influence of school conventions.[213] It is a common habit with antique sculptors to allow traces of their work in its rough shape to subsist in the finished creation. In all countries the march of art has been from square and angular to round and flowing shapes, from short and thickset to graceful and slender proportions.”[214] The tendencies shown in the rendering of the face and the uncovered parts of the body are also to be recognized in the treatment of the drapery. “The sculptor has attempted with much truth and simplicity to suggest the relief of the drapery and the direction of its folds. This early and timid attempt at studying folds is all the more remarkable as nothing like it is to be found either in Egyptian sculpture or in the later works of Assyria. It bears witness to a sculpturesque instinct that does not reappear until we arrive at the art of the Greeks and the magnificent development of draperies and their significance which we then encounter.”[215] [Illustration: FIG. 98.--The large statue from Tello. Height 5 feet 3 inches. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] [Illustration: FIG. 99.--Female statuette. Alabaster. Height about 8 inches.] The figures we have been describing seem to us to represent THE ARCHAIC AGE OF CHALDÆAN ART. The characteristics to which the name of archaism has been given are easier to feel than to define. The proportions, especially in the seated figures, are here very short and broad, so much so that they seem to want length even when compared to the thickset forms in the Nimroud bas-reliefs. There is some evidence that the neck was very short and thick and the head large for the body, as we see it indeed in the statuette of a woman sitting, in which our lamented colleague de Longpérier was the first to recognize the work of some ancient Chaldæan artist (Fig. 99).[216] In the figures from Tello the elbow and the lower edge of the robe make those sharp angles which Assyrian sculptors set themselves to round off in later days. There is no attempt at grace; directness and truth of expression are all that the artist has cared about. [Illustration: FIG. 100.--Statuette; from Tello. Actual size. Louvre. Drawn by Bourgoin.]