History of mediæval art . ap-pears upon a relief of the rock-cut mon- *<^M&3* ument at Takht-i-Bostan, might beintroduced withoutchange into thepicture of an Occi-dental fantasticand knightly char-acteristics areblended, in thefirst period of Sas-sanian sculpture,with Roman in-fluences. This is especially evident in the allegorical figures ofvictories, and in the representation of the vanquished Romans. Afavorite subject of the early Sassanians is the capture of the RomanEmperor Valerian by Shahpur I., in the year 250, this appearing atShahpur, Darabgerd, and Nakhsh-i-Rusta
History of mediæval art . ap-pears upon a relief of the rock-cut mon- *<^M&3* ument at Takht-i-Bostan, might beintroduced withoutchange into thepicture of an Occi-dental fantasticand knightly char-acteristics areblended, in thefirst period of Sas-sanian sculpture,with Roman in-fluences. This is especially evident in the allegorical figures ofvictories, and in the representation of the vanquished Romans. Afavorite subject of the early Sassanians is the capture of the RomanEmperor Valerian by Shahpur I., in the year 250, this appearing atShahpur, Darabgerd, and Nakhsh-i-Rustam (Fig. 71). It is remark-able that in these representations the artists did not only portraythe Romans, known to them by the prisoners of war, with theirpeculiar facial types, characteristic gestures and costumes, but evenadopted for these figures a certain classic style, differing most de-cidedly from the traditional positions and draperies of the Sassa-nian king and his retinue. On the other hand, this imitation of. Fig. 70.—Sassanian Monument at Takht-i-Gero. 126 PERSIA UNDER THE Western models was in many ways quite as helpless and lackingin intelligence as had been the employment of Greek forms by theancient Persians. In other respects the style of Sassanian sculpture was basedupon that of the earlier inhabitants of their land, the Assyrians andPersians. This is apparent in the almost exclusive limitation of thesubjects to warlike and hunting scenes,—in the ceremonial parades,at times combined with mythical or allegorical figures,—and in thegreater ability displayed in dealing with historical conceptions than
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyorkharperbros
