Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/238

roS A History of Art in Ciialdt.a and Assyria. in many respects and inferior to that of his Egyptian forerunner, still more to that of his Greek successor ; but yet it had an air of frankness, of pride and dignity, to which the more complex and superficially more skilful compositions of the following epoch too seldom attained. The good qualities of this early Assyrian school are no less conspicuous in the colossal figures with which the doorways of palaces and temples were decorated. The head of the winged bull has nowhere a more lofty expression or one more full of dignity than at Nimroud (see below, Fig. 133). The chisels of these northern artists never created anything more bold, energetic, and lifelike than the figures from the small temple built by Assurnazirpal (Vol. I. Fig. 188) ; we need only mention the colossal lion in the British Museum (Plate VI 1 1.) and the grimacing demon whom a beneficent god seems to be expelling from the sanctuary in spite of his threats and grinning teeth. 1 And yet this art which is so masterly in some respects is very primitive and naïve in others. We cannot help being amazed, for instance, at the wide band of wedges that the scribe has been allowed to cut across all the lines and contours left by the sculptor. This proceeding is to be explained, of course, by the essentially historical and anecdotic character of Assyrian art, but nevertheless it betrays the contempt for aesthetic effect which is one of the characteristics of archaic art in Assyria. This feature is by no means without importance, and Sir Henry Layard seems to us to have been ill advised in deliberately suppressing it. In his other- wise faithful reproductions of the best preserved among the bas-reliefs of Assurnazirpal he has everywhere left out the continuous band of inscription which runs across them at about two-thirds of their height. By such a proceeding he has sensibly modified their decorative value. 2 We must be on our guard against attributing such primitive simplicity to inexperience in the use of the chisel. In the finest works of later years that instrument was never wielded with more assured skill than in the delicate carvings in which the embroidery on the royal robes are reproduced. We have already put several of these motives before our readers ; in Fig. 115 we give a last 1 Layard, Monuments, second series, plate 5. 2 For the reasons which led him to take this step, see the Introduction to the first series of plates published in the Monuments.