Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/266

 244 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/MA AND ASSYRIA. way or another bronze occupied a very important place in the door architecture of the Assyrians. In those cases where it neither supplied the cloor-casc nor ornamented its leaves, it was at least used to fix the latter and to enable them to turn. In Assyrian facades doors had much greater importance than in those architectural styles in which walls are broken up by numerous openings. Their great size, their rich and varied ornamentation, the important figures in high relief with which the walls about them were adorned, the solemn tints of bronze lighted up here and there by the glory of gold, the lively colours of the enamelled bricks that formed their archivolts, and finally the contrast between the bare and gleaming walls on either side and their depths of shadow all these combined to give accent to the doorways and to afford that relief to the monotony of the walls of which they stood in so great a need. For As- syrian mouldings are even poorer than those of Egypt. The softness of crude brick, the brittle hardness of burnt brick, are neither of them well disposed towards those delicate curves by which a skilful architect contrives to break the sameness of a facade, and to give the play of light and shadow which make up the beauty of a Greek or Florentine cornice. The only mouldings encountered in Assyria have been found on a few buildings or parts of buildings in which stone was em- ployed. We may quote as an instance the retaining wall of the small, isolated structure excavated by Botta towards the western angle of the Khorsabad mound, and by him believed to be a temple. 1 The wall in question is built of a harclish grey lime- stone, the blocks being laid alternately as stretchers and headers. The wall is complete with plinth, die and cornice (Figs. 98 and 99). The latter is a true cornice, composed of a small torus or bead, a scotia, and a fillet. The elements are the same as those of the Egyptian cornice, except in the profile of the hollow member, which is here a scotia and in Egypt a cavctio, to speak the language of modern architects. The Egyptian moulding is at once bolder and more simple, while the vertical grooves cut upon its surface give it a rich and furnished aspect that its Assyrian rival is without. 2 1 BOTTA, Monument de Ninire, vol. v. pp. 53-55. 2 BOTTA, Monument de Ni/u're, plates 149 and 150. See also LAYARD. Discoi<eries, p. 131, and FKRGUSSOX, History of Architecture, vol. i. p. 185 (2nd edition).