The Lost Treasures Persian Art. Vladimir Lukonin
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the Caucasus, Central Asia, Eastern Turkestan, even China, in works of art from Iran.
The dominant theme of early Sassanian art (3rd-4th centuries CE was the proclamation of the state’s power. From the very beginning of the Sassanian era official portraits of the Sassanid shahanshah and his courtiers as well as his military triumphs were the images most often seen. In essence, Sassanian art begins with the creation of the iconography of the official portrait and the triumphal composition.
Religious art also follows the same line as official art. From the very beginning its basic subjects were anthropomorphic portrayals (also, in their way, official portraits) of the major Zoroastrian deities – Ahura Mazda, Mithras and Anahita, depictions of the interior of the monarch’s coronation temple and portrayals of the shahanshah’s investiture by these main deities. Such works of art reflected the fundamental, divine nature of power cherished by lran’s rulers in a language of clearly understood symbols. The scene of the divine investiture, the handing over of the insignia of power to the shahanshah by Ahura Mazda, Mithras or Anahita, was mainly sculpted in reliefs, but also featured on the reverse of early Sassanian coins and on early Sassanian gems. The canonic form of the interior of the king’s coronation temple shows an altar on which a fire blazes, sometimes flanked by the figures of the king and a deity, the design being almost the same as in Achaemenid reliefs; the altar is occasionally on the dais of a throne constructed just like those of the Achaemenid rulers. This altar appears on reliefs and coins as well as on gems.
These official works reflected the initial period of development of the Sassanid monarchy’s state ideology; they emphasised the real political successes of the first shahanshahs and proclaimed their faith, Zoroastrianism. The religious theme becomes more complex at the end of the 3rd century CE, as if it had become obscured by the introduction into the official portrait iconography of incarnations of Zoroastrian deities of a lower order (in the beginning, it is true only of one deity the companion of Mithras, the god of victory Verethragna). The main incarnations of Verethragna are a wild boar, a horse, a bird, a lion and the fabulous Senmurv (half-beast and half-bird), and they appear in depictions of the shahanshahs’ crowns and the headdresses of princes and the queen of queens. Strictly speaking, the emergence of such imagery marks the beginning of a new theme, that of Zoroastrian symbolism. The earliest pieces only present these incarnations themselves or their protomes, but very soon they give way to a different type of composition, above all to scenes of the royal hunt which are also widespread at the end of the 3rd century CE.
Subsequently all three themes that followed developed along different lines. At the end of the 4th century CE the state political theme gradually loses its significance. Rock reliefs, the chief monuments exhibiting this theme, are no longer produced: thirty reliefs are attributed to the period from c. 23 °CE to the beginning of the 4th century, but only two to the period from the first decade of the 4th century to the beginning of the 6th century. The official portrait of the shahanshah appears primarily on coins, the official portraits of courtiers mainly on gems.
Zoroastrian symbolism, with various symbols of the guardian deities, occupies an ever greater place on the crowns of the shahanshahs. The scene of the altar flanked by the figures of the king and a deity on the reverse of Sassanian coins gradually becomes a canonical image, but one which has already lost its meaning. Zoroastrian symbolism, on the other hand, seems to overwhelm various branches of art. Incarnations of many Zoroastrian deities and symbolical compositions become the main subject of gems and are often depicted on stucco decoration and on textiles.
However, the initial meaning of this theme is also lost. The symbols of the Zoroastrian deities – various birds, beasts and plants – become benevolent. Imagery that is foreign to the Sassanians makes its appearance, borrowed from the West and in the main connected with Dionysian beliefs. Having been subjected to a Zoroastrian interpretation, not always of any great profundity, it is included in Zoroastrian benedictory or celebratory compositions. Such a subject as the royal hunt loses its initial, strictly symbolical, meaning and a new, narrative, theme arises in Sassanian art on its foundation; the symbolical composition simply turns into a literary subject.
All these processes had already begun in the 4th century CE and were, of course, linked to definite changes both in dynastic doctrine and in the Zoroastrian canon, although there was no such hard and fast correspondence between the two as there was between official ideology and official art during the first stage.
In the 6th and 7th centuries CE, art as a whole was characterised by a flowering of the narrative theme and benedictory subjects, although in some works political and religious themes did reappear. There was even an emergence of what might be termed narrative-Zoroastrian themes – various Avestan myths were illustrated in works of art.
The link with ancient Persian art is particularly significant for Sassanian religious iconography. The portrayal of Zoroastrian deities in the form of their hypostases or personifications is a device with which we are already familiar and which was encountered in the art of both the Medes and the Achaemenids. Several such hypostatic images were passed on to Sassanian art. Amongst them one finds the already familiar Gopatshah who has the Assyrian shedu as his prototype, winged and homed lions, winged griffins, the scene of a lion attacking a bull and even such ancient images as a stag, a panther and a vulture. The changes are truly of great significance.
We have already referred to the creation of anthropomorphic images of the main Zoroastrian deities. It is true that they repeat the real iconography of royal portraiture. Ahura Mazda, in the dress and insignia of lran’s shahanshah, is depicted on the same pattern as the Khwarnah of the Achaemenids, except that the dress of the Achaemenid king is exchanged for that of a Sassanid king; Anahita is depicted in the dress and insignia of lran’s queen of queens; Mithras is also in royal dress, but with a radiant crown around his head.
The link with Achaemenid culture is apparent in many spheres. One could point out, for example, that in official manifestos of the Sassanid shahanshahs the standard formula of Achaemenid royal inscriptions is employed. Nowadays it has become evident that Sassanian state Zoroastrianism was initially nothing but the Zoroastrianism of Parsa of the Parthian, or even the late Achaemenid, age. In the formation of Sassanian art the Parthian contribution was no less important than that of the Achaemenids and of post-Achaemenid Parsa. A certain number of reliefs and wall-paintings, as well as coins of the Parthian age, have the same composition and sometimes the same portrait iconography. The contribution of the late Hellenistic art of Mesopotamia to Sassanian art is also extremely significant.
Vessels of precious metal play an important role in Sassanian art. Such vessels were used at royal feasts, but the feasts themselves also had particular significance. Herodotus wrote that the Persians decided all their most important questions of state at feasts. Precious vessels were offered to the kings of neighbouring states as valuable gifts; they served as rewards to courtiers for outstanding exploits.
They were valued for their marvellous craftsmanship and for their imagery, but the metal of which they were made was itself of no small value in Sassanian times. According to the Sassanian Code of Law, for example, “worthy” provision for a free citizen of the empire consisted of 18 silver drachmae a month (about 75g of silver); the silver bowls in the State Hermitage Museum weigh at least ten times that amount. The earliest of the silver ceremonial bowls which have come down to us date from c. 270–29 °CE.
Late Roman art and especially late Roman silver “portrait” vessels heavily influenced Sassanian metalwork during its early stage. Apparently under their influence this traditionally Persian art form was reborn. The vessels were of prestigious or propagandistic significance and their simple ceremonial role was merely secondary. At first, such vessels featured official portraits of the Iranian kings, employing the same iconography as on reliefs and coins. Fairly soon, within fifty years or so, the portraits depicted on the vessels were no longer of shahanshahs, but of great courtiers and priests. Towards the middle of the 4th century such vessels disappear completely. The first known plate bearing a depiction of kings and incarnations of Zoroastrian deities also dates from the c. 270–290.
The first known plate depicting a hunting scene was produced at about that time. This form of art was new to the Sassanians and exhibits some innovations. First of all, there is a wealth of Zoroastrian symbolism (other objects of this period presented only what might be termed basic symbols).
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