Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/424

38 i A History of Art in Cuald.ka and Assyria. in the fullest sense of the word. Thenceforward the limits of his art will be as wide as those of nature herself. Once it has entered upon the road thus pointed out, it may indeed encounter certain difficulties of execution, but it need fear no longer a relapse into the worst of faults, monotony and uniformity. Unlike the Egyptians, and, as we shall see, still more unlike the Greeks, the Chaldseans had to dispense with this invaluable training. Hence the inferiority of their art. That their imagina- tions were lively enough is proved chiefly by the decoration t of their carpets and embroidered stuffs, on which all the resources of line are developed with unfailing taste and fancy ; on which vegetable and animal forms, both real and fantastic, are mingled with the figures of men 1 and supernatural genii in a fashion that is always graceful and full of variety. But the variety is more apparent than real. Every human figure is robed and practically identical in appearance ; the artist was without the resources enjoyed by his Egyptian rival for modifying his theme without destroying its fundamental character. Compelled to judge of these embroideries from a small number of examples handed down to us on the reliefs, we are ready to admire them for the diversity of their motives, but perhaps if we had a larger collection we should rind some particular group or figure frequently reappearing. But even if it were so it ought not to lead us to condemn the taste of the artizans who made them. On stuffs used for garments, on carpets spread upon floors and tapestries hung upon walls, repetitions were not out of place. The motive was not looked at for itself, for its value as an isolated creation, but for the effect produced by its continual repetition. The eye receives a certain kind of pleasure from the constant return of a single arrangement of line or harmony of colour ; and an element which, taken by itself, would have but little value, may be used to build up rich and graceful compositions. This is sufficiently proved by the ceramics and textiles of the modern East, such as the faience of Persia, the shawls of India, the embroidered silks of China and the porcelain of Japan. The same law does not hold good in all the sumptuary arts. Take jewelry and gold or silversmith's work, for instance. The aim is no longer to decorate and illumine a surface of indefinite extent, it is to create an object with a distinct unity and form of its