Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/468

 444 History of Art in Antiquity. taller than the bulk of his subjects, yet there was no difficulty in grasping why the sculptor had represented him as towering over them all (Figs. 156, 190, 19 1)-* Another singular piece of conventionalism is the platform upon which the throne is placed, both on the sepulchral facades, and the pictures that adorn the door-frames of the palaces (Figs. 1 56, 190). Two or three rows of figures, with raised arms, support the wooden frame ; the situation they occupy one above the other. Fio. 813.— FenqNdii. Ba»idterof hypostylc hnii of Xerxes. Flandin and Costs, /Vrw amienne, Plate CVI. between the uprights of the colossal stage, corresponds with no scene in real life. Our eye, however, is carried along the hori- zontal planes, and our imagination immediately supplies a ground upon which their feet are as firmly planted as those of the statues which, at Teheran, bear on their shoulders the platform upon which the shah is seated on audience days (Fig. 155). The artist trusted to the imaginative faculty of die spectator to assist him in seeing the staged figures juxtaposed on a horizontal line. means so as to add to his height when be appeared on public occasions, whether on the platform or in hb diariot. Digitized by Google
 * XsNOPHON {Cynyp., VIIL uL 14) seems to hint at the king having used artificial