Art Eyewitness Essay: The Etruscans and Ancient Art

The Etruscans and Ancient Art
An Art Eyewitness Essay, Part I

By Ed Voves

The word "mysterious" is often used to describe the Etruscans. These ancient people, who lived in central Italy, certainly offer many features of their way of life and religion which are difficult to interpret or explain. Yet, there is nothing essentially "mysterious" about the Etruscans.

The Etruscans were not an Indo-European people as were the Greek and Romans. They emerged, as a group of prosperous city-states at the end of the "Dark Age" following the fall of the Bronze Age civilizations, 1200-900 B.C.

Basing their power and wealth on huge reserves of iron ore and copper, the Etruscans traded readily with the Greeks and the Phoenicians. Masters at adaptation, as we will discuss, the Etruscans borrowed artistic motifs when these struck their fancy, rejected those that didn't and maintained a distinctive cultural style for almost five hundred years, 750 to 300 B.C.

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. © Getty Museum 

Unlike other non-Indo-Europeans, such as the Finns and Hungarians, the Etruscan language has yet to be traced to its origins. But the same is true of the Basques, another non-Indo-European people. There is no link, however, between the Basques and the Etruscans, further heightening the "mystery" of the latter.

One of the truly perplexing aspects about the Etruscans is the scarcity of museum exhibitions dealing with their remarkable civilization. In 1985, cultural officials in Italy proclaimed the "Year of the Etruscans." A full-slate of exhibitions was organized but, to the best of my knowledge, none traveled to the United States. Although I have been on the lookout for a major exhibit on the Etruscans over the last decade or more, I have yet to spot one.

I have done a good bit of reading about the Etruscans, notably Michael Grant's authoritative 1980 account. But there is no substitute for looking at art!

Fortunately, several museums in the U.S. have magnificent collections of Etruscan art and artifacts. It was at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston that I first encountered the Etruscans in 1986. Since then, visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and several other art collections have enabled me to study the rise of the Etruscans and their "fall" to the power of Rome.

In the autumn of 1986, I made a brief trip to Boston to see some friends. I decided to visit the MFA to view their great collection of European paintings only to discover that the European wing was being renovated. This left me with time to explore the rest of the museum but once I entered the galleries for ancient art, I stayed there for the rest of the day.

Etruscan sarcophagi from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston © MFA Boston

There I discovered the Etruscans. Two burial structures - sarcophagi - gripped my imagination - and have never let go. 

These stone coffins testify to the Etruscan focus on death and the afterlife. Discovered during the 1840's, both had been created for members of the same family. The sarcophagus on the right (above) is inscribed with the names "Thanchvil Tarnai and her husband Larth Tetnies, son of Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai." Scholars believe that the couple on the older, less-finely sculpted, sarcophagus are the named parents, Arnth Tetnies and Ramtha Vishnai.

Deciphering Etruscan writing is no small feat, as I will briefly comment on below. However important, these details about the powerful Tetnies clan are less significant than the overwhelming sensation of sharing in the spiritual lives of people long dead. This was very palpable to me, when I found myself in their "presence" back in 1986.

What is portrayed on each sarcophagus lid is the "eternal embrace." Here we see two human beings who shared life and love during their distant era. They are united in death but also in everlasting life. It is worth noting that the equality in the relative size, husband and wife, reflects the fact that women in Etruscan society enjoyed social freedoms far beyond those of their counterparts in Athens during the late fourth to early third century B.C.

Etruscan Bronze Chariot, 6th century B.C © Metropolitan Museum of Art

A similar "stand-out" Etruscan experience comes by way of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Monteleone Chariot has been a fixture of the Met since 1903 and I never cease to marvel at it during my many visits to that wonderful museum.

The Monteleone Chariot was made early in the sixth century B.C., at the height of Etruscan power. The Etruscans were formidable warriors, but generally fought on foot. Chariots were used for ceremonies and celebrations of war victories. However, the era of the chariot's construction also witnessed the first stirring of Rome. Rising in revolt, the Romans cast out their Etruscan king, Tarquinius, in 507 B.C. Etruscan victory parades were to diminish in number as the Republic of Rome grew in power.

The bronze metalwork of the chariot was mounted on a wooden frame. Except for a tell-tale fragment of oak, none of the timber survived the long centuries during which the chariot rested in an underground tomb. Unearthed by accident in 1902, it was quickly purchased by Italian art dealers. The first director of the Metropolitan Museum, Luigi de Cesnola, was a well-connected archaeologist and he bought the chariot  - legally - before the Italian government could intervene.

Detail of Etruscan Bronze Chariot © Metropolitan Museum of Art

This spectacular bronze vehicle is decorated with scenes from the life of the Greek hero, Achilles. The front of the chariot car shows Achilles receiving a new set of armor, helmet and shield from his mother Thetis. With this battle gear, Achilles will fight his famous duel with the Trojan hero, Hektor. 

The artistic style of the chariot's Achilles motifs is an almost pure example of Greek-Archaic era art. Some scholars have speculated that the chariot might have been made in one of the Greek colonies of southern Italy and then sold or sent as a gift to the Etruscans. However, the Etruscans greatly favored the Archaic style in their own art, so much so that they retained it even after the Greeks had innovated more natural and humanistic representation during the fifth century B.C.

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, 6th century B.C. 

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Etruscans borrowed widely from the Greek merchants and city-state builders in southern Italy and Sicily. The Etruscans also maintained close trading and cultural relationships with the Phoenicians, so much that their ethnic origins have been frequently - and  mistakenly - traced to the Middle East. Yet, the Etruscans'  basic attitudes to life and the after-life, society and eternity, were formed long before the interaction with seafarers from Greece and the Phoenician city-states began in earnest during the seventh century B.C. 

Of the Etruscans, Michael Grant wrote:

They were temperamentally different from the Greeks, and in consequence had different needs and customs... Far from requiring the delineations of the human body, whether idealized or realistic, the Etruscans' own conception of art involved highly formalized, dream-like patterns, and sometimes, grotesquely caricatured exaggerations and elongations. The balances and proportions, the clear frameworks and logical formal principles that were the essential features of Attic classicism held no interest for them at all.

The Etruscans also adapted the Greek alphabet for their unique language. Since the Greeks had done the same, borrowing the Phoenician lettering system, this cultural transfer does not denote a failure on the part of the Etruscans to innovate or create for themselves.

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C.

 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the most delightful - and significant - Etruscan artifacts in the Met's collection is a small vase, inscribed with the twenty-six letters of the Etruscan alphabet. It almost certainly was an ink bottle since the head acts as a stopper and could be attached to the bird’s body by a cord. The missing tail, curving downward to form a third foot, would have kept the ink bottle from tipping over.

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel

© Metropolitan Museum of Art

When the Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet for their own use, the process followed the same pattern as their incorporation of elements of Greek art. The Etruscans found writing a key tool in managing their expanding trade with Greek and Phoenician merchants and with their Latin neighbors and subjects. Literacy, likewise, was valued for its uses in religious practices, the Etruscans being notably devoted to the rituals and traditions honoring their gods.

This emphasis on putting their faith into practice may account for the large number of "speaking objects" which record the names of Etruscans in association with specific artifacts. These inscriptions are likely to have been written, painted or incised on objects of value to record the names of donors of gifts to Etruscan temples. 

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron, ca. 600 B.C. © Metropolitan Museum

 

Alternatively, inscribing one's name on a precious commodity like the perfume vessel or alabastron (above) might also signify that it was a high-status present (or bribe) to an influential person who might need to be reminded who the gift was "speaking" for. In the case of this alabasteron from the Met's collection, it is incised on the rim with the words "I am the gift of Licinius Hirsunaie."

The Etruscan alphabet undoubtedly played a large role in the transactions of a collaborative religious "league' or council which was held once a year at a sacred site called the Fanum Voltumnae. 

The Etruscans, however, never developed any comparable degree of political unity. The individual Etruscan city-states made alliances with the Greeks and with the Phoenicians, based in Carthage, but seldom cooperated among themselves. In 396 B.C., the Roman Republic launched a devastating assault on Veii, one of the leading Etruscan cities. Despite the fact that the Romans had been besieging Veii for years, none of the other Etruscan city-states made any effort to assist Veii. The destruction of Veii marked the first great military victory of Rome - and the eventual downfall of Etruscan civilization.

This lack of political unity among the Etruscans is reflected in the lack of evidence that they composed sophisticated works of history or philosophy as did the Greeks and Romans. Nothing of their literature, such as it was, has survived - only a mass of inscriptions, most of which are still undeciphered.

Long after the Etruscan city states fell under the hegemony of Rome, the Emperor Claudius (10 B.C.-54 A.D) wrote a twenty-volume history of the Etruscans but sadly it was not preserved. Had this tome by Claudius survived, it would likely have included a sermon or two reproving the Etruscans for their love of the "good life." 

The Etruscans did indulge themselves in golden jewelry and prestige imported goods from Greece and the Middle East. They became supremely gifted goldsmiths themselves, making it often difficult to tell if spectacular works such as the golden bracelet (below) were imported or made in an Etruscan workshop. 

Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

This bracelet, one of a pair in the collection of the British Museum, is a classic example of the "orientalizing" influence of the Phoenicians on the Etruscans, and the Greeks, too, which  occurred during the seventh century B.C. Close inspection of the bracelet shows designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant. These motifs are clearly of Phoenician or Syrian origin but the bracelet could well have been made by an Etruscan craftsman.

Detail of Gold Votive Bracelet, ca. 675 B.C.-650 B.C. © British Museum

We have vivid evidence of the Etruscan love of the "good life" in the spectacular tomb paintings which have been preserved. These rare surviving paintings show how the Etruscans viewed life after death as a continuation of the delights of this life.

"Tomb of the Leopards," Tarquina, Univ.of Michigan Art Images 

Depictions of feasting and revelry on the walls of Etruscan tombs appealed mightily to modern-day writers and artists. So too, did the Etruscans' quirky, unconventional rejection of "Golden-age" Greek classicism. D.H. Lawrence wrote that "if you love the odd spontaneous forms that are never to be standardized, go to the Etruscans,"

Alberto Giacometti was certainly one of the premier twentieth century artists who heeded Lawrence's advice. Giacometti closely studied ancient art, as was noted in the major retrospective held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2018. The elongation of such Etruscan works as the third century bronze now called "Shadow of the Evening" was such an influence on Giacometti's signature figures that it might seem too obvious to merit commentary here.

 (Top) "Shadow of the Evening" Statue, Volterra, 3rd century B.C.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950

The close artistic affinity of Giacometti's The Chariot for "Shadow of the Evening" should not distract us from grasping the creative process displayed in both. Each of these works confirms Lawrence's appraisal of the Etruscan rejection of "standardization" in favor of an art aesthetic of their own.  And just as Etruscan artists adapted Greek and Phoenician art to suit their practice, so did Giacometti respond to the Etruscans. The result in both cases was a strikingly unusual and appealing work of art.

The Etruscan achievement in the visual arts is too vast to be properly treated in a short essay like this. I plan to follow with further essays, focusing on aspects of Etruscan art such as their masterful Bucchero pottery which was popular throughout the ancient world. 

For the present, let us conclude with Michael Grant's assessment of Etruscan art:

Uninterested in the classical principles of propriety, they went all out to capture the instant, unrepeatable visual flash... In a world of overpowering divine forces, what had gone before or would come after did not interest their artists. Instead, they expressed the world of their imaginings by inconsequential improvisations, characterized by force and fantasy and charm.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves. Original Photo: Anne Lloyd. All rights reserved                                                                                           

Images courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Introductory Image:

Terracotta Statue of a Young Woman, late 4th century B.C. Terracotta H. 29 /7/16 (74.8 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1916. #16:141 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, 500–475 B.C. Bronze: 20.7 × 16.5 cm, 1340 g (8 1/8 × 6 1/2 in., 2.9542 lb.). Getty Museum # 2017.126 © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California

Sarcophagus and Lid with Portraits of Husband and Wife, from Vulci, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C. Volcanic tuff stone: Height : 88 cm (34 5/8 in.); width: 73 cm (28 3/4 in.); length: 210 cm (82 11/16 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds by exchange from a Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III. #1975.799

Sarcophagus and Lid with Husband and Wife, from Vulci, 350–300 B.C. Travertine stone: Height: 93.3 cm.(36 3/4 in.); width: 117.4 cm. (46 1/4 in.); length: 213.8 cm  (84 3/16 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds donated by Mrs. Gardner Brewer & by contribution & the Benjamin Pierce Cheney Donation. #86.145a-b

Etruscan Bronze Chariot inlaid with Ivory, 2nd quarter of the 6th century B.C. Bronze, ivory: H. 51 9/16 in. (130.9 cm), length of pole 82 1/4 in. (209 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchased with Rogers Fund, 1903. #:03.23.1 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bronze Statuette of a Young Woman, late 6th century B.C. Bronze: H. 11 9/16 in. (29.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917. #17.190.2066 © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, ca. 650–600 B.C. Terracotta bucchero ware: H. 4 1/16 in. (10.31 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1924. #24.97.21a,b   © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Detail of Terracotta Vase in the Shape of a Cockerel, showing the Etruscan alphabet. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta inscribed Alabastron (perfume vase), ca. 600 B.C. Terracotta: H. 5 5/16 in. (13.5 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fletcher Fund, 1926.  #26.60.94

Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C. One of Pair, likely found in Palestrina,Italy, Galeassi Tomb.  Gold -  granulation, embossed, stamped: Length: 18.50 centimetres (excl. head and clasp); Weight: 419 grammes; Width: 5.60 centimetres.British Museum. #1872,0604.699 and #1872.6-4.700. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Detail of Gold votive bracelet, ca. 675  B.C.-650 B.C., showing designs of a "Master of Animals" flanked by lions  and three women, each grasping a tree-like plant

"Tomb of the Leopards," detail of banqueting scene, Tarquinia, Italy. University of Michigan Art Images for College Teaching. #ETR 108.  

Etruscan Statue (Modern name - "Ombra della sera" or "Shadow of the Evening"), 3rd century B.C. Bronze: 57.5 cm (about 22.6 inches) Guarnacci Museum of Volterra https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Ombra_della_Sera_Volterra.jpg

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2018) Alberto Giacometti's The Chariot, 1950. Bronze on wood base: 65 3/4 x 27 3/16 x 27 3/16 inches (167x 69 x 69 cm) 

Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

Edited by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
 Oxford University Press/$60/481 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Readers of the Christian New Testament (Hebrews 4:12) will be familiar with the image of a "two edged sword."  This weapon is used as metaphor for the living word of God which can pierce "unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

On a more earthly plain, two edged swords certainly have stabbed and sliced "of the joints and the marrow" of countless human beings. Two edged swords cut both ways. The weapon you use to kill an enemy can kill you. Sometimes this occurs by accident rather than design -"friendly fire" is a current way of describing it. Two edged swords have also been used in acts of suicidal despair, as King Saul, forsaken by God and defeated by the Philistines, fell upon his sword.

As I read the brilliant and provocative new book, The Oxford Illustrated History of the World, the image of the two edged sword kept appearing and reappearing in my mind. Civilization is a two edged sword.

And not just swords. The biblical passage of swords being hammered into plowshares is worthy of note. Plowshares, the subject of much discussion in the Oxford book, are "two edged" too. Cutting through turf, plowshares create this year's topsoil which wind and rain turn into next year's dust and mud.

A plough pulled by oxen, from the Luttrell Psalter, c.1325 (British Library)

In just under five hundred pages, the authors of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World have achieved a near impossible feat of scholarship. They trace the rise of Homo Sapiens as the dominant living species on Planet Earth. The momentous journey from the cradle of human life in prehistoric Africa to the present phase of the "Great Acceleration" is presented in a judicious blend of sweeping narrative and lucid commentary.

Drawing upon the latest research in earth science, biology and climatology, the Oxford volume closely links the dominant status of Homo Sapiens to the ability to adapt to challenging living conditions on all continents except Antarctica.The book's first chapter (written by Clive Gamble) presents informed and intriguing speculation that the replacement of Neanderthals by humans in Europe occurred 40,000 years ago following a huge volcanic eruption. As Neanderthals were "as large brained as their human contemporaries," the change was not due to lack of intelligence. Humans likely gained predominance by their enhanced ability to respond to challenges, acquired during the migrations from East Africa.

The skull of Homo Sapiens (left) compared to a Neanderthal skull

Clive Gamble writes: 

We became the lonely, global species as a result of imagination, supported by advanced cognitive skills, which gave us myths, afterlives, ancestors, gods, and history - the cultural dreams of a clever, versatile biped...This imagination, validated by society and culture, saw benefit in going beyond, taking the risk, moving out of the long-inhabited hominin comfort zone...

The editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is the perfect leader of the team of scholars responsible for this splendid book. A brilliant and unorthodox historian,  Fernández-Armesto wrote two of the chapters of this global history. The first considers the birth of art and ideas during the Paleolithic "Ice Age," while the second surveys the rise and fall of the agriculture-based civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley city-states and the Shang and Zhou dynasties of ancient China. 

Other notable historians follow Fernández-Armesto's example and Gamble's superb opening chapter. The combined scholarship of this Oxford illustrated history balances wide-ranging appraisal with tightly-focused scrutiny on significant factors. The text is brilliantly complemented by pictures of extraordinary works of art and readily understandable maps and charts.

Buddhist Expansion in Asia to about 1300 CE

A good example of the book's balance of far-sighted perception  and incisive example occurs in the chapter on life during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. John Brooke notes that changed climate conditions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries brought significant rainfall to the Eurasian steppe. Grassland grew in what had been a vast stretch of near desert. Mongol raiders under Genghis Khan thus had a ready supply of forage, enabling them to create a land empire from the Volga and Dnieper rivers in Russia to Korea and China. Along with the marauding armies of the Mongols traveled the Yersinia pestis bacillus, the plague microbe responsible for the Black Death.

Natural calamities of the magnitude of the Black Death or the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 are comparatively rare. On the other hand, the frequency of societal smash-ups is almost predictable in its wheel-of-misfortune regularity.

Fernández-Armesto and his fellow scholars view the development of human societies from a broad continuum. As a result, traditional textbook dates for "smash-ups" like the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, 476 AD, sometimes appear in the middle of chapters, rather than more definitive places on history's timeline.

John Brooke's "Material Life: Bronze Age Crisis to the Black Death," is one of three chapters spanning the long period from the collapse of Bronze Age city-states and kingdoms around the presumed date for the Trojan War (1200 BC) to the Renaissance in Europe. Brooke, David Northrup and Ian Morris examine how humanity in this long phase of history developed complex societies and religious/philosophical foundations to sustain them.

Often the most creative ideas and innovations occurred during the "dark ages" which punctuated this millennium and a half. Homer's Iliad was composed during a truly dark time, a least in terms of written records, following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization in Greece (1100-750 BC). It was only written down after the Greeks had adapted the alphabet of the seafaring Phoenicians for their own use. Not long after this, the Hebrew Bible began to be organized in written form by Jews who had been forced to migrate to Babylon after Judea was conquered and incorporated into the Babylonian Empire.

Frequently, human beings cannot resist drawing the sword and using force to defend themselves. Civilized states have suffered much from the attacks of wandering, pillaging nomads - Goths,  Huns, Vikings and Mongols. Small kingdoms and states must also resist being swallowed up by bigger states.  One of the more successful political entities to do so was ancient Assyria's New Empire, 912-612 BC. 

Assyrian cavalry relief, c. 700 BCE (British Museum)

Early Assyria had been an unremarkable Middle Eastern kingdom, often under the sway of Babylon. "New" Assyria built a powerful military establishment, developing horse cavalry units rather than relying on cumbersome chariots. This enabled Assyria to survive the tsunami of steppe raiders and "sea peoples" which wiped-out Mycenaean Greece, the Hittites in modern-day Turkey and nearly swamped once-mighty Egypt. According to Brooke, cooler temperatures and more rainfall favored the horse raiders and the likely spread of plague vectors similar to what occurred with the Mongols later during the Middle Ages. Assyria countered this grave threat and won.

Does this mean that we should extend a degree of sympathy to the New Assyrian Empire, given the narrow margin of survival which they faced? Ultimately no, for militarized Assyria became one of the most ruthless and blood-thirsty political states in history - and one of the least innovative once the nomad invaders had been driven off. In my 2014 Art Eyewitness review of the "Assyria to Iberia" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I compared the sterile culture of the Assyrians with the immense creative achievements of the Phoenician city-states during the same period. 

In the case of the war-loving Assyrians, the image of the '''two edged sword" is literally true. But the law of unintended effect is equally appropriate to creative pursuits like the visual arts.

Fernández-Armesto writes movingly of the birth of art during the Paleolithic era. He notes that art painted or carved on the walls of cave shrines served a ritual purpose or as a record of hunting techniques. Much, indeed the majority, of art created around the time of the celebrated Chauvet Cave paintings, thirty thousand years ago, was religious in its intention, as human beings conceived and interpreted notions of divine powers and eternal life.

Not all prehistoric art was spiritually-motivated. Fernández-Armesto writes:

One of the reasons why humans make images of the objects they see is in an effort to understand them: understanding is inescapably prior to control. Like modern 'abstract' artists today, Ice Age predecessors tried to capture the key properties and patterns of the nature they observed, not to reproduce its exact appearance.

Note the words "understanding is inescapably prior to control." Humans created art to help them understand and control their natural environment and to conceptualize the unseen, but intuited, realm of divine beings. From there, it was but a step to using art as a means of understanding society, "prior to control" by some human beings over other, less favored men and women.

A richly bejewelled burial at Sunghir in Russia, dated to 28,000 years ago

Fernández-Armesto pauses in his survey of Paleolithic society to focus on an elite burial ground at Sunghir, near Moscow. The cemetery was found to contain the remains of an older man (shown above) and two children, dated to 28,000 years ago. The grave goods were staggering in their profusion and sophistication. Thousands of beads made from mammoth ivory,a necklace made of fox fangs and fur garments with fox teeth buttons were uncovered. One of the children, a boy of ten to twelve years, was buried with a spear or wand made from mammoth ivory.

Like the Egyptians, thousands of years later, these early "Russians" were well-equipped for the afterlife. But the spiritual connotation of these grave goods must also be interpreted from a political or societal perspective. These were privileged people, probably a clan or tribe leader and his children. Whoever they were, Fernández-Armesto is surely correct to identify them as members of an "Ice Age power class."

From that point, 28,000 years ago, the mutually reinforcing relationship of religion, politics and art shaped and determined the whole course of human existence. The discovery of the Sunghir grave goods in 1970 provided the earliest examples of the "trappings" of power.

In a later chapter of the Oxford book, dealing with the rise and crisis of modern culture, Paolo Luca Bernardini affirms that "the presence or absence of God is a key element in all spiritual, intellectual, and artistic work." Throughout history, Bernardini notes:

The arts constantly gave their account of the clash between mutability and eternity as they relate to the human world and the eternal God: through these representations, they justify their practice and express their deepest meaning. These conditions of mutability and visions of the world in which the sacred space plays a fundamental role plead in favor of the divine dimension of art. They suggest 'divine inspiration', as a human response to the same mystery of existence.

Japanese export pottery with VOC (Dutch East India Company) symbol

With brilliant (and disturbing) insight, Bernardini shows how a strain of atheism promulgated by radicals of the French Revolution spread throughout European cultural circles despite the eventual defeat suffered by the French Republic and its successor, Napoleon's empire. Later embraced in various forms by intellectuals all over the world, the belief that "God is Dead" has had staggering implications for humanity's creative impulses and emotional health.

A secularized perspective is now the dominant mode of thought and action in today's world, even in societies which profess strong belief in religious creeds. The critical turning point may have been earlier than the French Revolution of 1789. The chapter in the Oxford book dealing with the spread of global commerce following the voyages of "discovery" by Columbus, Vasco da Gama and others provides fascinating evidence for this crucial development.

"Exhibit A" is a porcelain plate made in Japan around 1660 for export to the Netherlands. Prominently placed in the center is the symbol of the Dutch East India Company. "VOC" stands for Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Although the Dutch were still a very pious people, by the 1660's many were equipping  or decorating their homes with nonreligious-themed products or pictures. Rembrandt's career took a fatal downturn around this time as his biblical paintings remained unsold.

A century before this, very few persons in Europe of any social standing, Protestant or Catholic, would have displayed a work of art or costly artifacts which lacked some reference to religion.  Even the Medici of Florence were careful to have themselves portrayed on the edges of paintings devoutly worshiping the Christ child in the manger.

"Envy is a weed," Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) declared, "which should never be watered."

As long as human beings feared - or more importantly, believed in - God's judgment, then art and religion provided the inspiring belief systems which motivated the rise of Homo Sapiens to unprecedented achievements. Once corporate "brands" like "VOC" began to replace religious symbolism and spiritual ideals, humanity entered a new phase of existence.

Earth Lights, 1994, illustrated by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA

We now live in a "new world" of instant communication and individual gratification. The NASA illustration, Earth Lights, shows how widespread is the present state of the globalism, the latest man-made Utopia. Created in 1994 using data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Operational Linescan System (OLS), the illustration shows "twinkling lights" which actually are "the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface."

The dark spaces of Earth Lights also show how circumscribed is globalism. This is not a matter of civilization vs. barbarism, First World vs. Third World, but signifies instead how standards of certain regions cannot and should not be the measure for the whole planet.

The final chapters of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World have much to say - cogent and based upon the latest research - about the troubled condition of humanity. The epilogue of this magnificent book also reminds us that it is "the function of a prophet to be wrong..." 

Homo Sapiens, in the journey from Africa, survived by adapting not predicting, by problem-solving rather than pontificating. Felipe Fernández-Armesto and his team of all-star historians take the same measured approach. 

"The search for an ideal society," Fernández-Armesto counsels,"is like the pursuit of happiness: it is better to travel hopefully, because arrival breeds disillusionment."

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of Oxford University Press, the British Museum (via Wikipedia) and the British Library.  The New Testament quote (Hebrews 4:12) is from the Douay–Rheims Bible 1899 American Version of the Holy Bible.

Introductory Image:
Book Cover. Courtesy of Oxford University Press,

A plough pulled by oxen from the Luttrell Psalter, c.1325-35. Plowing scene, r, f.170r, from the digitized manuscript of the Luttrell Psalter on the British Library website: (https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_42130_fs001ar

The skull of Homo Sapiens (left) compared to a Neanderthal skull. hairymuseummatt (original photo), Dr Mike Baxter (derivative work) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Buddhist Expansion to about 1300 CE.  Gunawan Kartapranata / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Assyrian cavalry relief,c. 700 BCE. Gypsum wall panel relief showing King Ashurbanipal and attendants hunting. From the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum.                                  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Exhibition_I_am_Ashurbanipal_king_of_the_world%2C_king_of_Assyria%2C_British_Museum_%2831033563287%29.jpg/1280px-Exhibition_I_am_Ashurbanipal_king_of_the_world%2C_king_of_Assyria%2C_British_Museum_%2831033563287%29.jpg

A richly bejewelled burial at Sunghir in Russia, dated to 28,000 years ago.
José-Manuel Benito Álvarez / Wikimedia Commons Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Japanese export pottery with VOC symbol, ca. 1660. Porcelain, underglaze blue (Arita ware):H. 2 3/8 in. (6 cm); Diam. 12 3/8 in. (31.4 cm); Diam. of foot (6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry Collection, Bequest of Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry, 2000 Accession Number:2002.447.40 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

The Earth at night, 1994, as illustrated by NASA scientists Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon    Data courtesy Marc Imhoff of NASA GSFC and Christopher Elvidge of NOAA NGDC. Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC  Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Sicily: Culture and Conquest at the British Museum

Sicily: Culture and Conquest

British Museum, London 

April 21 – Aug 14, 2016 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The island of Sicily is the subject of a fascinating exhibition currently at the British Museum, Sicily: Culture and Conquest. Like Sicily itself, the exhibit dazzles the imagination. And like this ancient land, there is much about the exhibit that does not "meet the eye." 

Strategically set in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily is a land of opposites. Bursting with fertility and abundance, the island is haunted by violence and death. It is the birthplace of some of the most creative masters of European culture: Archimedes of Syracuse (d.212 BC), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479) and Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936). It is also the homeland of the Cosa Nostra. 

In antiquity, Sicily was the setting for one of the most significant Greco-Roman myths, the story of Demeter and Persephone. When her daughter, Persephone, is abducted by Hades,  god of the underworld, Demeter wins her release for part of the year. In spring and summer, Persephone is free. Nature blooms, crops ripen - and then comes winter. This, to the ancient Greeks, explained the regenerative cycle of nature. 

But how evocative is the myth of Demeter and Persephone of the fate of Sicily! Joy mixed with an equal portion of sorrow, salvation and damnation forever linked. 

There are two hundred works of art in the British Museum exhibition, covering Sicily's history from antiquity to the Renaissance. Two periods, the rise of the Ancient Greek city-states and the Norman French rule during the Middle Ages, are extensively covered. Other eras, notably the long period of Roman rule, are illustrated with only few works of art. Given the thousands of years covered by the exhibit, this imbalance was perhaps necessary. But it does have some unfortunate consequences.

An excellent place to start grappling with Sicily: Culture and Conquest is the Terracotta Altar with Three Women. 

The altar comes from the Greek colony of Gela on the south coast of Sicily. It dates from around 500 BC, well after the first Greeks beached their galleys on the coast at Naxos in 735 BC.  In terms of style, this terracotta statue is early in the Greek artistic tradition and it represents religious and social themes even earlier - much earlier.

Terracotta Altar with Three Woman and a Lioness Mauling a Bull, 500 BC

Here we see Demeter and Persephone, along with another goddess, Hecate, who cared for Persephone in Hades during her months of wintry exile. Hecate was a goddess of very ancient origin. The three goddesses represent the Mother Goddess cult which preceded Zeus and the Olympian gods. 

Above the three goddesses on the Gela altarpiece is a depiction of a female lion or panther savagely killing a bull. Is this violent scene a reference to the female-male conflict implicit in Persephone's abduction by Hades? Does this  bloody encounter recall a myth from the pre-Greek people of Sicily, the Sicels? We are unlikely to know with certainty.

Gela was a major site of terracotta production in ancient times.The British Museum exhibit also displays a  terracotta roof ornament with head of a gorgon from a temple in Gela. Gorgons were fearsome female deities in Greek myth whose very look could turn a person to stone. This one was likely placed to protect the Gela temple in time of war. 

Antefix in the form of a Gorgoneion, c. 500 BC

Sadly, Sicily was to figure as a battleground from antiquity to the 1943 invasion by Allied forces in World War II. The principal combat in ancient times was between the Greeks in Sicily against the Phoenician maritime power, Carthage. 

The Phoenicians, originally from Lebanon, had established the major city-state of Carthage in North Africa and settlements in Sicily during the 9th century BC. These Semitic peoples were intrepid seaman, creators of the alphabet we still use and tough fighters. But they were merchants first of all. The Phoenicians preferred the art of the deal to the art of war.

There is but one work of Phoenician art in Sicily: Culture and Conquest, a mask designed to protect graves at Carthage from evil spirits. This does a disservice to Phoenician culture. Compared with the Greek art on view, it is easy to look at this grimacing image and conceive of the Phoenicians as an alien civilization.

Grave Mask from Carthage, 5th Century BC

The Greeks had early developed a jealous dislike of the Phoenicians. Sicily represented  the promised land to the Greeks and they were not prepared to share it with Carthage. Syracuse, with one of the most superb harbors in the Mediterranean, became the superpower among the Greek city-states on the island. The rulers or tyrannoi of Syracuse were determined to expand their territorial holdings over Sicily.

The British Museum exhibit displays several outstanding works of "the art of war" recalling ancient bloodshed in Sicily.  A marble statue of a warrior from the city-state of Akragas (modern-day Agrigento) was created around 470 BC. It was certainly part of a monument celebrating the resounding victory over Carthage ten years before by the Greek forces commanded by Gelon of Syracuse and Theron, the ruler of Akragas. 

Statue of a Warrior, c. 480 BC

This great battle in 480 BC, Himera, was won at the same time as the victories of Athens and Sparta against the Persian invaders, 480-479 BC. The Akragas war monument was clearly intended by the Greeks of Sicily to remind their boastful cousins in the ancestral homeland that they had triumphed over the "Barbarians" as well.

After the battle of Himera, the Greeks in Sicily followed the example of Athens, Sparta and Corinth by fighting endlessly among themselves. Carthage regained much of its strength and began to reassert its power in Sicily. After a deadly chess match lasting over two centuries both the Greeks and Carthaginians were checkmated by a new player, the Romans.

Amazingly, Carthage had been an early trade partner and ally of the fledgling Roman Republic, founded in 509 BC. It took many years for the Romans to bring the Italian peninula under their rule. All the while, they watched Carthage and the Greeks wage costly wars without either side gaining hegemony  over Sicily.

In 264 BC, the Romans made their move, clashing with Carthage in the first of the three Punic Wars. The British Museum exhibit displays a truly remarkable piece documenting the "art of war"  during those terrible conflicts. 

Bronze Rostrum or Roman naval ram, 243-241 BC

Normally,  I would hardly consider the rostrum or battering ram mounted on the prow of Roman warship as a work of art. But this menacing weapon illustrates perfectly the relentless warfare that turned Sicily into the gate of Hades for thousands and thousands of war victims, not merely for Persephone in the myth. 

The rostrum was excavated from the seabed in 2008 near Levanzo, on the western tip of Sicily. Here on March 10, 241 BC, the Roman fleet smashed the naval squadrons of Carthage in the climatic battle of the war. The rostrum came from one of the 30 Roman ships lost in the battle. 

Detail of Bronze Rostrum, showing figure of Victory, 243-241 BC

It is a measure of Roman determination and confidence that the bronze ram had been cast with a winged-figure of Victory. 

Rome was to sustain further losses in the Second Punic War, when Hannibal invaded Italy in 218 BC. But Rome won in the end, destroying Carthage in 146 BC. Sicily was reduced to vassal status. Its rich lands were turned into vast, grain-producing estates called latifundia. 

Apart from this bronze naval ram, Sicily: Culture and Conquest presents few works of art or artifacts from the Roman era. Since this period lasted for an entire millennium, up to the brief Arab conquest in 965 AD, this is a debatable curatorial decision. Indeed, it may well be a serious omission preventing a proper understanding of Sicily's history.

Sicily is the site of the greatest surviving mosaic installation of the Roman era in Europe. This is the great series of mosaic pavements at the Villa del Casale near Piazza Armerina in central Sicily. Created early in the  fourth century AD, it shows wild animal hunts and bikini-clad (or at least the Roman equivalent) female athletes. 

What the mosaics of Villa del Casale really depict is the staggering difference between the privileged lifestyle of the elite of Roman society, the honestiores, and those who served them. The grinding existence of the humiliores is notably absent from these mosaics.

It is missing too from Sicily: Culture and Conquest.                                                                                                                                                                                              . Yet, without some acknowledgement of this centuries-long impoverishment, the rise of the Cosa Nostra cannot be understood. Indeed ,the first Mafia were the Gabellotti. These were the managers whom absentee landlords during the 1800's - descendants of the honestiores - relied upon to run their estates.  The Gabellotti, with no Roman legions to fear, seized power themselves. Sicily and much of the Western world, is still dealing  with the deadly legacy of the Gabellotti.

If the British Museum exhibits skims lightly over the Roman domination of Sicily, compensation is abundantly made in the galleries devoted to the Norman Kingdom and the the reign of Frederick II. These incredible episodes from the Middle Ages are brilliantly explored, presenting art and literary treasures of a unique realm, tolerant, multilingual and open to new ideas. 

Bronze Falcon from Norman-era Sicily or Southern Italy, c. 1200-1220

The Normans arrived in Italy as mercenary knights in 1016 AD, fighting for and against just about everybody including the Pope. The Normans, descendants of the Norsemen who had raid the north of France, were mighty warriors. Christian baptism had changed them barely at all. They were Vikings on horseback. 

In  1061, the Normans launched a thirty-year campaign to "liberate" Sicily from the Arabs. The details of their campaigns and their later rule has been memorably chronicled by the great historian, John Julius Norwich in his books, The Normans in the South 1016-1130, and The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130-1194. We will concentrate on the amazing  - and unexpected - flourishing of culture under the Normans.

Like the Carthaginians, the Normans in Sicily had limited manpower. Instead of hiring mercenaries to wage war, they used others, Greeks and Arabs, to build churches, create works of art and manage the economy. 

The Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race, c. 1130 AD

The exquisite mosaic, the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race, was made by Byzantine Greeks around 1130 AD. This was the era of King Roger II, the greatest Norman ruler. Originally from the Cathedral in Palermo, the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race beautifully evokes the toleration that was the foundation of Roger's tremendous achievements.

The compassion and empathy in the Virgin as Advocate is reinforced by a work which symbolizes the spirit of "coexistence"  that marked the era of Roger II. It is easy to miss this funerary piece, insignificant in size, but it is key to the medieval galleries of the exhibit.

Tombstone with Eulogy to Anna, Written in Four Languages, 1149 AD

In 1149 AD, a clergyman named  Grisandus set-up this memorial plaque for his mother Anna. The eulogy was  written in the four languages used in Norman Sicily: Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script) on top, Latin on the left, Greek on the right, and Arabic below.

If only this touching, multi-language work of art could have characterized the whole course of Sicily's development from the Norman era to ours!

Unhappily, this is an "exceptional" work of art because it is an exception. Sicily's golden age came to an end when Frederick II died in 1250. The "wonder of the world" to some, Antichrist to others, Frederick was a rare example of a brilliant, tolerant and effective ruler during the Middle Ages - and today. 

Sicily: Culture and Conquest concludes with a painting believed to be a work by Antonello da Messina. One of the earliest Renaissance artists in Italy to use oil paint, Antonello was a master of psychological depth as well. His Madonna, from the collection of the National Gallery of Art in London, is vastly different from the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race.

Antonello da Messina, Virgin and Child, c. 1460-9

The eyes of Antonello's Madonna are firmly closed. She does not look at Jesus, who is not a child but rather a weird, doll-like man. As the angels lower a glittering crown on the Madonna's head, we become aware of the dread anticipation she feels. The pain on her face reminds us of Antonello's depictions of Christ being crowned by thorns before his crucifixion. 

This jewel-covered crown may not have skin-piercing thorns. But Mary's sorrowing countenance conveys the pain it will bring. This disturbing work is entitled  - most inaccurately - The Virgin and Child. 

A much more appropriate name for this strange, haunted painting springs readily to mind:    

The Madonna of Sicily's History.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. 
Images Courtesy of the British Museum, London, UK

Introductory Image:  
Fragment of a Metope from Temple C, Sicilian Greek, Limestone, c. 540 – 500 BC, H: 460 mm, W: 470 mm Lent by: Palermo Museo Archeologico Regionale, Antonio Salinas, Via Bara All'Olivella, 24, 90133 Palermo, Italy, museum # NI 3899                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Terracotta Altar with Three Woman and a Lioness Mauling a Bull, Sicilian Greek, 500 BC, Terracotta H: 1140 mm, L: 750 mm, D: 350 mm Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Gela, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 1, 93012 Gela 

Antefix in the form of a Gorgoneion, Sicilian Greek, about 500 BC, Terracotta, H: 385 mm, L: 380 mm, D: 880 mm Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Gela, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 1, 93012 Gela

Grave Mask, Carthage, North Africa, 5th Century BC, Baked Clay, H: 17.7 cm © The Trustees of the British Museum, British Museum # 133128

Statue of a Warrior, Sicilian Greek, c. 480 BC, Marble, H: 861 mm Lent by: Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale di Agrigento, Contrada San Nicola, 12, Agrigento, 92100, Italy, Ag 217

Bronze Rostra from Levanzo, Roman-era Italy, 243-241 BC, Bronze, H: 700 mm, W: 500 mm Lent by: Soprintendenza per i Beni culturali e ambientali del Mare Palazzetto Mirto - Via Lungarini, 9, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo, 4521 (Istituto Roosevelt) Palermo 90100, Italy  # Egadi 4

Bronze Falcon, Norman-era Sicily / Southern Italy, 1200-1220, Gilded Bronze, H: 279 mm, W: 165 mm, L: 79 mm Lent by: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  Metropolitan Museum # 47.101                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Mosaic of the Virgin Haghiosoritissa, Norman-era Sicily,  12th Century, H: 750mm, W: 620mm Lent by: Museo Diocesano di Palermo, Via M. Bonello, 2, 90133 Palermo, Italy, museum # 6

Tombstone with Eulogy to Anna, Mother of Grisandus, Written in Four Languages, Church of  St. Michael the Archangel, Palermo, Sicily, 1149, Inlaid Marble, W:  410 mm, L: 320 mm, D: 45 mm max Lent by: SoprIntendeza di Palermo, Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. Via Calvi, 13, 90139 – Palermo, museum # 19304

Antonello da Messina (Sicilian, 1456-1479) Virgin and Child, c. 1460-9, Oil on wood, 43.2 x 34.3 cm National Gallery, London, UK, Salting Bequest, 1910, NG2618