Art and architecture of Assyria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The culture of Assyria, and still more of Babylonia, was essentially literary; we miss in it the artistic spirit of Egypt or Greece.
In Babylonia the abundance of clay and lack of stone led to the use of brick; Babylonian temples are massive but shapeless structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains, one of which at Ur was of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enamelled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with bronze or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones were also embedded in the plaster.
Assyria, copying Babylonian architecture, also built its palaces and temples of brick, even when stone was the natural building material of the country, and faithfully preserving the brick platform, necessary in the marshy soil of Babylonia, but little needed in the north.
As time went on, however, later Assyrian architects began to shake themselves free of Babylonian influences, and to use stone as well as brick. The walls of the Assyrian palace were lined with sculptured and coloured slabs of stone, instead of being painted as in Chaldea. We can trace three periods in the art of these bas-reliefs: it is vigorous but simple under Ashurnasirpal II, careful and realistic under Sargon II, and refined but wanting in boldness under Ashurbanipal.
In Babylonia, in place of the bas relief, we have the figure in the round, the earliest examples being the statues from Telloh that are realistic but somewhat clumsy. The lack of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious, and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.
Nothing can be better than two seal-cylinders that have come down to us from the age of Sargon of Akkad. No remarkable specimens of metallurgy of an early period have been found, apart perhaps from the silver vase of Entemena; but at a later epoch, great excellence was attained in the manufacture of such jewellery as ear-rings and bracelets of gold. Copper, too, was worked with skill; indeed, it is possible that Babylonia was the original home of copper-working.
At any rate, the people were famous at an early date for their embroideries and rugs. The ceramic history of Babylonia and Assyria has unfortunately not yet (as of 1911) been traced. We do not even know the date of the spirited terracotta reliefs discovered by Loftus and Rawlinson.
The forms of Assyrian pottery are graceful; the porcelain, like the glass discovered in the palaces of Nineveh, was derived from Egyptian originals. Transparent glass seems to have been first introduced in the reign of Sargon. Stone, clay and glass were used to make vases, and vases of hard stone have been dug up at Telloh similar to those of the early dynastic period of Egypt.
[edit] See also
This article was originally based on content from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Update as needed.
