AT     A      GLANCE

The Beginnings of Art(Part 1.)

The earliest objects found in Iran which manifest the desire to express an idea by forms that are effective and perhaps even pleasing are clay figurines found in the excavation of a Neolithic village at Tepe Sarab near Kermanshab. Two of these, which were most carefully executed, are here reproduced. One is a female figure called here the 'Venus' of Tepe Sarab; the other is a little boar.

The female figurine is represented seated with its legs stretched out. Buttocks, thighs and legs are summarized in club-like forms which taper toward the end. Each 'leg' has an oblique grove on the side, perhaps meant to indicate the division between leg and thigh. The ends of the club -like forms are broken off, but it is unlikely that the feet were separately shaped. At most there may have been a line separating the end from the rest of the form and indicating the ankle joint. The upper part of the body, in which the arms are not indicated, is shaped like a broad cone from which the tall neck rises as a steeper and much narrower cone, ending in a short, slightly lengthened horizontal ridge with a rounded edge. The pear-shaped breasts project from the cone of the body approximately at the inception of the neck. One may note that the figurine is put together from several single parts and that the shape of the legs is not unlike that of the breasts, which gives a certain visual unity to the sculpture.

The abstraction of the rendering suggests at once that there was not intention here of showing a specific individual; instead, the stress was placed on the general female characteristics, the breasts and thighs, which are obviously meant to express ideas of fertility. Numerous fragments of figurines of this type and also much plainer ones were found at Tepe Sarab. Other such female figurines with more or less schematized forms were found in the remains of the Early Village Cultures of the Near East [about 6000-4000 B.C.] From Tepe Sarab in Iran to �atal H�y�k and Hacilar in Turkey. [1] They must have had a specific meaning which we can understand and render only in the most general terms: there undoubtedly existed a belief in sympathetic magic according to which fertility and wealth could be increased by effective renderings in sculpture and painting of the objects associated with them. Thus art was an instrument capable of exerting influence upon nature, man and perhaps even god--though for this early period we cannot assume the existence of concepts of anthropomorphic deities similar to those later known in the cultures of the ancient Near East.

The second figurine from Tepe Sarab represents a boar which is rendered very naturalistically, in contrast to the abstract form of the Venus. The legs are rendered in the simplest way, by pressing together and bending the clay into more or less angular shapes. Yet they create the impression of an animal in rapid movement. The irregular crossing lines on the body may represent bristles, but more likely, and more in keeping with renderings elsewhere, they indicate the wounds received from the weapons of the huntsman. Whatever the significance of this detail, it seems likely that the figurine was made to assure in some way future success in the hunt of the boar. This magical, or should we rather say 'practical', meaning of art for the people who desired these objects, and for those who executed them, appears to have survived in Iran until the Sasanian period. At the same time the desire to decorate an object so as to enliven its appearance should not be disregarded. The bone handle of a flint knife found in a very early [p. 21] level of the excavations at Tepe Sialk near Kashan might be interpreted in this manner. The handle shows a man in what later was the Persian posture of greeting, bowing from the hips with arms crossed. The head may be covered by a round cap of a type still worn today, but the face is chipped off. He wears a kilt rolled up at the waist. The separation of the legs is indicated by a shallow groove in front, below which the feet are shown by a very slight projection. Below the feet was a deep grove for the flint blade, which is not preserved. Other handles made of bone from Tepe Sialk have plain animal heads. We do not know whether these handles were made for magical purposes or merely for the pleasure of decorating. In either case a convincing rendering of human and animal forms has been achieved here as at Tepe Sarab by the simplest means.

Pottery, which appeared in Iran early in the Neolithic Age, provided a cheap substitute for carefully ground stone vessels and less permanent wood and skin containers. It satisfied the need for a variety of such containers in shapes ranging from drinking-cups to cooking pots and storage jars. Many of the vessels excavated in prehistoric sites are therefore utilitarian in nature with thick walls and little or no decoration.
NEXT
BACK
HOME