of perspective in this primitive art, is expressed by piling things upon one another which were in reality behind one another. Buildings are shown by reliefs like those given in Figs. 35 and 57, with a more or less successful attempt to clearly illustrate constructive details.

The landscape is conventionalized in a peculiar manner. Fields of grain upon regularly rolling hills are designated by wavy lines; the trees are usually suggestive of the carved toys accompanying the well-known Noah’s ark of our children—this impression being heightened by the trunks radially diverging from the hill, that they may be the more closely grouped together. The childlike art of the Assyrians here expressed a common error of childhood—that more trees can grow upon the increased surface of a hill than upon a plain with an area equal to the base of the hill-cone. At times, when necessary for the characterization of a locality, palms, grape-vines, figs, and other plants are indicated by a detailed imitation of leaves and fruit. Lakes, rivers (Fig. 74), and swamps are carefully drawn in wavy parallel lines with spirally conventionalized ripples; they are bordered with reeds and sedges, and inhabited by aquatic animals easily recognized by the naturalist. The events are represented in a simple and straightforward manner; unimportant figures are diminutive and less carefully carved, while the chief actors in a scene not only tower above their fellow-beings, but even above trees and fortifications. As the only intention of the artist was to represent a locality and an occurrence, he did not hesitate to give a city such proportions that the defenders upon its battlements could never have passed through its gates, and, standing upon the ground, would have overtopped the towers.

These conventionalized types do not appear in the bronzes, sheathings of thin wood-work, bowls, and other vessels, or in the rarer remains of ivory carvings. A number of objects of this kind, discovered during the excavations of Nineveh, are deposited in the British Museum. The better preserved and more easily recognizable among the ivory carvings are of Egyptian style, and even in some instances represent Egyptian religious ceremonies. This is also, in a measure, the case with the bronzes, which are composed of ten parts of copper and one of tin; though a majority of these show thicker and heavier forms, especially in the animals, and strikingly remind one of similar utensils discovered in Phœnicia and Cyprus. These articles must be considered either to have been directly imported, or so slavishly copied from foreign originals that they are at present not surely distinguishable. There can be little doubt that the native place of the bronze vessels was Phœnicia, and not Egypt. The former country, as proved by the repeated allusions of Homer and other early authors, was famed in the pre-historic ages of Greece for the manufacture of metal utensils, and especially for an extended employment of the bronze supplied by the copper-mines of Cyprus and the tin trade with England. When considered in connection with the well-known extent of Phœnician commerce, this derivation of the metal remains found at Nineveh is rendered more than probable.

The few and unimportant vestiges of Assyrian painting add little material to the history of art. It has already been mentioned that the palace walls were covered with a colored facing, shown by fragments found among the ruins to have been of painted stucco and glazed tiles. It consisted of bands of ornament, rows of rosettes and anthemions, woven strap-work, conventionalized mythical animals, and other forms arranged in set regularity. This treatment was adopted especially for the exterior and for the courts, where imposing ceremonial reliefs with colossal figures covered the lower surface of the wall. Animals the size of life are given in yellow upon a blue ground, such mosaic mural decorations being formed of tiles drawn and colored with reference to their ultimate position. (Fig. 64.) There are also paintings corresponding to the reliefs of alabaster common upon the lower half of important walls. With figures somewhat over 0.2 m. high, they represent scenes which appear to have stood in some relation to the carved ornaments of interior chambers. The most important of the fragments preserved shows a king, who, returning from battle or the hunt, is about to place to his lips a bowl handed him by a servant. (Fig. 76.) The bow which he holds in his left hand rests upon the earth; a sword hangs by his side. A eunuch with bow, quiver, and sword, and a warrior in short dress, with lance and pointed helmet, follow him. The garments are outlined by a broad band of yellow color, somewhat similar in effect to the heavy leading of mediæval stained glass-work, which increases the impression of flat stiffness peculiar to the Assyrian costumes of baggy cloth without folds. The head, arms, and legs are drawn in simple lines. A dark-yellow border separates the green dress from the red background, and the brownish color of the exposed flesh. White is intermingled with yellow in the rosettes, fringes, swords, etc.; the hair, beard, sandals, and the pupils of the eyes are black. Other fragments illustrated by Layard have a green background, yellow flesh, blue garments, horses, fishes, etc., all drawn with a heavy white, or, in rare instances, brown, outline. It would be difficult to determine whether these pigments have preserved their original color, and whether, indeed, some tints are not entirely lost. Chemical analysis has demonstrated that several metallic preparations were known to the Assyrians. The yellow is that preparation of antimony and lead which, under the name of Naples yellow, has been supposed a modern invention; the blue is a combination of copper and lead, also praised as a device of recent date in its application as a flux for glazing. The white is an enamel of oxidized tin, commonly held to have been first employed by the Arabs of Northern Africa in the eighth or ninth Christian century; the red is a suboxide of copper.

In regard to the style of these paintings, little can be added to that already stated in the consideration of Assyrian sculpture. The figures are somewhat more slender, and seem at times to betray a slight Egyptian influence. As in that country, the tones of color within the firm outlines are without modulation, differing only in the hues of the substances they represent. The composition is, perhaps, more picturesque, the figures frequently covering each other with varied position and action. The carved slabs which served as a revetment of the lower wall-surfaces were brought into harmony with the paintings above them by the addition of color to the reliefs. The hair, beard, and the pupils of the eyes were black; some parts of the dress, as the ribbons of the tiara, the sandals, etc., red. There is no doubt that other tints, not now recognizable, were added to the sculptures; but it must not be held that this painting was so brilliant and decided as some restorations represent. If the uniform effect of a completely painted wall-surface had been desired, the carving would largely have been given up. The best ornamental treatment of the architecturally bare surface was given by the marked division of its height. If the light openings of columns and pilasters, just under the ceiling, be assumed to have existed above the high and unpierced wall, as a distinct horizontal member crowning the enclosing mass, we can but admire this combination, in the Assyrian palace, of superposed courses of sculptured, painted, and architectural works.