A Very Psellus Topic: Early Modern Understanding of Classical World?

Started by Queequeg, November 16, 2009, 08:04:44 PM

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Queequeg

November 16, 2009, 08:04:44 PM
Just saw an interesting painting depicting a meeting between Darius the Great and the Scythians, by a Polish painter in the late 18th Century.
Link.
Now, if you are on this board, you can immdeately tell what is wrong with this.  But I find far more interesting what is right, at least loosely.

Now, it would appear that the primary inspiration for these outfits is a combination of then near-contemporary Ottoman styles and some vague knowledge of styles from Biblical times.

But somehow, there is a lot here that is, loosely speaking, spot on. 

The carpet pattern could pretty easily be Scythian, and looks definitely non-Islamic.  The armor is surprisingly accurate on the Scythians, though I think Trajan's Column has Sarmatian Cataphracts depicted in similar scale armor.  Weirdly enough, the helmets look a lot like Parthian and Sassanian designs, that later on where copied by the Romans and resulted in even the far-off Sutton Ho helmet.  The headresses, apart from the flat-out turbans, are not totally off base, weirdly enough.  The guy in the back with the really tall one looks like either a Dervish or an actual contemporary Zoroastrian, and the Persians loved their big hats. 

Now how would an 18th Century Polish painter know anything about Scythian carpets?  I guess he might have seen Trajan's Column in person, but how did he get the helmets right? 
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

Barrister

#1
November 16, 2009, 08:10:42 PM
I like pie...
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Barrister

#3
November 16, 2009, 08:18:21 PM
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Eddie Teach

#4
November 16, 2009, 08:27:30 PM
I like cake.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

PDH

#5
November 16, 2009, 08:45:01 PM
How early is this Early Modern?  I mean, I rarely get up before 7...
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

FunkMonk

#6
November 16, 2009, 09:24:55 PM
spellus why do you set yourself up so?  :lol:
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

Neil

#7
November 16, 2009, 09:28:15 PM
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Faeelin

#8
November 16, 2009, 10:37:56 PM
Is it that accurate? I didn't realize 5th century Scythians wore lamellar armor.  And the rug certainly looks like modern Persian designs: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/chicago/2008-04-01-Bakhtiari71x100rug.jpg

garbon

#9
November 16, 2009, 10:41:23 PM
How much gay is too gay?
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Razgovory

#11
November 16, 2009, 10:48:05 PM
Books had reached Poland by the 18th century.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Queequeg

#12
November 16, 2009, 11:41:50 PM
Quote from: FunkMonk on November 16, 2009, 09:24:55 PM
spellus why do you set yourself up so?  :lol:
If I have played my part well, clap your hands, and dismiss me with applause from the stage.
Quote
Is it that accurate? I didn't realize 5th century Scythians wore lamellar armor.  And the rug certainly looks like modern Persian designs:
I think they were by the next century.  The Persians wore something similar, but often under their clothes. 

You might be right about the carpet, but that is partially because I think the Persian style and the Scythian might have the same root, although the Scythians had no objections to animal forms.  What struck me in particular was the wave-like pattern on it, but that might be coincidental.  Probably is. 

Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

saskganesh

#13
November 17, 2009, 08:42:14 AM
I do not think you have built the case for any of your assertions, except for maybe with the helmets. But are those kind of helmets just a standard classical-type motif for some painters?
humans were created in their own image
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