Animal Style

A term describing a type of gold production whose themes were animals and which arose from the Scythians, a seminomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia. During the 5th-4th centuries BC, this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other. The animal-style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century BC. Ornaments such as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (found in Iran near the border of Azerbaijan) show evidence of highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century BC into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry. The most popular themes are antlered stags, ibexes, felines, birds of prey and, above all, the animal-combat motif, which shows a predator, usually bird or feline, attacking a herbivore. The joining of different animals and the use of tiny animal figures to decorate the body of an animal are also characteristic. Animal bodies were also contorted - animals curved into circles and quadrupeds with hindquarters inverted. The term is shorthand for this complex of motifs and treatments, which for long periods represented the art of the vast steppe zone of Europe and Asia. The transformations they underwent in the course of their long history on the steppes often leave the sources and affiliations of particular versions obscure.

Term coined by Rostovtzeff to describe the horse-trappings and personal regalia of the nomads who inhabited the Eurasian steppes in the 1st millennium bc. The animal themes that dominate this art are treated with widely varying degrees of conventionalization, stylization or abstraction. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. the animal enroulé, probably from China), the motifs seem to have originated in the Near East, but the transformations they underwent in the course of their long history on the steppes often leave the sources and affiliations of particular versions obscure. The most popular themes are antlered stags, ibexes, felines, birds of prey and, above all, the animal-combat motif, which shows a predator, usually bird or feline, attacking a herbivore. The joining of different animals and the use of tiny animal figures to decorate the body of an animal are characteristic treatments, both sometimes referred to as ‘zoomorphic juncture’. Animal bodies subjected to stylized contortions such as the animal enroulé (an animal curved into a circle) and quadrupeds with hindquarters inverted are also typical. The term ‘Animal Style’ is a convenient shorthand for this complex of motifs and treatments, which for long periods provided the raw materials of art throughout the vast steppe zone of Europe and Asia. Within the fairly well-defined repertoire of favourite themes, however, Animal Style objects from different regions and periods show an immense diversity of style: a plaque from Scythia and another from the Ordos may share the animal-combat motif and yet have no other stylistic feature in common. Thus to assume that nomadic cultures are mysteriously linked by the possession of a uniform artistic style, as the name ‘Animal Style’ unfortunately suggests, raises artificial problems. If the artificiality of the term is kept in mind there will be little occasion to explain the Animal Style as the inevitable artistic expression of shamanistic religion or of the nomadic way of life — interpretations not easily reconciled with the occurrence of the animal-combat motif at Persepolis or on a Protoliterate vase from Uruk or in the Dian culture of southwest China. Since the present state of archaeological knowledge of the steppes often does not permit the assignment of particular objects to specific tribes or regions, a broadly inclusive term is useful and convenient. If the designation ‘Animal Style’ is to be at all meaningful, some limits to its scope should be recognized. In particular, it should not be extended to include all art dependent on animal motifs, since this would deprive it of any historical significance (‘Animal Style art’ would then be found in cultures indebted neither to the steppe nomads nor to the ancient Near East). The bronze decoration of Shang China is dominated by real and imaginary animals, but Shang decoration originated independently of the Eurasian Animal Style and shares with it neither specific motifs nor treatments of motifs; to call it ‘Animal Style art’, as some authors have done, is misleading at best.

A term describing a type of gold production whose themes were animals and which arose from the Scythians, a seminomadic people from the Eurasian steppes who moved from southern Russia into the territory between the Don and the Danube and then into Mesopotamia. During the 5th to 4th centuries bc this style appeared on shaped, pierced plaques made of gold and silver, which showed running or fighting animals (reindeer, lions, tigers, horses) alone or in pairs facing each other. The animal style had a strong influence in western Asia during the 7th century bc Ornaments such as necklaces, bracelets, pectorals, diadems, and earrings making up the Ziwiye treasure (found in Iran near the border of Azerbaijan) show evidence of highly expressive animal forms. This Central Asian Scythian-Iranian style passed by way of Phoenician trading in the 8th century bc into the Mediterranean and into Western jewelry. The most popular themes are antlered stags, ibexes, felines, birds of prey and, above all, the animal-combat motif, which shows a predator, usually bird or feline, attacking a herbivore. The joining of different animals and the use of tiny animal figures to decorate the body of an animal are also characteristic. Animal bodies were also contorted - animals curved into circles and quadrupeds with hindquarters inverted. The term is shorthand for this complex of motifs and treatments, which for long periods represented the art of the vast steppe zone of Europe and Asia. The transformations they underwent in the course of their long history on the steppes often leave the sources and affiliations of particular versions obscure.