Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/297

 DECORATION. 275 few fragments of these paintings. 1 According to the examples thus preserved for us, human figures were mingled with purely ornamental motives such as plumes, fillets, and rosettes. The colours here used were black, green, red, and yellow, to which may be added a fifth in the white of the plaster ground upon which they were laid. Flesh tints were expressed by leaving this white uncoloured. FIG. 116. Ornament painted upon plaster ; from Layard. Several fragments of these painted decorations have also been preserved by Sir Henry Layard. The simplest of them all is a broad yellow band edged on each side by a line of alternately red and blue chevrons separated from each other by white lines. Down the centre of the yellow band there is a row of blue m^ii^<*t*tg&gg4i^^ i cccgi:cccccccm<M&c<i^ FIG. 117. Ornament painted upon plaster ; from Layard. and white rosettes (Fig. 116). Another example in which the same colours are employed is at once more complex and more elegant (see Fig. 117). Finally, in a third fragment, a slightly simplified version of this latter motive serves as a lower border 1 PLACE, Ninire, vol. iii. plate 32.