Decorative and plastic art

The winged attendant of this massive Assyrian Bull moves like a robot and is treated decoratively, the head facing the spectator, the body in profile. The human-headed bull is almost fre-standing and is shown with five legs because it is designed to be viewed from either the side or the front, a characteristic feature of Assyrian sculpture.

Formal Design In Art

The rout of san Romano, by Paolo Uccello, showing a cavaly victory of the florentines over he Science in 1432, and Sunday at the grande jatte painted by Georges seurat in 1884, have much in common, though they belong to ifferent countries and epochs. Both Uccello and seurat were men of scientific intellect: Uccello was devoted to the study of perspective, seurat to the science of related colours. Their pictures are attempts to solve the problems which interested them, and demand in each case that natural fact should be organized into a system of forms. Thus the horses in the battle scene and the French bourgeois are conventionalized.

Naturalism in stone age drawing

This bison from the cave of Altamira in Spain, was drawn by stone age man about 10,000 B.C. As far as naturalism goes it surpasses anythin created by our own primitive peoples or even the bet animal draughtsmen, and shows a still higher level of accomplishment then the draing by the Bushman reproduced on the opposite page. It reveals the same astonishing power in drawing of capuring with the utmost sobriety and precision a momentary effect.

South African Bushman Art

Primitive drawing often resembles that of children; it is dominated by the concepts of lanuage and bears little relation to actual appearances. The most striking characteristic of this drawing executed by a South African Bushman is its realism; a momentary action has been treated with photographic verisimilitude, and an extremely complicated pose rendered with extraordinary ease and precision. In primitive art it is usual for such features as the eyes and ears to be drawn disproportionately large. Here the eye is only suggested and all detail is subordinated to the general character of the form of the subject dealt with.

Measures beauty

Cool, remote and impersonal, the beauty of Piero della Francesca's Nativity in the National Gallery is such as we usually associate with classical antiquity. The way in which each figure takes its inevitable place in the stillness and luminosity of the surrounding space recalls the slow and measured deliberation of Hellenic architecture. The simplified forms are like marble columns. The effect of suspended motion and timelessness is gained by Piero's skillful rendering of the silvery atmosphere and the precision with which he ha related shapes and color masses.