Everything about Sassanid Art totally explained
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.
Architecture
Painting, sculpture, pottery and textile
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.
Ceramic and metalwork
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 Fenollosa 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'd 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.
Literature and pottery
Of Sassanian Literature and pottery, little remains except very few pieces. This was due to the sacking of the
Science and medical academy of Gundishapur and pillaging of Sassanid palaces by invading Muslim Arabs during the
Islamic conquest of Persia where many ancient Persian books were stored.
Sassanid influence
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 influence 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's 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.
Image:Sassanid king Louvre MAO122.jpg
Image:Coupe de Chosroès.JPG|A bowl with Khosrau I's image in the center
Image:Head horse Kerman Louvre MAO132.jpg|Head horse, 4th century AD, found in Kerman.
Image:Vase dancers Reshy Louvre MAO426.jpg|Vase with four dancers. Gilded silver, 4th or 5th century AD.
Image:Pendentif sassanide muse iran bastan teheran.jpg
Image:Indo-SassanianCoin.jpg|A gold Indo-Sassanian coin.
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