TEXTE EXPLICATIVE

CRESTOMAIE
ISTORIA UNIVERSAL A ARHITECTURII I ARTELOR
2014-2015
ANTICHITATEA I EVUL MEDIU ORIENTAL
Lector drd.arh. Corina LUCESCU
Materialele prezentate au scop didactic.
Folosirea lor n alte scopuri dect cele necesare procesului de nvmnt, este
sancionat potrivit legislaiei n vigoare.

SCULPTURA / OBIECTE DE ART / PALEOLITIC

Portable Art
Depictions on small, "portable" objects, make the integral part of the Palaeolithic art. (l'art
mobilier, portable art).
There are three types of objects:
1) statuettes or other three-dimensional objects cut out from soft stone or other materials (antler,
mammoth's tusk),
2) flat objects with engravings and paintings and
3) small reliefs in caves, grottoes and under natural roofs. One of the first finds on this kind was
a reindeer foot-bone from the le Chaffaud grotto with a depiction of two hinds.

Chaffaud
Reindeer foot-bone from the le Chaffaud grotto with a depiction of two hinds. One of the first
finds of palaeolithic portable art.
Everyone knows Prosper Merimee, the famous French writer and the author of the fascinating
novel "The Chronicle of Karl IX' s reign", "Carmen" and other romantic short stories but only
few of us know that he served as an Inspector General of Historical Monuments. It was he, who
passed that bone into the newly organized in the center of Paris the historical museum Clouny in
1833. Now the bone is in the Museum of National Antiquities Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Later the
cultural layer of the Upper Palaeolithic Period was discovered in the le Chaffaud grotto. But then
nobody could believe that art being older then the ancient Egyptian one, as it also was with the
Altamira paintings and other fine art Palaeolithic monuments. So, those engravings were
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interpreted as samples of Celtic art (V-IV cc. BC). Only at the end of the XIX c., after they had
been found in the Palaeolithic cultural layer, they were recognized, together with the paintings,
the most ancient.
Women's statuettes, found now and then during excavations of Upper Palaeolithic settlements,
attract the closest attention of specialists. At present, more than some dozens of statuettes of this
type are known only on the territory of Russia. Together with those, found in Europe, there are
more than two hundreds of them. The majority of the figurines are not large: from 4 up to 17 cm.
The most characteristic feature is their exaggerated "corpulence", they show women with portly
figures. "Venus" from Willendorf and statuettes from Kostienki are the typical ones.

Willendorf
"Venus from Willendorf" - a woman's statuette from fine-grained dense limestone, 11 cm,
Aurignacian. Traces of red dye on the surface of the statuette. Found in Austria, in the township
of Willendorf on the left bank of the Danube in 1908. The Museum of Natural History, Vienna.

Kostienki
A figure of a naked woman. Her head is covered with rows of shallow teeth cuts, depicting,
according to Z.A.Abramova, hair or a closely fitting head-dress. Engraved and relief lines on the
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chest and on the back. Mammoth's tusk. Height 11,4 cm. Found in 1936, excavation made by
P.P.Efimenko, who thought it to be "one of the best creations of that period, known to us".
At the same time there are quite realistic three-dimensional representations. These are, for
example, the widely known head, called in France "the lady in a hood", from Brassempouy. And
another statuette, found here, but, unfortunately, broken, shows almost the classical proportions
of a woman' s figure. Some statuettes from Czechia are made from burnt clay, for example, from
Dolni Vestonice site. Still recently they were unique, but not long ago a statuette from burnt clay
was found in Siberia, in the Upper Yenisei, at the Maina site. Also in Siberia, in Pribaikalje, a
series of peculiar statuettes of another stylistic appearance, was found. Together with the similar,
as in Europe, portly figurines of naked women there are statuettes of well-shaped, stretched
proportions. Unlike the European ones they are dressed into blank, probably fur overalls. These
are finds from sites Bouret' and Malta.

Brassempouy
"The lady in a hood" - a statuette from the mammoth's tusk, 3,7cm. The Museum of National
Antiquities, Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Found in 1894 by E. Piette . while
excavating a Palaeolithic site.

Dolni Vestonice
A woman's statuette from burnt soil. Height - 11,4 cm. Czechia. Dolni Vestonice settlement,
1924. Museum "Anthropos", Brno. Absolute dates of the cultural layers: 29.000 200, 28.300
300, 26.000 350, 25.820 170, 22.250 570

Maiyna
A statuette from burnt reddish-brown clay with an admixture of separate sand grains. Height 9,6 cm. Found in the Maininskaya site (Sayansky canyon, the left bank of the Yenisei, near the
Maina settlement). Date according 14C of the layer where the statuette has been found - 16176
180 BP.

Malta
A statuette of a naked woman. The head is thoroughly modeled, which is very rare, the details of
the face are clearly worked. The head is covered with winding cuts and notches; depicting a
head-dress or a hair-style. Mammoth's tusk. 3,1 x 0,8 cm. Found in 1956 inside a dwelling,
excavation by M.M.Gerasimov

Almost all the specialists, studied the Palaeolithic women's statuettes,

differing in details, interpret them as cultic subjects, amulets, idols etc,
reflecting the idea of maternity and fertility.
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