In so far as the human figure is concerned, the art of painting must have been much checked in Persia by the peculiar opinions which that people entertained, in com mon with their neighbours, the Parthians and Arabians. They considered any representation of, or even allusion to the human figure in a state of nudity, as an abomina ble outrage to decency ; and so repugnant to decorum was it for man to be seen naked, that artists could have as little the means, as the inducement to study the human figure. In their statuary, the figures are almost always of men, as the reuresentation of women seems to have been forbid den ; and these figures are moreover, so encumbered with drapery, and with a profusion of rigid plaitings, that they present an exceedingly inelegant and clumsy semblance of man. Their religious faith was equally inimical to the arts, in discountenancing any visible representation of the Deity. it was the principle of fire which formed the chief object of their adoration, as identified with Baal or Apollo, though not in general under a visible form. This antipa thy may probably account for the circumstance of their invasion and possession of Egypt having produced so little effect, in giving them any taste for the arts as prac tised in that country.
We know very little of the state of art among the Phoenicians. They were a people of great enterprise both in war and trade, and so early acquainted with the use of writing as to have obtained the credit of the inven tion ; from which it appears probable they had some no tion of the arts of imitation. And as they are reported to have been a very handsome race, they are more likely to have had correct notions of beauty in their imitations of it. With them the sciences flourished, while Greece still lay buried in the shades of ignorance. Solomon, we are informed, sent for Phoenicians to build the temple of the Lord ; and even so late as the time of the Romans, the most skilful artizans were Carthaginians, a colony from Phtenicia ; for their knowledge of navigation, and the ex tent of the trade they carried on, even beyond the coasts of the Mediterranean, enabled their artizans to make a profitable traffic of their skill, in the various countries to which they traded. In their own country, we have the authority of sacred writ for the magnificence of the Tyrians, the splendour of their buildings, their painted chambers, and the richness of their sculptured ornaments. At this late period, however, we have absolutely nothing to guide us to any judgment of their acquirements in art, except some remaining specimens of their money ; and in so far as this evidence generally records its own date, we have a better; if they were more plentiful. What does exist falls very little short of the beauty and perfec tion of the Greek coinage ; in fact, were it not for the Punic inscriptions, it would not be easy to distinguish the one from the other.
We are not to suppose from the words of the second commandment, " Thou shalt not make to thyself any gra ven image," that the Jews were prohibited from painting or sculpture ; it was the worship only which was pointed at by the sacred law : any farther extension of the prohi bition would have been in the face of nature, and palpably absurd. To imitate is the common characteristic of man kind, and themeans of amusement to children ; so that the exercise of it is harmless. Few legislators, and certainly not an inspired one, could ever think of controlling it. We might, with equal consistency, infer, that we were con demned to regard the earth alone, like the brute creation, and never to raise our eyes to heaven, and contemplate the sun, moon, and stars ; from the words that immediately follow the prohibition of images. " Thou shalt not raise thine eyes to heaven, to behold the sun, moon, and stars." But Moses himself, by God's special command, caused images to be made, and that too for the sanctuary, as we find by the following passages.
1. Two cherubims, or sphinxes, placed in the holy of holies, Exod. xxv. 18-20.
2. Ornaments in the shape of flowers on the golden lamp, Exod. xxv. 34.
3. Figures of the Cherubims embroidered in the cur tain of the holy of holies, Exod. xxvi. 32.
4. The same on the hangings of the sanctuary, and pro bably also on the other hangings which were ordered to be embroidered, Exod. xxvi. 36. and xxvii. 16.
5. To this may be added the brazen serpent. Numb. xxi. 8, 9. Ezekiel's temple, in like manner, had cheru bims with the heads of men and lions. The figures of sphinxes appear on the base of the golden lamp of the se cond temple, which was brought to Rome by Vespasian, and a representation of which is sculptured on his trium phal arch.
But as the Jews employed Plumnician artists in all works of embellishment, it is not likely that they themselves practised the arts, if we except the manufacture of tapes try hangings; these they adorned with figure work of chi meras, arabesques, and all sorts of imaginary beings. The Greeks borrowed the taste for imaginary animals, such as griffins, centaurs, &c. from the practice of these artists. Diodorus mentions, that the bricks of which the walls of Babylon, built by Semiramis, were composed, were paint ed before they were burnt, so as to represent all sorts of animals. Lib. 2. chap. iv. We may infer that the more simple and easy forms of painting must have been in use before they thought of applying them by the difficult ope ration of fire.