Blog Post 9/4
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This piece of artwork originates from Assyria anywhere from 824-671 B.C. Here, you can see Ashurbanipal (the king at the time), and other military men slitting off the throat of a lion. Additionally, the man in the back is fighting off another lion. It is known that the Assyrian empire was entirely military; even state officers were considered to be military men. Assyrian culture was brutal: the military did not march on the battlefield. Instead, they terrorized, raped, and beheaded their opponents, then publicly displayed their corpses for everyone to see how tough they were.
This picture directly illustrates the ideology of Assyrian culture. The leaders of Assyria fought a lion and displayed this piece for the people to see because it shows how strong, brave, and brutal they were. It can be interpreted that they wanted their people to worship their bravery, while they wanted their opponents to fear them. We all know killing a lion with your bare hands is not an easy victory, so we know that they must have been violent men.
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As a result of Assyria's successful military, the Assyrian kings acquired many resources which made them wealthy. Therefore, the king's palaces were on a new level of size and glam. The rooms of these palaces were filled with terrifying images that expressed the power of Assyrian kings. This piece of artwork is among one of those images. A lion has been killed and pierced with arrows by Assyrian men.
In my last blog post, I mentioned the use of parallel lines called registers. This was known to be used in artwork to keep artwork separated and organized. However, registers were not present in artwork that was violent or chaotic. This makes sense because there are no registers present in either of the pictures above. This is because these two pieces of art express violence and chaos.
Assyrian artwork expresses the fact that military was a high priority to their culture. Although our society values military and power, I do not believe that is it similar to the extent of the Assyrians. If I were to look back on artwork in 100 years from America, I do not think that it would be nearly as violent as these pictures above.
It's interesting to learn about the differing ruling styles used throughout the ancient world. I find myself wondering what we might have accomplished if we weren't so concerned with destroying one another. This would have been an absolutely terrifying time to live in. However, if you're going to attempt to scare people into submission, then these bas reliefs of your military destroying lions would probably be pretty effective. The lion with the three arrows sticking out of him looks anguished. I find it interesting that the artist used the same sort of technique in the lions mane as in the beards. Was there a similarity being drawn between the heroic warrior fighting a fierce lion? The angles of the weapons create a dramatic mood. I love this!
ReplyDeleteAmanda, I really enjoyed your blog post this week about the artwork from “Assyria anywhere from 824-671 B.C.” I loved how much history and background information you provided for the pieces. It surprises me how these pieces of art reflect the successes of the Assyrians military. Having art and pieces like these demonstrate the brute strength of the military in the kings palaces was such a power move. Great job.
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