A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 2 (of 2)Perrot, Georges
History
A history of art in Chaldæa & Assyria, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Perrot, Georges
Art -- Assyria -- History; Art -- Iraq -- Babylonia; Assyria -- Antiquities; Babylonia -- Antiquities
When we turn to objects of less importance, such as daggers and
knives, we find their handles also often modelled after animals’ heads.
We have already figured more than one example (Vol. I., tail-piece to
chapter II., and Vol. II., tail-piece to chapter I.). But sometimes
they were content with a more simple form of decoration belonging
to the class of ornament we call geometrical, which they combined
with those battlement shapes that, as we have seen, the enameller
also borrowed from the architect (Vol. I. Fig. 118). A by no means
ungraceful result was obtained by such simple means (Figs. 202 and
226). These knife-handles are interesting not so much on account of
their workmanship as for their tendency and the taste they display.
They were objects of daily use and manufacture. Cut from ivory and
bone, they were sold in hundreds in the bazaars. But in every detail
we can perceive a desire to make the work please the eye. The evidence
of this desire has already struck us in Egypt; it will be no less
conspicuous in Greece. In these days, how many useful objects turned
out by our machines have no such character. Those who design them think
only of their use. They are afraid of causing complications by any
attempt to make one different from the other or to give varied shapes
to tools all meant for the same service. They renounce in advance the
effort of personal invention and the love for ornament that gives
an interest of its own to the slightest fragments from an ancient
industry, and raises it almost to the dignity of a work of art.
§ 6. _Instruments of the Toilet and Jewelry._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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