Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/275

 POLYCHROMY. 243 we may cite especially a fragment possessed by the Louvre, in which the treatment is of the skilfullest (Plate X). It represents Assurbanipal in his war-chariot at the head of his army. The chariot itself, and all the accessories, such as the umbrella and the robes of the king and his attendants, are treated with great care but they do not unduly attract the eye of the spectator. We can enjoy, as a whole, the group formed by the figures in the chariot, and those who march beside and behind it. Its arrange- ment is clear and well balanced ; there is no crowding, the spacing of the figures is well judged and the movement natural and suggestive. The king dominates the composition as he should, and his umbrella happily gathers the lines of the whole into a pyramid. In all this there is both knowledge and taste. The best of the Assyrian terra-cottas also belong to this period. The merit of their execution may be gathered from the annexed statuette, which comes from the palace of Assurbanipal (Fig. 128). From the staff in its hands it has been supposed to represent a king, but we know that every Assyrian was in the habit of carrying a stick with a more or less richly ornamented head, and here we find neither a tiara nor the kind of necklace which the sovereign generally wore (see Fig. 116). I am inclined to think it is the image of a priest. In conclusion we may say that, in some respects, Assyrian sculpture was in a state of progression when the fall of Nineveh came to arrest its development and to destroy the hopes it inspired. § 7. — Polychromy. We have now studied Mesopotamian sculpture in its favourite themes, in its principal conventions, and in the fluctuations of its taste and methods of work ; we have yet to ask whether this sculpture, which differed in so many ways from the plastic art of Egypt, differed from it also in absence of colour. We have put off" this question until now, because we had first to determine what materials the architect and sculptor employed, how they employed them, and what part was played by figures in relief and in the round in the architectonic creations of Chaldsea and Assyria.