Davide Nadali and Ludovico Portuese, 2018, Archaeology of Images: Context and Intericonicity in Neo-Assyrian Art (original) (raw)
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The mutual dialogue(s) between Archaeology and Bildwissenschaften has often been avoided as an issue in the discussion of Ancient Mesopotamian Art. In particular, pictures have too often been analysed out of their original context with biased results and judgments on the aesthetic, meaning and exploitation of images within the ancient societies. This paper brings to the fore such dialogue by using some case studies from Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs of first millennium BCE according to a twofold topic. Archaeology in Bildwissenschaften: this topic uses the architectural tradition of the royal palace throne room as a case study for illustrating some principles of the way reliefs were arranged along the walls of the room. The analysis will disclose that the arrangement of each image can only be fully understood in its architectural context and specifically in the light of a ‘bipolarity’ of the throne room, namely reliefs sparking negative emotions were confined at some distance from the royal throne while those evoking positive emotions were set close to the throne as well as the doubling of the body of the king. Bildwissenschaften in Archaeology: in dealing with hunt rituals ‒ specifically the scene of the king pouring libations over dead lion or bull ‒ this topic focuses on its emergence as a strong Assyrian tradition in the times of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and Assurbanipal (668–631 BCE). Since there are no hunt rituals recorded on palace wall panels between the reigns of these two kings, it seems that Assurbanipal, as a known antiquarian, consciously adopted an antique iconographic motif. This phenomenon, which can be interpreted as an imitation, quotation, allusion, and perhaps homage, will be evaluated according to the modern notion of linguistic intertextuality applied to the realm of visual arts, namely intericonicity (or Interbildlichkeit).
"Sculpting with Words: From Ekphrasis to Interart Translation"
Cairo Studies in English , 2016
The notion of interart translation is one that has hereto received very little academic attention. This may stem from the inherent danger of essentialising artistic qualities and assuming the presence of equivalences of particular themes and motifs within and across art forms/mediums that may be latent in this term. Here emerges the importance of ekphrasis as a middle ground or a stepping stone through which interart translation can function. Ekphrasis basically denotes the vivid description of a piece of visual art, real or imaginary, in a form of writing, thus the transformation of the visual into the verbal. But when can an ekphrasis abandon the confines of this description and become an independent translation of this work of art? This study aims to explore the possibilities, dimensions and limitations of translating sculpture to poetry- through the analysis of texts translating the Giza Sphinx sculpture into poems. The hypothesis here is that ekphrasis is the route through which interart translation can be conducted, in the case of translating sculpture to poetry, a point not touched upon in academic research. The lack of any comprehensive study on interart translation, and in particular the translation of sculpture to poetry, engenders a great deal of possibilities and challenges in achieving this task. Theorists over the years have been aware of the importance of the term ekphrasis. They have redefined and reformulated it in ways that are put to use in this study’s exploration of the possibility of interart translation: a notion that is only approached at a distance and with great trepidation in studies of ekphrasis. In the analysed examples, it is shown how the writers, in their verbal/ekphrastic representations/translations of the sculpture, make up for the silence and the static nature of this work of visual art, enabling it to transcend its boundaries is diverse ways. The various filters applied by the writers, including cultural and ideological ones, shape the renditions/translation of the sculpture in aesthetically diverse ways. This analysis paves the way for further studies on the nature of interart translation and suggests the possibility of tracing this process in more theoretically rigourous ways.
This chapter investigates theoretical and practical relationships between ancient Mesopotamian images and texts. It starts with observations drawn from studies outside and inside the field, finding most prominently a problematic tendency to view images through linguistically motivated frameworks that are in part the legacy of biblical and Protestant notions of verbal and textual supremacy. Efforts to obviate the reduction of images to texts, however, are seen in some recent alternative approaches to the co-presence of image and text in ancient Mesopotamian material culture. Finally, it is suggested that ancient Mesopotamians related images and texts in dynamic ways that challenge modern assumptions about their separability and categorization, as exemplified in the Late Bronze Age statue of Idrimi from Alalakh and the Iron Age Esarhaddon treaty tablet at Tell Tayinat.
The present article explores the relevance of medium in the study of Ancient Greek art by a parallel analysis of the relationship of figure and space in Attic vase painting and architectural sculpture. While innovative recent scholarship on Greek art tends to emphasize the incommensurability of different media of pictorial representation, this article shows essential analogies. The figures found in both pictorial media prove to comprise more than the physical body definition. Instead, no clear border can be drawn between the physical body and its “extensions”–armor, clothing, attributes, in some cases even elements of the figure’s spatial context as e.g., “landscape.” While such (presumed) surrounding space can be an intrinsic part of the figure, the idea of a pictorial space dissociated from the material frame is absent from both vase painting and architectural sculpture. Instead, the figures’ space is identical with their material frame, be it the picture field on a vase, or the pediment of a temple. This common trait among the two pictorial media is finally interpreted as an anthropological predisposition regarding what made for an image in Ancient Greece, pointing to the image’s power of presentification, as opposed to the modern concept of pictorial illusion. In doing so, this article advocates for further adoption of cross-media perspectives on Ancient Greek art–not as an alternative, but as an intellectually productive supplement to the newly increased awareness for differences of pictorial media.
Prague Egyptological Studies 29, 2022
“Copies” of visual representations are abundant in ancient Egyptian iconographic environments such as the private necropoleis. The intericonic relationship(s) that they share with their model(s) form a wide web that constitutes a large part of the so‐called repertoire. While they almost always include variation, their creators sometimes used to flip them during the composition process so that they present as the inverted version of their respective model. From an image reception perspective it could be relevant to examine their possible citational value in terms of either quotative or inferential evidentials, taking into account the beholder’s role in the actualisation of such indexical potential. To that end, the article aims to explore the value we, as Egyptologists, confer to these images and balance it with ancient outlooks, particularly that of the audience(s) which the creators targeted (on behalf of patrons and commissioners). The context of the private tomb chapels of the New Kingdom Theban necropolis is an ideal iconographic environment to explore in this regard. Among several concepts which could be easily applied to other iconographic environ‐ ments and visual cultures, the article proposes to distinguish between usual instantiations of iconographic models, sometimes referred to as standards, and “identifying‐copies” (following Den Doncker 2017). As they carry a strong connection to the identity of the model’s owner, these identifying‐copies were therefore most probably conceived to implement their commissioner’s visual rhetoric of self‐fashioning.
2022
From a sociological perspective, nonverbal expressions can communicate a lot, from political to religious sentiments. At the same time, nonverbal expressions can take on even greater meaning: they may galvanize group identity because they imply a sharing and a collaboration among individuals, who evolve the capacity to demarcate group membership through symbolic markers, such as gestures, body movements, proxemic, and the like. This implies that nonverbal expressions can play a role in maintaining social and psychological order and can become a clear marker of collective identity. Cultural contact between Syro-Hittite states and the Assyrian empire during the first millennium BCE have been notoriously intensive, and it involved many aspects and affected material culture, social practices, and social structures to varying extents. Situations of cultural contact may have initiated a process of self-reflection, within the collective group, or may have had the potential to induce cultural change. On the material level, this encounter may have had different effects, ranging from spontaneous rejection to acceptance of specific visual motifs. This article provides an examination and comparison of visual representations of submission gestures and of drinking acts in Syro-Hittite and Assyrian monumental art, in order to highlight the ways through which these visual motifs were rejected, or were appropriated and re-instrumentalized by both parties. It is concluded that the interaction between Syro-Hittite and Assyrian art reveals 1) a dialectic between the embrace and rejection of specific visual motifs, and 2) a conscious consequent creation of nonverbal expressions as signs of collective identity.