Archaeology and the Evolution of Art.
What is true of Greek civilization in general is specifically true of the flower of that civilization, Greek art. Whoever would see the story of the evolution of Greek art illustrated, should go to the British Museum and pass from the Egyptian Hall, with its grotesque colossi, to the Assyrian rooms, with their marvellous bas-reliefs, and then on to the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. In particular, the art treasures of the Assyrian collection should demand the closest scrutiny. In the Nineveh gallery, for example, where one finds collections of strange Assyrian books, the walls are flanked everywhere with bas-reliefs that come from some buried palace that once stored the literary treasures.
It appears that the kings of that far-off time and land were connoisseurs of art as well as patrons of literature - and the art treasures of their palaces certainly form the most striking, if not the most important, part of the mementoes they have left to us. The more closely these figures in low relief are examined, the more wonderful they will seem. They take the place of the Egyptian carvings in the round ; and if they are less striking to first view than the great sarcophagi, the grotesque gods, and colossal animal forms of that people, they will prove infinitely more expressive and incomparably more artistic on closer inspection. For these flat sculptures depict, not alone gods and sacerdotal scenes, but everyday affairs and the events of Assyrian history. The bas-relief was clearly the focal point of Assyrian art. Even the great bulls and lions that guarded the palace entrances were only partially detached from their background, and a frescoed statue of King Assur-nazir-pal shows the same tendency. The full rounded statue was not indeed unknown to them, as several examples testify; but their real forte lay in mural decoration in low relief. And the particular walls on which the artists mainly expended their skill, if we may judge from what the ruins have revealed to us, were not the walls of temples but the palaces of kings. It is quite clear that these great conquerors of antiquity were very human, very like their successors of after times. They loved to have their heroic deeds, real or alleged, heralded to the world, and recalled incessantly to their own memories. So one finds whole histories epitomized on these walls,— wars, conquests, victories; the storming of cities, the slaughter of the enemy, the leading of captives, and bringing of tribute by subject people,—everything, in short, but Assyrian reverses; the court artist, true to his colours then as now, never made the mistake of depicting those.
As historical records these sculptures are of priceless value, both for what they tell of political history and for the light they throw on the powers and limitations of antique art. But before you venture to judge the Assyrian artist in the latter regard, you must pass on to the room of Assur-nazir-pal, and from that to the adjacent room, where the mural decorations of the dining-hall of the last of the great Assyrian kings, Assur-bani-pal, have been placed in situ, reproducing an effect which they first made in the palace at Nineveh in the 7th century B.C. Here you may see at once both another phase of royal life in Assyria and another stage of Assyrian art. Not war, but the chase is now the theme. King Assur-bani-pal is seen in pursuit of the goat, the wild ass, the lion. The king, of course, towers above his attendants, though not in the grotesque disproportion of the Egyptian paintings. To the Oriental mind such excessive stature seemed indissoluble from royal station. One recalls how the mother of Darius, made captive at Issus, mistook Hephæstion for the king, because he was taller than Alexander; and how Agesilaus, when he went to Egypt as an ally of the Egyptians, was held in contempt, despite his renown, because of his diminutive stature; and one cannot help wondering what would have been the real aspect of the Assyrian and Egyptian monarch could they have been subjected to the camera. Be that as it may, there was apparently no doubt in the mind of the court artist as to what his chisel should reveal in this respect, and the king may always be distinguished by his stature, without regard to his royal robes. Still, it is notable, as a distinction between Egyptian and Assyrian art, that the realistic eye of the Assyrian sculptor never let him depict the king as a Brobdingnag among the pigmies, after the Egyptian fashion. At the most he is a head taller than those about him.
The royal hunter pursues his quarry sometimes on foot, more usually standing in his chariot. His
