Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/333

Painting. 295 way to Babylon and even as far as Egypt. The inscriptions of Thothmes III. mention the good khesbet of Babylon among the objects offered to Pharaoh by the Rotennou, or people of Syria. 1 This fine lapis-powder, intimately united with the clay by firing, gave a solid enamel of a very pure colour. If mixed with a body of some consistence it might be used upon the sculptures ; perhaps the blue with which certain accessories were tinted was thus obtained. The yellow is an antimoniate of lead containing a certain quantity of tin ; its composition is the same as that of the pig- ment now called Naples yellow. 2 White is an oxide of tin, so that the Arabs do not deserve the credit they have long enjoyed of being the first, about the ninth century a.d., to make use of white so composed. 3 The black is perhaps an animal pigment. 4 The green may have been obtained by a mixture of blue and yellow pigments, of ochre with oxide of copper, for instance. As for red, no colour is easier to get. The Nimroud enamellers used, perhaps, a sub-oxide of copper, 5 while those of Khorsabad employed the iron oxide of which our red chalk is composed. 6 We can examine the latter at our ease. The cake of red found by Place weighed some five-and-forty pounds. It dissolves readily in water. The whole palette consisted, then, of some five or six colours, and their composition was so simple that no attempt to produce an appearance of reality by their aid could have been successful. Taken altogether, the painting of Mesopotamia was purely decora- tive ; its ornamental purpose was never for a moment lost sight of, and the forms it borrowed from the organic world always had a peculiar character. W T hen the figures of men and animals were introduced they were never shown engaged in some action which might of itself excite the curiosity of the spectator ; their forms are not studied with the religious care that proves the artist to have been impelled by their own beauty and grace of movement to give them a place in his work. There are no shadows marking the succession of planes ; in the choice of flat tints the artist has 1 Lepsius, Les Métaux dans les Lnscriptions égyptiennes. Translated into French by W. Berend, and with additions by the author, 1877. 2 Layard, Discoveries, p. 166. 3 Ibid. p. 166. 4 Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 313. 5 Layard, Discoveries, p. 166. 6 Place, Ninive, vol. ii. p. 252.