Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/128

 Il6 History of Art in Antiquitv. seen in this device are most peculiar and well calculated to excite the curiosity of the archaeologist The outcome of our analysis is that even the more complex of the twin types of the Persian capital is an original creation wherein have been fused elements of different origin. If Egypt has furnished her contingent, the shapes for the most part were borrowed from the art of Anterior Asia, and perhaps that of Media, which is imperfectly known. Be that as it may, there is no doubt as to its having been derived from Chaldeca and Assyria, with the addition of one member, the pillars adorned by volutes, the genesis of which is shrouded in mystery.. Inspection of the general characteristics of the inven- tion of the Persian archi- tect, more than aught else, brings to mind a certain class of Assyrian objects — the legs of chairs for ex- ample—figured in the bas- reliefs of Nineveh, In them are already displayed a superabundance of orna- ments resulting in the some- what heavy aspect which characterizes the Persian capital.' Despite the relations which conquest had established between Persia and Egypt, the intlueiice of the latter over the former was but feeble, as we shall immediately prove. Thus a marked con- trast exists between the columns of the two countries, between the lines of the shaft and the forms manifested about the capital, because, to obtain the needful contrast, each started from a widely divergent point. Take as an instance the Egyptian column, which seems to have been imitated at Persepolis, divest it of the adjuncts it will have when complete, and reduce it to the blocking-out stage, what remains is a brace of truncated cones of unequal height, the lesser being topmost (Pig- 46). By applying the same process of simplification to the Persian column, a truncated cone is obtained on which rests a solid parallelepiped (Fig. 47). The Persian architect may complicate the transitional member as Digitized by Google
 * Mst. e/Arif torn. ii. Figs. 383, 385, 387-390.