Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/152

 32 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. When the kin^ and his architect had finished one of these o structures, they might calculate upon an infinite duration for it without any great presumption, and that partly because Chaldaean art, even when most ambitious and enterprising, never made use of any but the simplest means. The arch was in more frequent use than in Egypt, but it hardly seems to have been employed in buildings to which any great height was to be given. Scarcely a trace of it is to be discovered either in the parts preserved of these structures or in their sculptured representations. None of those light and graceful methods of construction that charm and excite the eye, but must be paid for by a certain loss of stability, are to be found here. Straight lines are the inflexible rule. The few arches that may be discovered in the interior exercise no thrust, surrounded as they are on every side by weighty masses. In theory the equilibrium is perfect ; and if, as the event has proved, the conditions of stability, or at least of duration, were less favourable than in the pyramids at Memphis or in the temples at Thebes, the fault lies with the inherent vices of the material used and with the comparatively unfavourable climate. In the absence of stone the Chaldasan builder was shut off from many of the most convenient methods of covering, and therefore of multiplying, voids. Speaking generally, we may say that he employed neither piers, nor columns, nor those beams of lime- stone, sandstone, or granite, which we know as architraves ; he was, therefore, ignorant of the portico, and never found himself driven by artistic necessities to those ingenious, delicate, and learned efforts of invention by which the Egyptians and Greeks arrived at what we call orders. This term is well understood. By it we mean supports of which the principal parts, base, shaft, and capital, have certain constant and closely defined mutual relations. Like a zoological species, each order has a distinctive character and personal physiognomy of its own. An art that is deprived of such a resource is condemned to a real inferiority. It may cover every surface with the luxury of a sumptuous decoration, but, in spite of all its efforts, a secret poverty, a want of genius and inven- tion, will be visible in its creations. The varied arrangements of the portico suggested the hypostyle hall, with all the picturesque developments it has undergone at the hands of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the