King on a tank accompanied by warriors
Relief coming from an néo-Assyrian palate located at Nimroud
Influenced at its beginnings by the cultures Sumerian, Babylonian then mitannienne, the Assyrian art continues only starting from IXe century, at the moment when Assyrie, in search of a universal empire, is essential like the close relation-Eastern great power. Consequently, sticking to the warlike ideology of the kings, it expresses their claim with the size and translated their love of glory. Architecture palatiale
It is the privileged expression of the Assyrian royal art, which knew two key periods: initially with the reign of Assournazirpal II (884-859) and the abandonment of Assour for the new capital, Kalhou, located more at north on the Tiger; then, with Sargon II (722-705 av. J. - C.), founder of Dour-Sharrouken (Khorsabad). In these two capitals, like in Ninive and Assour, but also in provincial towns such as Til Barsip and Arslan Tash in Syria, the Assyrian kings made build buildings - palate, temples, ziggourats - which, even if it does not remain about it today that such of formless bricks, counts among the greatest architectural achievements of all times.
The Assyrian palate is in general built according to a bipartite plan: a public part and a part private, organized each one around a court and separated one from the other by the throne room and appendices. It is decorated beautiful reliefs, admirably carried out on large limestone or alabaster plates which cover the base of the believed brick walls, in the parts, the corridors and the entries. Aligned the ones following the others, these orthostates constitute true horizontal planks, telling the exploits of the kings and praising their prowesses: scenes of war, hunting, court and drawn from the daily life.
This taste for the decoration is also expressed in the use of multicoloured glazed brick wall boards; applied to the walls of the palates, the temples and the rich private residences, even at the entries of the big cities, they excite them also the power of the Assyrians and testify to the genius of their artists. The murals, in the honor in the palates of Til Barsip and Dour-Sharrouken, also appear of the military scenes.
Decorative arts
The Assyrian royal art was also expressed in the work of metal. The doors of the palates were often covered sheets of bronze worked with the technique of pushed back, generally representing warlike subjects.
The ivory, probably imported of India, also was very much used in Assyrian decorative art: the artists, probably Syrian, Phoenician but so local, used it at the same time to decorate chairs, thrones, beds, screens or doors and to manufacture boxes, vases, bowls, spoons, combs, pins. The study of these objects, discovered in great number with Assour, Khorsabad, Arslan Tash and especially with Nimroud, testifies to the diversity of the techniques: engraving, sculpture in relief, sculpture in the round, filigree, incrustation. The covered subjects are varied. In addition to the Egyptian reasons or égyptianisants the such birth of Horus, one distinguishes from the reasons zoomorphes (cows, deer, griffins, sphinx), of the scenes of combat of animals, the nude women, the representations of the Gilgamesh hero controlling of the wild beasts.
The Assyrians worked also glass, which they ground with lost wax; the vases, often carved, were in general painted. The colors used (green clearly, blue turquoise, crimson, red and white) will be later those of the Hellenistic masterpieces.