Note 312 — Chapter II · SCULPTURE. (continued 3)
Walter Armstrong translation
De Longpérier, Œuvres, vol. i. p. 335. Compare our Fig. 17, Vol. i., and M. Ménant’s observations upon the double-faced individual in whom the original androgynous type of the human race has been recognised by some (Essai, &c., pp. 111–120). We are inclined to agree with him in supposing the double profile to be no more than a convention, whose strangeness is diminished when we remember that it occurred upon the convex sides of a cylinder, where the eye of the spectator did not grasp it all at once, as upon the flat impression. In choosing such an arrangement, the artist seems to have desired to connect the figure both with the seated god and the figures on the other side; it is an expedient of the same nature as the five legs of the Ninevite bulls.