Iranians and Greeks in South Russia - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE ANIMAL STYLE 195
is decorated with a circle of lions or other felines : a common modification
is to make the animal bite its own tail (fig. 21, c). Sometimes
two animals biting each other's tail are grouped together (fig. 21, b).
The artist is quite ready to cut the animal into pieces and to use the
head, or even the flanks, foreleg, or hindleg as a separate motive.
The favourite heads are heads of birds of prey (figs. 21 , E and 22, b), lions
(fig. 22, f), elks (fig. 22, A, c), reindeer (fig. 22, h), wild goats (fig. 21 , d),
boars, wolves (fig. 22, d). The heads or foreparts are frequently
grouped in pairs or in triangles, or even form a complete wheel,
oddly reminiscent of the solar wheel (fig. 21, d, e). Heads of birds or
griffins lend themselves particularly well to fantastic combinations.
Remember the standard from the Kuban, in which the bird's eye
plays an important part : we find the same procedure in fourth- and
third-century plaques from the region of the Dnieper (fig. 21, e).
The lion's head is also in regular use. It goes without saying that the
bird's heads, griffin's heads, and lion's heads are reduced to their
essential elements and geometrically stylized. All that remains of
the bird's head is a beak and huge eye ; of the lion's head, the ears,
the eyes, and a vestige of the muzzle.
The horror vacui, it has been said, is strongly pronounced in
Scythian art. Not more, I should say, than in decorative art elsewhere.
What makes our objects look so strange, is that the voids
are filled almost exclusively with animals or parts of animals. The
artist likes to give the object the shape of an animal : but he
does not hesitate to cover this animal with other animals or parts of
animals.
Still more peculiar is the tendency to shape the extremities of
animals as animals or parts of animals. Look at the lion of Kelermes :
each paw has the form of a lion with reverted head ; the tail is composed
of a row of such lions (pi . IX , i ) . The heads used for this purpose
are generally bird's heads or griffin's heads. In works decorated in
the Scythian animal style, the paws, the tail, the ends of the horns,
the ears, seldom retain their natural form : they are usually transformed
into birds' heads (e. g. fig. 22, c and e). In figures of horned
beasts, stag, elk, reindeer, wild goat, the propensity has particularly
free play. Oxen, we may remark, hardly ever appear, sheep rarely.
The style looks as if it had been invented by a race of hunters.
I have already referred to the choice of animals. Side by side with
the favourite animals of Oriental art as a whole— ^the cat tribe, especially
the lion ; and fanciful creatures—we find others which are not
familiar to Greek or Oriental decorative art : reindeer, elk, wolf and
horse. The animals of the Ionian animal style appear chiefly on