Editing Animal style

{{Short description|Iron Age art movement characterized by the use of animal motifs}}
{{about|the style of decorative arts|the 2016 song by Biffy Clyro|Animal Style (song)|the style of dressing fast food|In-N-Out Burger products#Secret menu variations}}
[[File:Arzhan deer.jpg|thumb|"Animal style" deer, (8-7th century BC) [[Arzhan culture|Arzhan]] kurgan, [[Tuva]].]]
[[File:BeltBuckleOrdos3-1CenturyBCE3.JPG|thumb|[[Ordos culture]], belt buckle, 3rd–1st century BC]]

'''Animal style''' art is an approach to decoration found from [[Ordos culture]] to [[Northern Europe]] in the early [[Iron Age]], and the [[barbarian art]] of the [[Migration Period]], characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The [[zoomorphic]] style of decoration was used to decorate small objects by warrior-herdsmen, whose economy was based on breeding and herding animals, supplemented by trade and plunder.<ref>[[Emma Bunker|Emma C.Bunker]], ''Animal Style Art from East to West'', Asia Society. p. 13</ref> [[Animal art]] is a more general term for all art depicting animals.

==Eastern styles==
[[File:Fibula in the Form of a Recumbent Stag, about 400 AD, Northeastern Europe, and Stag Plaque, 400-500 BC, Scythian, western Asia, gold - Cleveland Museum of Art - DSC08141.JPG|thumb|The influence of Scythian art: [[Fibula (brooch)|Fibula]] in the Form of a Recumbent Stag (below), about 400 AD, Northeastern Europe, and Stag Plaque (above), 400–500 BC, Scythian, western Asia, gold]]
{{Main|Scythian art}}

[[Scythian art]] makes great use of animal motifs, one component of the "[[Scythian]] triad" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild [[animal art]]. The cultures referred to as Scythian-style included the [[Cimmerian]] and [[Sarmatian]] cultures in European [[Sarmatia]] and stretched across the [[Eurasian steppe]] north of the [[Near East]] to the [[Ordos culture]] of [[Inner Mongolia]]. These cultures were extremely influential in spreading many local versions of the style.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Andreeva |first=Petya |title=Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE. |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2024 |isbn=9781399528528 |location=Edinburgh}}</ref>

[[Steppe]] jewellery features various animals including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath its body, head upright and muscles bunched tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The "looped" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the [[reindeer]], which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppes peoples at this period.  The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing.  The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppes peoples, perhaps as a clan [[totem]]. The most notable of these figures include the examples from:
*the [[Arzhan culture|Arzhan]] kurgan, [[Tuva]], Siberia, with animal style artifacts (8-7th century BC).
*the burial site of [[Kostromskaya (rural locality)|Kostromskaya]] in the [[Kuban]] dating from the 6th century BC (Hermitage)
*[[Tápiószentmárton]] in [[Hungary]] dating from the 5th century BC, now [[National Museum of Hungary]], [[Budapest]]
*[[Kul Oba]] in the [[Crimea]] dating from the 4th century BC (Hermitage).<ref>[[Max Loehr|Loehr, Max]], "The Stag Image in Scythia and the Far East", ''Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America'', Vol. 9, (1955), pp. 63-76, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20066973 JSTOR]</ref>

Another characteristic form is the [[openwork]] plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here. Later large Greek-made pieces often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.<ref>Farkas, Ann, "Interpreting Scythian Art: East vs. West",
''Artibus Asiae'', Vol. 39, No. 2 (1977), pp. 124-138, {{doi|10.2307/3250196}}, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3250196 JSTOR]</ref>

Although gold was widely used by the ruling elite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse harness, leather belts & personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins & belts, helped to act as armour.
[[Image:Permic bear.jpg|thumb|150px|Bronze idol of a [[bear]] found in the [[Perm Krai]], 6th or 7th century.]]

The use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess and powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.

A distinct [[Permian bronze casts|Permian style]] of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the [[Ural Mountains]] and the [[Volga]] and [[Kama River|Kama]] rivers in Russia.<ref>Ivanova, Vera, "[http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/visual_arts/200/ Perm Animal Style]", ''Russia.ic.com'' (23 June 2006), retrieved 23 March 2018</ref>

<gallery>
Image:Bactria-Margiana, late 3rd - early 2nd BC figure.jpg|Shaft-hole Axe Head with Bird-Headed Demon, a Boar, and a Dragon figurine. From Central Asia (Bactria-Margiana), late 3rd – early 2nd millennium BC.
</gallery>

==Germanic animal style==
{{see also|Migration Period art|Anglo-Saxon art|Viking art}}
The study of [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by [[Bernhard Salin]]<ref>[[:sv:Bernhard Salin|Biography on swedish Wikipedia]]</ref> in a work published in 1904.<ref>''Die altgermanische Thierornamentik'', Stockholm 1904, [https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4889930W/Die_altgermanische_Thierornamentik The Open Library online text], written in German and heavily illustrated.</ref> Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples during the [[Migration Period]].

'''Style I'''. First appearing in northwest Europe, first expressed with the introduction of the [[chip carving]] technique applied to bronze and silver in the 5th century. It is characterized by animals whose bodies are divided into sections, and typically appear at the fringes of designs whose main emphasis is on abstract patterns.<ref>[https://blog.britishmuseum.org/decoding-anglo-saxon-art/ "Decoding Anglo-Saxon art", Rosie Weetch and Illustrator Craig Williams, [[British Museum]] blog, 28 May 2014</ref>

'''Style II'''. After about 560–570 Style I, declining, began to be supplanted. The animals of Style II are whole beasts, their bodies elongated into "ribbons" which intertwined into symmetrical shapes with no pretense of naturalism—rarely with legs—tending to be described as serpents, though heads often have characteristics of other animals. The animals become subsumed into ornamental patterns, typically [[interlace (art)|interlace]]. Examples of Style II can be found on the gold purse lid ([[:Image:Sutton.Hoo.PurseLid.RobRoy.jpg|picture]]) from [[Sutton Hoo]] (c. 625). Eventually about 700 localised styles develop, and it is no longer very useful to talk of a general Germanic style.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=yZVeZnUXMiAC&dq=Salin+animal+style&pg=PA43 Rituals of power: from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages],  By Frans Theuws, Janet L. Nelson, p. 45</ref> 

Salin '''Style III''' is found mainly in Scandinavia, and may also be called [[Viking art]].  Interlace, where it occurs, becomes less regular and more complex, and if not three-dimensional animals are usually seen in profile but twisted, exaggerated, surreal, with fragmented body parts filling every available space, creating an intense detailed energetic feel. Animals' bodies become hard for the unpractised viewer to read, and there is a very common motif of the "gripping beast" where an animal's mouth grips onto another element of the composition to connect two parts. Animal style was one component, along with [[Celtic art]] and late classical elements, in the formation of style of [[Insular art]] and [[Anglo-Saxon art]] in the British Isles, and through these routes and others on the Continent, left a considerable legacy in later Medieval art.

Other names are sometimes used: in [[Anglo-Saxon art]] Kendrick preferred "Helmet" and "Ribbon" for Styles I and II.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3cU4kkROdekC&dq=Salin+animal+style&pg=PA322 Hills]</ref>

<gallery>
Image:Sutton.Hoo.PurseLid.RobRoy.jpg|[[Sutton Hoo purse-lid]], 7th century, with Style II animals. British&nbsp;Museum:{{British-Museum-db|1939,1010.2.a-l|id=87215}}
File:Fragments from a helmet (Staffordshire Hoard).jpg|Cheek piece from a helm from the 7th to 8th century [[Staffordshire Hoard]] 
File:Vogel-broa.gif|Analysis of a bird from Broa, after whose finds the "Broa" style, a phase of Salin's Style III, is named.
</gallery>

==See also==
[[File:Warring States Gold Tigers (11866168324).jpg|thumb|[[Warring States]] gold tigers, [[Hebei Province]], China]]

* [[Migration Period art]]
* [[Thracian art]]
* [[Persian-Sassanid art patterns]]
* [[Confronted-animals]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.perm-animal-style.ru/photo/ Perm Animal Style: Photo gallery] (Virtual museum)
* [http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/visual_arts/200/ Perm Animal Style]
*[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/96120/rec/302 Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes], an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on and examples of animal style
*Andreeva, Petya, "Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art", University of Pennsylvania, 2018: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2963/
*[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100438701 Salin Styles] in ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology''

[[Category:Visual arts genres]]
[[Category:Archaeology of Central Asia]]
[[Category:Archaeology of Siberia]]
[[Category:Medieval art]]
[[Category:Iron Age art of Europe]]
[[Category:Early Germanic art]]
[[Category:Animals in art]]