CHAPTER III.
PAINTING.
In the inventory we are compiling of the various methods used by the Semites of Mesopotamia to address the intellect through the eyes, we shall consecrate a chapter to painting for form's sake. The kind of representation we call by that name was no more known to the Assyrians and Chaldæans than it was to the Egyptians.[1] They loved brilliant colours, but they only made use of them for what was, in fact, illumination; they coloured figures and ornaments, but they never painted, as the word is understood in all modern languages.
In our endeavours to explain how the Mesopotamian architect disguised, under a robe of gay tints, the poverty of the materials with which he was forced to work, we showed that he employed colour in two different ways, according to the place occupied in the building by the wall he had to cover.[2] In the interiors of rooms he was, in most cases, satisfied with spreading upon the plaster a coat of some pigment that could be easily renewed when it began to fade; but in those parts of the building that were exposed to the weather, and even in some rooms that were the objects of particular care, he had recourse to the solidity of enamel. We have pointed out the favourite motives both in the distemper paintings and in the kind of mosaic given by the glazed or enamelled bricks; we have yet to say what tints the enameller used and how he used them. Our coloured plates will give a better idea of this decoration than we can give in words (Plates XIII., XIV., and XV.).[3]
