m as at various
distances from the eye. It exhibits all objects as exposed to the same
degree of light; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting which
exhibits different objects and different parts of each object as in
different degrees of light. It uses scarcely any but the primary
colours, and these in their full intensity; and so is less heterogeneous
than a painting which, introducing the primary colours but sparingly,
employs an endless variety of intermediate tints, each of heterogeneous
composition, and differing from the rest not only in quality but in
intensity. Moreover, we see in these earliest works a great uniformity
of conception. The same arrangement of figures is perpetually
reproduced--the same actions, attitudes, faces, dresses. In Egypt the
modes of representation were so fixed that it was sacrilege to introduce
a novelty; and indeed it could have been only in consequence of a fixed
mode of representation that a system of hieroglyphics became possible.
The Assyrian bas-reliefs display parallel characters. Deities, kings,
attendants, winged figures and animals, are severally depicted in like
positions, holding like implements, doing like things, and with like
expression or non-expression of face. If a palm-grove is introduced, all
the trees are of the same height, have the same number of leaves, and
are equidistant. When water is imitated, each wave is a counterpart of
the rest; and the fish, almost always of one kind, are evenly
distributed over the surface. The beards of the kings, the gods, and the
winged figures, are every where similar: as are the names of the lions,
and equally so those of the horses. Hair is represented throughout by
one form of curl. The king's beard is quite architecturally built up of
compound tiers of uniform curls, alternating with twisted tiers placed
in a transverse direction, and arranged with perfect regularity; and the
terminal tufts of the bulls' tails are represented in exactly the same
manner. Without tracing out analogous facts in early Christian art, in
which, though less striking, they are still visible, the advance in
heterogeneity will be sufficiently manifest on remembering that in the
pictures of our own day the composition is endlessly varied; the
attitudes, faces, expressions, unlike; the subordinate objects different
in size, form, position, texture; and more or less of contrast even in
the smallest details. Or, if we compare an Egyptian statue, seated b