Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/123

The Column. 1 1 1 are edifices, about whose capitals lions' heads interpose between the abacus and the blown lotus flower crowning the shaft (Fig. 43). Elsewhere, wild goats' heads appear in the same situation, but they are almost lost in the overcrowding of forms, such as volutes, rosettes, flowers, and the like. The ornament about simulated columns is so exuberant, it consists of so many members thrown Fig. 42.— Fragment of bull. Louvre. Height, 45 c. Drawn hj St. Elme Gautier. in haphazard in a confused medley without any relation to each other, as to make it hard to believe that such types as these could have any existence in fact.' The ornamentist seems to have brought together forms that came easily to his brush, without troubling himself whether, despite their lightness and pliancy, wood, and metal itself, would lend themselves to be fashioned into objects at once fantastic and exceedingly complex. On the other hand, designs of Assyrian origin, to which attcn- • Hnt. of Art, torn. ii. pp. 542, 543, Figs. 317-320.