Page 73 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

I

PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA
survives. But the art of engraving developed the new style to its maturity within the
forty years of Sargon’s reign. Under his successors excellent work was done, but on
established lines. The new development took its start from the last style of the Early
Dynastic age, as represented by plate 40B and figure i6b, where figures no longer cross
each other and the groups arc separately drawn. We have seen that this thinning out of
the friezes became necessary when modelling was introduced. But in the Early Dynastic
seals the modelling remained subservient to the decorative scheme; it added interest and
life to the designs without changing their imaginative character. Under the Akkadians,
011 the other hand, modelling was employed to achieve verisimilitude (Plate 45). This
was a new departure; neither the friezes nor the individual figures of the Early Dynastic
seals permitted a realism which placed the physical nature of each living creature in the
centre of the artist’s interest. For in a continuous frieze the function of each combatant
is more important than his corporeality. Even in such seals as plate 40B the subservience
of the figures to the unity of the frieze is evident; note, for instance, the horizontal
alignment of the heads and eyes (isocephaly).
In the Akkadian seals the figures are isolated, not only because their greater plastic
volume requires an empty space to balance it, but also because the seal-cutter is absorbed
in the rendering of the concrete details of their physical appearance. Sometimes he con­
centrates so intensely upon bony structure, taut muscles, curly hair, that he disposes of
the relation between his figures in a summary fashion. An indifferently lengthened arm
connects the antagonists (Plate 45 c). More often his interest in the concrete leads to a
new version of his traditional subject. In Early Dynastic times the theme of combat was
a pretext for the display of decorative ingenuity; in Akkadian times it was taken for
what it is; in looking at such a seal in plate 45A, one almost listens for the gasping breath
of the throttled Hon vainly pawing the air.14 Yet it would be misleading (here, as so often)
to speak of reaHsm, for the situations depicted arc fantastic enough. But the traditional
themes were not rejected on that score, and not only accepted, but imagined quite con­
cretely; the desultory skirmishes of the earher friezes were replaced by fierce encounters.
The isolation of the figures does not always destroy the continuity of the design. In
plate 45 c, for instance, it is maintained by the careful disposition of the tails of Hon and
buffalo, and by the Venus-star and battle-axe used as space-fiHers. The absence of hiatus
in this seal would be striking if the purchaser had availed himself of the opportunity to
have his name engraved upon it; a space was left open for this purpose above the recum­
bent antelope. But even where, as in this case, a continuous frieze is made, the Akkadian
designs are static, while the crossed figures of Early Dynastic designs carry the eye from
one side to the other throughout its length. There is also less variety in the Akkadian
friezes; stag, panther, goat, and ox have been eliminated and the composite creatures
have mostly disappeared; for the new insistence on corporeaHty emphasized their mon-
strosity to an extent that precluded the necessary suspension of disbehef. That is proved
by the rare occurrences of human-headed bulls in the earHest phase of Akkadian glyptic.
They look neither enchanted, as in Early Dynastic, nor demonic, as in Assyrian times,
but merely absurd. Only the bull-man, forerunner of the faun, haunts the Akkadian de­
signs with his ambiguous vitality. As a rule the Akkadian friezes show but two pairs of

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