Sassanid art

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Sassanid art is the term commonly used to describe the various artistic products of the Sassanid Empire of Persia from about the 3rd century until its fall of Ctesiphon in 640.

1 Architecture
2 Painting, sculpture, pottery and textile
3 Ceramic and metalwork
4 Literature and pottery
5 Sassanid influence
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Architecture

Main article: Sassanid architecture

Extant Sasanian architecture is entirely secular; the fire temples have disappeared, and only royal palaces remain; and these are "gigantic skeletons," with their ornamental stucco facing long since fallen away. The oldest of these ruins is the so-called palace of Ardashir I at Firuzabad, southeast of Shiraz. No one knows its date; guesses range from 340 B.C. to A.D. 460. After fifteen centuries of heat and cold, theft and war, the enormous dome still covers a hall one hundred feet high and fifty-five wide. A portal arch eighty-nine feet high and forty-two wide divided a facade 170 feet long; this facade crumbled in our time. From the rectangular central hall squinch arches led up to a circular dome. By an unusual and interesting arrangement, the pressure of the dome was borne by a double hollow wall, whose inner and outer frames were spanned by a barrel vault; and to this reinforcement of inner by outer wall were added external buttresses of attached pilasters of heavy stones. Here was an architecture quite different from the classic columnar style of Persepolis- crude and clumsy, but using forms that would come to perfection in the St. Sophia of Justinian.

[edit] Painting, sculpture, pottery and textile

Image:Textile0001.jpg

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Apparently Sassanid carvings at Taq-e Bostan and Naqsh-e Rustam were colored; so were many features of the palaces; but only traces of such painting remain. The literature, however, makes it clear that the art of painting flourished in Sasanian times; the prophet Mani is reported to have founded a school of painting; Firdowsi speaks of Persian magnates adorning their mansions with pictures of Iranian heroes; and the poet al-Buhturi describes the murals in the palace at Ctesiphon. When a Sasanian king died, the best painter of the time was called upon to make a portrait of him for a collection kept in the royal treasury. Painting, sculpture, pottery, and other forms of decoration shared their designs with Sasanian textile art. Silks, embroideries, brocades, damasks, tapestries, chair covers, canopies, tents, and rugs were woven with servile patience and masterly skill, and were dyed in warm tints of yellow, blue, and green. Every Persian but the peasant and the priest aspired to dress above his class; presents often took the form of sumptuous garments; and great colorful carpets had been an appanage of wealth in the East since Assyrian days. The two dozen Sasanian textiles that escaped the teeth of time are the most highly valued fabrics in existence. Even in their own day Sasanian textiles were admired and imitated from Egypt to far east; and during the Crusades these pagan products were favored for clothing the relics of Christian saints. When [Heraclius] captured the palace of Khosru Parvez at Dastagird, delicate embroideries and an immense rug were among his most precious spoils. Famous was the "winter carpet" of Khosru Anushirvan, designed to make him forget winter in its spring and summer scenes: flowers and fruits made of inwoven rubies and diamonds grew, in this carpet, beside walks of silver and brooks of pearls traced on a ground of gold. Harun al-Rashid prided himself on a spacious Sasanian rug thickly studded with jewelry. Persians wrote love poems about their rugs.

[edit] Ceramic and metalwork

Dish Shapur II Hunting Lions 4th century,(State Hermitage Museum ,St. Petersburg, Russia.)

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Ceramic art was highly developed in Achaemenid times, and must have had some continuance under the Sasanians to reach such perfection in Islamic Iran. Ernest Fenellosa thought that Persia might be the center from which the art of enamel spread even to the Far East; and art historians debate whether Sasanian Persia or Syria or Byzantium originated lusterware and cloisonne. Sasanian metalworkers made ewers, jugs, bowls, and cups as if for a giant race; turned them on lathes; incised them with graver or chisel, or hammered out a design in repousse from the obverse side; and used gay animal forms, ranging from cock to lion, as handles and spouts. The famous glass "Cup of Khosru" in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris has medallions of crystal glass inserted into a network of beaten gold; tradition reckons this among the gifts sent by Harun to Charlemagne. The Goths may have learned this art of inlay from Persia, and may have brought it to the West. The silversmiths made costly plate, and helped the goldsmiths to adorn lords, ladies, and commoners with jewelry. Several Sasanian silver dishes survive- in the British Museum, the Leningrad Hermitage, the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; always with kings or nobles at the hunt, and animals more fondly and successfully drawn than men. Sasanian coins sometimes rivaled Rome's in beauty, as in the issues of Shapur I. Even Sasanian books could be works of art; tradition tells how gold and silver trickled from the bindings when Mani's books were publicly burned. Precious materials were also used in Sasanian furniture: Khosru I had a gold table inlaid with costly stones; and Khosru II sent to his savior, the Emperor Maurice, an amber table five feet in diameter, supported on golden feet and encrusted with gems.

[edit] Literature and pottery

Main article: Pahlavi literature

Of Sasanian Literature and pottery little remains except very few pieces mainly due to burn down of Science and medical academy of Gundishapur and pillage of Sassanid palaces by invading Muslim Arabs during the Islamic conquest of Persia where many of ancient Persian books were stored.

[edit] Sassanid influence

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Sassanian art revived forms and traditions native to Persia; and in the Islamic period these reached the shores of the Mediterranean. The influence of sassanid architecture reached far beyond their borders, it had a distinctive influnce on Byzantine architecture and Islamic architecture. Islamic architecture in fact borrowed heavily from Persian architecture. Baghdad, for example, was based on Persian precedents such as Firouzabad in Persia. In fact, it is now known that the two designers who were hired by al-Mansur to plan the city's design were Naubakht, a former Persian Zoroastrian, and Mashallah, a former Jew from Khorasan, Iran.

	A bowl with Khosrau I's image in the center	Head horse, 4th century AD, found in Kerman.	Vase with four dancers. Gilded silver, 4th or 5th century AD.
	A gold Indo-Sassanian coin.