Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/116

 oS A History of Art in Ciiald.ea and Assyria. On great occasions, when, as we should say, they wished to dress themselves, they put on long, bright-coloured, and elegantly embroidered robes ; but those robes were of a fine linen tissue, every contour of the body could be easily followed through them, the age and character of every form could be distinctly appreciated. The artist, even when he had to represent the wives and daughters of Pharaoh or the most august of the female deities, showed under their draperies the contours of their breasts, their hips, and the insertions of their limbs. 1 Still more transparent were the robes in which the dancing and singing women who occur so often in the tomb pictures were draped. 2 The calculated indiscretions of this sort of coa vestis invited the painter and sculptor to do justice to the elegance of the female form. How different and how much less favourable were the conditions under which the Assyrian sculptor exercised his art ! For him the contours of the body and the attachments of the limbs were hidden behind heavy tunics covered with embroidery, and shawls often folded double. If by chance he caught a passing glimpse of the forms beneath, to what use could he put it ? Two or three at the most of the divine types upon which his skill was most frequently employed involved a very partial nudity ; most of the gods, and nearly all the men, were draped. In a few very rare instances we find an Assyrian stripped of his clothes and crossing a river by means of an inflated skin. 3 But these figures, though fairly well drawn, are very small in scale, and occupy but a subordinate place in the bas-relief where they occur. 4 Corpses stripped naked by the victor on the battle-field are of more frequent occurrence ; but these, being the bodies of despised and hated enemies, are treated in very summary fashion. 5 We may say the same of the prisoners whom they behead and flay alive. The mutilated statue of a nude female, rather less than 1 See Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. fig. 255 ; vol. ii. figs. 247, 259, &c. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. plate facing p. 334, and figs. 268, 269. ?> See Layard, Monuments, 1st series, plates 15 and 16. 1 In one relief the figures of these swimmers are no more than fourteen inches long (British Museum, Assyrian Basement room, No. 56). ■' Layard, Monuments, 1st series, plate 57 ; 2nd series, plates 25 and 28. Ibid. (1st series), plate 63 ; Discoveries, p. 457.