The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention

8/10/2019 The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention.

1/8

Sinclair Hood

The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic conventionIn: Bulletin de correspondance hellnique. Supplment 11, 1985. pp. 21-27.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Hood Sinclair. The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellnique. Supplment 11,

1985. pp. 21-27.

doi : 10.3406/bch.1985.5264

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2/8

THE PRIMITIVE

ASPECTS

OF MINOAN ARTISTIC CONVENTION

One clue

to

the

unique

character

of

the Minoan civilisation

of

Bronze

Age

Crte

is

its

conservatism. Many

of

the

traits

peculiar

to

the

Minoan civilisation

appear

to be

survivais

of primitive

features

that had once been

shared with

the inhabitants

of

other parts

of

the Near East but which passed out

of

fashion or were abandoned

there while they

lingered in

Crte.1

One

possible

example of

such a survival

may

be illustrated by the type

of

dress

worn by

Cretan

men in the

earlier

part

of

the

Bronze

Age, as seen

for

instance

on

figurines left by votaries in

peak

sanctuaries like

Petsofas.2

A similar type of dress

appears on

Predynastic

figurines in Egypt,

and the Minoan cod-piece

may

simply

reflect the survival in

Crte

of

a fashion that was once

gnerai throughout

a wide

rgion

of

the

Near

East

including

Egypt

and

adjacent areas such

as

Syria

and

Palestine.3

In the field of

religion

the

vident prdominance

of

a

female deity and the

hints

of

the existence

of matriarchal customs in

social

life may

similarly

reflect

a

state

of

things that

had

prevailed

in

much earlier times throughout the Near East but

continued later

in

Crte.

The unpleasant practices which the

excavations of

John

Sakellarakis and

Peter

Warren

appear to

suggest

human

sacrifice and the slaughter

and

eating

of

children

in

a

ritual

context are

perhaps

other aspects

of

a primeval

tradition that lingered in

Crte

into a mature phase of the

Bronze

Age

there.

The circular

tombs which

flourished

during the early

part

of the

Bronze

Age

in some areas of

Crte

could be another legacy of this spirit of conservatism. This

is

on

the

assumption

that such

tombs are derived

from

primitive circular

houses

of

the

type found in

various

rgions

of

the

Near

East including Palestine and Cyprus,

in the

earliest

times. The

Cretan

circular tombs

of

the

Early Bronze

Age may be

merely houses

of

this primitive type retained

for

the

dead

long

after

the living

had

abandoned them in favour of ones of

more flexible plan with

rectangular rooms.

Following this line

of

thought

I

believe that one

of

the most striking

aspects

of

Minoan art,

and

a key

to

its originality, is the way

in

which

it retained primitive

(1) Cf. S.

Hood, The Minoans

(1971), p. 31.

(2)

E.g.

C.

Zervos,

L'Art

de

la

Crte

(1956),

p.

192f.,

flgs.

232-233.

(3)

As suggested in S.

Hood,

The

Minoans

(1971), p. 31.


3/8

22 Sinclair hood [BCH

Suppl

XI

conventions into an ge

when they

had long been abandoned in other parts of the

civilised

world of

the Near East.4

The

most

dcisive

and important of

thse primitive features which were

retained

by Minoan

artists and by Cycladic and Mycenaean ones

following

in their steps

was

the

liberty

to

dispense

with

a

ground-line

for

figures

of

men

and animais

when

it suited them.

Many

of

the figures in the Thera wall-paintings

of

the

16th

century

B.C.

are represented

'in

the

air'

without their feet resting

on ground-lines.5

The

same is still true in the

case of

the much later

wall-paintings of

the 13th century

B.C.

in the Palace of

Nestor

at

Pylos

on the Greek

mainland.6 Even

when

a

convenient

ground-line was readily available the artist might

choose

to

ignore it.7

The animais

and

other

figures depicted in the great cave-sanctuaries of the

Upper

Palaeolithic in France and Spain were set in a comparable manner without

ground-lines

on

the rocky walls and ceilings.

I

hve

not corne across any examples

of

artificial

ground-lines on

which

figures

stand

in

Palaeolithic cave art, although

it

is

true

that

in

some

instances natural

lines

in

the rock

seem

to

hve

been deliber-

ately

adopted

as ground-lines

for

the figures.8 A lack

of

artificial

ground-lines

is also a feature

of

the

later

rock-shelter

art of Spain and Portugal. It

is interesting

that an absence of ground-lines for the figures similarly appears to

be a

feature of the

art

of atal

Huyuk

assignable

to

the Early Neolithic

of Anatolia.9

In Egyptian

art

from the

time of

the Old Kingdom onwards a ground-line

on which figures could stand was de rigueur.

But

it was not always so in

Egypt.

Ground-lines are

entirely lacking

for

instance

in the paintings which

graced

the

walls

of

Predynastic Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis.10 Tomb 100 was probably a

royal

sepulchre

in

which one

of

the Predynastic kings

of

this rgion

of

Egypt was buried.11

Ground-lines are still only employed in

a partial

and haphazard manner on the

carved slate

palettes

of

late Predynastic

and

earliest

Dynastie

times.

For example,

there

are no ground-lines for the figures on

the

Two

Gazelles

palette;12

but on that

of

Narmer,

dating

from about the time

of

the beginning

of

the First Dynasty, ground-

lines

are much in vidence.13

Not

many remains

of

large-scale early

painting

hve

survived to

us elsewhere

in

the Near East. But a fragmentary

wall-painting at

Teleilat Ghassul

in

Palestine,

contemporary

perhaps

with

an

early phase

of

the Predynastic period

in Egypt,

shows a ground-line

on

which the feet

of

several figures or

their

footstools are rest-

(4)

Cf.

S.

Hood,

Arts

(1978),

p.

235.

(5)

E.g. the

warriors and animais

above them in the

Miniature

Frieze from the West

House,

Thera VI,

Colour

Plate 7

(right).

(6)

E.g.

M. L. Lang,

PN

II (1969), Nos. 5 H

5,

16 H 43, 21 H 48, 28 H 64, 12 C

43.

(7)

E.g.

Thera

IV, Colour

Plate D.

(8)

Several

examples in Lascaux, e.g. the 'Unicorn'

and

'Chinese' horse (F.

Windels,

The Lascaux Cave

Paintings [1949],

p.

52f.).

(9)

J.

Mellaart, atal Huyuk (1967),

passim.

(10) J. E.

Quibell

and F.

W.

Green, Hierakonpolis Part II (1902), p. 20-22,

pi.

LXXV-LXXVIII.

For the date of the

tomb,

see H.

Case

and J.

C.

Payne, Journal of Egyplian

Archaeology

48 (1962), p. 5-18;

J. C. Payne, ibid. 49 (1973), p. 31-35. I

am grateful

to Dr. Alessandra Nibbi for thse rfrences.

(1 1) See Journal of Egyptian

Archaeology

48 (1962), p. 17f.; ibid. 59 (1973), p. 34.

(12) W . M . F. Ptrie, Crmonial Slale Palettes (1953),

pi.

E.

(13) Ibid.,

pi.

J

and

K.


4/8

1985]

PRIMITIVE MINOAN

ARTISTIC

CONVENTION 23

ing.14 A smaller

figure, however,

to

their left is depicted

as

if floating

in

the air

above the ground-line; and in gnerai what has

survived of

wall dcoration from

Teleilat

Ghassul appears to

hve

been slapped on to

a background

in

the

casual and

unorganised

fashion characteristic

of

the earlier

paintings of atal

Hiiyuk

and

the

Iberian

rock-shelters.

The

wall-paintings of Tel

Uqair

in

Mesopotamia are considerably

later than

those

of Teleilat Ghassul and are assigned

to

the Uruk period.15 There is some

use

of

ground-lines

in them; but the lopard which flanks the

altar

stairs is resting in the

air, as are the figures in the

Warka

stle which dates from

this

or from the

succeeding

Jemdet Nasr period.16 The

Warka

stle is as

innocent

of ground-lines as are

many

of

the roughly contemporary

slate relief palettes of

Egypt.

Ground-lines

were

evidently standard,

however,

in

Mesopotamia by the

time

of

the Stle

of

the

Vultures

(stle

of Ur

Nammu)

dating

from the

time of

the First

Dynasty of Ur.17

The ground-line hre

is

partly composed

of the bodies of

fallen

enemies

on

top

of

which

the men

of

Ur are trampling

their

way

to

victory.

Compare

the rather

later

stle

of

Naram Sin

of

the Dynasty

of Akkad.18 Ground-lines appear

to

be prsent

everywhere

in the wall-paintings at

Mari assigned

to

the time of

Hammurabi or not much earlier.19

A second

primitive

feature

of

Minoan art, which is

to

some extent connected

with this liberty

to dispense

with ground-lines, is freedom from the

necessity of

a rigid

or formai scheme

of

composition.

Cretan

artists, and Mycenaean

ones after

them,

were quite capable

of devising

formai compositions, or

ones of

a heraldic

nature

with symmetrically arranged pairs

of

animais, when

it suited

them. But, like

the

Mesolithic

artists and those

of atal

Hiiyuk

after

them, they felt

able to

dispense

with

anything of

the kind when they wished. Scnes

in

their

paintings

were normally

unrestrained

by

vertical boundary

lines,

and

might

go round

the corners

of

rooms,

as in the case of the Thera

Monkey

Fresco.20 Vertical

borders

for scnes in paintings,

as

found

on

the Knossos Taureador Fresco, were exceptional.21

A

third

primitive

feature of Minoan art, which is also connected

with

the

liberty

to

dispense

with ground-lines,

is the convention of the

Flying

Gallop for

running

animais together with the

related

convention

of

the Knielauf run

for

human

figures.

A version

of

the Flying Gallop for

animais

is found as early as the

Upper

Palaeolithic,

although it

does

not

appear

to

be common then;22 but in a developed

form

it is

characte

ristic

f

the later rock-shelter

art of

Iberia. The Knielauf pose

for

running human

figures is attested at atal Hyuk.23 The

earliest

vidence

for

the Knielauf pose

(14) A. Mallon, R. Keppel, R. Neuville,

Teileill

Ghassul

I

(1934), p. 130f., pi.

66.

(15)

S.

Lloyd

and

F. Safar, Journal of

Near Eastern

Studies 2 (1943), p. 131-158, pi.

X-XII.

(16)

Ibid.,

pi.

X,

bottom.

A. Moortgat,

The Art

of Ancient Mesopotamia (1969),

pi.

14.

(17)

Ibid., pi.

118-121, esp. pi.

119.

(18)

Ibid.,

pi.

155-156.

(19) A. Parrot, Mari II, Le

Palais

2, Peintures murales (1958), passim.

(20) Thera

V, pi.

D.

(21) PM

III,

p.

213,

fig. 144.

(22) E.g. the

wild

boar from

Altamira,

reproduced in A. Leroi-Gourhan, The

Art of Prehistoric

Man

(1968), pi. 117.

(23)

J.

Mellaart,

atal Hyk

(1967),

Colour

Plate

XIII.


5/8

24 SINCLAIR HOOD [BCH

Suppl

XI

so

far

in

Crte

dates from Late Minoan 1 in the early

15th century

B.C. when

goat-headed monsters on seal impressions

from

Zakro are

seen running

in

this

manner.24 The Flying Gallop, however,

is found in

Crte

as early as the time of the

Phaistos deposit of seal impressions

assignable

to

Middle Minoan II c. 1700 B.C.

or earlier.25

Neither

the Flying Gallop nor the

Knielauf convention for

running can

easily

be combined with the use

of

ground-lines. The Egyptians in fact in Dynastie

times showed people running by setting their legs wide apart with both feet firmly

planted

on

the ground.26 The

Flying

Gallop only became popular

in

Egyptian

art

at

a

relatively late

period,

and then no

doubt

under

influence from the Aegean;27

the New Kingdom convention

for showing

a

chariot

horse with forelegs

raised and

hind legs

on the ground may

be

an adaptation of the

Flying

Gallop.28

We

now come to some

other primitive features

of

Minoan

art

which are

not

obviously

connected

with

freedom

from

the limitations imposed by the

use

of a

ground-line

like

those

so

far

considered.

One

of

thse

is the reprsentation

of

human figures in wall-paintings without

outlines round them. In Egyptian painting of the

Dynastie

period human figures

seem to

be

invariably

depicted with

visible outlines in

a diffrent

shade

of

colour,

although at times such outlines

may

be very

discrte

and difficult

to detect

in repro

ductions. In Mesopotamian

painting to

judge from

what survives

at

Mari, datable

c.

1800

B.C.

or not much earlier, the

outlines

round

figures are

aggressively prominent,

as

they

tend to be on the

more or less

contemporary paintings on the walls of

Middle

Kingdom tombs at

Bni

Hasan

in Egypt.

In the Aegean by contrast

even life-size

or nearly life-size figures are often depicted without

any

outlines

at ail.29 Human

figures in

Iberian rock-shelters

and in the Early Neolithic seulement of atal Hiiyuk

were similarly

painted

without

outlines.

A fifth primitive feature of

Minoan

and later egean painting related

to

this

last is the rendering

of

the human

figure as

an uniform flat surface without any

attempt

to

show contours or muscles by

lines

or shading. An apparently unique

exception once

again is

provided

by the Knossos

Taureador

Fresco where some

of

the

figures

hve

internai markings.30 The lack

of

internai markings is

in

fact a

convention

which

also

seems

to

hve

been retained in

Egyptian

painting as

far

as

the human figure was

concerned.

But the Egyptian

artist

could depict an animal

like the favourite

dog

in the

Tomb

of

Nebamun

at

Thebes dated

c. 1475 B.C.

with

an array

of

carefully drawn

internai lines

showing joints and muscles.31 In

Mesopotamia,

to

judge

from

Mari, internai markings

of

a

highly

stylised kind were

normal.

(24)

JHS 22 (1902), p. 80, flg.

12, No. 34.

(25)

AnnScAtene 35-36

(N. S.

19-20)

(1957-58),

p.

116,

flg.

298,

Tipo 233.

(26) H. Schfer,

Principles of Egyptian

Art

(translated

and edited by

John Baines) (1974), p. 16, pi.

30.

l27) W. Stevenson Smith, Interconnections

in the Ancient

Near East

(1965), p. 26, 77,

155.

(28)

Ibid.,

p.

27.

(29)

E.g. the

Thera Boxers and Fishermen, Thera

IV, Colour

Plate E; Thera

VI, Colour

Plate 6.

(30)

E.g. PM

III,

Colour

Plate XXI opposite p. 216.

(31) Nina

M. Davies,

Ancient Egyptian

Paintings

I (1936),

pi.

XV.

(32) E.g.

A.

Parrot,

Mari

II,

Le

Palais

2,

Peintures

murales

(1958),

flgs.

25, 26,

72-74, 77; pi.

VI,

XVII,

XXIII;

Colour PI.

D, E.


6/8

1985]

PRIMITIVE MINOAN ARTISTIC CONVENTION 25

A

sixth feature which

may reflect

the continuance

of

a

primitive

tradition

in

Minoan art and the subsquent

art of

the

egean

area is the use

of

white paint

for

the flesh of women contrasting

with a

deep

red

for that of men.

The

Ayia Triadha

sarcophagus

illustrtes this convention

well;

it is datable c.

1400

B.C.

or

later, after

the

Mycenaean conquest

of

Crte,

but

the

convention

is

attested

earlier there

and

elsewhere in the Aegean. There is some vidence that the

same

convention of using

white

to

indicate

the flesh

of women

was followed at atal Huyuk, although James

Mellaart notes

that women

were

also upon occasion painted red there and suggests

the

possibility

that white paint was

intended to

represent clothing rather than skin

colour.33 At

least one figure, however, which appears

to

be

female

on

a wall

at

atal

Hiiyuk is entirely white.34 Men

at atal

Huyuk are regularly painted

brown as later in Crte.35

In

the

world of

the mature Bronze

Age in

the Near East this use

of

white paint

for

the flesh

of

women seems

to

be

something

peculiar

to

Crte

in

the first instance

and

eventually

to

the

egean

area

as a

whole.

The

Egyptians

also

distinguished

the skin colour

of

men from

that

of women,

but only by making slight diffrences

in the shades of brown used for them. Moreover Egyptian

artists were

by

no

means

always consistent, and upon

occasion

rendered

men

in light brown and women in

dark brown. In

Mesopotamia,

to

judge from the paintings

at

Mari, the same dark

brown colour was used both for

the

flesh

of women

and goddesses and for that

of

gods and

men.

Thus

in

the

painting in

the

Audience

Chamber at Mari

the

goddess

Ishtar and the

company

of

gods and goddesses

round her

ail

hve

flesh painted the

same dark brown

colour.36

A seventh

and

last feature

of

Minoan art which may

be

a survival from much

earlier times is the use

of

plaster

relief combined

with

painting.

Painted reliefs

of

clay

or

plaster

abound

at

atal

Hiiyuk;

37

but

as

far

as

1

hve

been

able

to

discover

they

hve

not yet come

to

light in

Egypt

or Mesopotamia, although stone reliefs

occur in both

rgions from Predynastic times

onwards.

Fritz

Schachermeyr in particular has emphasised that

Minoan

art shows

a

distinct

affnity with

that of

arly

Neolithic atal Huyuk and

with

that of the

more

remote Mesolithic as known

to

us from

the paintings in

Iberian

rock-shelters. But

he

has

felt a

diffculty

about seeing a direct connection in view

of

the very considrable

gap

in time and in the absence of any

obvious

intermediary links between

the

Mesolithic

and

earliest

Neolithic

of the

Mediterranean area

on

the one hand

and

the

mature

Bronze

Age

of

Crte

on the

other.38

It

is

now

clear,

however,

from

discoveries

at

Phaistos

that plaster

on

Cretan

walls

and floors

was being

decorated

with

designs in

paint

before

the

end of

the

(33)

J.

Mellaart, atal Hyk (1967), p.

150f.

(34)

Ibid., pi. 53.

(35)

Ibid.,

p.

150.

(36) A. Parrot,

Mari

II, Le

Palais

2,

Peintures

murales (1958),

Colour

Plate

L.

(37)

E.g.

J. Mellaart, atal Hyk (1967),

Colour

Plate VIL

(38) F. Schachermeyr,

Die

Szenenkomposition der

minoischen

Bildkunst und ihre Bedeutung fur

die

Beurteilung

der

altkretischen

Kultur ,

KretChron 15-16

(1961-62)

I,

p.

177-185.


7/8

26

Sinclair hood [BCH

Suppl

XI

Middle Minoan

I

period.39 There

is also one

small fragment

of decorated plaster

which

appears to corne

from a

safe

context

of

the

Final

Neolithic at Phaistos.40

This Final Neolithic fragment has remains of a

gomtrie

design in

red

on a

white

ground, and suggests a comparison with some

of

the dcorative patterns

on

walls

at atal

Huyuk.41

The vidence from Myrtos-Fournou Korif is ambiguous, but it does not absolu

tely

preclude the existence

of

dcorative wall plaster in Early Minoan II

there.

Mark

Cameron notes

that

while only

a red or brownish red paint

is certainly

attested ...

other colours derived

from

earth pigments, possibly including yellow ochres, may

hve been

used occasionally ; and he later

suggests

the possibility that

some

elementary

artistic

ornamentation may

hve

been attempted, by contrasting painted

with

unpainted

areas .42

Painted relief plaster may

hve

existed

at Knossos

by

Middle Minoan II

to judge

from

a fragment

from

the fill of a drain south of the Royal

Road there.43

It is worth bearing in mind in considering such questions how very little is known

as

yet

about

early

wall-paintings

in

Egypt,

Palestine

and

Mesopotamia,

where

the

conditions

for

their survival are infnitely more favourable than they are in

Crte.

It

should also

be

remembered that the early

paintings of Anatolia

were

totally

unknown

before the spectacular

discoveries made

by James Mellaart at

atal

Hiiyuk.

The

vidence

from

Phaistos

suggests that

it

was already the

practice to

decorate

walls

in

Crte with painted

designs before the

end

of

the Neolithic there.

It is indeed

tempting

to

consider whether the custom of painting designs on

walls

might not

hve

been introduced to

Crte by

the

first

Neolithic settlers

back

in the 7th

or 6th

mill-

ennium B.C. In the light

of

the

discoveries

at atal Hiiyiik one may

well ask:

Why

not?

Pourquoi

pas?

Sinclair

Hood.

N. Marinatos demande S. Hood

de

prciser sa dfinition

du

terme

primitif

et

s'interroge sur

la

signification culturelle

des

conventions artistiques.

S. Hood

prcise

que

le

terme

primitif est

utilis dans un

sens surtout

temporel

(==

primeval). Le fait

pour l'art minoen de ne

pas

avoir adopt certaines conventions,

comme la

ligne

de sol,

qui

existait en Egypte, constituait une sorte de recul, mais dont

les

Minoens

ont

su tirer

un

remarquable

parti

artistique.

Ghr.

Doumas

fait

remarquer

que l'absence

de

ligne

de

sol

se retrouve

dans

la

cramique

du

Gycladique

Moyen,

comme dans

le style de

Fikellura Rhodes.

(39)

E.g.

fragments of wall plaster

from

a deposit of

Phase

I in

Vano

LXII, and the decorated floor of

the same date in

room

LIV, Fests I, p. 106f., flg. 142, and p. 85f.,

pi.

LXXXV a).

(40) L.

Vagnetti,

AnnScAlene 50-51 (N. S. 34-35) (1972-73)

[1975],

p. 95 and 117, flg. 133:6.

(41) E.g. J . Mellaart, alal Huyuk (1967), Colour Plate

VII.

(42) M. A.

S.

Cameron, in P. Warren, Myrlos (1972), p. 305-309, esp. p. 306

and

308.

(43) B. Kaiser, Uniersuchungen (1976), p. 286, RR 7 from Royal Road: South, 36, which wae

apparently

a

pure

deposit

of

Middle Minoan

II.


8/8

1985]

PRIMITIVE MINOAN ARTISTIC

CONVENTION

27

L. Morgan souligne que

certaines

conventions (absence

de

ligne

de sol,

de

trait

de

contour,

association peinture-relief) peuvent

aider

distinguer

l'art

minoen de

l'art mycnien.

P.

Warren observe

que

de la

communication

de S.

Hood

ressort

l'ide que les Minoens

ont

d reprendre

et

conserver

des lments

antrieurs

appartenant

une

communaut

anatolienne

et

proche-orientale.

Il

se

demande

si

un

tel

lien

avec

les

formes

orientales

a

bien

exist.

S. Hood insiste sur les

relations

qui ont exist,

ds l'poque

nolithique, entre

la Crte

et l'Anatolie, et note par

ailleurs

que

la

tendance maintenir d'anciennes traditions est un

phnomne rpandu dans

l'histoire

des

socits

humaines.

0.

Pelon

observe

que les

jalons

intermdiaires

manquent

entre l'art de atal

Huyiik

et

celui de la

Crte.

D'autre part

les

conventions picturales (couleur

blanche

pour

les femmes,

brune pour

les

hommes) ne sont

pas aussi absolues

atal

Huyiik

qu'en

Crte.

1. Pini prcise qu'une

ligne

de sol est assez souvent

marque

en Crte sur

les

sceaux

partir

du

MM

II,

et

trs

frquente ensuite

sur

le

Continent pour

structurer

la

composition.

Documents

The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention