Monumental Artworks, East exhibit narrative significance, Mythological narratives, Ancient Near East, mythology, traditional tales
Mythological narratives of the Ancient Near East have survived to modern day through inscriptions in clay, which was the work of artists of the ancient times. A review of the related literature, however, reveals that mythology was not a widespread language. Recording of mythological narratives, similarly, never held any important place in the culture as perceived today. Seemingly, the narratives were restricted mainly to scribal circles. They, further, were perhaps divergent from oral mythology and traditional tales and could have been adapted from oral mythology since they exhibited various common features.
[...] The description showed correspondence of the art with Wickhoff's “isolating” method of representation (Sonik 8). The definition, however, implied that the visual representation of narratives and understanding of the same are important. A given narrative or story could be expressed visually through a depiction of culminating moments or several important moments. A large narrative arc, however, could hardly be constructed and read within pictorial composition alone. The viewer, therefore, required a thorough prior knowledge of the historical, social, cultural, and narrative referents for full comprehension of artworks that carried narrative or mythological information (Sonik 9). [...]
[...] The impression is that artworks that bore monumental art in the Near East were an important mechanism for telling narratives. They stored historical information for generations of that time and would serve as a media to pass the narratives to later generations. Instances of mythological narratives depicting monolithic religious texts were rare in Near East relative to the West and the Far East. That factual observation seems to frustrate the interpretation of imagery because it poses a new challenge on what could have caused the disparity at a time when monolithic religious images were common in other societies (Summers 115). [...]
[...] Summers, David. Real Spaces: The World of Art. London: Phaidon Winter, Irene. On Art in the Ancient Near East: From the Third Millennium B.c.e. Philadelphia: Brill Publishers, 2010. [...]
[...] Notably, the pieces express crucial historical information of the cultural, religious, and social characteristics of the societies that lived during the era. Cited artworks such as the contest scene support the contention that the definition and functioning of the ancient Near East Art were an expression of the relationship between oral and pictorial narratives. Works Cited Pinnock, Frances. "The Urban Landscape of Old Syrian Ebla." JCS (2001): 13-33. Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. New York: John Wiley & Sons Print Sonik, Karen. "Academia.edu." 2014. PictorialMythologyandNarrativeinthe AncientNearEast. Web . [...]
[...] Inhabitants of the Near East universalized their varied mythologies through two main pictorial strategies. The first was the replication and circulation of different pictorial stereotypes through the imitation of venerable images, through sketching and pattern books, and through mass production of monumental artworks. The second pictorial strategy was the deliberate visual representation of complicated mythological scenes and episodes in iconic forms (Summers 122). The two pictorial strategies used yielded a conventional composition that could circulate independently from any immutable signification. [...]
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