have
been brilliant at one time, and was doubtless in harmony with the
architecture. Both painting and sculpture were subordinate to and
dependent upon architecture. Palace-building was the chief pursuit,
and the other arts were called in mainly as adjuncts--ornamental
records of the king who built.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--ENAMELLED BRICK. KHORSABAD. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]

THE TYPE, FORM, COLOR: There were only two distinct faces in Assyrian
art--one with and one without a beard. Neither of them was a portrait
except as attributes or inscriptions designated. The type was
unendingly repeated. Women appeared in only one or two isolated cases,
and even these are doubtful. The warrior, a strong, coarse-membered,
heavily muscled creation, with a heavy, expressionless, Semitic face,
appeared everywhere. The figure was placed in profile, with eye and
bust twisted to show the front view, and the long feet projected one
beyond the other, as in the Nile pictures. This was the Assyrian ideal
of strength, dignity, and majesty, established probably in the early
ages, and repeated for centuries with few characteristic variations.
The figure was usually given in motion, walking, or riding, and had
little of that grace seen in Egyptian painting, but in its place a
great deal of rude strength. In modelling, the human form was not so
knowingly rendered as the animal. The long Eastern clothing probably
prevented the close study of the figure. This failure in anatomical
exactness was balanced in part by minute details in the dress and
accessories, productive of a rich ornamental effect.

Hard stone was not found in the Mesopotamian regions. Temples were
built of burnt brick, bas-reliefs were made upon alabaster slabs and
heightened by coloring, and painting was largely upon tiles, with
mineral paints, afterward glazed by fire. These glazed brick or tiles,
with figured designs, were fixed upon the walls, arches, and
archivolts by bitumen mortar, and made up the first mosaics of which
we have record. There was a further painting upon plaster in
distemper, of which some few traces remain. It did not differ in
design from the bas-reliefs or the tile mosaics.

The subjects used were the Assyrian type, shown somewhat slighter in
painting than in sculpture, animals, birds, and other objects; but
they were obviously not attempts at nature. The color was arbitrary,
not natural, and there was little perspective, light-and-shade, or
reli