Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/94

 36 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. solid walls ; and whether used for the formation of vaulted drains under the immense platforms, or to form imposing entrances of colored and glazed brickwork in elaborate fa9ades, held a space of extreme importance in the style. In Chald.xa, isolated supports, such as are found in the hypostyle halls of Egypt and Persia, or in Greek temples and Latin basilicas, were not ui^ed, for the want of suitable stone rendered any such arrangement impossible. The Chalda:^ans and Assyrians scarcely ever used stone constructively except as the envelope for a brick wall ; but on the other hand as stone was abundant in the rocky country of Persia, the Persians used it for walls and columns at Susa and Persepolis. Assyria undoubtedly gave many of her architectural forms to Persia, who later borrowed much from Egypt and Asiatic Greece. The bracket and scroll capitals of the columns at Persepolis and Susa retain much of the form of their wooden prototypes, and demonstrate very clearly that a form which, applied to wood, is natural and inoffensive, becomes inappropriate when applied to stone (No. 13 a, c, g). Texier's description of the great mosque at Ispahan might, it is believed, be applied with general accuracy to the palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, if the power of a Merlin could bring them back to our view: "Every part of the building, without exception, is covered with enamelled bricks. Their ground is blue, upon which elegant flowers and sentences taken from the Koran are traced in white. The cupola is blue decorated with shields and arabesques. One can hardly imagine the effect produced by such a building on an European accustomed to the dull uniformity of our colorless buildings." The palaces would differ principally from the description of this mosque owing to the rules of the Koran as to the prohibition in sculpture and decoration of the copying of natural objects (page 654). The appearance of the monuments must, however, be entirely left to the imagination, for the effect of the towering masses of the palaces, planted on the great platforms, and approached from the plains by broad stairways, can only be imagined. The portal, flanked by colossal winged bulls (Nos, 12 b, f, g, h, and 13 D, e), led to an audience-chamber paved with carved slabs of alabaster. This apartment had a dado, 12 feet high, of sculptured slabs, with representations of battles and hunting scenes (No. 13 f, h), and was surmounted by a frieze containing figures of men and animals in glazed and brightly colored brick- work ; a beamed roof of cedar, through which small openings gave a sufficient illumination, probably covered the apartment (No. 12 b). At Khorsabad an ornamentation of semi-cylinders in juxta- position was employed externally, a style of decoration which