buildings of Persia and Asia Minor that will themselves soon be little more
than ruins? It is difficult to answer this question from the very small
fragments we possess of the coloured decorations of the Babylonian temples
and palaces, but the conditions have remained the same; the wants to be
satisfied and the processes employed a century ago were identical with
those of Babylon and Nineveh; architect and painter were confronted by the
same dazzling sun, and, so far as we can tell, taste has not sensibly
changed over the whole of the vast extent of country that stretches from
the frontiers of Syria to the eastern boundaries of the plateau of Iran.
New peoples, new religions, and new territorial divisions have been
introduced, but industrial habits have remained; in spite of political
revolutions the workman has transmitted the secrets of his trade to his
sons and grandsons. Oriental art is now threatened with death at the hands
of Western competition. Thanks to its machines Europe floods the most
distant markets with productions cheaper than those turned out by the
native workman, and the native workman, discouraged and doubtful of
himself, turns to the clumsy imitation of the West, and loses his hold of
the art he understood so well. Traditions have become greatly weakened
during the last half century, but in the few places where they still
preserve their old vitality they may surely be taken as representative of
the arts and industries of many centuries ago, and as the lineal
descendants of those early products of civilization on which we are
attempting to cast new light. If, as everything leads us to believe, the
colours and patterns worked by the women of Khorassan and Kurdistan on
their rugs and carpets are identical with those on the hangings in the
palaces of Sargon, of Nebuchadnezzar, and of Darius, why should we not
allow that the tints that now delight us on the mosques of Teheran and
Ispahan, of Nicaea and Broussa, are identical with those employed by the
Chaldaean potter?

There is no doubt that both had a strong predilection for blue--for the
marvellous colour that dyed the most beautiful flower of their fields, that
glowed on their distant mountains, in their lakes, in the sea, and in the
profound azure of an almost cloudless sky. Nature seems to have chosen blue
for the background of her changing pictures, and like the artists of modern
Persia those of antique Mesopotamia understood the value of the hint t