Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/98

 8o A History of Art in Chald.ea and Assyria. never acquired enough Familiarity with the nude, to rival the grace and dignity given by the Greeks to their divine types ; but their art was more frankly anthropomorphic than that of Egypt, and, as we shall have occasion to show, it created many types that were transmitted to the Mediterranean nations, and soon adopted by them. These types were perfected, but not invented, by the Greeks. We have already given more than one example of how the Chaldaean intellect set about the manifestation of its ideas as to gods and demons, how it expressed their characteristics by heterogeneous forms borrowed from various real animals. The powers of evil were first embodied in this fashion (Vol. I. Fio-s. 6, 7, 161, 162). The sculptor went far afield to find the elements of ugliness that he wished to combine in a single being- ; this is nowhere to be better seen than in a bronze statuette belonging to the Louvre (Fig. 32). Here too we are better informed than usual. An inscription engraved on the back tells us that this is the demon of the south-west wind, the most scorching and generally unpleasant of the winds that visit Mesopotamia. The ring in the head served to hang it up in front of the window or doorway of a house. Thanks to such a precaution, the inhabitants of that dwelling would be protected against the ill effects of the parching breath of the desert. The sculptor has wished to make this tyrant of the atmosphere as hideous and repulsive as possible, and he has only succeeded too well. One can hardly imagine anything more frightful than his grinning, quasi-human counte- nance, resembling a death's head in some of its lines ; the great round eyes and goat's horns with which it is surrounded add to its deformity. Its meagre body has some hints at hair on its right side. The hands are large and flat, the fingers short and blunt, while the feet are a curious combination of human extremities with the talons of a bird of prey. On the other hand this mixture of forms is by no means repulsive in the case of certain personages who appear to belong either to the class of beneficent genii or to that of the great deities of the Chaldee pantheon. The combination is especially well managed in the winged bulls. The head is that of a man, but about the tiara with which it is crowned several pairs of horns are bent. These horns are among the attributes of the