Their nature-gods, derived from the Tyrian Melkarth, were colourless symbolic figures, destitute of heroic deeds, or historical myths fitting for a popular epic. What room, indeed, was there for leisure and interest in poetry and heroic stories in a restless life of industry and trade?
But surely the Phœnicians did something great in building and sculpture? It is true that the temple of Jerusalem was built by Tyrian workmen, artists, and builders; that the temple buildings in Tyre, Aradus, Paphos, and Gades, in Carthage and Utica, excited the admiration of antiquity; that the buildings of King Hiram, the ruined temples in Malta and Gozo, the gigantic tombs and the circular “nurhage” in the Balearic Isles and in Sardinia, testify to architectural skill; but they are far inferior to those of the Egyptians, or of the cultured races of the Euphrates and Tigris. From what we gather from some descriptions, their temples were more noted for size and magnificence than for artistic taste.
Their materials were chiefly wood and metal, and from the description of the jewels, treasures, and ornaments of all kinds, which distinguished the fine buildings of the Phœnicians, we see that their fame was not due to the grand full forms of simple stone architecture, but to the rich ornamentation and brilliant variegation. The structure of the ships seems also to have been of the same character as the buildings. The Phœnician buildings cannot be compared with the Assyrian, which the recent excavations have brought to light; and much that was hitherto attributed to the Phœnicians is now found to be Ninevite art, and also in the West many remains of old Phœnician work are traced to the Etruscans.
Phœnician sculpture takes a still lower rank. The physical powers which work externally and internally in the creation and destruction of nature that they deified could not be represented in beautiful forms in art, like the ethical powers of the human heart with the Greeks. Their fetiches were demoniacal distortions, their images of gods were frightful, and the figures were overladen with symbols and attributes. The human form, the fundamental type of all organic art, found no free and natural expression, and the fantastic forms of animals and plants on their vessels were borrowed from the Assyrians and Babylonians. Pure form and natural beauty were quite wanting.[i]
“The stage of development,” says Gerhard, “of such artistic remains of the Phœnicians as are known to us, instead of putting them on a higher plane show that their fame in antiquity was due to their technical working of such materials, as iron, gold, ivory, glass, and purple; and to their usefulness as intermediaries which led to their being often called upon either to execute or to disseminate the higher art of interior Asia. They had a considerable influence upon Grecian art in early times, but at the time of its development, very little. The inartistic nature and the want of the plastic sense, peculiar to all Semitic races, was seen in the Phœnicians.”[m]
