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Arts of the Siege: Volume I

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Arts of the Siege: Volume I

An annotated link post

Matt Osborne
Feb 21, 2022
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Arts of the Siege: Volume I

www.polemology.net
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Historians are supposed to look for their own niche interest that no one has covered before, or at least not covered in their way. Academics call this sort of opportunity a lacuna. Only after looking through old term papers last fall did I realize that such a lacuna existed on the topic of siege art. Whereas there is plenty of it, and no shortage of it in books on siege warfare, I have not found a specialized tome on artwork which portrays the attack and defense of cities.

Polemology Positions
Poliorcetic Art
Records of kings and battles are among the very first art and writing of the human race. Mayan, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian kings all wanted their combat glories to be remembered as their civilizations emerged. Power has thus always shaped the historical discourse about its own exercise of violence. History, Keith Jenkins tells us, is really the story of…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Matt Osborne

Taking a step back into prehistory, we find that wars over cities are as old as the city itself. Defensive walls appear early and often in the archaeology, though of course they will vary according to geography and resources.

Polemology Positions
Fortification and State Formation
A coherent culture began to emerge in the Almeria region of southeastern Spain around 3,500 BC. The Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, had arrived, and rich deposits of the metal were available here. Climatology tells us the region was also wetter at the time, so it was a good place for the recently-invented technologies …
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

The first siege in archaeology also happens to be the earliest evidence of organized violence in Mesopotamia — older than the first battle recorded as text or image in that region. To a student of siege history, that is not a surprise.

Polemology Positions
Prehistoric Siegecraft
According to Clemens Reichel, an archaeologist at the Oriental Institute, the entire area dug up during 2005 excavations at the ancient city of Tell Hamoukar was “a war zone.” About half a square mile (~15 hectares) in size, the city’s ten-foot (3 meter) high circular mud brick wall was not tall enough for defense, nor do I see evidence of projecting to…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Grand sweeping battles get all the glory, but in fact military history features far more sieges than battles. Moreover, a military culture which did not value siege technology also did not succeed for very long in a world full of cities. Exhibit A for this maxim is the most infamous steppe army of the previous millennium.

Polemology Positions
The Mongols Hated Sieges
Here is a tale of technological globalization. The Crusades spurred a regional arms race in siege weapons. Arabs illustrated and improved on the engines that crusaders brought against them from Byzantine lands. Selling their services to the Mongols, Arab engineers then participated in the vast campaigns of the Golden Horde throughout Jin China, Russia, …
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Turning to Europe again, we find the first visual stirrings of the Renaissance in a siege painting. What I suggest is that these two things are inseparable: the motif of siege warfare has always produced revolutions in human socio-political organization, and these great historical shifts are visible in art.

Polemology Positions
Late Medieval Poliorcetic Art
Some controversy exists as to exactly when Guidoriccio da Fogliano and his horse were added to this fresco in the Italian town of Siena. However, it definitely looked like this in the 14th Century. A successful siege was in fact something to crow about at the time, so Simone Martini painted…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Things get exciting when siege art is contemporaneous to a military revolution. Some of our best sources for understanding the early transition to gunpowder artillery are illustrations from medieval manuscripts.

Polemology Positions
Gunpowder Transition in Poliorcetic Art
The Grands Chroniques de France by Jean Froissart is a key primary source on the first half of the Hundred Years’ War between English Plantaganets and French Valois kings. It also has a unique position in the development of western European historical tradition. Setting down events “memorably recorded by just inquiry” of all participants, relating those…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

It’s only when we get to the dull, peaceful 19th Century, when snobs were setting rules for what ‘real art’ is, that we find the real duds of the subgenre. Now in charge of the world, Europeans made siege art into allegorical justification for their imperial hubris.

Polemology Positions
Poliorcetic Art: Orientalism Edition
You may already be familiar with Dominique Papety’s Siege of Acre, which is a fairly famous work of art. A dramatic scene, it adorns the covers of popular books on the Crusades, medieval combat, etcetera, and also gets used for internet memes. Ostensibly a rendering of events in 1291, when the Europeans lost their foothold in the so-called Holy Land, it…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

If you ask me, the happening art scene of 19th Century poliorcetics was photography. And because gunpowder artillery had not substantially changed for a long time, we can glean hints of what siege lines looked like in the past.

Polemology Positions
Poliorcetic Photography: Bastion Atlanta
One of my projects in the coming months is a broader assessment of the union artillery advantage in the American Civil War. Primary sources from the confederate side agree that in the battles of the west, Gen. Ulysses Grant enjoyed a decisive firepower advantage that made rebel position after position untenable. Much of this fire support floated on rive…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Pushed to explore abstraction by the new technology of photography, the painters of the 19th Century invented impressionism. The mind of the painter became more visible than ever, producing scenes of the human mind under siege.

Polemology Positions
Poliorcetic Art: Paris Does Not Exist
Paris. The city’s very name screams European culture and civilization, not to mention stubbornness. The Siege of Paris was huge, for the city was enormous and ringed with powerful fortresses. So huge, in fact, was the Siege of Paris that no single painting could possibly take in its full scale…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

After the grief of loss in the Franco-Prussian war had faded and the nation picked itself up again, French artists used siege as a motif to comment on war itself. They went in two directions. Some patriots wanted stalwart unity and preparation for the next war with Germany, which they thought was inevitable.

Polemology Positions
Poliorcetic Art: La Rochelle
Although it took place during a century of titanic sieges, La Rochelle still stands out for its scope and suffering. France was less a kingdom than a medieval patchwork of sovereigns divided by religion, and Cardinal Richelieu was determined to forge a single unified state that could withstand her enemies abroad. Faith was a secondary concern; he aided …
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2 years ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Matt Osborne

Then another French artist turned to the very roots of his national narrative in pursuit of a very different agenda. Rather than exult in resistance, one man decided his commission for a poliorcetic sculpture should be a universal plea for peace.

Polemology Positions
Scene of Surrender
Jean Froissart arrived at the court of Edward III in 1362 during a wave of plague that killed almost one in four heirs of landed estates across France. He had every reason to flatter Queen Philippa, who became his patron. This relationship naturally affected his work as a historian. Consider his portrayal of the 1347 Siege of Calais, when Edward III set…
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2 years ago · Matt Osborne

Suffering is always present in war, but the suffering of siege is always an order of magnitude greater than battles. This is because civilizations are made of populated cities, not battlefields. Civilization itself is what suffers in siege, therefore all scenes of siege tell us something about humanity at its best and worst moments. A single work of siege art can contain multitudes.

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