Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/332

 3io A HISTORY OF ART IN CIIALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. the countless multitudes who had fought and died for Assyria and its divine protector, the unconquerecl and unconquerable Assur. If, not content with this general view of Assyrian decoration, we enter into it in detail, we shall find its economy most judiciously arranged and understood. When the sculptor set himself to carve the slabs that enframe a door or those that protect the lower parts of a wall, he sought to render what he FIG. 140. Stag upon a palmette; from Layard. saw or imagined as precisely and definitely as possible. He went to nature for inspiration even when he carved imaginary beings, and copied her, in fragments perhaps, but with a loyal and vigorous sincerity. Everywhere, except in certain pictures with a strictly limited function, he obeyed an imagination over which a sure judgment kept unsleeping watch. His poly- chromatic decorations fulfilled their purpose of amusing and delighting the eye without ever attempting to deceive it. Such is and must always be the true principle of ornament, and the