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Originally Posted by Sancar
You're most welcome Andrew. I also agree that Asian art of weaponry is a relatively less researched subject and multi layered inter-cultural interactions through ages makes it even harder. One of the biggest problems is this "black-and-white" approach I witness in most attempts of classification and cultural identification.
I am an art historian and archeologist so I tend to lookat the weapons as an another area of fine art just like architecture or paintings. As an art historian, we identify cultural origins and evolution of styles thoroughout ages as a whole but also notice the fluent nature of this evolution from culture to culture and from geography to geography. Take Renaissance for example. Can you say it is italian and only italian without denying the existence of nothern masters like Bosch? Or can you say the Flaman style of renaissnce art is a national style of painting that originates only in Flandra and belong only to that culture without denying the birth of that style in Italy? Same goes for Gothic cathedrals, Baroque etc. Art historians follow and identify the evolution of themes, styles, ornamantation figures, dress fashions, architectural components or even objects like spoons or chairs. It is naturally the healthiest approach to be applied in the study of bladed weapons as well.
And I see it is used in such fashion in European blades. I did not witness any fights between British, Italian,German and French researchers about which culture does the longsword belong to. People recognize historical origins and evolution from Roman gladius to spatha to Celtic and Gothic migration period swords. etc. all the way to late Middle ages, with contrubitions of every culture and geography on its way.
Yet when it comes to Western Asian swords either a mono-block approach "İslamic weapons", "Oriental weapons"as if all the different cultures from Andulusia to Malaysia is one and the same(the orentalistic view), or the reactionary view which is to ignore all evolution and inter-culturel trade of styles and identify one specific variation of one specific weapon as the national weapon of such culture that only originated from and only belong to that culture and geography. And this over-separative approach bring identification by the smallest of differences such as shape of a pommel.
Long story short, let's look at swords like architecture and stop fighting over who owns what. It is well-known that Gothic style is brought to Britian by French architects but this does not make Westminister Abbey any less British, does it?  |
Absolutely beautifully said Sancar!
"...they convincingly explained that rather than being mere accessories, weapons are in fact artistic creations that reflect larger stylistic tendancies of a period".
Bruno Thomas and Ortwin Gamber
"Harnischstudien" in the 'Jahrbuch des
Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien" 1937-55
cited p.73 "Imperial Austria:Treasures of Art, Arms and Armor from the
State of Styria" (1992)
I do agree with Ariel in his view that there are distinct separations in western edged weapons despite the fact that in the early times noted there were no specific countries such as Italy, Germany, France, Italy etc.
There is a broader scope of description which requires a greater deal of qualification in classification. For example in later periods many regions in 'Italy' were actually Spanish provinces, and one may often be hard pressed to distinguish certain arms and armor as Spanish vs Italian. This is often the case for example with the familiar combed morion of the conquistadors. Many if, if not most of these were Italian not Spanish.
In many other instances these were German...further, these post dated the early conquistadors and were not seen until later expeditions
There is a certain proclivity to classify arms as either European or Oriental as noted, and this vague system is as we have often seen, less than adequate . As we have been discussing here with the 'karabela' type sword, these are considered of 'oriental' influence in that we cannot accurately assess whether to consider it an Ottoman form, or look further to the probable Persian influence which in turn had influenced the Turks. The term is nearly irrelevant in that sense as it seems to have been applied far after the development of the sword form itself in Polish parlance (after 1683).
The reason for the quote I placed at the heading here is that there are many inherent artistic, religious, traditional and cultural elements found in the various sword forms, both in hilt and blade, and overall often in decorative motif. In many sword hilts, particularly in India, Arabia, and others important architecture is often represented in the many of the features in design, that pertain to temples, mosques and other iconographic sources. For example, we know that tulwars with Indo-Persian hilts have the stupa represented in the pommel over the disc. Many western sword hilts, especially early forms, have hilts which iconographically represent early architectural elements vestigially ( early Anglo-Saxon hilts) . In many early Chinese bronze weapons, certain structural features such as lashing ,were retained in the cast product vestigially.
I suppose this analysis could go on, but that is essentially the perspective .
I think by far the most effective approach is to classify any weapon, or item for that matter descriptively and with proper qualification. For example, as with Bashford Dean (1929) describing smallswords, a perfect example of difficulty in identification as they seem to virtually look the same in effect.
He chose often, for example, to identify a sword as French 'in the Strasbourg manner' in one instance if I recall correctly. There are many smallswords which are French, Dutch and English but in 'shakudo' or 'chinoserie' style, which are of course European even if in Oriental styles.
Actually, many of us have looked at swords and weapons from this artistic perspective for a long time, and that is largely what we do here, try to determine influences, development and variations . In doing so it is important to learn as much history, culture, religion as possible, as it is essential to understand not just the weapons, but those who used them .
Ariel, well noted on the venerable writers on Indian arms who wrote the seminal references we often use, but do not forget the writers that are currently producing outstanding references such as Robert Elgood and others . As far as researchers working to the fill the void, I am not that familiar about the work being done in Turkey, but I can speak on many others working right here, on these pages on the forum. In the 17+ years I have written here, there have been many remarkable achievements in advancing the comprehensive knowledge on many weapons forms right here, in fact you have contributed considerably to many of them.
Well done guys, that's what these discussions are about!