Lilit Mikayelyan Acanthus and Palmette Motif in Early Medieval Armenian Sculpture and in the Art of Sasanian Iran

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa155-2-22
Title Acanthus and Palmette Motif in Early Medieval Armenian Sculpture and in the Art of Sasanian Iran
Author email mikalil@mail.ru
About author Mikayelyan, Lilit Shavarsh — Assistant Professor. Yerevan State University, Alex Manoogian Str., 1, 0025 Yerevan, Republic of Armenia
In the section Classical Legacy in the Art of Byzantine Oikoumene and Beyond DOI10.18688/aa155-2-22
Year 2015 Volume 5 Pages 220–229
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.04, 7.033.1, 7.032(355) Index BBK 85.13; 6 3. 3 (5Арм.)
Abstract

Studies in relations between early mediaeval Armenian and Byzantine art recently gained significant activity. However, the issues of cultural relations between Armenia and Sasanian Iran are still poorly covered, though these should be referred to as an important component for reconstruction of a complete cultural environment of the early-mediaeval time. Significant evidence for cultural influence is iconography as well as stylistic parallels in the monuments of the period. Joint analysis of acanthus and palmette, two ornamental motifs common for early-mediaeval Armenian, Sasanian, and Byzantine art, is undertaken in this paper for the first time in corresponding historiography. The said decorative elements are quite often encountered in ornamentals of Armenian churches and memorial monuments from 5th to 7th centuries. Numerous Sasanian patterns of acanthus and palmette dating from the 3rd–7th centuries, typical in gypsum décor and toreutics, are quite close to the ones known in Armenia. Comparative analysis proves that in the considered cultures with different ideological platform — Zoroastrianism and Christianity, ornament, unlike subject images, in the course of time showed commonality and deep antique roots. Quite frequently these ornaments look generalised and immensely similar, so that the exact definition of their type is rather complicated. Tracing the development of the acanthus and palmette motifs from classical origins via graphically looking early-Byzantine patterns to being entirely stylised in mediaeval Armenian sculpture, helps us single out a number of iconographic and stylistic features to rely upon in telling ornaments of rich variety from one another with greater confidence. 
Keywords
Reference Lilit Mikayelyan. Acanthus and Palmette Motif in Early Medieval Armenian Sculpture and in the Art of Sasanian Iran. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 5. Eds: Svetlana V. Maltseva, Ekaterina Yu. Stanyukovich-Denisova, Anna V. Zakharova. St. Petersburg, NP-Print Publ., 2015, pp. 220–229. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa155-2-22
Publication Article language russian
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