Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/57

Rh  as to the style of the sculpture. Enough, however, of the original surface remains to show that these two lions are the work of a school already awakened to the observation of anatomical structure.

In the modelling of the shoulders and fore legs more knowledge and skill is shown than at first sight appears; the general proportions are well calculated to produce the effect of massive grandeur required for the decoration of such a gateway. It has indeed been objected that the hind legs of the lions are inordinately thick; but the artist, probably, fell into this exaggeration, not so much through ignorance of the natural proportions, as from the endeavour to produce an impression of colossal size in harmony with the Titanic scale of the masonry in which the lions are set as in a frame. And in this endeavour I think that he has succeeded; for in looking at these lions, the disproportionate thickness of the hind legs does not at all disturb the eye or mar the grand impression of the whole composition. Dodwell thought that they had an Egyptian character, but to me they appeared more like the work of an Asiatic school; and if we ascribe this gateway to the Pelopid dynasty, the traditional descent of this dynasty from Tantalus may be taken quantum raleat, as ground for the conjecture that the art of Mycenæ may have been derived from Lydia. The two lions stand on their hind legs, resting their fore paws on plinths in front of them. This position is peculiar, and suggests at once the idea that they are accessories, or, to speak heraldically, supporters in reference to the object between them,