10th October 2017
THE SCYTHIANS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM
This Autumn's exhibition at the British Museum in collaboration with The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, which has provided most of the items on display, is The Scythians.
The Scythians were a nomadic people who flourished between 800 and 200 B.C. Originally from Southern Siberia they controlled a vast region from northern China to the Black Sea.
They had no written language so we rely on archaeology and Greek historians for the documentary record.
The only structures they left behind were graves marked by burial mounds. Graves could not be dug when the ground was frozen so bodies were mummified to preserve them until they could be buried. They were buried with everything they needed for the afterlife giving us a good picture of their material world.
Although as nomadic herdsmen their life appears quite simple, they were exceptionally fine goldsmiths and their grave goods include some of the finest gold jewellery I have ever seen. Belt buckles and studs are decorated with hunting scenes and writhing animals with an exuberant energy that charges across the millennia. They are exquisitely worked and well worth a visit.
The first discoveries in the 1770s were commandeered by Peter the Great who insisted all the artefacts were sent to St Petersburg where they formed the beginning of the Great collection that is now The Hermitage Museum. Peter insisted that drawings were made of all the finds, the start of an archaeological tradition, and many of the articles on display are accompanied by their drawings.
In the light of recent discoveries in Greek DNA, it is interesting to see items as far back as 700 B.C. indicating contact with early Greek colonies in Anatolia around the Black Sea. These trading links show that there was early contact between the Greeks and the people of the steppes as borne out by their share of Mycenaean and Minoan DNA.
WHERE DO I GET MY IDEAS FROM?
This is the first question everyone asks and for once I can answer it with my most recent work.
Regular readers will know I went earlier in the year to the Hokusai exhibition where I was very taken with a scroll depicting chrysanthemums painted in Rinpa style on a background of gold leaf. Gold leaf is a bit expensive and doesn't stick very well to canvas so I have given the traditional idea of naturalistic botanical studies -I also went to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens you might remember - on a gold background by using modern iridescent paint and giving it an up-to-date twist with an abstract background. The hydrangea and ramble are out of my garden. It works a treat. With a light on it the picture really gleam. Not quite as sumptuous as gold leaf but a good substitute.
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