Studia Palmyreńskie (8.1985)

examples in Palmyra. The author devotes much attention to the description of pre-
served examples of stuccoes and paintings in tombs, with the stress on the hypogeum
of Three Brothers. The next chapter informs of preserved remains of monumental
and honorific sculptures.

The chapter entitled Art in private houses reassembles valuable information on
artistic handicraft in Palmyra and imported objects of everyday use: pottery, lamps,
glass, alabaster, jewellery and textiles. The author touches here a very important
problem of iconography, i.e. how far patterns of textiles and adornments as shown
in sculpture are realistic. Comparative research shows that repertory of decorative
designs known to Palmyrenian sculptors and painters was based on contemporary
fashions. However, art representations are less complicated, and more schematic
than real jewellery and textile fragments. The chapter is closed with information
on sculptures, stuccoes, and mosaics decorating houses of rich Palmyrenians.

M. A. R. Colledge begins the synthetic part of his book by discussing various
techniques of Palmyrenian craftsmen and artists. The most interesting are his views
on sculptural techniques. With thorough knowledge and precision, he pictures the
process of making statues and reliefs from the preliminary stone cutting to the final
painting of finished pieces. Conclusions concerning the technical development
of Palmyrenian style are based on detailed analysis of numerous and typical monu-
ments.

The broadest and probably the most important chapter of the book deals with
iconography in the widest sense of the word. It is, to use author’s expression, a „gram-
mar” of Palmyrenian art. After a short summary of functional aspects of various
kinds of art (religious, sepulcral and secular), the principles of composition obligatory
in depicting figural scenes are discussed.

The art of Palmyra supplies the most numerous body of examples of the frontal
convention, used as a rule strictly respected by all artists. The origin of this new type
of composition, which appeared in the Near East around the beginning of the Chri-
stian era has been subject of studies for quite a while. The origin of frontality was
traced, broadly speaking, either back to Hellenistic art, or to traditions of the „Ancient
Eeast”, taken in abstracto. Colledge is rather in favour of a local origin of frontality.
The discussion is surely not closed with this book. For the present reviewer, the lack
of evidence for the outside origin of frontality is a point of favour of it being a local
development. Still, to connect this artistic manner with a renaissance of Semitic
nationalism is a typical example of modernizing the past. Further research
should pay attention to functional and religious aspects of Syrian and North Meso-
potamian reliefs and paintings in the first centuries of the Christian era.

Further on, the author is analyzing one by one types of scenes and representations
of single figures, standing, sitting, reclining and riding, as well as their gestures and
poses. Iconographic details which have undergone changes and present criteria
of dating, such as costume, head dresses, hair fashions, jewellery and arms, not to
forget modes of representation of human body, eyes in particular, are given due

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