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
I have carefully
examined and compared the four great series of royal bas-reliefs that
have come down to us, belonging respectively to Assurnazirpal, Sargon,
Sennacherib, and Assurbanipal. If such an examination be made without
prejudice, I am satisfied that only one conclusion can be come to. In
all the pictures dating from one reign the king himself differs not at
all from his officers and nobles; he is only to be recognized by his
lofty tiara, an ornament that he alone had the right to wear, by his
sceptre or some other attribute of the kind, by his richer costume,
and, finally, by his greater stature. The sculptor always makes him
taller than his subjects, still more than his enemies and captives
(Vol. I. Fig. 22, and Fig. 15 above). This latter proceeding seems
childish, but it is so natural, and is found in so many countries,
that it is not at all astonishing. The sculptor has counted upon all
these attributes to show, at a glance, which is the king; and they are,
in fact, of a nature to prevent any chance of a mistake. He has not
troubled himself to seek in his royal features for something by which
he might be distinguished from the people about him. Winged genii, king
and viziers, all have the same eye, the same nose and the same mouth.
One would say that for each group of bas-reliefs the original designer
only drew one head, which was repeated by tracing or some other process
as often as there might be heads in the composition, and that it was
afterwards carved and modelled in the alabaster by the chisel of the
journeyman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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