Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/94

 78 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. sportsman has to seek him much further south ; but some four thousand years ago and more his home was still the native jungle along the banks of the rivers and in the fastnesses of the Taurus range, where the Syrian artist was within hearing of his roar, and where he had ample opportunity to observe him. But inadequate technique stood in his way, and prevented his achieving a great success. He failed in dramatic power, in expressing the unutterable agony of life suddenly arrested in the plenitude of its strength, so graphically rendered by his Assyrian confrere, and which force our admiration in certain hunting pieces of Assur-nat-sirpal. But if there is little variety of attitude, if the action of the animal is not always felicitous, none the less has the sculptor seized the leading features of the face and head of the beast, and rendered them with singular truth and vivacity. The mouth is frankly open, the deep furrows on the forehead and sides of the face, characteristic of the ferocious brute, are carefully drawn. Praise cannot be given respecting the way the body is modelled. The artist appears to have hesitated in the treatment he should adopt — finally sacrificing truth to a hankering after effect. Thus he thought to give an appearance of strength to the lion (Fig. 279) by heavy outline, making him shorter than reality, but the result was a thickset, undersized animal. This defect he avoided in Fig. 276, to fall into the opposite error by undue length of line, albeit it must be confessed with more pleasing aspect ; for it is nearer being true, and more readily expresses the marvellous agility of the great brute, the prodigious bounds which enable him to spring upon his prey from a great distance. This type seems to have obtained — at least, it is that which we shall exclusively encounter — in Cappadocia, where we propose to take the reader. The monu- ments of this district are grouped on a narrow space, not far from the modern town of Yuzgat, the head centre of Eastern Asia Minor. Here the Western Hittites built their capital, here for centuries they had their principal fortress and centre of activity. Here they started on their distant expeditions across the Halys, leaving traces of their arts throughout the peninsula, on the very borders of the ^gean. Some twenty-five years ago, I spent over a month among these ruins, for the purpose of studying them and taking photographs of the remains that we are about to submit to the reader. If our harvest is more abundant in Cappadocia than it was in northern Syria, this, as was stated at the beginning