Entrée principale:

Strommenger, Eva.

Titre et auteur:

5000 years of the art of Mesopotamia / Eva Strommenger, photographs by Max Hirmer. [Translated by Christina Haglund].

Publication:

New York, H.N. Abrams [1964]

Description:

480 pages illustrations, maps (1 folded) 44 color plates 32 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 465-469).
The political background -- The disappearance of Mesopotamia and its rediscovery -- The art of Western Asia -- Eridu-'Ubaid and Warka periods -- Early Sumerian period -- Proto-Elamite border area -- Early dynastic period -- Proto-dynastic period -- Mesilim period -- Fara/Ur period -- Late dynastic period -- Imperial Akkadian period -- Gudea period and Ur III/Isin period -- Larsa period -- Kassito-Babylonian period -- Pure Kassite period -- Syrian border area -- Early Syrian period -- Middle Syrian period -- Mitannian border area -- Middle Elamite border area -- Assyrian border area -- Middle Assyrian period -- Neo-Assyrian period -- Assyro-Babylonian period -- Assyro-Kassite period -- Neo-Babylonian period -- Late Babylonian period -- Plates -- Notes on the plates: art and architecture -- Bibliography -- Tables (King lists) -- Maps -- Chronology.
Translation of Fünf Jahrtausende Mesopotamien.

Résumé:

The art of Western Asia is like a tree which puts forth stronger or weaker branches at different stages of its growth. From time to time these off-shoots also had a decisive influence on their main stem, differing in this from the otherwise related development of Egyptian culture, where the side branches never gained particular importance. This alternation produces a variety which fascinates the spectator as much as it confuses the scholar. The main stem can, however, be traced through all phases of artistic evolution and it never really happens that an off-shoot completely eclipses the centre. The ethnic background of this Near Eastern cradle of culture, on the other hand, is obscure. The Greeks are regarded as the obvious creators of Classical Antiquity, but nothing similar can be said of the Sumerians. Things are here considerably more complicated, largely because of the very remote origins of ancient Western Asiatic culture and their lack of literary documentation. It has, however, one thing in common with Graeco-Roman Antiquity and with the Western world: all three cultures were animated by a sense of mission, an ecumenical spirit which makes them speak and create for the entire world and furthers the spread of their works over vast areas.
This book focuses on the main stem. It is rooted in the area of the lower Euphrates, which then had its course much further east than today, somewhere in the centre of the present steppe between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The Persian Gulf reached inland somewhat further north, so that the two rivers emptied into it independently. As the main arm of the Tigris was then formed by the Shatt al Gharaf, it did not play a very important part, all the main centres of culture being situated on the old course of the Euphrates. Today, this life-giving river having shifted westwards, the whole area has changed into a steppe, and the once-active cities have subsided into mounds of ruins (tells). Only the temple-towers, built of bricks, witness to the former existence of great cities in this lonely landscape. Later, the original centre of Western Asiatic art was extended to the area broadly outlined by the triangle formed by the rivers Euphrates, Khabur and Tigris. These limits, however, were always fluctuating and after the Dark Age in the first half of the second millennium the area shrank to its original size when the remarkable Assyrian branch gained independence in the north.
This volume studies not only the central development of Western Asiatic culture but also the Pro-Elamite, Syrian, Mitannian, Assyrian and Middle-Elamite satellite cultures.
Syria flourished during the second millennium BC in the area between the upper Euphrates, the Taurus and the Lebanon, but Mitanni's greatness lay only during the second half of the same millennium in the Khabur triangle and the upper Tigris area, where it was later succeeded by Assyria. The invasion of the Sea-Land peoples towards the end of the second millennium caused considerable displacements in these regions. Here, between the Khabur and the Mediterranean, the so-called Late Hittite art predominated until the eighth century BC when it was confronted with Neo-Assyrian art. Through this mixture a kind of Neo-Assyrian colonial style evolved.
Besides these fringe cultures in the north, other flourished in the south-east. Elam, in the lower Kerkha and Karun region, achieved an independent development and in the sixth century BC there arose in remote Fars the peculiar art of the Achaemenids, the origins of which are still obscure.
In its Neo-Assyrian phase - from the ninth century BC onwards - Assyrian art received impulses from its western neighbor in the Late Hittie area. The militant imperialism of the Assyrians then carried these impulses far towards the south-east, where they undoubtedly influenced the ancient Persian art of the Achaemenids perhaps through the Medes. Finally, the destruction of the Late Elamite and the Neo-Assyrian kingdoms in the second half of the seventh century BC imparted even greater unity to the art of central Western Asia under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. This last, Neo-Babylonian phase as well as the Achaemenid off-shoot both fell victims to the assault of the Macedonian Greeks under Alexander the Great about 330 BC. All subsequent works of art bear usually the unmistakable stamp of Hellenistic influence.
A word about the position of visual art in the Western Asiatic cultural pattern: Of course, it is known that in many great civilizations all domains of human thought and creativity do not equally blossom and their rich achievements in one field often contrast surprisingly with their barrenness in others. For example, visual art was neglected in Israel in spite of the remarkable depth of its religious thought. In Egypt, architecture and visual arts predominated, and in the Western world it was music. Great though the works of Western Asiatic art may appear to us, it must be noted that the most original works of this society lay in the field of poetry. The re-discovered epic world of the Sumerians, Eastern Semites and Ugaritians is something unique in the third and second millennia BC and set an example to later cultures. Our experience of the ancient classical world naturally leads us to seek in the themes of many works of art a reflection of literary ideas. The results of this method are still much disputed. In fact, in ancient Western Asia - as, for instance, in medieval European art - religious ideas stood at the centre of all pictorial creation and certainly many so-called historical scenes have a mythological and ideological meaning.
Finally, since the Greeks, the Western student of art is used to certain aesthetic principles which have survived to this day via various European classical phases. Ancient Western Asia satisfies these artistic requirements only exceptionally and one should not try to find them in fragmentary works. Ancient Western Asiatic art is to a large extent: representation is everything. The figures walk and stand like mutes on a stage, like dolls in stiff clothes and with identical faces like masks. The central problem of Greek art - the naked human body - plays no part as a subject. The creation of a theme valid for all time failed here mainly through the disturbing gap between the lofty expression of their ideas and their defective execution. Since this art always seems to be obsessed with an urge to irradiate the surrounding world with a many stereotyped pictorial ideas as possible, a profound treatment of a single theme is rare. The wholesale application of pictorial means for propagating the spiritual ideas of Western Asia allows no room for individual impulses and problems, nor for human relations.
Compared with the various advanced cultures which ushered in the Neolithic Period in the Near east from the seventh millennium BC, the nucleus of civilization on the lower Euphrates, later to spread over the entire sub-continent, was young. No older remains of human life have so far been found in the south Mesopotamian centre and this hinders investigation of its origins. Its earliest phase - the so-called Eridu Period - can be regarded as an agricultural primary stage. In the Middle and Late Ubaid Period, which quickly followed, one finds already the development of cities. The Eridu culture was related to its neighbors in the east but encountered in the north an alien, though equally agricultural culture, that of Halaf. Influences may have come from this direction but nothing definite can be said about this yet. (From Introduction).

Sujet:

Art Iraq History.
Art, Assyro-Babylonian.
Art assyrien.
Art babylonien.
Art Irak Histoire.
Art
Art, Mesopotamian.
Iraq
Iraq Antiquities.

Classification/genre:

History

Vedettes secondaires:

Hirmer, Max, 1893-1981, photographer.
Haglund, Christina, translator.
Art of Mesopotamia.

Exemplaires:

Localisation: Bibliothèque main 129967
Cote: IDX; ID:86-B7007
Statut: Disponible