The Symbol of the Beast: The Animal Art Style of Eurasiaby Dagny Carter

The Symbol of the Beast: The Animal Art Style of Eurasia by Dagny CarterReview by: Malcolm BurgessThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 36, No. 87 (Jun., 1958), pp. 558-562Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4204988 .

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558 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

holds. Chromium brought by barge down the Drin is shipped from Shen Gjini, oil and bitumen are shipped from Valona, and sugar, coal, lignite, castor oil, and chemical fertilisers are dispatched daily from the Kor?a area in the south-east, once a notoriously difficult and remote terrain with few communications and hindered in its development by a sprawling marsh. Meanwhile the Albanians have acquired such incidental benefits as a new hospital at Gjinokaster and a sanatorium at Tirana; theatres exist at the capital as well as at KorSa and Scutari; schools and libraries are making a determined and successful drive against illiteracy, which before the second world war stood at over go per cent; and the new lands from former marshes have all been either drained or canalised and will soon make malaria a thing of the past. The improvement in public health is reflected in the population curve, the steepest in Europe, which shows an increase of 50 per cent over the 1930 figure, viz. one million and a half as against one million.

Despite the material prosperity, which seems to be focused as elsewhere in the towns, there is much spiritual discontent. The railway was built by 'volunteer' labour under a hustling, impatient Russian engineer Yevgeny Vlasov; prison sentences for deviation and other 'crimes' are harsh; the Catholic north hates the Tosk regime, which originated in the south and is alien to both Scutari and Tirana; farmers determined to work outside the regime have been reduced to poverty; there is no contact with the outside world, and listening to Western broadcasts, reading of Western journals, and visits to Western countries are banned. Though Russian is a compulsory subject in schools, Albanians are allowed to read Shake- speare and Byron in Albanian translations made by Skender Luarasi, of the Institute of Sciences, but there is no evidence of an attempt to teach English or French in Albanian schools. Greek intrigue against Albania's frontiers merely serves to stiffen communist Albania's intransigence; its puppet government is powerless; and Albanian youth is being brought up in blinkered ignorance of the Western world. Many of Albania's best spirits live in exile, and one cannot foresee a time when it will be safe for them to return. Meanwhile Stavro Skendi, with his intimate knowledge of his own country, has done us a signal service in producing this book.

London S. E. MANN

The Symbol of the Beast: The Animal Art Style of Eurasia. By Dagny Carter. The Ronald Press Company, New York, I957. 204 pages. Index, plates, bibliography, and map.

MRS CARTER'S aim is to provide a general picture of a subject designed for scholars, art historians, and the ordinary public. The similarity between objects found in geographically widely separated localities has inspired her main thesis. Accordingly she has arranged her material in chrono- logical order.

The author became interested in the animal-art style when she set eyes



REVIEWS 559 on the 'Aladdin's Cave of Riches', the unique collection of Scythian art treasures displayed in the Hermitage Museum at Leningrad. She noticed that all ornaments were made up of animal designs, of which the essence was an almost Baroque dynamism with no pretence at realism, and which seemed to possess a strange contemporary feeling, an inspiration at home with the work of artists like Picasso, Larionov, or Chagall. After visiting Stockholm it was observed that the Far Eastern designs exhibited there on bronze objects were also similar to the Scythian. Later she discovered yet more such motifs in the Yenisey river area and in the Urals. Russia, she avers, is undoubtedly a most fertile field for new revelations in Euro- pean animal art and for future study.

It is the author's belief that the ornamentation had roots in super- natural beliefs and sympathetic magic. 'The artistic style', she suggests, 'was at first evolved in the use of animal bones.' Animal symbolism was continued in China as late as the Manchus, whose reign came to an end forty-five years ago. In Ancient Egypt, in Assyria, in the ritual of the totemistic religions, or among the Indians, this form of art was to thrive and develop into anthropomorphic forms such as representations of kings and queens with animal heads.

The art of Eurasia however was different. There were no written languages, so in the absence of recorded texts scholars may make only tentative guesses. It is hazardous, indeed, to reconstruct the cults and beliefs of past times entirely from artistic representations. But we may note incidentally an aversion for the beast among Semitic peoples. Eurasian animal-art style, concludes Mrs Carter, appears to have belonged to the illiterate, militant, and little-known group of mobile steppe- peoples, known under the generally accepted name of Scythian.

Scythian art was first discovered in I 763. Later, French scientists who had taken refuge in Russia from the Revolution conducted excavations under court patronage. In I859 an Imperial Archaeological Commission was appointed, and in I 88o Nikolay Veselovsky began systematic excavations. The Kuban' burials confirmed Herodotus's description of funerary customs. In I9II-I2 Veselovsky uncovered the great Solokha tumulus, which according to Rostovtzeff surpassed 'everything found hitherto on the Lower Dnieper or in Crimea'. All these finds are now in the Hermi- tage. The Scythians probably came from the east in the first millennium B.C. and traded with the Greek cities on the Black Sea which may have been vassals to them. Unfortunately their history is obscure, as they are mentioned only in Herodotus (Book IV) and Strabo.

There are elaborate animal portrayals on their equipment, and the aim seems to be to bring parts of animals into a stylistic composition. There is a fertile imagination, a gift for composition, a sense of proportion, and an artistic restraint which makes the work so acceptable-an almost pure line and form which is impressionistic. There is too a curious tendency to elongate the bodies, perhaps because objects are modelled after carved wooden prototypes (corroborated by the Pazyryk discoveries), proving that Siberian artists were expert wood-carvers. The art, indeed, originated with a hunting people, and the style developed on bone, which would




explain the elongation of the animal bodies. Parallels exist at Ur of the Chaldees, on the seal engravings of the Near and Middle East, and at Mycenae during the i6th century B.C.

It is noteworthy that the civilised world preferred plant motifs such as the anthemion and lotus ornament. Later style in Scythian work shows the influence of Greek culture, i.e. the plant ornamentation and animal decoration become more sophisticated and less 'savage'. In the 3rd and 4th centuries B.C. there was an attempt at the centralisation of the Scythian state, and, as the tombs show, this was the period of their great- est prosperity. The Scythians declined owing to softening Grecian influences. After being pushed westwards by incoming hordes from the east, they were finally conquered by the Sarmatians, an Iranian people, in the 2nd century B.C. They then fled in various directions, and by the I st century A.D. no more is heard of them.

Objects bearing an affinity with Scythian art have also been excavated in the Ananino area, along a tributary of the Kama River (600-200 B.C.),

although there is less variety in their composition and evidence of a shamanistic cult. Discoveries at Perm' yielded a less concise form of art. The introduction of anthropomorphic figures in all these designs coincides with the deterioration of the animal-art style which continued until the first millennium A.D., when it was replaced by the anthropomorphic symbolism of Christianity and Buddhism.

Other finds at Minussinsk, collected by a Russian metal-worker named Tovostine, belong to three periods, viz. Afanas'yevo (the third millennium B.C.), Adranovo (I700), and Karasuk. Here masks were used to cover the dead faces in the graves.

Most interesting are the discoveries in the Altay area, where burials have yielded up refrigerated garments and textiles in almost perfect con- dition. One was a gorgeous garment covered with ermine facings and dyed green, yellow, and brown, with fancy bits of fur arranged in a fish- scale pattern edged with gold leaf. The leather foundation was adorned with a profusion of small wooden squares covered with gold foil-roughly 8,ooo of them. Most of the garments were spangled with sequins in the finest fashion. The accounts of such a wardrobe will be invaluable to all those who are fascinated by the history of costume and the study of textiles.

Even more breath-taking were the finds made by Gryaznov and Rudenko in I929 in the Princes' Tombs at Pazyryk. Here the buried objects, including horses, were completely encased in ice, as in an old- fashioned ice-cellar. The excavations proved that these mobile tribes were used to a surprising degree of opulence and luxury. Classical writers were thus proved correct in their descriptions of tattooed bodies, funeral rites, and clothing. Many tombs were found and opened, containing ice-covered treasures preserved intact throughout twenty-five centuries, such as 'em- balmed corpses, clothing, textiles, saddles, and bridles and objects of leather and wood all perfectly preserved'. Carpets of the 5th century, possibly manufactured at Sardis, had also survived. There were Persian royal fabrics of 450 B.C., captured or received as gifts by the Scythian



REVIEWS 56I

nomads. Griffins, stags-with antlers having birds' heads carved on the tips-and even the fish symbol of divinity were among motifs decorating these treasures.

After taking account of the mass of recent Russian material, further animal-art style finds in the Ordos area, the Noin-Ula discoveries, the Luristan ornaments and the Zawiyeh treasure are described in detail and prove the unmistakable artistic relationship between all the groups in- vestigated, from South Russia north to the Ural mountains and across Siberia to the Chinese frontiers.

Mrs Carter also advances the theory that the metal-trade in ancient times may have been influential in spreading the animal-art style of Assyria, Sumeria, Egypt, and the Caucasus by means of artists' guilds or wandering craftsmen.

Turning her attention next to Western Europe, the author discusses the migration animal-art style and ornaments made of bronze which lay more stress on costume accessories. The animal-art style of Norway, invaded by continental warriors in the first millennium B.C., was appar- ently more plastic than in Eurasia.

In Chapter I 3 Mrs Carter provides a detailed and illuminating account of the Vandal and Viking art-styles, which should be of value to art- historians working in the field of early English and Scandinavian design. After the 6th century A.D. interlaced and linear designs were adopted, sometimes terminating in animals' heads or claws. The period of the 'Lindisfarne Gospels', the 'Book of Kells', and the 'Book of Dunmow' reveals animal designs with 'a less intensive barbaric taste' and displays a coherence of style and unity of treatment, with luxuriant modelling in relief, as the ideal element of early Viking decoration. The style was not eclectic, but established on its own ancient art-conventions. When however Christianity succeeded, the pagan animal style was banished from Scandinavia by the Church, which furnishes proof of its symbolic sig- nificance. 'When anthropomorphism, plant ornamentations, and geo- metric designs', declares the author, 'appear in Eurasia's animal-art style they have unfailingly indicated that new influences had come to bear on the peoples associated with the art'. The Scandinavian animal- art styles gradually gave way to exuberant foliate ornament in the face of Church influence. The uniformity, indeed, of the Gothic style was due to wandering bands of lay workmen, but the Church rang the death-knell to any possible foreign origins of Scandinavian and English art.

The author sums up by stating that 'animal symbolism, predominant in European art north of the Alps for at least six hundred years, passed out in a cloud of glory in the unsurpassed Urnes style after the first millennium A.D. had come to an end'. It was replaced by the Winchester school, a style more compatible with the English temperament; for the animal style in 'late Saxon and Viking art', according to T. D. Kendrick, had never been congenial to English taste. Mrs Carter prefers to believe that the disappearance of the animal-art style was due rather to religious influence than to a revolt against the 'barbaric' style; for, indeed, Eurasian animal-art style had been inspired by a primitive cult of magic now alien




to christianising influences. Mrs Carter claims that her thesis is supported by the fact that its disappearance coincides with the arrival of new anthropomorphic religions.

It could be suggested however that Mrs Carter might revise her opinion if she were to look at such a compilation as A. N. Svirin's Drevneruss- kaya miniatyura (Moscow, I950), where she would discover many later examples of the animal-art style in Russian MSS., particularly Gospel MSS. of the I5th century, such as the Khitrovo Gospels, where the illuminated capitals provide an abundant display of animal motifs. Ser- pents, dragons, birds, and other beasts twist themselves round the shape of the letters in a highly decorative and attractive fashion. Her attention might also be drawn to the I4th-century Psaltyr' Groznogo for similar mani- festations with strap-work and with rectilinear and interlacing patterns. Earlier examples may also be found in the u2th and I3th centuries.

Christianity owed a debt to Graeco-Roman ideals, as did Buddhism, in art and imagery. Hellenistic art influenced, through Buddhism and Christianity, both East and West. When the Mongol hordes advanced into Eastern Europe in the 13th century, the symbolism of the beast had faded from the face of Eurasia. And the beast was not to return until the style a' l'antique, epitomised in First Empire and Regency fashions, re- introduced the sphinxes, rams' heads, gryphons, lions, and dragons, which, with other monsters, were used to adorn the furniture of sophisticated society of the early I gth century.

Mrs Carter's work may be regarded as an important supplementary volume to Lubor Niederle's Manuel de l'antiquite slave (Paris, I923-6), and will be an invaluable asset to all those interested in the life, culture, and artistic contributions of the early peoples of Asia and Europe.

The book is presented in an elegant manner on paper of quality, the type is clear and readable, while the many illustrations have been repro- duced with artistry and care.

London MALCOLM BURGESS

Hitler's Occupation of Ukraine (I94I-I944). A Study of Totalitarian Imperial- ism. By Ihor Kamenetsky. The Marquette University Press, Mil- waukee, Wisconsin, 1956. I I 2 pages. Bibliography and index.

IHOR KAMENETSKY, a young Ukrainian American scholar, relates in a concise manner the story of German rule in the Ukraine during the second world war. He introduces the reader to his subject with a survey of the ideological and political background of the German Drang nach Osten during the Hitler era. He also analyses and evaluates the essence and the most characteristic features of what he terms 'totalitarian imperialism' in its Nazi German variation, as it worked itself out in a concrete situation in the Ukraine. Tracing the origins of Nazi ideology and the expansionist plans of Hitler to the elements of those already existing in German political thinking, Kamenetsky stresses the prominent position which the Ukraine occupied in Hitler's imperialist dreams. On the one hand, Hitler's racial



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The Symbol of the Beast: The Animal Art Style of Eurasiaby Dagny Carter