Scythian animal style

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Scythian culture Is the original culture of the vast world of agricultural, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes that lived in the 1st millennium BC. e. in the Northern Black Sea region, in the Balkans, in Thrace, in the Kuban, in Altai and in southern Siberia, that is, on a vast territory stretching from the Danube to the Great Wall of China.

The Scythian culture, in the South and South-West, is adjacent to the Hellenic and the culture of Asia Minor, in the West, the Scythian culture comes into contact with the culture of the Celtic tribes, and in the East - with the culture of Central Asia and China.

The "Scythian world" is too large and does not fit into the narrow framework of national, small-town interests of the numerous peoples of the Caucasus, Western Asia, Kazakhstan or Altai.

The Scythian world is not towers and not formidable walls of mighty castles, but high burial mounds of leaders and simple warriors, these are the age-old monuments of the early Scythian culture, which retained its originality, originality, despite the influence of other cultures and the Greek world. The peculiarity of Scythian art is expressed in the "animal style" of the 1st millennium BC. e., characteristic of the entire Scythian world, which once again proves its unity over a vast territory. You can easily recognize the "animal style" immediately, in any subject of Scythian art by the strength and perfection of the animals depicted, by the sharpness and drama of the chosen composition.

People of the Scythian culture lived a tense life, where they had to fight the merciless hostile forces of nature, where they had to constantly attack and win or be defeated themselves. It was a bright and eventful life, and the art born of this life was just as dynamic. The Scythians combined farming and cattle breeding with hunting wild animals.

The beast was the main rival of the Scythians in everyday life, more than once it was necessary to see animals tormenting their prey. The beast, often a monster, created by the artist's imagination, seemed to the Scythians to express the mysterious and powerful forces of nature.

Scythian art expresses not only form, but the eternal movement of the forces of nature, a strong body - this expresses the essence of the "animal style".

The ideal of beauty, the Scythians combined with the desire to symbolically express a kind of magical power over the mysterious forces of nature. The nomadic way of life of the Scythians did not allow them to create works of monumental painting or architecture. The Scythians lived in the saddle and constantly moved across vast territories, therefore, the works of their art could be miniature, and serve as an adornment of the Scythian life, weapons, equipment, harness.

The inner content of works of art made by Scythian masters is striking in its laconicism and the highest tension of the captured movement of an animal, bird or person.

The State Hermitage possesses the world's only richest collection of Scythian antiquities; the Hermitage exhibits over forty thousand objects of Scythian art.

One of the most famous masterpieces of the Hermitage is a golden figure of a deer, found by archaeologists in a Scythian burial mound near the village of Kostromskaya on the Kuban region. The relief figure of a deer was made in the 6th century BC. e., a deer flaunted on a round iron shield in the burial of a Scythian leader.

The Scythians deified nature and symbolically connected the light image of the deity with the image of a deer carrying the sun on its horns. The whole figure of a deer is subordinated to a special, intense rhythm, in which the strength and power of a wild beast is expressed. If you do not know at all the dimensions of the deer figurine, then this tiny image will appear to us as a giant bas-relief.

There is nothing accidental or superfluous in it; it is difficult to imagine a more thoughtful and complete composition. How harmoniously the soft bend of the deer's neck is combined with its thin muzzle, above which the curls of the huge antlers thrown back on the back rise majestically!

A gold plaque in the shape of a deer is a shield decoration. Kul-Oba, Kerch. IV century BC e. Hermitage.

There are no such antlers that would stretch along the entire back of a deer! The animal lies, listening to the slightest rustle, but in its position there is such an impulse, such a strong striving forward that it seems as if it does not lie, but flies in the air, stretching its neck and throwing its horns back.

In the figure of a deer, everything is depicted conditionally and at the same time extremely realistic. We do not even notice that the artist has depicted not four legs of a deer, but only two. The legs of the deer, tightly drawn under the belly, create the impression of a compressed spring, ready to fire at any second.

If we imagine the figure of a deer, like a marble statue several meters high, then it will turn out to be more majestic, monumental.

The famous Siberian collection of Peter I, made up of archaeological finds in the mounds of southern Siberia, also represents the Scythian "animal style".

Consider a belt plate measuring 12.5 by 8 cm, made in the Scythian "animal style". This golden miniature amazes with the grandeur of the dynamics of the composition, in which a winged tiger with a curly mane or with antelope horns torments a horse bowed before him. In the horse's eye is clearly visible mortal torment and the terrible emptiness of death, and in the eye of the tiger there is a fierce rage, expressing the unrestrained and merciless will of the evil element, devouring and destroying life. Soldered in the struggle, these figures - the predator and the victim, represent a single, inseparable whole.

How striking is the intensity of the struggle! The predator firmly seized its prey with its fangs and claws, and no one will ever manage to tear off the bloodthirsty tiger from the neck of the unfortunate horse. The artist performed a magical action depicting nature as a single whole in the circle of life, subject to rhythm and a certain order.

A circle in Scythian art is a symbol of the sun and life, therefore all images of animals and compositions are, as it were, enclosed in a circle.

Herodotus reports that the self-name of the Scythians is SKOLOT (skolot, or skolt), possibly from here a derivative word KELT (Lat. Celtae, Breton Kelted, Wall.y Celtiaid, Irish na Ceiltigh, Shotl. (Gal.) Ceilteach, Mensk ny Celtiee, root Kelt). Caesar and Pausanias argued that Kelt was the self-name of the Celts. The Scythian animal style, apparently, was adopted by the Celts and was further developed in the styles of the Viking art. It is known that the settlement of the Scythian tribes went from east to west, that is, the Skolot tribes followed the sun.

The Scythian artist encloses the entire composition in a circle, as if triumphing over the unknown forces of nature, which are personified by an angry predator.

The strong and flexible body of the predator curled up in a ring is striking in its perfection. The golden panther from the mound found near Simferopol is forever locked in the circle of its graceful play.

Interestingly, all the traditions of the Scythian "animal style" have been preserved in Russian folk art, ancient traditions have been preserved and embodied in various forms and are repeated in ancient manufacturing techniques, for example, traditional honey cakes, which are called "casuly" in the Arkhangelsk region.