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"Animal style" deer, (8-7th century BC) Arzhan kurgan, Tuva. 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 art of the Middle Ages was mainly religious, reflecting the relationship between God and man, created in His image. The animal often appears confronted or dominated by man, but a second current of thought stemming from Saint Paul and Aristotle, which developed from the 12th century onwards, includes animals and humans in the same community of living creatures.
Sometimes the animals are clearly alive, whether fairly passive and tamed, or still struggling, rampant, or attacking. In other pieces they may represent dead hunter's prey. [5] Other associated representations show a figure controlling or "taming" a single animal, usually to the right of the figure.
Opposed animals are used in Insular art, the style of which is derived from a mixture of Celtic and northern European design traditions. Confronted animals, or animals intertwined in very intricate patterns, often depicted grabbing at each other to form the "gripping beast" pattern, are a main feature of some periods of Viking art. So ...
A motif may be repeated in a pattern or design, often many times, or may just occur once in a work. [1] A motif may be an element in the iconography of a particular subject or type of subject that is seen in other works, or may form the main subject, as the Master of Animals motif in ancient art typically does.
The salamander in Christian art represents "faith over passion", according to one critic, [58] or a symbol of chastity in religious art, a view by Duchalais seconded by Émile Mâle. [ 59 ] [ 60 ] In the rose windows of Notre Dame de Paris , the figure of Chasity holds a shield depicting a salamander (though perhaps depicted rather bird-like).
The flesh of Trionyx was eaten from Predynastic times to as late as the Old Kingdom; later the flesh of turtles began to be considered an "abomination of Ra" and the animals were thought of as evil. Turtle carapaces and scutes from Red Sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) were used in rings, bracelets, dishes, bowls, knife hilts, amulets, and ...
Animals and animal-like creatures are presumed to be shown in profile facing dexter. This attitude is standard unless otherwise stated in the blazon. As a warrior will usually carry a shield in the left hand, the animal shown on the shield will then face toward the knight's body. Humans and human-like beings are presumed to be shown affronté.