Of the mimetic art of the Persians we do not possess any great amount, or any great variety, of specimens. The existing remains consist of reliefs, either executed on the natural rock or on large slabs of hewn stone used in building, of impressions upon coins, and of a certain number of intaglios cut upon gems. We possess no Persian statues, no modelled figures, no metal castings, no carvings in ivory or in wood, no enamellings, no pottery even. The excavations on Persian sites have been singularly barren of those minor results which flowed so largely from the Mosopotamian excavations, and have yielded no traces of the furniture, domestic implements, or wall-ornamentation of the people; have produced, in fact, no small objects at all, excepting a few cylinders and some spear and arrow heads, thus throwing scarcely any light on the taste or artistic genius of the people.

The nearest approach to statuary which we meet with among the Persian remains are the figures of colossal bulls, set to guard portals, or porticos, which are not indeed sculptures in the round, but are specimens of exceedingly high relief, and which, being carved in front as well as along the side, do not fall very far short of statues. Of such figures, we find two varieties—one representing the real animal, the other a monster with the body and legs of a bull, the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle. There is considerable merit in both representations. They are free from the defect of flatness, or want of breadth in comparison with the length, which characterizes the similar figures of Assyrian artists; and they are altogether grand, massive, and imposing. The general proportions of the bulls are good, the limbs are accurately drawn, the muscular development is well portrayed, and the pose of the figure is majestic. Even the monstrous forms of human-headed bulls have a certain air of quiet dignity, which is not without its effect on the beholder; and, although implying no great artistic merit, since they are little more than reproductions of Assyrian models, indicate an appreciation of some of the best qualities of Assyrian art—the combination of repose with strength, of great size with the most careful finish, and of strangeness with the absence of any approach to grotesqueness or absurdity. The other Persian reliefs may be divided under four heads:

(1) Mythological representations of a man—the king apparently—engaged in combat with a lion, a bull, or a monster; (2) Processions of guards, courtiers, attendants, or tribute-bearers; (3) Representations of the monarch walking, seated upon his throne, or employed in the act of worship; and (4) Representations of lions and bulls, either singly or engaged in combat.

On the jambs of doorways in three of the Persepolitan buildings, a human figure, dressed in the Median robe, but with the sleeve thrown back from the right arm, is represented in the act of killing either a lion, a bull, or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and assails his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the fourth. The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar; but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird’s wings, a scorpion’s tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The other has an eagle’s head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. [PLATE LV., Fig. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria, and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of the Assyrian artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has worked it out in its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such a manner as to give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to speak) native character.

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Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination in the most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the varieties of vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem to have allowed their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters, representative of the Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil, The stones exhibit the king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters, some nearly resembling the Persepolitan, while others have strange shapes unseen elsewhere. Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns of a ram or an antelope, sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different kinds, and various other nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian gems and cylinders, furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and prolific fancy of the designers.

The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of three kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or the officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In these subjects there is a great sameness, and a very small amount of merit. The proportion of the forms is, indeed, fairly good, the heads and hands are well drawn, and there is some grace in certain of the figures, but the general effect is tame and somewhat heavy; the attitudes are stiff, and present little variety, while, nevertheless, they are sometimes impossible; there is a monotonous repetition of identically the same figure, which is tiresome, and a want of grouping which is very inartistic. If Persia had produced nothing better than this in sculpture, she would have had to be placed not only behind Assyria, but behind Egypt, as far as the sculptor’s art is concerned.

Processional scenes of a more attractive character are, however, tolerably frequent. Some exhibit to us the royal purveyors arriving at the palace with their train of attendants, and bringing with them the provisions required for the table of the monarch. Here we have some varieties of costume which are curious, and some representations of Persian utensils, which are not without a certain interest. Occasionally, too, we are presented with animal forms, as kids, which have considerable merit.

But by far the most interesting of the processional scenes, are those which represent the conquered nations bringing to the monarch those precious products of their several countries which the Lord of Asia expected to receive annually, as a sort of free gift from his subjects, in addition to the fixed tribute which was exacted from them. Here we have a wonderful variety of costume and equipment, a happy admixture of animal with human forms, horses, asses, chariots, sheep, cattle, camels, interspersed among men, and the whole divided into groups by means of cypress-trees, which break the series into portions, and allow the eye to rest in succession upon a number of distinct pictures. Processions of this kind occurred on several of the Persepolitan staircases; but by far the most elaborate and complete is that on the grand steps in front of the Chehl Minar, or Great Hall of Audience, where we see above twenty such groups of figures, each with it own peculiar features, and all finished with the utmost care and delicacy. The illustration [PLATE LV., Fig. 2], which is taken from a photograph, will give a tolerable idea of the general character of this relief; it shows the greater portion of six groups, whereof two are much injured by the fall of the parapet-wall on which they were represented, while the remaining four are in good preservation. It will be noticed that the animal forms—the Bactrian camel and the humped ox—are superior to the human, and have considerable positive merit as works of art. This relative superiority is observable throughout the entire series, which contains, besides several horses (some of which have been already represented in these volumes), a lioness, an excellent figure of the wild ass, and two tolerably well-drawn sheep. [PLATE LVI., Fig. 2 and 3.]