. The Open court . it theshape. They reenforce and emphasize it, and their character, so easy, with poetic grace, suit the light and fragile material (Page32). This sense of perfect propriety between all the elements of anart has been typical of Persian art throughout its long life. Persias achievements in metal were scarcely inferior to her ac-complishments in faience. Fewer examples remain. They wereslower and more expensive to make, especially if decorated with in-lays of gold and silver. They disintegrated more easily, under thesoil, and mans cupidity above could too often transmute
. The Open court . it theshape. They reenforce and emphasize it, and their character, so easy, with poetic grace, suit the light and fragile material (Page32). This sense of perfect propriety between all the elements of anart has been typical of Persian art throughout its long life. Persias achievements in metal were scarcely inferior to her ac-complishments in faience. Fewer examples remain. They wereslower and more expensive to make, especially if decorated with in-lays of gold and silver. They disintegrated more easily, under thesoil, and mans cupidity above could too often transmute them intomore practical property. The precious metals are not far removedfrom cash, and a broken bronze basin, although an artistic master-piece, may in time of stress be of less worth than a weapon of thesame material. The spirited Luristan animal bronzes, the more magnificent goldand bronze ornaments of Achaemenid times, the bronze vessels ofthe Sasanids, colossal in scale, if not in measure, their gold and sil-. SILVER PLATE The relief design is of a royal lion hunt. Sasanian, Fourth Century (Hermitage Museum, Leningrad) THE ARTS OF IRAN 17 ver plates with the massive figural reliefs ( Page 16), all of these sodifferent, all so alike in their force and spirit and in their master-ly use of generalized forms, together constitute a series that can-not he equaled. The relation of Persian medieval hronze work tothat of northern Mesopotamia, particularly Mosul, is hard to deter-mine, hut it seems probable that an ancient metal industry in thatregion was spurred to its remarkahle artistic productivity by theinflux of Persian workmen in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-turies. The metal workers of Herat, Rayy, Isfahan, and Shiraz werefamous in medieval times, hut it is not yet possihle to characterizethese various schools. On Persian carpets volumes of rhapsody and speculation haveheen composed, and indeed, of the finest of them it is difficult tospeak temperately. Carpet wea
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887