Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/17

 2 History of Art in Antiquht. the Athenian Acropolis. Let it be borne in mind, therefore, that notwithstanding its late appearance Persian art, in principle and spirit, is the genuine last offspring of Oriental art, which it epito* mizes in a noble eclectic synthesis. If it could not help itself, and borrowed here a little and there a little from Grecian art, then in its palmiest days, considered as a whole, and judging from the methods it applies, the traditions it obeys, it remains but a disciple and continuator of Egypt, Chaldaea, and Assyria. Its place, then, falls naturally here. The list of inventions and successive creations of Asiatic genius will be complete when, having gone over it, we shall have meted out the justice which is its due then- nothing will turn us aside from the task we have taken upon ourselves of devoting our whole attention to the various phases and the stupendous level reached by the plastic art of Hellas. The Country. The scene upon which Persian art (with which we will close the series of Oriental arts) was evolved covers the vast tableland geographers now call Iran. It is a plateau which, whilst it separates the basin of the Tigris and the Euphrates from that of the Indus, is bounded on the north by the massive Elburz Moun- tains and the lower chains connecting them with Armenia and Afghanistan ; the BolQr and Hindu-Kush in the east, the heights that run parallel to the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Persian Gulf, the chains of the Zagros and Ararat, in the west. Roughly speaking, this enormous space is embraced within an irregular quadrilateral> which nature has divided into two regions widely different in aspect. Its plinth is the base of the mountain belt surrounding it, and the summits are its crown ; whilst its area is hollowed into a gigantic basin, which in places is little more than three hundred metres above sea-level, but towards the mountain rampart its level is considerably hit,'hcr ; Teheran, the present capital of Persia, being at an altitude of eleven hundred and sixty metres. Towards the centre of this depression isolated masses, with Steep denuded sides, rise up from the surrounding level like so many islands. No rain-clouds from the northern and southern seas can reach here, for they are arrested in their pro- gress by the mountain crests that fringe the plateau; hence Digitized by Google