Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/276

 24.4 A History of Art in Chald^a and Assyria. In speaking of Egypt we have explained how a brilliant light destroys the apparent modelling of objects, how, by the reflec- tions it casts into the shadows, it interferes with our power to distinguish one distant plane from another. 1 In every country where a vertical sun shines in an unclouded sky, the decorator has had to invoke the help of colour against the violence of the light, has had to accept its aid in strengthening his contours, and in making his figures and ornaments stand out against their ground. In describing Egyptian polychromy we said that we should find the same tendency among other nations, different in character and origin, but subjected to the influence of similar surroundings. We also allowed it to be seen that we should have to notice many changes of fashion in this employment of colour. Colour played a different and more important part in one place or period than in another, and it is not always easy to specify the causes of the difference. In the Egyptian monuments hardly a square inch of surface can be found over which the painter has not drawn his brush ; elsewhere, in Greece for instance, we shall find him more discreet, and his artificial tints restricted to certain well-defined parts of a figure or building. Did Assyria follow the teaching of Egypt, or did she strike out a line of her own, and set an example of the reserve that was afterwards to find favour in Greece ? That is the question to be answered. Before we can do so we must produce and compare the evidence brought forward by Botta, Layard, Place and others, who saw the Assyrian sculptures reappear in the light of day. Ever since those sculptures were recovered they have been exposed to the air ; they have undergone all the handling and rubbing involved in a voyage to Europe ; and for the last twenty or thirty years they have been subjected to the dampness of our climate. We need, then, feel no surprise that traces of colour still visible when the pick-axe of the explorer freed the alabaster slabs from their envelope of earth have now disappeared. Before examining our chief witnesses, the men who dug up Khorsabad, and Nimroud, and Kouyundjik, we may, to some extent, foretell their answers. W T e have already explained how the Mesopotamian architect made use of colour to mask the 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. pp. 120-122.