Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/159

Conventions of Chaldteo- Assyrian Sculpture. 135 individual or even one race from another ; at least if he saw them he did not understand how to reproduce them ; he did not even try to do so. From the very beginning — so far as we know it — the art of the Nile valley turned out portraits both of Pharaoh and of private individuals that are astonishing in their truth and life. 1 Even in those executed in a more summary fashion and not in any way to be classed as masterpieces, we find a singular aptitude in seizing and noting those peculiarities which make of every human face an unique creation, a medal of which but one example has been struck. Ethnic characteristics are given with no less truth ; we have seen elsewhere how many faithful portraits they have left of the races with whom they entertained long and unbroken relations. 2 Very few traces of this talent or disposition are to be found in the monuments of Mesopotamia. Of course in a draped school of sculpture we could hardly expect to find any great preoccupa- tion with the various beauties of the human body. Given the Assyrian costume, it was impossible that the Assyrian artist should aspire to bring out those beauties. In many works from the Nile valley the influence of the sex, the age, and even the profession upon the development of the muscles, upon, if we may be allowed the expression, the physiognomy of the flesh, is skilfully shown in the modelling. 3 But faces were not concealed by the Assyrian draperies ; why then were their distinctive marks of individuality so consistently ignored ? The sculptor should have concentrated his attention upon them all the more, and so arrived at a faithful portrait. He did not do so however. Neither Assyrian nor Chaldaean had any such ambition. By a process of sel ection and abstraction they arrived at a kind of mean, at a certain ideal of manly beauty which served them to the end. That ideal is characterized by the abundance and symmetrical arrangement of the hair and beard, by a low foreh ead, heavy and strongly-arched eyebows, a hooked and rounded nose, a small mouth with full but not too heavy lips, a strong, rounded chin, a nd lim bs whose muscular development betrayed their vigour. The universal acceptance of this type is proved chiefly by the 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. pp. 185-196, plates ix. x. xi. and figs. 172, 173 174, 178, 183, 198, 199, 205, 208, 213, 214, 215, 216, 223, &c. 2 ibid. figs. 273-275. 3 Ibid. p. 192.