Page 112 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LATE ASSYRIAN PERIOD
mouth - these may be conventional features, but they are modelled with intense inter­
est, as features of a living face. The stone statue, on the other hand, displays a mask.
The amber of the statuette is inlaid with a gold setting for precious stones, which
apparently represents a pectoral. This kind of ornament is never shown in the reliefs, and

ma y well be an attribute of the religious functions of the king. With these the reliefs are
not concerned. The folded hands of the amber statuette represent, in any case, a ritual
gesture of immemorial antiquity.
There remains a group of works in stone which is hard to classify. The guardians of
the palace gates (Plates 77 and 83; Figure 31), can neither be called sculptures in the
round nor reliefs. Assyrian relief is always low and flat. Moreover, it is conceived as a

20 METRES
60 FEET

Figure 36. The private apartments of the Assyrian palace, Arslan Tash

self-contained world, from which no glance or gesture moves outward towards the
spectator. All relations are limited to the plane in which the action unfolds itself. But
the guardians of the gates are emphatically concerned with those who approach them
(Figure 31). Even the bulls with bodies in profile turn their heads to scrutinize the visitor
and to cast their spell over potential evil.
But these figures are not quite sculpture in the round; the human-headed bulls or the
lions or bulls which sometimes take their place are not freed from the slab in which they
are carved. Moreover, they do not, as is usual in Mesopotamian sculpture, show a cylin­
drical or conical composition. They are squared, to fit the building which they guard.
They have, in fact, distinct front and side views, and consequently show five legs when
viewed obliquely. The front vi
view belongs to one elevation of the gate, the profile to
another. The sculpture is subservient to the architecture; it is applied art. Yet the finish
an precision are superb, and it is remarkable that huge figures like these should be en-
nc led by the finest and most carefully engraved details. In Egypt the colossi of the New

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