Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/282

 260 A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD.EA AND ASSYRIA. This analysis of what we have called secondary forms has shown how great was the loss of the Chaldaean architect and of his too docile Assyrian pupil, in being deprived by circumstances on the one hand and want of inclination on the other of such a material as stone. Without it they could make use of none of those variations of plan and other contrivances of the same kind by which the skilful architect suggests the internal arrange- ment of his structures on their facades. For such purposes he had to turn to those constituents of his art to which we shall devote our next section. /. Decoration. MESOPOTAMIA was no exception to the general rule that decora- tion is governed by construction. To take only one example, and that from an art we have already studied, the Egyptian temple was entirely of stone, and its decoration formed a part of the very substance of what we may call the flesh and blood of the edifice. The elements of that rich and brilliant decoration are furnished by those mouldings which make up in vigour what they lack in variety, by the slight relief or the hardly perceptible intaglio of the shadowless figures cut by the sculptor in stone, and covered by the painter with the liveliest colours. This sumptuous decora- tion, covering every external and internal surface, may no more be detached from it than the skin of an animal may be detached from its muscles. The union is even more intimate in this case, the adherence more complete. So long as the Egyptian walls remain standing, the blocks of limestone, sandstone, or granite of which they are composed, can never be entirely freed from the images, that is, from, the expression of the thoughts, cut upon them by the men of forty centuries ago. In Assyria the case was different. There buildings were of brick, each unit being in the vast majority of cases a repetition of its neighbour. In very few instances were the bricks of special shapes, and the buildings in which they were used could only be decorated by attached ornament, similar in principle to the mats and hangings we spread over the floors and walls that we wish to hide. This result they obtained in one of two ways ; they either