Cultural Post #2

[Yahui Wu]

As an art history minor, I am really interested in Turkish history and art objects, especially the Sasanian silver plate, which is famous for its delicate decorations and political manifestation in the world. The Sasanian Empire, also known as the Neo-Persian Empirewas the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam. At its greatest extent, the Sasanian empire encompassed all of today’s Iran, Iraq, Eastern Arabia, Egypt, large parts of Turkey and much of central Asia. Most of the royal scenes on the silver vessels that have been preserved are in the form of hunts. Some of the silver plates with hunting scenes are clearly related in design, iconography detail, and style. For art historians, it is crucial to date those silver plates in order to study its historical and social context.  In the nineteen-thirties, a famous historian, Kurt Erdmann analyzed the scenes in considerable detail and divided the hunting plates into three main stages in an overall chronological. The first includes vessels of the third and fourth centuries. On these, there is a two-figure composition: the kind is hunting a lion (see the photos below). On all these plates in the first stage, the hunt is conceived of as an enlivened chase or dramatic combat. The sense of direct conflict is heightened by the eye to eye contact between the hunter, whose head is in pure profile, and the animal sought. In Erdmann’s sequence, the second stage begins in the fourth century and reaches a high point in the mid-fifth. The major change is from a representation of the hunt as a contest to what Erdmann described as “Treibjagd”, in which the animals no longer confront their attacker, but flee away from him. The animal at this stage increase in number while diminishing in size. There is no longer a dramatic hunt but a picturesque scene almost free from the flat surface of the plate. In this second stage, the gliding was applied to the figural design. In the third stage, on the Sasanian vessels o the sixth and seventh centuries, Erdmann noted an almost total absence of relief, likening the designs to drawings with strong contours. A variety of animal species are represented. The gilding is more carelessly applied, appearing in the background, not on the design. In addition to these Sasanian hunting plates, Erdmann listed a large number of pieces that he considered to be post-Sasanian. For the most part, these were, in his opinion, imitations of original vessels belonging to the first and earlier stage. He observed that in all instance the kinds wore crowns later in date than those of the early Sasanian period they were intended to imitate, and the designs included details such as the strong contours apparent only in his latest Sasanian group. Overall, so accurate are his observations and so convincing many of his arguments that It is almost impossible to consider the royal hunting vessels entirely afresh, free from the influence of Kurt Erdmann’s work. I attached several photos of the silver plates of hunting scenes below for people to better understand his theory.