Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/418

 Themes and their Situations. 395 lines (Hat relief) ? The answer to the question is to be found in the study and description of the bas-reliefs at Persepolis. From the restorations we have placed before the eye of the reader, he will have gained some notion as to the fields the Per- sian architect reserved for bas-reliefs in his buildings, of which a goodly number have already been figured (I'igs. i6, 22, 57, 61, 65, 69-71, 92, 156). These he put wherever his mode of construction led to the employment of stone, and the latter was a sufficiently important factor in the edifice to make un- necessary chiselled slabs as lining to brick walls, either externally to the faqades or internally, as in Assyria. The substructures of the platforms upon which rose the palaces were built of fine blocks of limestone, and the faces corresponding with the slopes of the stairs were covered with figures, well calculated to attract the eye of the visitor. The largest spaces, extending right and left of the stair- cases, lent themselves to long processional scenes. The fields ofifered here to the artist were less spacious, but varied in shape and sharply defined. Thus the wall which forms the front of the landing-place is divided into three compartments, a rectangle in the middle, and angular spaces or triangles at the sides (Plates IV., IX.). The two walls which in most palaces constitute the frame of the stairs are embellished with a figured decoration (I'igs. 16, 61), whilst on the broken jilane formed at the side by the ramps runs a line of figures answering in number with the steps, each one of which appears to form a pedestal for its relative figure. Having gone past these rows of people lengthened out upon the walls, the palace itself is reached, when the visitor is not only con- fronted by sculptures of a completely different character, but, instead of being displayed in horizontal bands, they appear in the narrow perpendicular fields of the inner faces of every door-frame. On the external wall are distributed well-chosen types of life-guards whose duty was to watch over the king, and the peoples who present their homage or costly gifts. Along with officers, courtiers, subjects, and vassals on their way to the king^s lev^e, their hands loaded with offerings, whose demeanour is that of devotees repair- ing to the altars of their gods, appears the image of a lion* the well-known symbol of triumphant force, which scoffs and makes light of perils, no matter their nature. In the triangular panels the lion is represented in the act of killing a bull, an animal that Digitized by Google