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The “continuous style” in the narrative scheme of Assurbanipal's reliefs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
Extract
As we walk through the Assyrian galleries in the British Museum, we may observe curious depictions amongst Assurbanipal's reliefs. A scene from the king's lion hunt, for example, shows a lion emerging from a cage, a lion being shot by an arrow in the back and dashing forward in anger, and a lion leaping at the king (Fig. 1). Our eyes follow these images naturally, from right to left, as a series of movements that conclude on the left of the scene. It was E. Unger who first observed this characteristic feature and named it kinematographische Erzählungsform. J. Reade also noted it in his study of narrative composition in Assyrian sculpture, where the style is called the “strip-cartoon effect”. It appeared sporadically throughout the Neo-Assyrian period but became prominent under Assurbanipal. The identification of these animals as the same lion is established by a text on the far left, beyond this scene. This part of the relief only survives in the form of a drawing. It shows the king grasping the lion by the throat and thrusting a sword into the animal's stomach. The epigraph states that a lion was released from a cage in order to be shot with arrows by the king. The lion did not die, however, so he stabbed it with an iron dagger in order to kill it.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- IRAQ , Volume 66: Nineveh. Papers of the XLIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Part One , 2004 , pp. 103 - 114
- Copyright
- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2004
Footnotes
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Osaka Gakuin Junior College. I should like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor T. Kato of Kwansei Gakuin University for his valuable advice on the matter of aesthetics, Dr D. Collon of the British Museum, Professor M. Roaf of the Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Munich, Professor I. Winter of Harvard University, and Dr S. Yamada of Tsukuba University for their helpful comments and advice on Assyriological issues, and to Ms R. Graham in Cambridge and Professor P. Stubbs of Osaka Gakuin Junior College for their kind support in revising my English. The research has been supported by the academic research fund of Osaka Gakuin University.
References
1 There are two similar scenes dealing with the king's lion hunt: one from Room S and the other from Room S1 in the North Palace at Nineveh. See Barnett, R. D., Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 BC), London 1976 Google Scholar, Pls. L–LI: slabs 11–13, upper register (Room S) and Pl. LIX: slabs D–E, upper register (Room S1).
2 Unger, E., Kinematographische Erzählungsform in der altorientalischen Relief- und Rundplastik, in Aus fünf Jahrtausenden morgenländischer Kultur: Festschrift Max Freiherrn von Oppenheim zum 70. Geburtstage, Berlin 1933, pp. 127–33Google Scholar.
3 Reade, J., Narrative composition in Assyrian sculpture, Baghdader Mitteilungen 10 (1979), pp. 52–110 Google Scholar.
4 The relief was found in Room S1 in the North Palace at Nineveh — the room which was supposed to have formed the upper storey of the Bīt-hilāni.
5 “I, Assurbanipal, king of the universe, king of the land of Assur, in my [royal] game, they let a fierce lion of the plain out of his cage, and I [pierced him x] times with arrows on foot. (But) he did not die (lit. end his life). At the command of Nergal, king of the plain, who has granted me strength and manhood, I then stabbed him with the iron dagger from my belt, and he died (lit. laid down life).” Barnett, op. cit. in n. 1, p. 53: an inscription engraved on the relief shown on Pl. LVI, slab B (sic), Or. Dr. V 4; Streck Asb. 308 d 1.
6 Barnett, op. cit. in n. 1, Pl. XLIX: slab 15, lower register (Room S).
7 Andrews, L., Story and space in Renaissance art: The rebirth of continuous narrative, Cambridge 1995, p. 3 Google Scholar.
8 The term “style” is adopted in order to signify the method of representing narratives in visual art (die Erzählungsweise der bildenden Künste). See Clausberg, K., Die Wiener Genesis: Eine kunstwissenschaftliche Bilderbuchgeschichte, Frankfurt-am-Main 1984, p. 30 Google Scholar.
9 Lessing discussed the proper spheres of painting and literature in his essay on the Hellenistic sculpture Laocoon, in which painting is regarded as dealing with the sphere of space, and poetry with that of time; the violation of the territory of the one by the other was greatly disapproved. See Lessing, G. E., Laokoon, oder, über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie, mit beiläufigen Erläuterungen verschiedener Punkte der alien Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1766 Google Scholar. For a recent English translation, see: Lessing, G. E., Laocoön: an essay on the limits of painting and poetry, translated, with an introduction and notes, by McCormick, E. A., Baltimore 1984 Google Scholar.
10 The complete facsimile of the Vienna Genesis was edited for the first time by Wickhoff and Hartel in 1895 ( von Hartel, W. and Wickhoff, F., Die Wiener Genesis. Beilage zum Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Band 15/16, Wien 1895 Google Scholar). Wickhoff provided the commentary on the illustrations and assessed their artistic value. The narrative illustration of the Vienna Genesis had never been regarded as important by nineteenth-century art historians, who had looked down on them as retaining traces of “corrupt Classical antiquity” ( Kugler, F., Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte, Stuttgart 1842, p. 388 Google Scholar). Although Wickhoff's opinion about the date of the work was later proved to be wrong, his pioneering interpretation of narrative art was very important. Wickhoff's commentary on the Vienna Genesis was republished in 1912 under the more general title Römische Kunst (Die Wiener Genesis), Die Schriften Franz Wickhoffs, hrsg. von Max Dvoràk, 3. Band, Berlin 1912. See K. Clausberg, op. cit in n. 8, pp. 22–8 for the history of studies on the Vienna Genesis.
11 Wickhoff, Römische Kunst, op. cit. in n. 10, p. 30.
12 Weitzmann, K., Illustrations in roll and codex: A study of the origin and method of text illustration, 2nd printing, Princeton 1947, pp. 12–36 Google Scholar. In his criticism of Wickhoff's definition, Weitzmann misinterpreted some of the crucial terms: “complementary” for the German term “completirend (sic)” and “isolating” for “distinguirend (sic)”. The reason for such unlikely mistakes seems to derive from the English edition of Wickhoff's work translated by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, and her mistranslation has since been quoted uncritically in major studies in English by scholars such as K. Weitzmann and L. Andrews. See Wickhoff, F., Roman Art: Some of its principles and their application to Early Christian painting, translated and edited by MrsStrong, S. A., London and New York 1900, pp. 11–13 Google Scholar.
13 Clausberg, op. cit in n. 8, pp. 68–70.
14 The relief is represented on a cultic pedestal excavated at Assur. Jakob-Rost, L. et al., Das Vorderasiatische Museum, Mainz-am-Rhein 1992, p. 161, Fig. 103Google Scholar.
15 In reality, however, the king would probably need to stand up again to step back from the altar and, if that was what was really intended, the kneeling king should then return to his original standing position, unless another figure of the king was represented to the far right in order to “exit” from the scene. The inscription on the pedestal provides no clue about the sequence but simply describes the object, on which both the relief and texts are engraved, as a “cultic chair”(nēmedu) of the god Nusku, who daily repeats the prayers of Tukultu-Ninurta in the presence of the gods Assur and Enlil at Ekur. If the “unceasing prayer and worship” offered by the king were intended to be the theme of this scene, we may assume that homage is repeatedly paid as he kneels down, stands up, and kneels down again within the restricted space, as the viewer's eyes move from left to right, from right to left, and again from left to right between the two figures.
16 Welliver, W., Narrative method and narrative form in Masaccio's Tribute Money, Art Quarterly (New Series) 1 (1977), pp. 40–58 Google Scholar.
17 See Barnett, R. D., Bleibtreu, E. and Turner, G., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, London 1998, Pls. 100–17Google Scholar; Cf. J. M. Russell, Bulls for the palace and order in the empire: the sculptural program of Sennacherib's Court VI at Nineveh, The Art Bulletin 69 (1987), pp. 520–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 The relief (BM 124531) was originally placed on the wall behind the throne in the Throne Room (Room B) of the Northwest Palace in Nimrud. See Meuszynski, J., Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalhu (Nimrūd), Baghdader Forschungen Bd. 2, Mainz-am-Rhein 1981, pp. 22–3: B-13 and B-23Google Scholar. For a study on Assurnasirpal II's reliefs from the Throne Room, see Winter, I. J., Royal rhetoric and the development of historical narrative in Neo-Assyrian reliefs, Studies in Visual Communication 1 (1981), pp. 2–38, in particular, pp. 10–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 The scene might represent some unknown ritual in which the king performed a rite around the tree that was set up as an object of worship. Such customs are likely to have existed already in the city state of Lagash during the Early Dynastic period, where a “copper date-palm” (gišimmar-urudu) that received offerings is attested. See Selz, G., Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš, Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 13, Philadelphia 1995, p. 139 Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Professor Selz for drawing my attention to this important reference.
20 The battle of Til-Tuba was represented on the stone panels that originally decorated the walls of Room 33 of the Southwest palace at Nineveh. The reliefs are believed to have been executed at the time when the Elamite king, Teumman, was captured and killed by the Assyrians in 653 BC. This episode forms the major theme of the relief. Barnett et al, op. cit. in n. 17, Pls. 286–99.
21 Russell, op. cit. in n. 17, pp. 523–5; idem, Sennacherib's palace without rival at Nineveh, Chicago 1991, p. 193; idem, Sennacherib's Lachish narratives, Narrative and event in ancient art, P. J. Holliday (ed.), Cambridge 1993, pp. 57–61. The Assyrians had two distinct ways of rendering depth: either by means of the vertical arrangement mentioned above, which enabled the artist to indicate the recession of space at any depth; or by means of overlapping figures that stand on the same ground line, which was used to represent fairly shallow spatial recessions between the figures.
22 It has been suggested by Kaelin that the composition applied to the relief shows an Egyptian influence. See Kaelin, O., Ein assyrisches Bildexperiment nach ägyptischem Vorbild: Zur Planung und Ausführung der “Schlacht am Ulai”, Darmstadt 1999 Google Scholar.
23 A part of a chariot, probably the two lateral pieces of the chariot frame underneath the running board. Cf. CAD, Vol. 2, under bubūtu B.
24 Weidner, E. F., Assyrische Beschreibungen der Kriegs-Reliefs Aššurbânaplis, Archiv für Orientforschung 8 (1932–1933), pp. 178–9Google Scholar: No. 7; Gerardi, P., Epigraphs and Assyrian palace reliefs: the development of the epigraphic text, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 40 (1988), pp. 11 and 18–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Weidner, op. cit. in n. 24, pp. 178–9: No. 7a; Gerardi, op. cit. in n. 24, p. 30: slab 3 (a three-line inscription).
26 Weidner, op. cit. in n. 24, pp. 180–1: No. 9; Gerardi, op. cit. in n. 24, p. 31: slab 3 (a six-line inscription).
27 The sequence of episodes to this point was already identified in previous studies, but the fact that the story continues immediately into the middle register has not been recognised. Cf. Reade, op. cit. in n. 3, pp. 96–101,107; Kaelin, op. cit. in n. 22, pp. 14–25 (Register II: Szenen 24, 30).
28 The Elamite chariot is a very basic structure consisting of a platform mounted on wheels.
29 Gerardi, op. cit. in n. 24, p. 29: slab 1.
30 See Barnett, op. cit. in n. 1, Pl. LXV.