Illustration: Nineveh and Persian Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, (1856).
In his 1856 book entitled The Grammar of Ornament, Owen Jones produced a chapter on the ornamentation of the ancient Assyrians and Persians. The fact that he placed this particular design style at chapter three, sandwiched between that of Egyptian decoration and Greek, says much about where Jones saw these two particular cultures in the grand history of decoration.
Jones made the assumption that Assyrian art and design work was somewhere between a copy and a degeneration of the Egyptian original. The fact that it didn't occur to him that the two styles were independent and bore no real relationship to each other, can be partly explained by an examination of the early days of Victorian archaeology. Information was not as profuse as it is today and it is perhaps understandable that wrong assumptions were drawn in the nineteenth century, as no doubt future generations will be understanding as to our own assumptions and conclusions concerning the ancient history of the Middle East. There was also a certain biblical prejudice against the Assyrians in particular that as Christians the Victorians would have possessed as part of their own cultural makeup. This would have perhaps been reflected within their overall view of Assyria, even if unconsciously.
Illustration: Nineveh and Persian Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, (1856).
Jones in some respects purposely sandwiched Assyrian decoration between what he saw, and many of his fellow Victorians fervently believed, as the innovative and individual cultures of Egypt and Greece, both of which produced their own styles of decoration and ornamentation. Placing the derivative style of the Assyrians between the two was perhaps an opportunity to give us a lesson in creativity versus the uninventive. The fact that Jones was fundamentally wrong does not negate the interesting, but unproven chapter listing.
Interestingly Jones also tied ancient Persian decoration and ornament to that of the Assyrians, even though the cultures were separated by time, region and tradition. Because there were certain similarities in decorative motifs and colour does not necessarily tie them to the same cultural root, even though there was some reuse of decorative work between the cultures. Later on in the book, Jones gives Islamic Persian decoration a much higher profile.
Illustration: Nineveh and Persian Ornament, from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, (1856).
The fact that Jones assumed that the Assyrian, and through association Persian, decorative styles were borrowed rather than indigenous and owed nothing to the dynamism of the Assyrian and Persian cultures that we recognise today, is disappointing. In so many other chapters of his book Jones shows a confidence in his belief in the indigenous genesis of many of the cultural styles he highlights, even where there was little or no evidence to prove his point.
To be fair this belief in certain cultures being pale imitations or degenerate offspring of other worthier cultures was rife in the Victorian world and was often seen as a standard and irrefutable truth. Admittedly there are some today who still have the same beliefs, but we are perhaps much more aware today, or should be, that every culture on the planet has a uniqueness and a legitimacy all of its own and while cross-fertilization of cultures is a rich part of the complex patchwork history of humanity, it is only a part of the story and no culture can or should claim domination of identity over another.
Reference links:
The Grammar of Ornament: All 100 Color Plates from the Folio Edition of the Great Victorian Sourcebook of Historic Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
The Grammar of Ornament
Grammar of Ornament: A Monumental Work of Art
Ornamental Wall Painting In The Art Of The Assyrian Empire (Cuneiform Monographs)
Monumental Art of the Assyrian Empire: Dynamics of Composition Styles.(Review): An article from: The Journal of the American Oriental Society
The chronology of Neo-Assyrian art,
The Persian Empire
History of the Persian Empire (Phoenix Books)
From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire
The Persian Empire From Cyrus II to Artaxerxes I
Splendors of The Persian Empire (Timeless Treasures)
The Luck of Nineveh: In Search of the Lost Assyrian Empire
Royal correspondence of the Assyrian Empire. Translated Into English, With a Transliteration of the Text and a Commentary. Parts I, II, III, IV
Ornamental Wall Painting In The Art Of The Assyrian Empire (Cuneiform Monographs)
