Aegean Orientalizing versus Oriental Art. The Evidence of Monsters (original) (raw)
Related papers
1977
1976 in which I again visited Greece and consolidated much of the Minoan and Mycenaean material I had been researching, as well as visiting most of the major European museums where much of the material treated in this thesis is displayed. A special tribute must be paid to the British School of Archaeology in Athens for their warm welcome and help on both occasions when I was in Greece. I am sure they do not realize the extent of the debt that scholars from far countries owe to the British School. My appreciation is also due to the many people who have encouraged me, my colleagues at work and my friends at home. I would wish to mention my special thanks to Professor Homer Thompson and Dorothy Burr Thompson for their encouragement to continue with the topic and to visit Greece as soon as possible. There must be a great number of people who, like myself, have come to Greece and benefitted from their welcome, their practical suggestions, and above all from their immense enthusiasm for all scholarship in all fields of ancient studies. I must also express my warmest thanks to my two s4pervisors: to Mr. R. G. Hood for his patient reading of the drafts and for his challenging questions; to Professor P.R.C. Weaver for his comments as the work progressed and for his quiet confidence that the thesis would surely be completed. Finally I must thank my family, without whose support the thesis could not have been written.
"Iconography in Context: The Visual Elements of Aegean Art"
Current Approaches and New Perspectives in Aegean Iconography, edited by Fritz Blakolmer. Aegis 18 (2020), 369-384., 2020
Abstract: The iconographic meanings of Aegean art have long been the subject of scholarly investigation, but comparatively little attention has been paid to that other major component of artistic content: emotion, and the emotional impact that art makes upon the viewer. This investigation explores how artists of the Aegean Bronze Age incorporated expressive content through intentional engagement of artistic form as developed through the visual elements (line, texture, color [hue], value, shape and space) and the principles of organization (harmony, variety, balance, proportion, dominance, movement, and economy). Three canonical artworks (the Spring Fresco of Delta 2, Akrotiri, Thera; the Cupbearer and Procession Frescoes of Knossos, Crete; and a Mycenaean phi figurine) are discussed to explore how each artwork’s expressive and emotional content was purposely developed to support its symbolic meanings as understood through traditional iconographic method. It is suggested that formal analysis of the elements and principles of prehistoric art can be engaged in alliance with iconographic study, not only to define the characteristic features of Aegean art, as has been done in the past, but also to explore Aegean art’s deeper emotional meaning as it impacted the viewer and shaped the prehistoric visual environment.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2010
Reviews haps Härke's most enlightening judgement on the subject, exists at the heart of all the contributions, if more explicitly in some than in others. As the flyleaf claims, the book will undoubtedly provide a wide range of accessible case studies for students of the early Middle Ages (the continental studies being especially welcome). Whether it sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology might be more questionable, but it certainly engages with and showcases a wide and inspiring range of current debates.
Current Approaches and New Perspectives in Aegean Iconography
in: F. Blakolmer (ed.), Current Approaches and New Perspectives in Aegean Iconography. Aegis 18 (Louvain) , 2020
This paper focuses on a carnelian lentoid (M6621), housed in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, which was rejected as a forgery by Henri and Micheline van Effenterre when they compiled CMS IX (1972). The study presents a summary account of the collection's history, together with an assessment of the scholarly milieu in which the authors of the volume worked. There follows a detailed evaluation of the seal in question, in which material, shape, size, technique, composition, pose and style are all assessed. Comparisons are made with seals in circulation when the seal was acquired in 1907, as well as the repertoire known to the van Effenterres. These lead to the conclusion that the seal must be regarded as authentic, a view supported by recent discoveries. This case study thus helps to underscore the changing attitudes toward Aegean glyptic in the last century and the benefits we enjoy today with a substantial percentage of the extant repertoire now documented systematically in the CMS series, permitting comparisons to be drawn between pieces now widely dispersed. The opportunity of viewing images greatly enlarged on computer screens also facilitates the scrutiny of minute details that can lend weight in the rehabilitation of pieces previously regarded as suspect because they lack a secure provenance or have a murky past.
Iconography of the Gorgon in Early Greek Art: from Foreign Fiend to Local Legend
2021
I would first and foremost like to thank my supervisor, dr. Michael Kerschner, whose feedback and expertise were invaluable during every step of this process. Your willingness to discuss and good humour have made this experience much more positive, despite the overall disruption of the pandemic. I would also like to dr. Helle Hochscheid, as I first came in contact with this topic thanks to her teaching. Furthermore, thanks to the NIA (Dutch Institute in Athens) for granting me a short-stay scholarship during the formative phase of this thesis. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their unending patience and support. A particularly big thank-you to Karin Verstraeten, Anouk Kret, and Lis Zandberg, for their academic assistance. I could not have completed this thesis without you. Orientalising period tell us about the meaning of her appearance to its contemporary audience?' 1.1. The Orientalising period In 1992, Walther Burkert published one of the earliest studies concerning the topic and referred to the period as "The Orientalising Revolution". He argues that in the 8 th century B.C.E. contact between Greece and the Near East intensified, which resulted in great Near Eastern influence on many aspects of Greek art and culture, including the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet (Burkert 1992, 9-25;). More recently, consensus has shifted away from Burkert's original East to West transmission format in favour of the idea of cross-cultural transmission or cultural interaction. 2 The proposed situation would best be described by Henkelman's term "Aegean-Asian cultural continuum", where considering Greece to be "part of Asia" is a more fitting framework with which to research its archaeology (Henkelman 2006, 808). Still, the material record shows a distinct period of "Orientalising" style in Greek visual artgenerally dated from 700 to 620 B.C.E. (Osborne 1996, 158-61; Gunter 2014, 79). Societies such as the Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and others have been identified as influences on Greek visual culture of this time, which this thesis will explore in further detail. "Orientalising" is a term that seems to be kept purposefully vague. Not many have attempted to define it in more detail, though it is used throughout scholarship concerning the art style. While in recent years the term 'oriental' is used more to refer to the Far East i.e. Eastern Asia, it was "formerly understood to include regions lying to the east and southeast of southern Europe" (Merriam-Webster). The validity of the use of the term 'oriental' in these contexts has been scrutinised for some time. 3 Already in 1978, Edward Said pointed out that its use is rooted in an imperialist framework characterised by the West's tendencies to depict "The East" in a patronising manner (Said 1978, 617). Therefore, differences between 'West' and 'East' were and are still highly exaggerated, creating a mostly imaginary dichotomy in our cultural understanding. This has no doubt seeped into Western archaeology and coloured our