Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/161

 VARIATIONS OF STYLE AND COSTUME. 139 own way of looking at and interpreting nature ; it lays stress upon some features, and slurs over others, and that quite unknowingly. But the physiognomy of a model counts for something, however slight may be the artist's intelligence and veracity. The use of certain materials and the preference of certain processes com- bine to enhance one feature at the expense of another, but they do not create ; in other words, every portrait contains some truth, especially when several generations have helped to bring it to perfection. To the characteristics above mentioned, characteristics which allow us to recognize a Cypriot figure at a glance, we may add FIG. 92. Statue found at Dali. Limestone. Height 40 inches. Louvre. some of a less important kind, which will help to confirm our first impression. " The general shape of the face, especially in women, retains some of that soft rotundity which has always been con- sidered a beauty by Asiatics. Female heads are encumbered with a number of jewels crowning the neck and chest and reaching even to the ears (Fig. 92). In matters like this we find hank- erings after Oriental taste even at a very advanced period in the development of Cypriot art." The costume of Cypriot statues is peculiar. First of all there is the lofty Eastern head-dress by which Herodotus was so much 1 HEUZEV, Catalogue, p. 133.