"Iconography in Context: The Visual Elements of Aegean Art"

1977

LIBRARY ABSTRACT Summary of the Thesis The aim of this thesis is to investigate the artistic phenomenon that, in the Bronze Age, many motifs were used in common by the arts of the Aegean, Egypt, and the Near East, in order to come to a conclusion as to whether this common usage can be attributed to indigenous creation in each separate area or whether it is due to crossfertilisation of the artistic traditions. The thesis is presented in two volumes, VOLUTE I TEXT and VOLUME II PLATES. The text volume contains a list of abbreviations, the text arranged in four sections, Intnoduction, Pa/a I The Moti64, Pant II The Akti.stic I44ue4, and Conctuzion, a bibliography and chronological table. The plate volume contains the plates and plate list, a concordance of sites and plates, a concordance of motifs in Aegean glyptic, and a set of maps. The plate volume is considered integral to the thesis as being the true record of the primary source material. In VOLUME I TEXT the Intnoduction states the aim of the thesis, outlines the chronological stand taken, defines the principal artistic terms used, and defends the methodology of iconographical analysis. Paia I The Moti44 discusses over fifty motifs covering a wide variety of subjects, heraldic and religious symbols, floral and linear designs, the human figure, and general themes like war and the hunt. With the help of a precise terminology these motifs are studied individually having regard to their early traditions, their subsequent modifications, and to the variations acceptable in different areas. Pala II The Aittiztic 144ueis opens with a discussion of the problems that arise from the above detailed survey of motifs, the most important one being the question of possible transference of motifs from one artistic tradition to another. On the basis of the correspondence of iconographical detail it is argued that twelve motifs transfer from the eastern traditions to Aegean art and that two motifs transfer from the Aegean to the East. The iconography also suggests the likelihood of the transference of smaller motifs and artistic details out of large scale compositions. The result of these transferences is the establishment in the Late Bronze Age of an International Repertoire of motifs drawn upon by the artists of many lands, Aegean and eastern. Para II goes on to assess the extent to which the foreign motif is assimilated into the indigenous tradition. Two levels of penetration are distinguished, an initial level, the Intrusive Element, and a deeper level, the Incorporated Element, where the exotic motif is assimilated into the local style. Patt IT further argues that some pieces fall into a special category for which the recently coined phrase International Style is accepted, and after classifying some special examples, it examines the means by which the motif transferences may have been effected. Pakt II concludes with a discussion on the acceptance or rejection of particular motifs by Minoan and Mycenaean art. The Conctubion provides a summary of the results or this investigation of artistic motifs, and assesses the contribution of this thesis to scholarship in the fields of ancient art and art history.

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean, 2015

Artistic interconnections in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean are often considered through the lens of iconography as a window onto motif transference. In this chapter, I argue that such approaches present inherent limitations that constrain our search for ancient meanings. Taking a more dynamic view of meaning-making as social processes of engagement between human beings and the material properties of objects, I investigate the case of cylinder seals in the Aegean and touch upon related issues for monumental ashlar masonry, frescoes , and Mycenaean pottery. Drawing upon Webb Keane's notion of bundled qualities, I trace conjunctions of various properties across material assemblages in order to sug est values and resonances that would have been central to generating meaning. I conclude with a brief consideration of these processes across the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition with respect to north Syrian carved stone reliefs.

P.P. Iossif & W. van de Put (eds), Greek Iconographies: Identities and Media in Context. A Seminar organised by the Netherlands Institute at Athens and the Belgian School at Athens., 2018

Papers and Summary of the Discussion held at the Summer 2023 MASt Seminar (Friday, June 30, 2023

Aegean seals belong to a 1500 year artistic tradition and they provide the most extensive imaging of subject matter in the Bronze Age. The seals are, for the most part, small pieces of beautifully colored stone, great gold signet rings or the original sealings in clay. Each carries an image which is part of an amazingly conceived and nuanced polyvalent iconography. These images and the information they impart are the subject matter of my forthcoming book, ICON Art and Meaning in Aegean Seal Images, and this MASt Seminar outlines how I came to write it and what challenges the seals presented to me on the way.

The book deals with an extremely important fragment of ancient Greek culture (9 th-4 th centuries BCE) in which not only things were transformed into images, images into ideas, but iconicity, hitherto a form of interactivity, became visuality. The analysis of this complex process which occurs at the intersection of research areas such as anthropology of things and anthropology of images is the main objective undertaken in this study. The relationship between things, iconicity, imagery and visuality is a specific, yet paradoxically little recognized feature of ancient Greek culture that determines the entire Euro-Atlantic world that followed. The research I am undertaking is positioned in the specific area of tangency of things, images, and meanings; it is oriented not so much towards monument but rather their cultural habitats. They are analyzed above all from the perspective of philosophy of culture and anthropological history, which tells the story of how much human thinking and perception change, and how little the very production and visual forms of things themselves change. I treat iconicity as a non-obvious phenomenon that is not permanently associated with imagery and visuality, acts of representation, or making things visible. In Smeared reliefs the name of Fidias is mentioned only once. His totemic works were left out. In the case of Polyclet, the figure of Dorifors becomes not so much an object of analysis in the field of art history, iconography or aesthetics, but a pretext for discussing the entanglement of the iconic dimension of the canon in social games of exchange. I avoid approaching iconic production as a special type of activity such as art. For issues related to iconicity, imagery, and visuality, a small statue of Mantiklos, a scene on an amphora from Eleusis by an unknown painter, or anonymous relief pitos from Mykonos turn out to be much more important than monumental chryselephantines. Thus, it is a kind of cultural history without names, or at least one that tries to avoid the attributionism typical for classical archaeology. This book is also an attempt to "step out of the museum", out of the cultural space perceived as an apothēkēa "repository" of monuments. I try to bring the ancient Greek culture closer not so much through physical objects, but rather through processes involved in their production and use. This is mainly the result of the concept of culture that I have adopted, i.e. that it is not a collection of things but rather a set of competencies and skills formed under the influence of various social interactions as well as a way of processing information maintained and transmitted within a specific community. Conceptual Apparatus Iconic facts or artefacts I use the term iconic fact (artefact), thus avoiding the notion of an image, plastic object, or work of art that is a product of metaphysical thinking. Unlike archaeological artefacts (most often interpreted as finished objects having measurable physical properties and a practicaltechnical function or purpose), artefacts (e.g. agalmata, anathēmata, andriantes, korai) are not only objects, but also activities, practices, and social games associated with them, as well as their worldview motivations. Such an understanding of iconic facts as complex entities is related to the notion of transduction by Gilbert Simondon, affordances by James J. Gibson, assemblages by Manuel DeLanda, image-objet by Jérôme Baschet, or image-act by Horst Bredekamp. Eikotopias Eikotopias are dynamic "artefact places" and their cultural habitats. The place in this case, however, is not a space, a capacity, but rather a mode of production and use of the iconic. Eikotopias are a concept related to Theodor Adorno constellations, in which learning about objects always involves learning the processes these objects have accumulated in themselves. Their status is thus constantly (re)constructed by the variability of human thinking. Eikonomy Eikonomy is a cultural space of exchange that encompasses those games and social practices whose essential element is iconicity; thus, it is not the modality of artefacts as such, but rather their cultural configurations that are being studied. Heidegger's handiness (Zuhandenheit), the state of being an object for something (Um-zu) is also a part of the space of culture understood actionally. Therein iconic facts are perceived agentively, as tools, things at hand or at one's disposal. The culture of chōros Chōros culture is the culture of bonding and making something common, that is achieved through spontaneous and practical thinking. An element of that kind of thinking is, first of all, measuring that is construed as merging and likening, admiringit is the Telemachian attitude and orientation to states of things and actions (the verbness of culture). The culture of diakrisis Diakrisis culture is the culture of separation that develops within the framework of metaphysical and theoretical thinking. It is associated with Socrates' discursive attitude, the orientation toward instrumentalization of the world, and reification (the nounness of culture). Visual reduction Visual reduction is a state in which iconic elements are subordinate with regard to other elements, non-iconic factors and aims. Such reduction is based on the manipulation of iconicity: displaying and concealing, acting and affecting.

2016

When we try to make sense of pictures, what do we gain when we use a particular method – and what might we be missing or even losing? Empirical experimentation on three types of mythological imagery – a Classical Greek pot, a frieze from Hellenistic Pergamon and a second-century CE Roman sarcophagus – enables Katharina Lorenz to demonstrate how theoretical approaches to images (specifically, Iconology, Semiotics, and Image Studies) impact the meanings we elicit from Greek and Roman art. A guide to Classical images of myth and also a critical history of Classical archaeology’s attempts to give meaning to pictures, this book establishes a dialogue with the wider field of art history and proposes a new framework for the study of ancient visual culture. It will be essential reading not just for students of classical art history and archaeology, but for anyone interested in the possibilities – and the history – of studying visual culture.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5: 1-38, 1995

2020

In this poster, designed for ASOR 2020, I will share my theses that my selected iconographic evidence, from the Late Bronze Age Minoan, Mycenaean and Egyptian Amarna frescos, reliefs and sculptures, provides us archaeological and artistic traditions portraying cultural interactions as well as social communications and stylistic influence and exchanges which are present in the images for us to read and to utilize to inform our greater understanding of these cultures and their social and political and artistic developments. It is recognised through archaeological evidence that these societies interacted and communicated resulting in a broad range of interconnections. Iconographic evidence documents and demonstrates the transfer of cultural and artistic exchanges and influences. In producing and creating new images, these Bronze Age peoples were conscious of neighboring artistic traditions, stylistically self-aware, and deliberately manipulating their own choices of portrayals of body ...

With regard to ethnic personification, phenotypical physiognomy and individual portraiture, the iconography of the Aegean Bronze Age confronts us with some fundamental problems. In Minoan and Mycenaean arts, representations of foreign people occur extremely rarely, so that we even gain the impression that the iconographic vocabulary for depicting people from foreign regions was never developed in the Aegean arts which, in this respect, stood in sharp contrast to the artistic intentions of Egypt and the Near East. Although there flourished a widespread iconography of war in Minoan Crete as well as on the Mycenaean mainland, these images present rather exclusively combats against people coming from within the Aegean basin. Moreover, our attempts to differentiate by iconographical means between Creto-Minoans, Mycenaean Greeks, and the inhabitants of other regions of the Aegean, until now turn out to be highly unsuccessful. It appears conclusive that the absence of any inner-Aegean differentiation in iconography allowed a common, interchangeable usage and comprehension of images throughout the entire Aegean. Thus, the assumption of a comprehensive and coherent 'Aegean' ethnic identity, among other parameters of identity, is suggested by the Bronze Age iconography.

This pdf is a digital offprint of your contribution in B. Davis B. and R. Laffineur (eds), Neôteros. Studies in Bronze Age Aegean Art and Archaeology in Honor of Professor John G. Younger on the Occasion of his Retirement, ISBN 978-90-429-4179-3, 2023

2022

Lagogianni-Georgakarakos, M. (ed.), The Countless Aspects of Beauty in Ancient Art, Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, national Archaeological Museum, Archaeological Receipts Fund, 2018