Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/138

 ii6 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. left shoulder, in the fashion afterwards to be followed by Greece, completes the costume. The draperies of Cypriot statues are, as a rule, quite flat, like those of oriental art, but now and again we find them seamed with parallel grooves, the first timid attempt to suggest folds. 1 But in spite of all these analogies Cypriot figures could never pass for copies of Assyrian works of art ; Ninevite sculptures were not imitated in Cyprus as those of Egypt were in Phoenicia. A first distinction is to be found in the fact that Assyria confined herself almost exclusively to bas-reliefs, while Cyprus was almost as faithful to work in the round. It is true that the Cypriot statues were not quite independent of the walls against which they were placed, but they were, at least, no part of its substance like the figures of Khorsabad. Again, Cypriot modelling was not so strongly accented as Assyrian ; muscles were less vigorously insisted upon, and the details of form generally were not carried so far. The independence of the Cypriot artist is evidenced, too, by such things as these ; the hair is not seldom gathered out of sight at the back of the head, and sometimes entirely hidden under the cap, the beard is often simply arranged into a fan-shape and curled only at the end (Fig. 78). The upper lip, which is hidden in Assyria beneath a thick moustache with turned-up ends, is here always bare, a fashion which is only to be found in Greek or Grseco- Etruscan figures. From all this we may conclude that Cypriot sculptors were not in actual contact with the plastic art of Assyria. If they had come under its direct influence we should find more traces of it in their work. They followed Assyria only at a distance. They did not copy her way of looking at and rendering nature, but merely certain details of dress and pose, and this implies that between Assyria and Cyprus there was an intermediary, which can have been no other than Phoenicia. Was not the art of Phoenicia inspired for a time by the taste and fashions which prevailed in the great military empire to which she was attached by such powerful links ? From Arvad and Gebal, from Sidon and Tyre, statuettes were carried in hundreds to Kition, Paphos and Amathos, in which the dress and treatment of the hair were those of Assyria, and in Cyprian workshops these copies were copied again. Assyrian art had, therefore, its effect in the island only through a 1 HEUZEY, Catalogue, p. 129.