Sogdian art

Sogdian art

Detail from the painted murals of Varakhsha in the Bukhara oasis in Sogdia. The painting is located in one of the Varakhsha Palace's main rooms, the "Red Hall". Late 7th or early 8th century.

Banqueter holding a rhyton in a wall painting at Panjikent, ancient Sogdiana, first half of the 8th century AD.

Sogdian art refers to art produced by the Sogdians, an Iranian people living mainly in ancient Sogdia, present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, who also had a large diaspora living in China. Its apex was between the 5th and 9th centuries, and it consists of a rich body of pre-Muslim Central Asian visual arts. New finds recovered in the past decades allowed scholars to achieve a better understanding of Sogdian art.^[1][2]

Sogdians are best known for their painting, although they excelled also in other fields, such as metalworking and music. Their metalworking, which influenced the Chinese, is sometimes confused with Sasanian metalwork. However, characteristics of Sogdian metalwork, differentiating it from Sasanian metalwork, have been established; for example, with respect to Sasanian metalwork, the designs of Sogdian vessels are more dynamic, and their productions less massive. They differ in technique and shape, as well as iconography.^[3][4]

The Sogdians loved to recount stories, and their art is much "narrative" in nature. They lived in houses on whose walls they hung wood carvings and painted refined murals. Because the purpose of the Sogdians was to convey narrative, they would include only the essentials, setting the scene with lines, blocks of color, and a few landscape elements, creating an "easy-to-read two-dimensionality that helps advance the progress of the depicted tale."^[1][3]