Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Art History

  • Samarkand: The Center of the World

    Compareti 2016Compareti, Matteo. 2016. Samarkand: The center of the world. Proposals for the identification of the Afrasyab paintings (Sasanika Series 5). Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers.

    In antiquity Samarkand was the capital of the Persian province of Sogdiana. Its language, culture, and “Zoroastrian” religion closely approximated those of the Persians. Following its conquest by Alexander, its strategic position and fertile soil made Sogdiana a coveted prize for Late Antique invaders of Central Asia. Around 660 CE — at the dawn of Arab invasion — local king Varkhuman promoted the execution of a unique painted program in one of his private rooms. Each wall was dedicated to a specific population: the north wall, the Chinese; the west, the Sogdians themselves; the east, the Indians and possibly the Turks. The south wall is probably the continuation of the scene on the west wall. In Chinese written sources, some support for this concept of the “division of the world” can be found. Accidentally discovered during Soviet times, the room was named “Hall of the Ambassadors” due to the representations of different peoples. However, many aspects of its painted program remain obscure. This study offers new ideas for better identifications of the rituals celebrated by the people on the different walls during precise moments of the year.

    Matteo Compareti (PhD 2005) is Guitty Azarpay Distinguished Visitor in the History of the Arts of Iran and Central Asia at the University of California, Berkeley. He studied at the University of Venice “Ca’ Foscari” in the faculty of oriental studies in 1999 and took hid PhD from the University of Naples “L‘Orientale,” working on the Silk Road in 2005. His interest is on the iconography of Mazdean divinities in Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia, especially Sasanian and Sogdian art.

  • Sasanian fantastic creature Baškuč

    Matiashvili, Irma & Helen Giunashvili. 2016. Sasanian fantastic creature Baškuč (*Pasku(n)č) in Georgian Christian culture. In Dato Barbakadse & Jürgen Trinks (eds.),
    Chancen und Schwierigkeiten des interkulturellen Dialogs über ästhetische Fragen. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Entwicklungen in der Kaukasusregion (Transkulturelle Forschungen an den Österreich-Bibliotheken im Ausland 13), 145–158. LIT Verlag.

    Die Frage, ob und wie philosophische und kulturwissenschaftliche Reflexionen dazu geeignet sind, kulturelle Distanzen und die Möglichkeiten ihrer Überwindung zu klären, wird in diesem Band sowohl in grundsätzlich-philosophischen Überlegungen als auch anhand besonders aussagekräftiger Beispiele des jeweiligen Kulturkreises behandelt. Die ausgewählten Beiträge einer Tagung in Tbilisi mit TeilnehmerInnen aus Armenien, Georgien und Österreich zeugen davon, dass in der Kaukasusregion mit ihrer wechselvollen Geschichte, ihrer tief verwurzelten Volkskultur und nicht zuletzt den künstlerischen und politischen Konflikten im Streben nach einer spezifischen Moderne höchst komplexe Entwicklungen und Beziehungen zu beobachten sind. Analysen der Literatur, der bildenden Kunst, der Musik und des Films machen dies konkret.

  • Lecture series: Visual and Spatial Cultures of Power in Iran between Alexander and Islam

    Matthew Canepa, University of Minnesota (Minneapolis), will deliver a series of four lectures at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.

    Les cultures visuelles et spatiales du pouvoir en Iran entre Alexandre et l’Islam

    • Mercredi 1er juin 2016, 17h-19h
      Rebâtir le passé perse et imaginer de nouvelles identités iraniennes
    • Mercredi 8 juin 2016, 17h-19h
      L’image royale en Iran après Alexandre
    • Mercredi 15 juin 2016, 17h-19h
      Les espaces du pouvoir iranien : palais, jardins et paysage
    • Mercredi 22 juin 2016, 17h-19h
      La scène mondiale

    Source: Matthew CANEPA | École Pratique des Hautes Études

  • Iranica Antiqua, Volume 51

    The table of contents of the latest issue (51) of the journal Iranica Antiqua:

     

     

  • Pope and Historiography of Persian Art

    Kadoi, Yuka (ed.). 2016. Arthur Upham Pope and a New Survey of Persian Art (Studies in Persian Cultural History 10). Boston: Brill.

  • Iranian Studies in Honour of Éva M. Jeremiás

    Szántó, Iván (ed.). 2015. From Aṣl to Zā’id: Essays in honour of Éva M. Jeremiás (Acta et Studia XIII). Pilis-csaba: The Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
    Cove­ring a wide range of subjects within the general field of Iranian studies, this collec­tion of essays consists of contri­bu­tions by twenty scho­lars. Most arti­cles concen­t­rate on Persian lingu­istics.
    A number of further essays discuss Persian lite­ra­ture, histo­rio­graphy; reli­gion, science ; and art. The volume contains nume­rous illu­s­t­ra­tions, mostly in colour, and it includes a compre­hen­sive biblio­graphy of Éva M. Jere­miás up to 2015.
    Table of Contents:
    • C. EDMUND BOSWORTH: The poet ‘Asjadī and early Ghaznavid history
    • MÁRIA GÓSY: Similarities and differences in the early acquisition of grammar by Persian and Hungarian children
    • ELA FILIPPONE: The so-called Old Persian ‘potential construction’ (being Text production strategies and translation strategies in the Achaemenid documentation, III)
    • BERT G. FRAGNER: Orientalismus in Abenteuererzählungen aus der frühen Sowjetunion
    • CARINA JAHANI: Complex predicates and the issue of transitivity: The case of Southern Balochi
    • ANNA KRASNOWOLSKA: The Sarmatian myth and Poland’s nineteenth-century Orientalism
    • PAUL LUFT: Authenticity and identity of Qājār poetry on stone and paper
    • MARIA MACUCH: Precision orientated legal language in the Sasanian law of inheritance
    • ÁGNES NÉMETH: How do young Iranians speak?
    • PAOLA ORSATTI: Spoken features in classical Persian texts: subordinate conditional clauses without a conjunction
    • ANTONIO CLEMENTE DOMENICO PANAINO: Jesus’ trimorphisms and tetramorphisms in the meeting with the Magi
    • ADRIANO V. ROSSI: Diglossia in Persian
    • CHRISTINE VAN RUYMBEKE: Sir William Jones and the Anwār-i Suhaylī. Containing a fortuitous but nevertheless essential note on the Orient Pearls
    • ‘ALI ASHRAF SADEGHI: Rare forms of personal endings in some Classical Persian texts
    • NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS: Rustam and his zīn-i palang
    • IVÁN SZÁNTÓ: Bahāʼ al-Dīn al-‘Amilī and the visual arts
    • KATALIN TORMA: Georgius Gentius and the early reception of the Gulistān in Hungary
    • ZIVA VESEL: Les figures astrologiques dans les traités persans
    • SIBYLLE WENTKER: A visit of the Shah. Vienna and the false Rūznāma of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah

    About the Editor:

    Iván Szántó (PhD 2009) is a scholar of Art History with special focus on Iranian Art and staff member of  The Institute of Iranian studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

  • Ancient Near Eastern Art

    This slightly older publication has just come to my attention:

    Kawami, Trudy & John Olbrantz (eds.). 2013. Source: Breath of heaven, breath of earth. Distributed by University of Washington Press for Hallie Ford Museum.

    Breath of Heaven, Breath of Earth: Ancient Near Eastern Art from American Collections encompasses the geographic regions of Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, and Anatolia and Iran, and explores several broad themes found in the art of the ancient Near East: gods and goddesses, men and women, and both real and supernatural animals. These art objects reveal a wealth of information about the people and cultures that produced them: their mythology, religious beliefs, concept of kingship, social structure, and daily life.

    About the authors:

    Trudy Kawami is director of research at the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in New York.

    John Olbrantz is the Maribeth Collins Director of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

  • Sogdian Art and Archaelogy in China

    Wertmann, Patrick. 2015. Sogdians in China. Archaeological and art historical analyses of tombs and texts from the 3rd to the 10th century AD. Deutschen Archäologischen Institut, Eurasien-Abteilung, Außenstelle Peking. (Archaeology in China and East Asia 5). Philipp von Zabern.

    Sogdians, originating from present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, dominated one of history’s greatest trade empires, extending from Constantinople to Korea between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. They established settlements in China and were granted positions of the highest rank at the imperial court. In recent years, richly equipped tombs attributed to members of the Sogdian diaspora were discovered in north and west China. The burial objects and inscriptions in these tombs offer surprising insights into the lives of these Central Asians. Patrick Wertmann followed the routes of the Sogdian traders and documented for his dissertation their traces in 54 museums and collections in eight countries, particularly in China. This fifth volume of the series Archaeology in China and East Asia offers the most comprehensive overview of Sogdian artefacts thus far assembled, with numerous colour photographs by the author.

    The book has 347 pages with 116 full-page plates and 15 tables.

     About the Author:
    Patrick Wertmann (PhD 2013) .is a specialist in East Asian art history and now working in the Sino-German cooperation project “Silk Road Fashion” of the Beijing Branch Office, Eurasia Department, German Archaeological Institute.

  • Arts of the Hellenized East

    Carter, Martha, Prudence Harper & Pieter Meyers (eds.). 2015. Arts of the Hellenized East: Precious metalwork and gems of the pre-Islamic era. Thames & Hudson.

    The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, houses one of the world’s most spectacular collections of ancient silver vessels and other objects made of precious metals. Dating from the centuries following Alexander the Great’s conquest of Iran and Bactria in the middle of the 4th century BCE up to the advent of the Islamic era, the beautiful bowls, drinking vessels, platters and other objects in this catalogue suggest that some of the best Hellenistic silverwork was not made in the Greek heartlands, but in this eastern outpost of the Seleucid empire. Martha L. Carter connects these far-flung regions from northern Greece to the Hindu Kush, tracing the common cultural threads that link their diverse geography and people. The last part of the catalogue, by Prudence O. Harper, deals with an important group of Sasanian silver vessels and gems, and some other rarities produced in the succeeding centuries for Hunnish and Turkic patrons. The catalogue is accompanied by an essay on the technology of ancient silver production by Pieter Meyers, who has performed a number of scientific tests on the objects, including a new metallurgical analysis that may help to identify their geographical origins.

  • Mani’s pictures

    Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna. 2015. Mani’s pictures: The didactic images of the Manichaeans from Sasanian Mesopotamia to Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 90). Brill.

    The founder of Manichaeism, Mani (216-274/277 CE), not only wrote down his teachings to prevent their adulteration, but also created a set of paintings—the Book of Pictures—to be used in the context of oral instruction. That pictorial handscroll and its later editions became canonical art for Mani’s followers for a millennium afterwards. This richly illustrated study systematically explores the artistic culture of religious instruction of the Manichaeans based on textual and artistic evidence. It discusses the doctrinal themes (soteriology, prophetology, theology, and cosmology) depicted in Mani’s canonical pictures. Moreover, it identifies 10th-century fragments of canonical picture books, as well as select didactic images adapted to other, non-canonical art objects (murals, hanging scrolls, mortuary banners, and illuminated liturgical manuscripts) in Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China.

    ToC:
     
    • Part 1 – Textual Sources on Manichaean Didactic Art
    • Introduction to Part 1
    • Primary and Secondary Records in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and Arabic Texts (3rd–10th Centuries)
    • Primary Records in Parthian and Middle Persian Texts (3rd–9th Centuries)
    • Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Records in Uygur and Chinese Texts (8th–13th Centuries)
    • Tertiary Records in Post-Manichaean Arabic, Persian, and Chagatai Texts (11th–17th Centuries)
    • Part 2 – Physical Remains of Manichaean Didactic Art
    • Introduction to Part 2
    • Format and Preservation
    • Subject Repertoire and Iconography

    Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, Ph.D. (1998, Indiana University) is a Professor of Asian Religious Art at Northern Arizona University and the author of Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art (Brill, 2005), Manichaean Art in Berlin Collections (Brepols 2001), and dozens of articles on Manichaean art.