Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/473

Glyptic Art. 449 tton of an ethnic type whose features had not yet been chiselled by the sculptor. Inheritor of Assyria on the one hand, and of Greece on the other, Persian sculpture is, then, to a certain extent more advanced than that of Egypt and the Semitic nations of Mesopotamia ; all the same it is a less interesting art. It is not the spontaneous creation of a people who use the language of forms, concur- rently with that of words, to express their emotions and their ideas. Neither do we trace in such figures as are of genuine native make the thrill, as it were, which an artist, sprung from a nation gifted for plastic arts, feels in presence of a human form endowed with harmonious lines, when he collects and puts forth his strength for a mighty effort. The significance of the image rather tlian the beauty pertaining thereto determined the choice of the artist, who wished above all that each group, each figure, each attitude, conjointly with the general flow of the composition, should help in producing the desired effect, and deepen still more the religious awe which the assembled multitudes owed to their sovereign. If Persian sculpture is expressive, it is b( cause of this alUinspiring idea ; the feeling which filled the mind of its creator rises everywhere to the surface, and penetrates it, so to speak, with something of a majestic gravity and self-possession which are not void of attractiveness, whilst the whole presents a unity of style and tone imposing in their effect. It must be confessed, however, that this very high-pitched and unbroken tone is somewhat frigid. The artist never took off his best coat so as to introduce comedy in his composition ; the attention of the spectator is never excited by picturesque tales ingeniously worked in, some accident happily contrived to break the sameness of the main action. Everything is as well regulated and, we might almost say, as stiff as the order and etiquette of a court ceremonial. Glyptic Art. If many a data induce the belief that artists of Persian birth had no hand in the sculptures we have just described, there are even greater reasons for rejecting intaglios as of native work- manship. These are rare enough, and divide themselves into two classes, the one engraved with Persian characters, and the other, by far the largest, distinguished by forms and make which