"Relating Image and Word in Ancient Mesopotamia," in Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art (ed. M. Feldman and B. Brown; de Gruyter 2013) (original) (raw)
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The Materiality of Divine Agency, 2015
Focusing on the divine image in Mesopotamia, this essay explores the construction and implications of the anthropomorphized divine body; the nature of the relationship between the image (specifically the ṣalmu) and its divine referent; and the means by which the authoritative and authorized status of a divine image might be established, in order that the image might successfully presence the deity. Taking the ninth century BCE Sun God Tablet (SGT) from Sippar as case study, Sonik specifically examines the embedding of images within the pictorial stream of tradition as a means of establishing their authoritative status. Such an embedding might be accomplished through both pictorial and written strategies: pictorial compositions may be deliberately designed to incorporate archaizing motifs or elements, visually announcing their ties to the (or even a specific period of the) ancient and esteemed past; written accounts, for their part, might trace or deliberately construct an object’s relationship to a more ancient model or even authoritative prototype with origins in the divine sphere
Pictures and words (or language if we want) are the primordial ways of communication used by human beings: indeed, one might even conjecture which communications medium arose first. The present paper aims at analysing the deep relationship between pictures and words in ancient Mesopotamia, showing how communication is in fact the result of cooperation between the two: in particular, it will be pointed out how pictures sometimes prevailed over, or even preceded, words (also today we are used or we prefer to express our thoughts and emotions through pictures). It seems we confer pictures a stronger and more effective power in communication: the materiality of pictures as opposed to the immateriality of words discloses the possibility of asking questions of not only what pictures are, but how they are. Indeed material culture deeply affects both the mind and the body and this entanglement closely links the sensual experience (perception, shaping and use of things) to the emotional experience (reception of and reaction to things). In this respect, pictures are special objects of the material world and they can do things to people or even make people to do things that words can’t do. According to these principles and statements, the analysis of pictures in ancient Mesopotamia can finally disclose the role of art in Mesopotamian societies: art does not only reflect the way ancient people viewed, shaped and represented the world but it makes us reflect on how ancient people felt the world. The interplay of pictures and words might be the interpretation of Mesopotamian aesthetics: it does not deal with the research of the concept of beauty; rather it exactly aims for the analysis of the sense of perception, that is how people perceive and feel art.
2005
This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery from the mid-second to mid-first millennium BCE. It demonstrates that in spite of rich textual evidence, which grants the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses an anthropomorphic form, there was a clear abstention in various media from visualizing the gods in such a form. True, divine human-shaped cultic images existed in Mesopotamian temples. But as a rule, non-anthropomorphic visual agents such as inanimate objects, animals or fantastic hybrids replaced these figures when they were portrayed outside of their sacred enclosures. This tendency reached its peak in first-millennium Babylonia and Assyria. The removal of the Mesopotamian human-shaped deity from pictorial renderings resembles the Biblical agenda not only in its avoidance of displaying a divine image but also in the implied dual perception of the divine: according to the Bible and the Assyro-Babylonian concept the divine was conceived as having a human form; yet in both cases anthropomorphism was also concealed or rejected, though to a different degree. In the present book, this dual approach toward the divine image is considered as a reflection of two associated rather than contra-Vl Chapter 4 Removed from Official Art: Anthropomorphic Representations of Deities in First-Millennium Assyria 4.1. Anthropomorphic Deities in First-Millennium Assyrian Monuments 4.1.1. Syrian Inspiration 4.1.2. Anthropomorphic Deities under Sennacherib 80 4.1.3. Anthropomorphic Deities on Wall Reliefs 4.2. Anthropomorphic Deities in First-Millennium Assyrian Glyptics Chapter 5 Outside the Temple: Non-Anthropomorphic
Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, 2014
This study assesses the strategic deployment and polysemic functioning of mythological imagery in both the official (Machtkunst) and popular arts of Mesopotamia. It also addresses, as a corollary, such issues as the definition and status of art and the artist in the ancient Near East; the relationship between patron and artist or artisan; the implications of mass production or the deliberate copying of certain art forms or images, as through the use of molds or sketch- or pattern-“books”; degrees of literacy among the general population, and especially among those involved in the crafting of individual artworks or the designing of larger visual programs; the cultural role of mythology in Mesopotamia and the relationship between those myths extant in writing and those (now lost) circulating as oral compositions; and the striking mismatch between text and image, and especially between written (Sumerian and Akkadian) mythological narrative and pictorial narrative or visual mythological representation. It is concluded that the numerous and varied mythologies of Mesopotamia, both oral and written, were conventionalized through two deliberate visual strategies: (1) the circulation and replication of certain figural stereotypes; and (2) the visual representation of even complex mythological scenes or episodes in iconic form. Both strategies yielded a conventionalized composition capable of circulating independently of any single or immutable signification, allowing for its flexible deployment and investment with meaning by those representing it and its interpretation on multiple levels by a diverse audience of heterogeneous cultural knowledge and experience.
Pictures and words are the primordial ways of communication used by human beings: indeed, one might even conjecture which communication medium arose first. The present paper aims to analyse the deep relationship between pictures and words in ancient Mesopotamia, showing how communication is in fact the result of cooperation between the two: in particular, how pictures prevailed over and preceded words (also today we are used or we prefer to express our thoughts and emotions through pictures). It seems that pictures confer a stronger and more effective power in communication: the materiality of pictures as opposed to the immateriality of words discloses the possibility of asking questions of not only what pictures are, but how they are. Indeed, material culture deeply affects both the mind and the body and this entanglement closely links the sensual experience (perception, shaping, and use of things) to the emotional experience (reception of and reaction to things). In this respect, pictures are special objects of the material world and they can do things to people or even make people to do things that words cannot do.
Constructing Reality in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Review Essay of "The Infinite Image"
Oxford in 2011. In a style that retains much of the vitality and looseness of the spoken word, the book elaborates on the view previously articulated elsewhere by the author, 1 that art in ancient Mesopotamia was about presence and reality rather than imitation and representation, i.e., that images were understood as active components of the physical world. In The Infinite Image, Bahrani now explores more specifically how images were used to influence the temporal dimension of reality, bridging the present with the past and the future.