Part 19 (2/2)
It is easy to see from their shape how these feet were fixed and how they did their work (Fig. 97). The point of the cone was let into a hollow socket prepared for it in a block cut from the hardest stone that could be found. Such a material would resist friction better and take a higher polish than brick, so that it was at once more durable and less holding.
Sockets of flint, basalt, trachyte, and other volcanic rocks have been found in great numbers both in a.s.syria and Chaldaea.[304] Instances of the use of brick in this situation are not wanting,[305] however, and now and then the greenish marks left by the prolonged contact of metal have been discovered in the hollows of these sockets.[306]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 97.--Bronze foot from the Balawat gates and its socket.[307] British Museum.]
More than one method was in use for fixing the pivots of the doors and enabling them to turn easily. Sir Henry Layard brought from Nimroud four heavy bronze rings which must have been used to supplement these hollow sockets.[308] In one way or another bronze occupied a very important place in the door architecture of the a.s.syrians. In those cases where it neither supplied the door-case nor ornamented its leaves, it was at least used to fix the latter and to enable them to turn.
In a.s.syrian facades doors had much greater importance than in those architectural styles in which walls are broken up by numerous openings.
Their great size, their rich and varied ornamentation, the important figures in high relief with which the walls about them were adorned, the solemn tints of bronze lighted up here and there by the glory of gold, the lively colours of the enamelled bricks that formed their archivolts, and finally the contrast between the bare and gleaming walls on either side and their depths of shadow--all these combined to give accent to the doorways and to afford that relief to the monotony of the walls of which they stood in so great a need. For a.s.syrian mouldings are even poorer than those of Egypt. The softness of crude brick, the brittle hardness of burnt brick, are neither of them well disposed towards those delicate curves by which a skilful architect contrives to break the sameness of a facade, and to give the play of light and shadow which make up the beauty of a Greek or Florentine cornice.
The only mouldings encountered in a.s.syria have been found on a few buildings or parts of buildings in which stone was employed. We may quote as an instance the retaining wall of the small, isolated structure excavated by Botta towards the western angle of the Khorsabad mound, and by him believed to be a temple.[309] The wall in question is built of a hardish grey limestone, the blocks being laid alternately as stretchers and headers. The wall is complete with plinth, die and cornice (Figs. 98 and 99). The latter is a true cornice, composed of a small torus or bead, a scotia, and a fillet. The elements are the same as those of the Egyptian cornice, except in the profile of the hollow member, which is here a _scotia_ and in Egypt a _cavetto_, to speak the language of modern architects. The Egyptian moulding is at once bolder and more simple, while the vertical grooves cut upon its surface give it a rich and furnished aspect that its a.s.syrian rival is without.[310]
We have another example of a.s.syrian mouldings on the winged sphinx found by Layard at Nimroud (Fig. 85)--the sphinx, that is, that bore a column on its back. In section this moulding may be compared to a large _scotia_ divided into two _cavettos_ by a _torus_. Its effect is not happy. The a.s.syrians had too little experience in stone-cutting to enable them to choose the most satisfactory proportions and profiles for mouldings.
We may also point to the entablatures upon the small pavilions reproduced in our Figs. 41 and 42. They are greatly wanting in elegance; in one especially--that shown in Fig. 42--the superstructure is very heavy in proportion to the little temple itself and its columns.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 98, 99.--a.s.syrian mouldings. Section and elevation; from Botta.]
The only moulding, if we may call it so, borrowed by a.s.syria from Chaldaea, and employed commonly in both countries, is a brick one. Loftus was the first to point it out. He discovered it in the ruined building, doubtless an ancient temple, in the neighbourhood of Warka, and called by the natives _Wuswas_. This is his description:--”Upon the lower portion of the building are groups of seven half-columns repeated seven times--the rudest perhaps which were ever reared, but built of moulded semicircular bricks, and securely bonded to the wall. The entire absence of cornice, capital, base or diminution of shafts, so characteristic of other columnar architecture, and the peculiar and original disposition of each group in rows like palm logs, suggest the type from which they sprang.”[311]
With his usual penetration, Loftus divines and explains the origin of these forms. The idea must have been suggested, he thinks, by the palm trunks that were used set closely together in timber constructions, or at regular intervals in mud walls. In either case half of their thickness would be visible externally, and would naturally provoke imitation from architects in search of ornament for the bald faces of their clay structures.[312]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 100.--Facade of a ruined building at Warka; from Loftus.]
As to the effect thus obtained, the rough sketch given by Loftus hardly enables us to decide (see Fig. 100). From a.s.syria, however, come better materials for a judgment. We there often find these perpendicular ribs, generally in groups of seven, in buildings that have been carefully studied and ill.u.s.trated upon a sufficient scale. We give an example from one of the harem gates at Khorsabad (Fig. 101), by which we may see at once that an ornamental motive of no little value was afforded by these huge vertical reeds with their play of alternate light and shadow, and the happy contrast they set up between themselves and the brilliant hues of the painted walls and enamelled bricks. The whole had a certain elegant richness that can hardly be appreciated without the restoration, in every line and hue, of the original composition.
Both at Warka and in the Khorsabad harem, these vertical ribs are accompanied by another ornament which may, perhaps, have been in even more frequent use. We mean those long perpendicular grooves, rectangular in section, with which a.s.syrian and Chaldaean walls were seamed. In the harem wall these grooves flank the group of vertical reeds right and left, dividing each of the angle piers into two quasi-pilasters. At Warka they appear in the higher part of the facade, above the groups of semi-columns.
They serve to mark out a series of panels, of which only the lower parts have been preserved. The missing parts of the decoration may easily be supplied by a little study of the a.s.syrian remains. The four sides of the building at Khorsabad, called by M. Place the _Observatory_, are decorated uniformly in this fas.h.i.+on. The general effect may be gathered from our restoration of one angle. The architect was not content with decorating his wall with these grooves alone; he divided it into alternate compartments, the one salient, the next set back, and upon these compartments he ploughed the long lines of his decoration. These changes of surface helped greatly to produce the varied play of light and shadow upon which the architect depended for relief to the bare ma.s.ses of his walls. The most ordinary workmen could be trusted to carry out a decoration that consisted merely in repeating, at certain measured intervals, as simple a form as can be imagined, and, in the language of art as in that of rhetoric, there is no figure more effective in its proper place than repet.i.tion.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 101.--Decoration of one of the harem gates, at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.]
The necessity for something to break the monotony of the brick architecture was generally and permanently felt, and in those Parthian and Sa.s.sanide periods in which, as we have said, the traditions of the old Chaldaean school were continued, we find the panel replaced by wall arcades in which the arches are divided from each other by tall pilasters. In general principle and intention the two methods of decoration are identical.
The Egyptian architect had recourse to the same motive, first, in the tombs of the Ancient Empire for the decoration of the chamber walls in the mastabas; secondly, for the relief of great brick surfaces. The resemblance to the Mesopotamian work is sometimes very great.[313]
We have explained this form by one of the transpositions so frequent in the history of architecture, namely, a conveyance of motives from carpentry to brickwork and masonry.[314] In the former the openings left in the skeleton are gradually filled in, and these additions, by the very nature of their materials, most frequently take the form of panels. The grooves that define the panels in brick or stone buildings represent the intervals left by the carpenter between his planks and beams. They could also be obtained very easily upon the smooth face of beams brought into close contact, either by means of the gouge or some other instrument capable of cutting into the wood. We may safely a.s.sert that in Chaldaea and a.s.syria, as in Egypt, it was with carpentry that the motive in question originated.
On the other hand, if there be a form that results directly from the system of construction on which it is used, that form is the crenellation with which, apparently, every building in Mesopotamia was crowned.[315]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 102.--View of an angle of the observatory at Khorsabad; compiled from Place.]
The a.s.syrian brickwork in which so many vast undertakings were carried out consists of units all of one dimension, and bonded by the simple alternation of their joints. Supposing a lower course to consist of two entire bricks, the one above it would be one whole brick flanked on either side by a half brick. An a.s.syrian wall or building consists of the infinite repet.i.tion of this single figure. Each whole brick lies upon the joint between two others, and every perpendicular wall, including parapet or battlement, is raised upon this system.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 103.--Lateral facade of the palace at Firouz-Abad; from Flandin and Coste.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 104.--Battlements from an a.s.syrian palace.]
Far from being modified by the crenellations, this bond regulates their form, dimensions, and distribution. The crenellations of the palace walls consist of two rectangular ma.s.ses, of unequal size, placed one upon the other. The lower is two bricks'-length, or about thirty-two inches, wide, and the thickness of three bricks, or about fourteen inches, high. The upper ma.s.s equals the lower in height, while its width is the length of a single brick, or sixteen inches. The total height of the battlement, between twenty-eight and twenty-nine inches, is thus divided into two ma.s.ses, one of which is twice the size of the other (see Fig. 104). The battlements are all the same, and between each pair is a void which is nothing but the s.p.a.ce a battlement upside down would occupy. Fill this s.p.a.ce with the necessary bricks, and a section of wall would be restored identical in bond with that below the battlements, with the one exception that the highest block of the battlement, being only one brick wide, is formed by laying three whole bricks one upon the other.[316]
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