It was under Sennacherib that the practice first obtained of completing each scene by a background, such as actually existed as the time and place of its occurrence.

Mountains, rocks, trees, roads, rivers, lakes, were regularly portrayed, an attempt being made to represent the locality, whatever it might be, as truthfully as the artist's skill and the character of his material rendered possible.

Nor was this endeavor limited to the broad and general features of the scene only.

The wish evidently was to include all the little accessories which the observant eye of an artist might have noted if he had made his drawing with the scene before him.

The species of trees is distinguished, in Sennacherib's bas-reliefs; gardens, fields, ponds, reeds, are carefully represented; wild animals are introduced, as stags, boars, and antelopes; birds fly from tree to tree, or stand over their nests feeding the young who stretch up to them; fish disport themselves in the waters; fishermen ply their craft; boatmen and agricultural laborers pursue their avocations; the scene is, as it were, photographed, with all its features--the least and the most important--equally marked, and without any attempt at selection, or any effort after artistic unity.
In the same spirit of realism Sennacherib chooses for artistic representation scenes of a commonplace and everyday character.