Arms, Armour and Art

ARMS, ARMOUR AND ART by Claude Blair Serious interest in the study and collecting of early arms and armour began, as might be expected, with the 19th century Gothic Revival. It was stimulated by the number of examples brought into the art-market by the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars, and also by the publication of Dr. (later Sir) Samuel Rush Mey rick’s seminal Critical Inquiiy into Anticnt Armour in 1824, and most of the great 19th and early 20th century art collectors, like Sir Richard Wallace and Henry Walters, acquired at least a few fine pieces. A change came after World War I, partly because of the growth of an anti-militarism which, though justified in itself, classified all arms - the gold-hiltcd 18th century small sword and the Vickers machine-gun alike - as implements of war. More significant, however, was the revulsion against Romanticism and all things Gothic, combined with the growing snobbery that divided the arts into ‘Fine’ and ‘Applied’, with the former always automatically given precedence. The absurd situation thus arose in which Henry Moore’s lumpen ‘Helmet’ would be regarded as an important work of art, and a fine 15th-century Italian helmet of the shape from which it was derived would not, though the latter might be infinitely 1. Gold parade helmet of Meskalcm-dug in the form ofa wig c. 2600 B.C. superior as a piece of abstract sculpture! Few of the great art From the royal tombs at Ur, now in Iraq. Xatioual Museum, Baghdad. collectors now acquired arms and armour — William and a famous gold dagger which, in the words of its discoverer, Randolph Hearst being a notable exception - and the subject, Leonard Woolley, is ‘a wonderful weapon whose blade... (is) though continuing, as always, to be supported by a small band ... of gold, its hilt of lapis lazuli decorated with gold studs, and of specialist enthusiasts, was ignored - even derided - by the its sheath of gold beautifully worked with an openwork art historians. Their attitude is encapsulated in a minute sent in pattern derived from plaited grass’. It is not known if these the early 1950s to the Department of Metalwork at the pieces, which were in the Baghdad Museum, survived the Victoria & Albert Museum by the then Director, Sir Leigh Gulf War. Ashton, in which he pronounced that ‘anus and armour are There is some archaeological evidence that similar weapons not art’, and would in future only be acquired for reference continued to be made in the same general area, for example a purposes! Though more enlightened attitudes have, in group of swords - including some of the earliest known with general, returned since then, there are still many who would iron blades — maces and axe-heads dating from c. 2500 BC, endorse this view of the subject. The purpose of the present found at Dorak in Anatolia. It is not, however, until the essay is try to show them that they are mistaken. second millenium BC that we encounter anything that is Though some of the polished flint knives and spear-heads clearly of the same quality in a group of daggers from the produced in the Late Stone Ages of both Egypt and Northern shaft-graves at Mycenae in Greece (c. 1600 BC). with ivory Europe have considerable claims to being regarded as notable hilts and bronze blades damascened in gold, silver and niello works of abstract art, it was not until the use of metals had been with hunting-scenes. Comparable to these, and dating from established for several millennia that the existence of anything approximately the same period is a series of splendid Egyptian that can be called an armourer's art can be identified. The axes and daggers, outstanding amongst which is the axe (c. earliest known true armour is represented by a group of 1580-1550 BC) of King Ahmose with a gold-plated bronze bronze helmets, dating from c. 2600 BC, found in the blade decorated with figures and hieroglyphics and inlaid with Sumerian Royal Tombs at Ur (now in Iraq). They are of no cornelians, turquoises and lapis-lazuli, and the two gold- artistic merit, but from the same source comes an astonishingly mounted daggers from the tomb of Tut'ankhamun (c. 1340 sophisticated and beautiful parade-helmet embossed out of BC). Also, if Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles in gold in the form of a wig (fig. 1), and clearly the product of a the llliad is to be taken literally bronze armour magnificently long tradition of fine-quality metalworking. Interestingly, it embossed with scenes w\as being made in Greece during the was almost duplicated some 4000 years later by an iron same period. If so, it still awaits discovery', and the contem parade-helmet, now in the Royal Armoury, Madrid, made for porary Mycenacn bronze armour that has been discovered is the Emperor Charles V by Filippo Negroli of Milan. The either plain, or ornamented only very modestly. Royal Graves at Ur also produced a number of other splendid It is more than probable that amis and armour which could parade-pieces, including a silver spear-head of great elegance. be classified as works of art were much more widely used in 15 >v‘ 3. Roman bronze cavalry- sports helmet. 1 st or 2nd Century. From Ribchcstcr, Lancashire. British Museum. bronze and iron helmets of comparable artistic quality to the Greeks, very occasionally found with gold or silver decora tion, sometimes inlaid with coral or enamelled. Also Celtic is one of the most beautiful examples of armour of any period in existence, the first century BC enamelled bronze shield (fig. 2) from the River Thames at Battersea, now in the British Museum, which has been described as ‘the noblest creation of Late Celtic art’. As might be expected from a highly-organized race of conquerors, much of the arms and armour used by the 2. Celtic bronze shield decorated with enamel and corals, 1 st Century. Romans was severely practical. Nevertheless, Emperors and B.C. From the Thames at Battersea, British Museum. senior officers, and, for dress occasions, certain special units, the early periods with which we have been dealing than the wore equipment as elaborate as anything that had gone before, archaeological record indicates. Only in the first millcnium as did also some gladiators. The basis of most of the parade BC, however, do surviving examples start to be relatively armour was the so-called ‘muscled’ cuirass, apparently taken common in most of the major cultures of the Old World, over from the Etruscans, and comprising a breast and becoming more so, both in actuality and in illustrations, as it backplatc, probably nearly always of bronze, modelled to progresses. The bronze weapons of Luristan and China are represent the nude male torso. Many statues of the Emperors well known, as is the bronze armour of ancient Greece, show them wearing muscled-cuirasscs of great elaboration, especially the helmets with their subtly modelled forms, now sculptured with figures and other decoration in very high often beautifully patinated. After the introduction of iron, the relief, but no actual examples of this splendour are known to two metals were used alongside each other for a long period, survive. Some idea of what their appearance must have been and amongst the contents of the 4th century Macedonian can, however, be obtained from two specialized types of royal tomb at Vergina thought to be that of Alexander the contemporary armour, most of which is of bronze decorated Great’s father, Philip (359-336 BC), is an iron cuirass with in relief, with varying degrees of skill, in the manner just superlative gold mounts, as well as an iron helmet and a pair of described, and of which a fair amount does survive. These are gilt bronze greaves. Also from this tomb are the silver-gilt the armour worn by some gladiators and that made for the cover of a Scythian bow and quiver case (gorytus) embossed equestrian displays of the auxiliary cavalry, so-called ‘cavalry and chased with figure-scenes, a gold-hilted sword in an ivory sports’ armour. The former is best known from a widely- scabbard, and a unique circular bronze shield with gold and reproduced helmet with a wide brim and a grilled face- ivory decoration, described by its discoverer, Professor defence found at Pompeii (destroyed AD 63), which, though Manolis Andronikos, as an ‘unparalleled work of art’. it is encircled by frieze of well-modelled figures, is quite The Celts, both north and south of the Alps, produced remarkably ugly! The cavalry sports armour, on the other 16 hand, includes pieces of very fine quality, amongst them, not surprisingly, horse armour. Quite outstanding are some of the helmets, which are of a distinctive form with the face-defences modelled as naturalistic human masks, several obviously portraits. A notable example in the British Museum (fig. 3), dating from the first or second century AI), was discovered in the 18th century at Ribchester, Lancashire, when a boy was found kicking it along the banks of the River Ribble! Another of the same period, and perhaps the finest of all these helmets, in the Damascus Museum, is made of iron, with silver-gilt mounts of superb quality and a silvered face-mask, clearly a portrait, forged from a single piece of metal with consummate skill. The Northern barbarians who eventually overran the Western Empire used, in the main, only mail (so-called ‘chain’ mail) body-armour, often worn either with a conical helmet or a version of a late-Roman cavalry-helmet, the latter often equipped with a face-mask, though not a naturalistic one.

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