Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/229

THE COLUMN. 207 however, saw no such architecture. Her plastic genius never came under the influence that would have led her to import stone from abroad ; and the grace and variety of the orders remained unknown to her builders. Like Egypt, Chaldaea gave lessons but received none. The forms of her art are to be explained by the inborn characteristics of her people and the natural conditions among which they found themselves placed. In Assyria these conditions were rather different. The stone column was used there, but used in a timid and hesitating fashion. It never reached the freedom and independence that would have I-'IG. 74. Assyrian capital, in perspective ; compiled Irom 1'lace. characterized it had it arisen naturally from the demands of construction. 1 We only possess one column, or rather one fragment of a column, from Assyria, and that was found by M. Place at Khorsabad (Fig. 74). It is a block of carefully worked and carved limestone about forty inches high, and including both the capital and the upper part of the shaft in its single piece. 1 In this connection Sir H. LAYARD makes an observation to which the attention of the artist should be drawn. Whenever pictures of Belshazzar's Feast and the Last Night of Babylon are painted massive Egyptian pillars are introduced : nothing could be more contrary to the facts {Discoveries, p. 581).