Arms, Armour, and Fine Arts
An article by Peter Kren
Fig. 1—Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Judgment of Paris, 1515
From the beginning of time, man has had a special relationship with arms, for they have been closely tied to his very existence. With his weapons he captured life-sustaining nourishment and protected his family, his people, and, indeed, his species, when their well-being was threatened. As a result, he associated many of the noblest expressions of human life—power and strength, bravery and self-sacrifice, loyalty and solidarity—with his arms. Over time, weapons assumed ideal and symbolic values above and beyond their material function. Homer described the tradition of preserving a weapon as a souvenir, a trophy, or an offering; as the legitimization of a claim; or even as a collectible object. Due to this urge to protect the souvenirs of important struggles, men preserved armaments in ecclesiastical, dynastic, and secular treasuries. One of the great historical European arms collections, the Landeszeug-haus, or the Styrian State Armoury of Graz, was saved from dissolution thanks to a conviction to preserve these arms and to document Styria's military achievement.
Likewise, for nearly as long as there have been weapons, craftsmen have wanted to decorate them. Throughout the history of arms, and reaching a high point during the Renaissance, a man's station, status, wealth, and personal taste determined how elegant and how exquisite his weapons would be. To be sure, a man's arms were an extension of his clothing and a distinguishing sign of his social position [figure 1].
