Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/142

 122 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. in truth stone was for the Assyrian no more than an accessary and complementary material ; the bodies of his structures were never composed of it ; it was mainly confined to plinths, pavements, and the internal linings of walls. In spite of its apparent singularity this determined exclusion is to be easily explained. The Assyrian invented nothing. His lano-uao-e and his writing, his religion and his science, came from Chaldsea, and so did his art. When the kings of Resen, of Calech, and Nineveh, took it into their heads to build palaces, they imported architects, painters, and sculptors, from the southern kincrdom. Why, it may be asked, did those artists remain so faithful to the traditions in which they had grown up when they found themselves planted among such different surroundings ? The answer is, that nothing is more tenacious of life than those professional habits that are transmitted from one generation to another by the practical teaching of more or less close corpora- tions, besides which we must remember that the Chaldaean methods were excellently well fitted for the satisfaction of those impatient princes at whose orders the works were undertaken. For the quarrying, dressing, and fixing of stone, a special and rather tedious education was required. The manufacture and laying of bricks was comparatively easy. A few weeks were sufficient to learn all that was to be learnt about the. kneading and moulding of the earth, its desiccation in the sun or burning in the kiln. Provided that experienced men were forthcoming to superintend the latter operation, millions of good bricks could be made in the year. 1 All this required no lengthy apprenticeship. Their arrangement in horizontal courses or grouping at stated intervals, into those lines of battlements with which every wall was crowned, was done by the men of the corvde. Certain parts of the building, such as arches and vaults, required more care and skill, and were left, no doubt, to experienced masons and bricklayers, but, with these exceptions, the whole work could be confided to the first-comers, to those armies of captives whom we see in the bas-reliefs labouring in chained gangs like convicts. Working in this fashion, even the most formidable works could be completed with singular rapidity. In Assyria, as in 1 As for the simple and rapid nature of the process by which crude bricks are manufactured to the present day in Persia, see TEX.IER, L Armenie et la Perse, vol. ii. p. 64.