Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/201

 ORNAMENT AND INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 185 this be undertaken by one possessed of the requisite patience, we doubt not but that interesting discoveries would crown his efforts, without prejudice to past labours in the same field. The innate love for colour of nations rejoicing in perpetual sunshine is well known ; the data to hand, though scanty, make it probable that the Phrygians formed no exception to the general rule, and that, externally and internally, the sculpture and sombre sheen of metal were relieved by strongly coloured backgrounds. The fancy can picture these multi-coloured surfaces standing out in bold relief from the clear azure sky, the low tones of the rock, and the rich varying greens of the surrounding leafage. Yet all may be illusion and a snare, and until the sculptured fronts have been narrowly examined, bringing ladders or scaffolding in touch with the topmost parts, supplementing vision by " touch," so as to lay hold of the slightest signs of the primitive intentions and disposi- tions, it would be rash to advance a decided opinion. That which characterizes the monuments we have just reviewed, or at least those of them the true type of which is to be found in the Midas rock, is the union, in the same unit, of two distinct sets of devices ; the one suggested by wooden shapes, and the other by patterns familiar to the weaver and the embroiderer. Nowhere have we met, outside Egypt, nor shall we meet on our path so intimate a blending of two categories of forms, and if there is a Phrygian ornamentation properly so called, it should be approached and defined from this its individual standpoint. Side by side with elements sprung from local habits and indigenous industries are others that may be viewed in the light of importations, as having been transmitted to the Phrygians through the medium of their neighbours of Cappadocia. It was Oriental art which gave them the idea of setting up animal figures at the portals of their palaces, of which the shapeless, unwieldy Kumbet ram is the sole representative (Figs. 115, 1 1 6) ; from it, too, were borrowed lions in pairs, rampant or passant, separated by a pillar, a vase, or other object. We have seen Assyria and Chaldsea lavish these symmetric groups both about the walls of their royal buildings and the woven fabrics they exported wherever a market was open to them. Thence also came feathered sphinxes, whose wings curled in front, and which bring to mind the sphinxes of Anterior Asia, rather than those of the Nile Valley (Fig. 109). Particularly interesting would be a detailed study of the archi-