A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Georges Perrot; Charles Chipiez

In both countries architecture had created buildings whose wealth of decoration corresponded to their ample size, and gave point to the significance of their plans. The ambition of Chaldæa was no less high than that of Egypt. For size and general magnificence its great edifices might be looked upon as worthy rivals to those of the Nile valley, and yet we cannot say they deserve to be put quite on the same level. In the vast plains of the Euphrates those staged towers whose restoration we have attempted had a singular importance; they amazed the eye with their size, and pleased it with their brilliant colours; but they fell short of the nobility, the mysterious beauty and dignity of the Egyptian temples. Temples, sanctuaries, or palaces, all the great structures of Mesopotamia seem to us to suffer from a certain heaviness and want of variety, and they had another great fault. They bore in their bosoms the seeds of their own rapid dissolution. Unlike the halls of Carnac and Luxor they had no defences against the action of time and the violence of man.

The Chaldæan architect must, then, be put below his Egyptian rival, and the real cause of his inferiority, as we have already explained, is to be looked for in the defects of the only material in which his conceptions could be carried out. That material was brick, brick either burnt in the kiln, or dried in the sun, with which any conception may be realized but one in which delicate mouldings and slender columns play a conspicuous part.

In the case of sculpture the balance hangs about level. The two schools rendered living forms, and especially those of mankind, in different ways, but their merits have seemed to us to be distinct rather than very unequal. In one we have found a more delicate feeling for line, for grace and refinement of contour; in the minutest statuettes as in the most gigantic colossi, we have tasted the charm of that proud and smiling serenity that is expressed as much in attitude and gesture as in the face. In the other we are chiefly struck by energy of modelling and power of movement. We have estimated these qualities of force and vigour at their full price, and we have pointed out that the form of man occupies a far more important place in the religious art of Chaldæa than in that of Egypt. In its more frankly anthropomorphic character it has seemed to us an advance upon that Egyptian sculpture which put the heads of crocodiles, hawks and hippopotamuses on the shoulders of its gods. And yet we have been obliged to acknowledge that the natural conditions were in some respects unfavourable to the development of Chaldæo-Assyrian art. Their funerary rites did not demand the absolute fidelity which made the early Egyptian sculptors such admirable portraitists. In the absence of such compulsion the Mesopotamian sculptors created general types rather than individual figures, and their art always had a more or less conventional character in consequence. Its progress was also hindered by the barrier of opaque drapery that was interposed between the artist and his model. In his figures of animals we may see how great his genius for the expression of life, form, and movement really was, and in all imitative qualities they leave his figures of men far behind. Nothing in the world can make up for the absence of that patient study of the nude, on which all really great sculpture is founded.

It is because Mesopotamian art never studied at this elementary school, and never mastered these foundations of all plastic skill, that such of its productions as border on what we call the industrial arts, never shook themselves clear of a certain heaviness of hand and a certain monotony of effect. These defects are easily accounted for; a robe—and especially a straight and clinging robe like that of Assyria—hides all refinements of modelling, and all the grace of those undulating lines by which the human form is bounded. If, as in Egypt, the sculptor and painter had made all the beauties of the human figure, and especially the graceful contours of woman, familiar to every eye, artizans would have known how to give more subtle and agreeable forms to their creations, and would have been compelled to give them. A knowledge of the nude would have enabled them to make countless variations on a single theme, and to use it again and again without danger of tiring the eye. All robed figures have a certain mutual resemblance, however little there may be in common in their movement and costume. In at least one Assyrian relief we have been obliged to leave it in doubt as to whether a life-size figure is that of a god or a goddess.

On the other hand, two nude figures may be almost identical in attitude and gesture, but even a careless eye will not confound one with the other. In one the bony framework and muscular development will be more strongly marked than in the other. Sex, age, habits of work or repose, will leave their unmistakable marks upon the fleshy contours. The artist’s difficulties begin when he attempts to record all the shades of form, and, no doubt, he can never be successful in such an attempt until he has accumulated no little stock of professional knowledge and skill. But it is something when he begins to perceive those shades, and to understand their interest and value. In endeavouring to reproduce them he feels his hand become lighter and more adroit; in time he will set himself to imitate nature in all her marvellous variety, and in doing so he will be led to perceive how she never repeats herself, how she gives to each individual his own distinctive physiognomy at the same time that she never confuses the identity of type or species. Put on his mettle by this discovery, he will become more ingenious and more inventive every day. Having learnt how scarcely perceptible variations of line and proportion suffice to distinguish between one being and another, he will accustom himself to give variety to his creations by the same process; however slight the changes may be between his successive productions, each will be a new and unique creation in the fullest sense of the word. Thenceforward the limits of his art will be as wide as those of nature herself. Once it has entered upon the road thus pointed out, it may indeed encounter certain difficulties of execution, but it need fear no longer a relapse into the worst of faults, monotony and uniformity.

Unlike the Egyptians, and, as we shall see, still more unlike the Greeks, the Chaldæans had to dispense with this invaluable training. Hence the inferiority of their art. That their imaginations were lively enough is proved chiefly by the decoration of their carpets and embroidered stuffs, on which all the resources of line are developed with unfailing taste and fancy; on which vegetable and animal forms, both real and fantastic, are mingled with the figures of men and supernatural genii in a fashion that is always graceful and full of variety. But the variety is more apparent than real. Every human figure is robed and practically identical in appearance; the artist was without the resources enjoyed by his Egyptian rival for modifying his theme without destroying its fundamental character.

Compelled to judge of these embroideries from a small number of examples handed down to us on the reliefs, we are ready to admire them for the diversity of their motives, but perhaps if we had a larger collection we should find some particular group or figure frequently reappearing. But even if it were so it ought not to lead us to condemn the taste of the artizans who made them. On stuffs used for garments, on carpets spread upon floors and tapestries hung upon walls, repetitions were not out of place. The motive was not looked at for itself, for its value as an isolated creation, but for the effect produced by its continual repetition. The eye receives a certain kind of pleasure from the constant return of a single arrangement of line or harmony of colour; and an element which, taken by itself, would have but little value, may be used to build up rich and graceful compositions. This is sufficiently proved by the ceramics and textiles of the modern East, such as the faïence of Persia, the shawls of India, the embroidered silks of China and the porcelain of Japan.

Fig. 260.—Egyptian mirror, reduced by about a fifth of its actual size. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.

The same law does not hold good in all the sumptuary arts. Take jewelry and gold or silversmith’s work, for instance. The aim is no longer to decorate and illumine a surface of indefinite extent, it is to create an object with a distinct unity and form of its own. The great resource of the worker in precious metal lies, therefore, in those figures of men and animals to which nature has given a clearly defined shape and special features by which one is distinguished from the other. In this respect the goldsmith is the pupil of the sculptor. He reproduces, on a smaller scale, the types created by the statue-maker, and multiplies his copies with the freedom of hand imposed by the necessity for meeting a wider demand. It matters little that in one time or place these imitations are made with less care and refinement of taste than in another; the principle is always the same. In the industrial arts, at least in those in which the figure plays an important rôle, we find nothing that cannot be referred to some model created by the same people in their fine arts. The work of the artizan is the reduction, the reflection—enfeebled, indeed, but faithful so far as it goes—of the work of the artist.