Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/143

 Conventions of Chald^o- Assyrian Sculpture. 125 and those productions of the same kind that were made at home ; in many cases it requires the tact and instinct of the archaeologist to know one from the other. Such faculties are always, in some degree, liable to err, while in many cases it is very difficult to give reasons for the conclusions arrived at by their exercise. The simplest way out of the difficulty has seemed to us to describe these remains at the same time as the main compositions to which they were formerly attached. But while we do so we keep their doubtful character in mind ; in our definition of the style of Chaldaeo-Assyrian sculpture we shall only have recourse to them under great reserve, especially as the style in question is to be amply studied without their help. § 3. The Principal Conventions of Chaldœo- Assyrian Sculpture. The art of Mesopotamia, like that of Egypt, had its con- ventions, some of which were peculiar to itself, while others are common to all nations that have arrived at sovereign power and maturity of knowledge. Like all those who attempt plastic figuration by the light of nature, the artists of Mesopotamia began with profiles. In speaking of Egyptian sculpture we had occasion to show how this method of representation is always followed by first be- ginners, 1 as it is the simplest and easiest of all. The Chaldaeo- Assyrian artists, unlike those of Egypt and Greece, were unaccustomed to the nude, and were therefore without the incentive it supplies to fight against nature and to make her live in all her variety of aspect, a variety which work in the round is alone able to grasp without the aid of convention. One consequence of this is that almost exclusive love of the bas-relief in which Mesopotamian art is unlike that of any other people. In its very beginning it seems to have made a vigorous and promising effort to rise to the production of statues in the round, but discouragement appears to have rapidly followed, and in later years but a very few attempts, and those attended with no great success, were made. The salience of figures was in- creased or diminished according to their place and the part they 1 Art in Ancient Egypt,, vol. ii. pp. 293-295.