It has been believed that three stages of development may be detected in this ancient art. To the first belong the reliefs, which represent scenes of war and burial which have not yet been satisfactorily explained, drawn very awkwardly and comparatively rough and primitive. This stage represents the infancy of art. To the second stage are counted the eight statues of Gudea and the one of Ur-ba-’u which are carved with great skill and fine artistic feeling out of hard stone, as it appears of diorite.
The strength which characterises the sculptural efforts of the Babylonians and especially of the Assyrians, is already manifest, although without that exaggeration of the muscles and joints which is so pronounced with the latter. Hands and feet in particular are most carefully executed. The heads are totally different from the hairy and bearded Assyrian, or even early Babylonian heads. They are perfectly clean shaven, but sometimes seemingly decked with an artificial hair arrangement or something of that sort; all just as in Egypt. In addition, an attempt to suggest the folds of draperies is seen, which we do not find among the Babylonians and Assyrians nor the Egyptians, but only later among the Persians and Greeks. In the third so-called classic period are placed works of art of most finished execution, which show a decided advance, among which are pictures, in which beard and hair are worked out with the greatest care.
It would be exaggerated scepticism to deny that these art productions exceed in antiquity, nearly everything found in Babylonia until now. The only exception could be the beautiful cylinder of the time of Sargon I, if we assume that this monarch reigned about 3800 B.C., and that this work of art is of his time. But this is by no means established as a fact.
It can also not be denied that these creations of early Chaldaic art, although in some instances only feeble attempts, in others, however, are of such finished perfection, that in succeeding periods they were never excelled and seldom equalled.
We have here a similar case to one in Egypt, where, for instance, under the kings of the fourth dynasty, sculpture reached an eminence, which nothing of later date ever approached, and where the oldest works of art have a value which none of the Egyptian sculptures of the following centuries can claim. In both these countries therefore there is an early, surprisingly rapid development, followed by a speedy decline; where even in succeeding brilliant epochs no successful attempts to equal the results of the first florescence were ever made. Such a phenomenon is all the more striking when it is considered that these later epochs, whether in Egypt, in Babel, or in Asshur, were by no means periods of degeneration, but show, although with continual fluctuations, marked progress in literature, science, government, and general culture. It seems probable that the cause lies in the difference of race. The artists who carved the statues of King Schafra, were no more Semites than, judging from all appearances and from the facial types of the monarchs, pictured, were the sculptors who immortalised King Gudea. Later on the Egyptian population became more and more affected by Semitic elements, and under the increasing influence of the Semites, art declined.
Not until under the Saits, who certainly were not descended from a race intermixed with Semitic blood, did art rise again to a height which recalled the palmy days of the ancient realm. Thus early Chaldaic art was the mother of that of Babylonia and Assyria, and the Semites of Babylon and Asshur proved themselves diligent students, gifted imitators, who gave to their works also the stamp of their own genius; but they were never more than students and imitators, they never produced anything original which might stand in equality by the side of early Chaldaic art. The Semitic race occupies one of the foremost positions in the history of civilisation, and is highly talented. But in architecture and sculpture it has always worked in close connection with foreign masters, and never produced anything really great by itself.[36] The further it goes from the ancient centres, where the great tradition of the former so highly developed art still lived on, the more unskilful become its productions in this field. Assyria where the Semitic blood was purer than in Babylonia, and which was certainly surpassed in art by the latter, Phœnicia, Palestine, and Arabia, are proofs of this. Only when the Semites have handed down the old tradition which they have at least preserved, to the Aryans, the Persians, and Greeks, is there an independent higher development of plastic art. Be that as it may, considered as artists, the Babylonians and Assyrians stand foremost among the Semites, but they are indebted for this to the early Chaldeans.
The character of the Babylonian-Assyrian building has remained in general about the same, from the earliest times, until the destruction of the nation. The architect, more than any other artist, is dependent upon the nature of the material at his disposal; and this in Babylonia was almost exclusively in the form of tiles of clay, either dried in the sun, or baked in the fire. The former, which were made most skilfully in Babylonia, were generally used for foundations, either by simply placing them in layers, or cementing them with wet clay or pitch, or, as in the substructures of the Assyrian palaces, by using them while still in a moist condition, in order that under the pressure of the superstructure they might be united in one solid mass. For the covering of the walls, baked tiles were used. Enamelled or glazed bricks were used in those parts of the building which were most exposed to moisture or the changes of the weather. In Assyria where stone was not expensive this was also used as the outer coating of walls. This, however, is the only important variation which the Assyrian architects allowed themselves. Although it would have been easier for them to erect more beautiful, more pleasing, and certainly more durable buildings of stone, they were not able to rise to the attempt, although they had only to carry out and use in larger measure what had already been found in Chaldea. A short step was indeed taken in this direction.
The Babylonians already knew how to make wooden pillars or columns, probably covered with metal, and made use of them in lighter architecture, as for instance the Naos, or canopy over the figures of the gods. The Assyrians not only copied this, but built columns of stone, and a certain originality and gracefulness in the capitals and bases of their pillars is not to be denied. However, the column never played the same important rôle in their architecture as it does, for instance, in the Græco-Roman and even in the Egyptian. In their great buildings they clung almost servilely to the designs handed down during centuries. The question as to whether the buildings had more than one story, was formerly almost generally admitted as a fact, but it is generally denied now, and can really hardly be determined. The ruins give no positive support to either theory; but a few reliefs give representations of two-storied buildings.
Tile construction presents necessarily a certain monotony which is here accentuated by the absence of windows. To relieve this monotony, glazing, colouring, or woodwork were resorted to, in case the use of columns was excluded; sometimes more artistic measures were used, such as projecting pilasters, which in Chaldea were somewhat crude, but richly ornamented in Assyria; also mosaics of conical form, or decorations of vases on the walls. The upper stones of the walls were decorated with battlements. The inner, as well as the outer walls, had a stone covering up to a certain height, and higher up a polychromatic layer of stucco. Ivory, and particularly bronze decorations, were much employed. In spite of all this, the impression given by Babylonian and Assyrian buildings is one of massiveness, almost clumsiness, and the decorations seem childish, paltry, and commonplace. Hence also the disproportion of length and breadth, in other words the elongated form of the rooms, whose roof not being supported by columns, had to rest on the side walls, and whose breadth depended on the length of the roof beams.