by the Persians, had anything of the kind. All there was to see between the shaft and the ground was a poor, thin plateau, which plays a very indifferent part in the order. More than this, Persian ornament has not one feature to remind us of Egypt. True, in the Delta we often find the base of the column ornamented by a ring of leaves;[1] but not only do they spring from the shaft, but they are turned upwards, and the column emerges from the greenery, as the stem of a plant out of its collar of radical leaflets. Here, on the contrary, the foliage around the bell is pendant, or turned downwards. There is, then, nothing that can be taken as a reminiscence of Egyptian art. We have said how the hypothesis which on the whole looks to us most likely is that the bell-shaped base was suggested to the architect by the rude stone block the rustic constructor was driven to employ, so as to save the wooden post of his humble house from coming in contact with the damp earth.[2]
With regard to the ornament, it is sufficiently elegant to tempt one to think that the first models were furnished by some Ionian craftsman, whose touch seems to lurk in many an architectural detail. However this may be, the form maintains a physiognomy which is neither Assyrian nor Egyptian, nor yet Greek. Nowhere else are the component parts exactly adjusted as these, and, above all, turned in the direction we find them here. The decorative theme, the solid shape to which it is applied, every feature is original. The Persepolitan, like the Susian base, is a happy conception, well carried out in the execution, and both do credit to the native artist. We are not blind to the fact that when he set about enlarging and completing his capital, he did not use the pruning-knife as thoroughly as he should have done, and allowed superfluities and incoherences that would be infinitely better out of the way. But we cannot help admiring his noble taste and the sagacity which prompted him to make the living form of the semi-bulls subservient to the exigences of the architectonic decoration. He knew how to simplify the animal he had chosen to complete his picture without robbing him of his animated aspect, and
- ↑ Hist. of Art, tom. i, Figs. 333, 336, 345, 346.
- ↑ Ibid., tom. v. p. 497.
a bell-shaped base, which has been sought in vain all over Egypt, will M. Dieulafoy explain m the name of wonder how the Persians got at it? Is it necessary to remind him of Cambyses' utter fiasco in his attempt to subdue Ethiopia?
