‘The Social History of Art Arnold Hauser, with an introduction by Jonathan Harris ‘Volume 1 From Prehistoric Times tothe Middle Ages Volume II — Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque Volume 111 - Rococo, Classicism and Romanticism Volume IV — Naturalism, Imp jonism, The Film Age THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF ART VOLUME I From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages Arnold Hauser with an introduction by Jonathan Harris R London and New Yorkint pubs nt ohms 195 ‘cond eon pis in or voles 12 i Rouedge &Kepun Pol ple Rept fur er Reprint 99,1995 ‘Rowtedse 1 New Fate Lane Landon ECAP AEE 28 es Sit No Yorke NY 10 £1951, 1460, 199 The Fate of Arnold Hauser Inman © 199 Rowse “Tiarsatd in claboraton nit the author by Staley Godan Prin and Hound in Great Bin by ssl, Con Kia Lye Aah sre No part his book may erp or ‘sad vi may om oy a ne, ined nding photaig sd reds. oF ay Beis irr Cais Pico Da ‘Acalopo cond tisk term he es Libary Liar of Caren Cataloging Pabicarion Data ‘Neng nnd orth boo hs ben este SBN 0.415 19845. (6.0) ISBN 0-15-1946 8 (Vo ID IsaNo-ais 1947 6(oU I ISRNO-115- 1958-4 val 1), TSN ouis ae NiGe) CONTENTS List of stration General introduction Invrodution to votane 1 I Prehistoric times 1 Old Stone Age: magic and naturalism Prehistoric naturalism 1 ‘Artin the service of livelihood 3 ‘Art and magic 5 Prehistoric geometriom & Sacred and profane art 10 Magic and animism 1 The raditionalion of peasant cultures 14 Archaeology and anthropology 1S 13 The artistas magiclan and pies: art asa profession and domestic eraft The emancipation of art as.a profession 17 Peasant at and flk art 20 70 conrents Ancient-Oriental urban cultures Static and dynamic clements in Ancient-Orintal art Urban culture and art 23 Political coercion and artiste quality 24 “The status of the artist and the organization of artistic production The priesthood and the royal house as patrons 25 Art education in the temple and palace workshops 29 The onganization of artistic work 30 “The stereotyping of art in the Middle Kingdom The courly convention of Egyptian art 32 The rationalization of artiste techniques 34 Frontalty 35 [Naturalism inthe age of AKhenaton The new sensibility 37, The stylistic dalion of Egyptian art 38 The differentiation of ste according to subject 40 Egyptian provincial art 42 Mesopotamia Formalism 43 ‘Natural inthe representation of annals 44 Crete The problem of Cretan art 44 Formal feedom 45 Antenaturalistic conventions 47 2 2 2s 3a a” a CONTENTS I Greece and Rome 1 “The heroic and the Homeric ages ‘The heote age and its socal enies 50 The herve lay $3 The origins of the epic 54 Bands and ehapsodes 55 The socal outlook of the Homerie pies $7 esd $8 Geometriom 59 “The archaic style and art atthe courts ofthe Tyrants Aristocraie choral and reflective vie 62 Statues of Olympian victors 64 The beginnings of individual in poetry and art 65 The cours of the Tyrants 66 Cult and art 67 The autonomy of forms 69 (Cassia art and democracy Classiciom and naturalism 73 The tragedy 75 The mime 77 The tragedy as an instrument of polticl propaganda 78 Naturalion and styllzation i the plastic arts 79 ‘The age of eaghtenment in Greece The cultural ideal of the Sophists 82 Euripides 84 lato and the aesthetilam of his time 88 The Hellenistic age The rationalization of international scientific and artiste sctvity 92 Eclectcion 93 0 st omv The production of copies 95 The origin ofthe domestic comedy 96 “The Eipire and the end of the ancient word o Roman portrait sculpture 97 The ‘continuous’ representation 100 Late Roman impressionism and expressionism 101 Pets and artists in the ancient world 102 The socal postion of poets and artists 102 ‘The divorce between the artist and the work of art 103 The art market 105 Plotinus 106 ‘Changes in the valuation of art and the artist in Rome 107 ‘The Middle Ages 109 “The spirituality of carly Christian art 109 ‘The concep ofthe Middte Ages 109 Late classical and early Christian spirituality 110 The decay ofthe Roman art tradition 112 ‘The didactic character of Christian art 114 ‘The artistic style of Byzantine Caesaropapism 16 ‘The paralysing of private captal by the State 117 The aristocracy of ofeals 119 The ostentatious courly syle and the monastic style 120 ‘Causes and consequences of ieonoelasmn 23 The politcal and miltary background of teonoclasm 123 The fight against the influence ofthe monks 126 The stylistic consequences of iconoclasm 127, 44 Art from the age of the migrations tothe Carolingian Renalssance 8 The ornamental ssl ofthe age of migrations 128 The miniature painting ofthe Irish monks 130 The Frankish monarchy and te new nobility 132 The sift ofthe cultural centre fiom the tons tothe countryside 135 The cultural monopoly ofthe Church 136 The cour of Charlemagne as culrural centre 138 The Carolingian Renaissance 139 The elaborate court syle and the impressionistic style of book ‘lumination 140 The palace workshop and the monastic workshops 141 5 Theepic poets and their pubic 1a The decline ofthe heroic lay 142 The replacement of aristocrat dlttantl by professional pots 143 The romani theory ofthe folk epic’ 146 The origins ofthe ‘chanson de geste” 148, The descent ofthe minstrels 149 {6 ‘The organization of artistic production inthe monasteries 152 The dissolution ofthe royal cout asa eltural centre 152 The separation of eraft from the household 153 The decorative art inthe monasteries. 154 The monastic workshop asa school of art 156 The ‘anonymity’ of medieval at 157 7. Feudalism and the Romanesque style 159 The nobility and the clergy 139 The development of feudalism 160 The ‘losed household economy’ 162 Traditional thinking 163 The ecclesiastical ‘culture of authority and coercion’ 164 The formalism of Romanesque art 16810 The Cluniac movement and the ‘Tate Romanesque baroque’ 171 The symbolism ofthe Romanesque 172 The Last Judgement 173 ‘The secular art ofthe early Middle Ages 174 " ‘The romanticism of court chivalry The revival ofthe towns and money economy 176 The rise ofthe bourgeoisie 180 The end ofthe eulaval monopoly ofthe Church 182 The knighthood 183, The development of aristocratic lass-conscousness 186 The knightly system of virwes 187 The concept of the courtly 189 Woman as the upholder of ultre 190 The love motifin classical and knightly poetry 191 The theory ofthe ficttiousness of courtly-chivalric love 194 The sexuatpsychological motives of chivalric love 197 The theories ofthe literary origin ofthe troubadour Isrie 199 ‘The displacement of the clerical bythe secular poet 202 Troubadour and minstrel 203 ‘The literary novel 205 The menestel’ 206 The vagans’ 207 The fabian 209 “The dualism of Gothic art 210 Gothic naturalism and pantheism 212 The ‘duality of rath’ 214 The world-view of nominaliom 215 The cyclical form of composition 217 The ‘artistic ntention’and technique in Gothic architecture 218 ‘The dynamism of Gothic art 220 ‘The new sensibility and the new vraosty 221 Lodge and guild ‘The organization of artstie work in the masons lodges 222 ‘The organization ofthe guilds 226 Building site and workshop 228 The divorce ofthe work place from the ultimate destination ofthe works of art 229 “The midlelass art ofthe late Gothic period 230 The antagonism of late medieval sociery 230 he origins ofthe bureaucracy and the standing armies 232 The capitalism ofthe Middle Ages 235 The middle las as upholder of culture 236 The folk pores ofthe late Middle Ages 237 The medieval theatre 238 The naturalism ofthe ate Gothic 239 The renaissance of courty-chivaric culture 241 The middle-class forms of painting 242 24s 261 IndexILLUSTRATIONS ‘Bon. Altamira. Sketch by Fauconnet. Photo Giraudon Plate 1 1 Hind Bout-de Mont. Drawing by Henri Breil 2 ‘Foun Bushman painting. Drawing by O. Moszeik 3 Hooton F. Spain. After Herbert Kuehn mt ‘hunter. Orange Free State. Copy by G. W. Stow 2 Painted earthen vessels Susa. Photo Archives Photographiques d'Art et Histoire Sheik El Beled. Cato, Museum. Photo Arch. Photog. Arteta Hist. m1 Prince Rehotep. Cairo, Museum, Photo Arch, Photog. GAM etd Hist. 2 Serthe Pari, Louvre. Photo Alinari 3 Senusert I Caito, Museum, Photo Arch, Photogr. Art et ist, wi Amenhotep IV. Berlin, Altes Museum, Photo Marburg, Kunstinstiut 2 Plaster mask Berlin, Altes Museum, Photo Marburg, Kunstinstiut| 3 Princess Kawit with Two Servants Cairo, Museum. Photo Museum of Cairo vi Draught of Fisk Berlin, Ates Museum. Photo Marburg. Knstinstiut 2 Lion British Museum, Photo W. F Mansell vii Wounded Lioness. British Museum. Photo W. F. Mansell 2 Dipsion vase. Paris, Louvre. Photo Giraudon vin Female figure. Athens, Actopols Museum, Photo Alinari 2 Male figure Athens, National Museum. Photo Alinati 3 (Old man. Olympia, Museum. Photo Alinari vit Myaox: Discus-thrower: Rome, Vatican. Photo Alinari 2 Powvctetus: Spear-older. Naples, Museum. Photo Anderson 3ILLUSTRATIONS. ‘Symposiuo ofthe Gos British Museum, Photo W. F ‘Mansell Mourning Athena. Athens, Acropolis Museum. Photo Alinari Lysipevs: 4pexyomenos. Rome, Vatican. Photo Anderson ‘Seneca. Naples, Muscum. Photo Anderson Triton. Rome, Vatican, Photo Alinari Seated Girl. Rome, Pal, dei Conservator. Photo Alinati ‘Orestes and Electra. Naples, Museum. Photo Anderson Roman Married Couple. Rome, Vatican. Photo Anderson ‘Putt, Pompeii, House of the Vetti. Photo Alina Roman Portrait Head. British Museum. Photo British “Museum Colunn of Trajan. Rome. Photo Alinati uccio: The Agony in the Ganden Siena, Opera del Duomo, Photo Anderson 1% XI XL GENERAL INTRODUCTION Jonathan Harris Contexts of reception Amold Hauser’ The Social History of Art frst appeared in 1951, published in two volumes by Routledge and Kegan Paul. The text is ‘yer 500,000 words in length and presents an account ofthe devel- ‘opment and meaning of at from its origins inthe Stone Age to the Filin Age of Hauser's own time, Sinoe its publication, Hauser's history has been reprinted often, testament to its continuing popu- larity around the world over nearly a half-century. From the early 19s the study has been reprinted six times ina four-volume series, ‘most recently in 1995. Inthe period since the Second World War the lisiplne of art history has grown and diversified remarkably, both in terms of the definition and extent ofits chosen objects of study, tnd its range of operative theories and methods of description, analyses and evaluation, Hauser’s account, from one reading cearin its afiliation to Marxist principles of historical and social under~ standing ~ the centrality of class and class struggle, the social and cultural role of ideologies, and the determining influence of modes bf sconomie production on art ~ appeared at a moment when aea- demic art history was sl, in Britain atleast, an élite and narrow concern, limited 0 a handful of university departments. Though Hauser’ intellectual background was thoroughly soaked in mid European socio-cultural scholarship ofa high order, only a relatively small portion of which was associated directly with Marxist or neo Marxist perspectives, The Socal History of rt arived with the Cold ‘War and its reputation quickly, and inevitably, suffered within the seneral backlash against political and intelletual Marxism which persisted within mainstream British and American society and culture until at last the 19605 and the birth of the socalled New Left. At tis juncture its frst ‘moment of reception’, Hauser’ study,GENERAL INTRODUCTION actualy highly conventional in its definition and selection of arte- facts deemed worthy of consideration, was lable to be attacked land even vlifed because of its dsclared theoretical and politcal ‘orientation. By the mid-1980s, later version of Marxism, disseminated pri manly through the development of academic media and cultural studies programmes, often interwoven with feminist, structuralist and psfehoanalytic themes and perspectives, had gained (and regained) an intellectual respectability in rough and ironic propor- tion to the loss ofits political significance in western Europe and the USA since the 1930s. Hauser’s study was lable to be seen in this second moment of reception as an interesting if, on the whole, ‘rude, antecedent within the development ofa disciplinary special. {sm identified with contemporary academic art and eultual histo. fans and theorists such as Edward Said, Raymond Williams, Pierre Bourdieu and T1. Clark. By the 1980s, however, Hauser’s orthodox choice of objects of study, along with his unquestioned reliance on the largely unexamined category of at’ ~ sen by many adherents of cultural studies as inherently reactionary ~ meant that, once again, his history could be dismissed, this time primarily on the grounds of its both stated and tacit principles of selection. Yet The Social History of Ar, whatever its uneven critical fortunes and comtinaing ‘marginal place in most university courses, has remained an item, ot an obstacle, to be read ~ of atleast dismissive referred to - within the study ofthe history of at. Why should this be the case? ‘There are several diferent, though related, answers to this ques tion, The sheer extent and relative detail of reference in Hauser’s study ~ despite the narrowness of selection - has commanded a eer. ‘ain amount of respect and attention. No comparable study exist in the English language, though many attempts at one-volume “his: tory of ant’ have been made since Hausers magnum opus appeared Most famous ofthese and certainly better known, especialy outside the Academy, is Ernst Gombrich’ The Story of Art, which was atu ally published just before Hauser’ study.’ Unlike Hauser, however, Gombrich, probably avare ofthe charge of reckless megalomania. likely to be levelled at anyone attempting such a task, shrewdly adopted the term ‘story’ for his ile which connoted, amongst other things, a modest declaration of unreliability: Gombyich admitted, by Using the word, that his pithy tale was evidently ‘made up’. an imvention, and therefore, after a point, ‘not to be trusted”. Hauser’ Pleonastic History, onthe other hand, offered no. such sel effacement and its seriousness was lable to be represented, especially GENERAL INTRODUCTION in the Cold War, as another dreary facet of doctrinal Marxism pro- tnulgated by one ofits apologist inthe Free West. And Hauser’ text, Tr unsdoubtedly hard-going, unrelieved by regular and frequent sec- thon subdivisions only sparsely (and sometimes apparently arbitrar- iy illstrated, and with no specific references to illustrations in the text-In addition to these failings the text itself was translated from German into English in usually a merely adequate manner by Stanley Goodman, though with Hauser’s collaboration. Long Germanic sentences, piling qualifying sub-clause upon sub-clause, within arguments mounted at usually quite high levels of abstraction make reading The Social History of Art sometimes seem like the ‘xhausting ascent ofa literary Everest, in painful contrast to what mounts fo an afternoon skip up Gombrich’s sunny and daisfied hillock. If itis the case that Hauser’s sheer ambition (megalomaniacal or not) fo attempt to write meaningfully on art from the Stone Age to the Film Age almost in itself warrants a certain amount of cautious interest, however, and his command of research materials ostensibly indicates « more than superficial understanding of the dozens of fields of study necessarily implicated in such an account, then there isunother reason for taking the history seriously: This isthe issue of| the significance of his claim, finally stated clearly only inthe ultimate volume, thatthe entire effort is really directed towards trying 10 Understand ourselves and the present, However, Hauser omitted ~ tnd this was a serious error ~to begin his study with an introduction which might have made the intended purpose and value of his work ‘manifest for readers atthe start of their arduous climb. Though i might not have been ata evident from his frst pages on cave paint ing and palelithie pottery, Hauser was trying, he says retro spectively, fo use history to understand the present. "What ele could the point of historical research be? he asks shetoricaly; Although. ‘we are faced with new situations, new ways of lie and feel as if we were cutoff rom the past it x knowledge ofthe older works, and knowledge of our alienation from them, which ean help us to find ‘an answer tothe question: How can we, bow should one, ive in the present age” (Wol. IV: pp. 1-2). One may, relatively productively, ‘imply “dip into’ Hauser ~ ina way’ that one ean not simply experi= nce a portion of Mount Everest at will (say, the atmosphere and footholds around 20,000 feet) and then return to a temperate and. vvelkoxygenatedsitting-room when tired. But reading the whole text, appreciating the historical developments and disjunctions Hauser ‘denies over the four volumes, ending up withthe place of art andGENERAL INTRODUCTION culture after the Second World War, is really necessary in order for ‘the ‘ground’ of the past to be as clearly visible as possible bet only Aeetingly, obscured by cloud and rain-burss, from the vertiginous summit of the present. The higher one goes up, or further on, the ‘more there isto se, potentially atleast, below, oF behind. Hiause’s motivation, from this point of view, was truly sanguine, and reflected a belief held by socialists and Marxists around the world after 1945 that revolutions in society would sel follow those in knowledge brought about by Marxism’s purported science of his- torical materialism. But the development of aati-communism in the USA, Cold War politics there and in Europe, along with Stainia- tion in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc states, would bring popular disillusionment with traditional notions of socialist revolution and ‘wansformation during the 1950s and 1960s, along with loss of faith in the grand vision of history, society and culture exemplified by Hauser’ scholarly ambitions. Confidence in Marxism’s“scienti’ status, historical understanding and map of the future dissipated sradualls, though continuously, during the postwar decades, Although temporarily enlivened, within French academic theory at least, by association with structuralist ideas which themselves elaimed objective status for a while during the 1960s, or with socalist-feminists who attempted to theorize the relations between ‘lass and gender identity in the 197, by the mid-1980s Marxism as 8 unitary theoretical system, and socialism as a practical political doctrine, was discredited, almost as much by some of its own previous protagonists as by its long-standing and traditional ‘Though sill a thriving specialism in some university arts and social studies departments, Marxism has been eut off as effectively {rom civie culture and politics in the West as definitively as Hauser claims in his third volume that German idealist philosophy was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries The loss of the intelectual as "social activist’ paralleled, Hauser argues, infact, the development ‘of moder aesthetiism (art for arts sake’) and the refashioning of the artistas estranged outcast the artistic persona predominant sill in his own time. Hauser’s history, from one perspective then, is an account of this transformation oF decline, from art as social instru ment of authority and propaganda of one sort or another ~ the ‘Church, the State ~ into an expensive plaything of the cultured bourgeoisie and philosophical rebus of the academic and critical intelligentsia. Yet Hauser’ time is not our own: though Marxist cettanly has lost its political role and intellectual centrality, many GENERAL INTRODUCTION other forms of politics and modes of analyses of social life and story have Become important, both in academia and inthe genera, poli Feminist, racial, sexual, regional and ecological concerns, for stance, are no, singularly oF together, a ‘Tase consciousness that hos simply usurped the fundamental and prior place of class analysis, find pois in historical and social understanding. Rather, they hve provoked and reflected a renewed, though disparate, ‘Teft- Fvtrianism in the West ~ inside and outside the Academy — but hve also helped to catalyse a range of art forms, utilizing both traditional and new media, that have restored a varity of social “ctvisms to contemporary culture. Hauser, writing in the late 1940s, ould not have predicted this development, although he probably hoped fort His own perspective inevitably limited what he could soe find, from our situation in the late 1990s, his study may seem xtremely dated. We are, of course, now further up the mountain than Havser, although, in one sense, che near half-century since the publication of his study is a mere trie compared with the ten thousand oF more years oF history he tried to encompass Reasons and strategies for reading ‘On the other hand, the specifies ofthe moment in which one writes, termine absolutely what we ean see and why we want to seit Ten years later, in 1961, Hauser might have produced a very diferent book, inthe light of, say, the critical hegemony achieved by US- hhased Abstract Expressionist painters the full-blown abstractions of whom were claimed to make completely obselete Picasso stil highly mimetic, and in Hauser’ sense, naturalistic ‘modernism’, or the ‘extensive erosion of popular and intelligentsia faith in Marxism and Soviet socialism (though Hauser is implicitly critical of the Soviet state and quietly derisive on the value of socialist realist art). Read- ing Hauser i important and instructive now, then also because his text ise has achieved historical significance: it tells us about his ‘values, representative, as they were ofan influential stratum of let- Wing intellectuals active in Britain in the early 1950s" On the whole, itis also the case that his account is far less erude, in fact far ess stcaightforwardly “Marxist altogether, than many have assumed. ‘Reading Hauser may also inform us about the current terain of the discipline of art history, and enable us to register and evaluate, through a process of systematic comparison, the continuities and ruptures in the post-war development and present contiguration of the subject. Readings usually and certainly most valuablGENERAL INTRODUCTION process: we sarc for meaning and significance ina text because our reading is specifically motivated, and we have a conscious sense of ‘purpose in mind, Far less attentive and productive readings occur ‘when we have little or no sense of why reading a tex is worthwhile In approaching Hauser’ study, due to its length and complexity, readers ~ in addition to shoot stamina ~ require a particulary clear sense of their own intentions, as well asa knowledge of which parts ‘of the text might be most useful, Ira reader wishes to find material relevant to, for example, an essay question on ecclesiastical art com- nissions in early Renaissance Florence, or on the changing social status of artists in the French revolutionary period, then itis easy ‘enough to find the appropriate sections. This isan entirely valid use fof Hauser’ text and one he probably envisaged. Buta careful read ing of the whole study produces, and, arguably, was intended 10 pro duce, much more than a simple sum of all the separate historical sections. For the study attempts to show us how what i called “at” ‘begun, and how it has become ~ along with Westen society wiht it appeared to its author fo be inthe mid-twentieth century Hauser does not make ths understanding easy. The book contains tno general overview ofits aims and methods, nor any succinct, ‘acount ofits values and assumptions, nota defence or definition of key concepts (such as ‘art’ or ‘syle’, nor ofits principles of selec- tion. Inclusion ofthis kind of introductory material has become part ‘ofthe reflexivity” of academic theory in the humanities over the past, twenty-five yeas and constitutes a rel advance on the complacency ‘present in elie traditions of art and cultural history, those identi= able hoth as “traditional” or radical’. Hauser does not indicate ether ‘whether his study is directed at any particular readership and appears almost completely unself-conscious about the general intel- ligbilty of his arguments. Though any person migit benefit from reading his history, the complesity of his language, assumptions about prior knowledge (particularly knowledge of visual examples), and discussion of avast range of issues in economic, socal cultural and intellectual history presumes a readership already highly edu- tated and in agreement with Hauser on basic principles and involved rather in engaging with his abstract ‘connective logic’ and ‘manipulation of Marxist analytical tools. "The tone and rhetoric Hauser deploys may also appear un- active, because doctrinaire. Generally he writs, especially inthe cali volumes, in an authoritative and declamatory manner, seem ingly with litle or no sense of open investigation, or of any doubt ‘over the credibility of his account, Refexivity in recent theory has come to value scepticism and ‘explanatory modesty’ over this kind Srauthorial certainty, The apparent unassailabilty of Hauser's Srgument in large part reflects the character of Marxist history and heory in the late 1940s, its proponents stil sure ofits ‘seientifi” thsi philosophically watertight i its dialectical materialism and Confident that the veracity ofits understanding of the world was Somehow confirmed by the existence of an ‘actual’ socialist society rected on is principles. It transpires that Hauser cetitudes, however are more apparent than real, and begin to break down undamentally as his uocount moves through to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He not only subjects many other theories and {raditions of cultural analysis to withering eritque ~ for instance, the liberal’ concept ofthe Renaissance, the formalist method of art historians such as Alois Ries! or Heinrich Woelfli, or the previe Susly mentioned “social escapism” of German idealism. By the end Of the fourth volume Hauser’s historcization of Marxism itsl/— part of which locates it as an item alongside other, specifically hinctcenth-century symptomatic “ideologies of unmasking’, such fs those produced by Nietzsche and Freud — suggests that his, find Marxism’, "mastery" of history is tentative, corigible, and “Inadequate in many ways. This sense partly reflects his understated, though serious, qualms expressed in the final volume over the place ‘of art and culture inthe Soviet Union Hauser’ inclusion of artefacts, oF artists, or periods or geo- raphical regions is, necessarily, drastically selective and therefore harrow ~ afterall, how could any history of at from the Stone Age be otherwise? Yet some attempt to justify or simply to acknowledge this seletion as such would have mitigated the doctrinaire quality to his writing, particularly evident in the first two volumes which deal with many thousands of years of history in litle over $00 pages. Presumably he included what he felt was most important, though ‘even this is not said directly and the effect isto fel 100 often asi one is being lectured at, rather than being invited to engage in an ‘extended explanation. “Facts, at times, seem to overwhelm his text, tnd its reader, particularly’ when he includes extensive. socio- historical, contextual material at what soem like relatively arbitrary points inthe text, or when he Turches, without clear reasons, from France to England, oF from Russa to Germany in his discussion of the late nineteenth century. Certainly @ quite orthodox outline «ence, at the evel oftheir material production and consumption. “The purpose ofthis introduction tothe fist volume isto suggest a path through the text and signposts along the way to majo themes, claims and problems It does not, however, prove a comprehensive synopsis of Hauser’ narrative. Rather it offers a set of contexts ~historical, political, intellectual — for interpreting its shape and) assessing its value, for Hauser’s text, ike that of the artworks he discusses is an artefact produced in particular time and place, and ‘or specific reasons. Hausers descriptions and analyses often depend) ‘upon a set of ey concepts whose meaning and significance he us ally takes for granted. Notions of ‘clase’ and “class interests’ of ‘dbologies’ or “valvesystems’ and of ‘culture’ and soviet)” are four of the most important. The ideas of ‘lass and ‘class strugale’ must for Hauser become significant within the earliest societies because they are an essential component of Marxism’s claim to offer the most profound understanding of the determinants of all human: history. By the ‘new’ Stone Age, then, aevording to Hauser, diferen- tiation of society into “strata and classes, privileged and under privileged, exploiters and exploited’ (vo. Fp 9) has already taken place, From the beginning of his fist section on the ‘old’ Stone Age, however, he also assumes that ‘art isthe most applicable and obvi. ‘us term to use to describe the kinds of cultural products paintings ‘on dwelling walls, pots and al other decorative functional or ‘mage al images or artefacts ~ made by human beings. While he recognizes that early human societies were extremely ‘simple’ in organization compared with later ones and that ‘las’ could not mean the same thing in both, his perennial and unexamined use of art’ is analytic- ally indefensible. The teem simply carves with t too many meanings generated only inthe past three or four centuries, and therefore con- fuses, rather than clarifies the status and purpose of the earliest, ‘human images and artefacts. Hauser's notion and use of the category of ideology’ tke class, is crucial, though unlike that developed by Marxists influenced by structuralist ideas in the 1960s, its definition remains unclear and. relatively uncomplicated.’ Throughout his account he maintains that ideas and values are straightforwardly ‘elass-pecii’ that is, that they reflect or embody the interests of certain social groups — though he understands that different classes, confusingly, may some- times adopt similar, or even identical, “world-views" of “value- systems’ such as Christianity in the late Roman period. He argues that even inthe “old” Stone Age @ kind of “primitive individualism’ was already in existence, conditioned, he claims, by lack of bali in 204s, or ina world and life beyond death vol pp. 3-4). By the time of the complex society of Egypt's New Kingdom, characterized by division of power and labour, Hauser claims an extensive stratifca- tion of interests has occurred. Artists within it, he contends, already belonging to the “higher social classes’, developed a ‘comparatively INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME | vane dawcomsousnes ol Ep 2), Tough crn ne san arty tes of woman ust ene hc own te fesing concn of 190 em ‘SRsent societies, and in his discussion of the theme of love in Greek soc ci i Earp sgh ote hrs Ms incloden See cea aes eeteeyioas Saas eee ar pb nado ihvancnendeland meng ea Fenders lin sat secon on aca Son rat ine Gate ete Gol pm 173 31), Sem aay ete nts of ual a oe ins wl jon th ae of eaten See eae ony ose ples. and inate sc mun oar ae: aly Te Soa to ae ahs ae seh theca ony ef en and ch a ibs indo tora lua i ought se epg toa mh ofthe euson tak re ot otal rt seonment hs pombe Poe tite an toc deny Hass ponent is nmaty sf san aval capo cman wee it aso an nceaang comeing ed conseing ‘Shucse ten aluph het coune yng sete TNS meee ea nerrpndoc fe ene. oa ier te et seune wg Has peas Scrat hon’ «Aas af wae aes wl pe. anit tnd decapman th ew Sure A Cr pT erate inert arora oval oe sf Cropland Mopomia ol 49nd erin homoge Een eto and inte neon and Michele othe Romane a E168 Tstmporat fe’ argent th ees that sys in at costar doc telops or snes aaa ‘Eile sh le th al obese developmental nk. tiara tons ach tna wich ee pte talon el pp ay make Seen et bce inner inclgie™ tym eton what hats Band Siar onic hoes to seu haa ar and h-iecioml pope’ fcnntng imperonent) ie ingyconplr soe tw oper geet bl wre yetlac ar eens Boke Ap aus te pac irr sce othe ina hws, BeastINTRODUCTION To VOLUME 1 art can be linked much more unambiguously to socal conditions i ‘comparison with ‘later cultures in which forms that have alread become partially ossfied are dragged along from an earlier a and are often amalgamated undistinguishably with the new and sti Vital forms’ (vol. Ipp. 20-1) Developments in social lass format and strugee, in contrast, because they ave so central to Marxism’ understanding of history and the future of society, ae, for Hauser necessarily ‘progressive’ leading, he believes, to the creation oft modem proletariat which has the potential to usher in socialism, The first stylistic change in art occurs, Hauser says, when “old Stone Age ‘naturalism is replaced by the "geometric stlization’ the ‘new Stone Age. This change accompanies the shift from hhunting-based society to an agrarian one, in which the need (a capacity) to depict, fr instance, “actual” deer, that were needed f food and clothing, began to disappear (vol. I pp. 8-12). Has ‘equates ‘naturalism’ withthe depiction of ‘empirical reality’ and ‘contrasts this with a deliberate abstraction and simplification of vs ual form, Between the ‘new’ Stone Age and the end of the ancient period withthe decline of the Roman empire, art wil oscillate many] times, he claims, between the attempt to depict empirical ality” an {0 stylize and simplify. This oscillation’ implics no sense of progres fr improvement, although Hauser says that skills and aptitudes at times sometimes are actually lost in history, and the implication o this is surely that the occurrence of such ineapact Somewhat confusingly, as we have become condi standing some sequences of stylistic development as "neces ‘prosressive’ (a “teleological” view Hauser puts down to nineteen century views of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment), terms such as "baroque” or ‘oeoco’ or impressionist’, normally associated only with postsintcenth-contury culture, he will use to describe phases of ancient art (For example, ‘late Roman impressionist” walle panting), a usage which scrambles the roccived arthistorical narrative of phase-development. Hauser‘ account of naturalism’ and its relationship tothe culture and society ofthe earliest peoples is open to serious dispute on many ‘rounds. IF his use of ‘art’ to describe their visual representations and artefacts is misleading analytically and historically (after al, the ‘term only emerged with its modern meanings in the Renaissance), ‘then his account of the relationship between the putative perceptions ‘of Stone Age people and ther ability to represent these visually and semantically is based on sheer unevidenced presupposition and tautology (for example, “the Paleolithic artist still paints what he INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I savy sss 1 v0 Ip 3), Later esearch pubis on vi actual on and its relation to oth cognition and graphic represen perce sha rendered Havsers acount ae ad gh ‘aon ae atemps fo draw a comparson between Stone sheets production of cera pimine Ag 2 ing sma sda) and ultra condtons sich ‘Benn bound up drty with actual where thr are “et mous frm and no deen in pines teen sana he ne: between tradition and modlraiy =.” WO tne Pye sage that there are subane Unks a2 ib uty fal prspin character of such pr athe expesionism of modem ar achieved “nar ety ong sg (op 3) These sumptions and eva ma Jeckn-e ofan influential adn of modernist 2005 aed jin on antroplopea estos an poor oF sion et schol. revel Havsescomentonal European sash The dopmatnm and cradiy of thee stern Cees Netinenoneds shea Hawsers Marnst and therefore sone ant npr prpertve = waa ccoapy is Emory tone te is volun, hough he beg oak serous ses about methods nt Hstor when he appracies or nc oe ascot te meaning of te socalled othe conspion eeuticcope nth late pero ofthe Male Apes ol. Fp. 173) Values and modes of evaluation Hauser’ reliance on the unexamined term ‘art throughout his study is symptomatic of his belie ina transcendent and ‘spiritual’ core to hhumaa life. The “highest art produced throughout history embodies and signifies, he believes, this potential for eretivity and depth of ‘expression, Though artis always the product of particular societies nevesarily conditioned by speifie economic and social relations betwen clases, ts achievement can symbolize values and meanings true of all people at al times. Though this view would be regarded as ‘a mystfction by many adherents of New Art History, many earlier Marrists had shared Hauser’s ‘humanist’ view, though perhaps not expressed it so clearly and often Hauser is definitive on this judgement at many points in his account. The ‘aesthetic quality’ of a work, he remarks in a discus- sion of culture in ancient oriental societies, as litle or nothing to do ‘ith ‘the alternative presented by political freedom and compulsion’ (Gol. Ip. 25) Some ofthe most magnificent works of ar’ he claims,INTRODUCTION To VOLUME 1 originated precisely inthe most totalitarian, liberal societies, s as those in Egypt and Mesopotamia (vol. I: p24). Though there wa no urge to “express or communicate aesthetic emotion” in the “old Stone Age, he contends, without providing any definition of thi {erm or any evidence (vo. Ip. 6), by the sixth and seventh centuri 1c artiste forms had become ‘independent’, ‘purposes, and “t some extent autonomous’, functioning a ‘spiritual resources (vol, I 1.69). “Art for arts sake’, then, normally associated only with ti evelopment of modern art in the late nineteenth century hi already emerged, Hauser claims, hundreds of years even before Darke Ages. The quality of great art, he goes on to sa, can not ‘deduced from a ‘simple sociological recipe’ the most sociological study can do is ‘trace some elements in the work of at back to thei origin’ (vol Ep. 81). Hauser’ assertions about the “best art from the past share the same lack of explanation as his stipulations on what he regards as the ‘werage’ or ‘mediocre Cretan “artistic means are too com plaisant and obvious to leave behind a deep and lasting impression? (Gol. Ip. 47; peasant art in the Dipylon style of Attica between 900 and 700 ne degenerated into a ‘pseudo-teetonie decoration’ (vo. I 59}; while culture eenerally, in the period afer the Barbarian inv sions in the West, ‘sank to @ low-water mark unknown in classical antiquity and remained unproductive for centuries’ (vl. I: p. 132) Even if one accepts the partial mitigation that Hauser could aot ford space to defend all these judgements properly, the rhetorical tone he adopts suggests a reluctance to submit these evaluations to ‘outside serutny, His authoritative voice becomes authoritarian at ‘many points, his scholarly superiority presented as unassailable. Along with his orthodox reproduction of the canon, his non reflexive use of most traditional art historical terminology, Hause's belie in Great Art and its essential inefabilit identifies him much ‘more with the traditional élitism of art history than against it ‘These aesthetic judgements appear to have litle of nothing to do with the correlations between style and socio-economics that consti- tute Hauser’ Marxist method. The activities of analysis and evalu ation in Hauser inhabit antinomie, unconnected worlds, it often seems. Yet his restatement of the canon of great arworks, with theit abstracted stylistic characteristics, are the ones chosen for this work ‘of correlation, the ones rezarded as worthy of eonsideration in the frst place. Though ancient history for Hauser is the development of, and oscillation between, styles of art and the related modes of socio-economic organization in which they have been produced, he INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 1 cstablshes certain fatures in culture a6 virtually permanent elem ‘Si of this and all subsequent history. For instance, by the end of {he Paleolithic Age, he claims, al three basic forms of pictorial rep- fescntation — the imitative (naturalistic), the informative (picto- api sign) and. the decorative (abstract ornament) — have Eovcloped. and will have varying presences in culture until the fhenteth century (Vo. Ip. 15). Style nominations usually associated tnth post Renaissance ar, as noted, he asserts, may also be applied, Iuectvels, 10 much easier culture so, for instance, Cretan court- thine art is described as having a ‘rococo’ clement (vol. I: p. 46), Heleistic at as having baroque, rococo and cassicistc phases (vol ip. 94), while the stylist ideals of gothie art ~ “truth to nature and depth of feeling, sensuousness and sensitivity’ ~ continue, he say, to te powerfully active in the modern art ofthe early twentieth century (Gol Ip 175). Hauser’ view of great art’ “ranshistrial’~ if not “Supethisorieal”~ characteris summed up in his statement, while discussing the epic Greek poo, that every “cultural epoch has is ‘own Homer ils own “Nibelungenlied” and “Chanson de Roland’ (ool K:p. 13D) Such a view implying belie in the undeniable permanencies of| cultura wal, the transcendence of the human sprit and mystical ature of creativity, constantly finds place within the extensive ‘ecounts of the embeddedness ofanistic syle in societal organi tion which constitute the bulk of Hauser’ account. These range from the naturalism of the art ofthe ‘new’ Stone Age that Hauser relates (othe development of ‘individualistic and anarcistic social patterns’ (vol. p16) to the “less changeable, less dynamic eh acter of the art of Mesopotamia, compared with that of Egypt, Which he finds hard to understand given the former society’s foutward-going and dynamic trade and fnanoe-based economy (Vol, 1: p42), Hauser stresses dificultes of correlation as well as the ienticaton of clear relationships, and the greater value of his account perhaps lies in these problematizations which become increasingly common and more profound. For instance, one such, dificule problem i, he says, the fact that ‘the liberalism and ind ‘dualism of democracy would seem 0 be incompatible with the severity and regularity ofthe classical style’ found in Greck society (Gol. I pp. 72-3). The meanings of ‘classicism’ will eo on to pre= ‘occupy Hauser intermittently for most of his account, asitisa style’ or set of motifs constantly returned to, and manipulated, by many social groups in different historically specie societies, most notably ofall, perhaps, that in which the French Revolution occurredINTRODUCTION To VOLUME 1 ‘The development of socotes characterized as “democratic’, fact, presents a major challenge, he says, 0 the sociology’ and soc history of art, fr itis within such complex and differentiated cul tures that ‘individualism and community spirit can no longer looked upon as alternatives but are seen to be indissolubly cong rete. In this complex condition of things the correct socolog estimation of stylistic factors in art becomes more dificult’ (v0. 1.73). Hauser, however, must offer a set of answers, as well as acknowledgement ofthe range of anal tic difficulties encountered correlating art and socio-economic development, His declarative ang authoritative tone in these passages represents that of the Marx confident in his analytic protocols and epistemological certitudes ‘rhetoric’ however ~ that i, means of arguing convincingly =U interpretations ofthe socially shaped nature of art generally sha the same stipulatory character as his summary judgements on thetic quality. Both sets of statements are ‘notificatory” rather 1 “nterrogatve' we are required to ‘believe’ instead of invited to “con sider’ Usually pitched at a high level of abstraction and with curs ‘or no reference to specific empirical materials, Hauser’s claims a presented as truths rather than carefully evidenced arguments He are some examples: The Neolithic peasant no longer noeds the hunters sharp senses; his sensitivity and gilts of observation dectne; other talents ~ above al the git of abstraction and rational think ing ~ attain importance both in his methods of production and in his formals, strictly concentrated and stylizing (ol I p.12) ‘The historesignifcance of Hesioa’s work is due to its being the very fist literary expression of social tension and of class antagonism itis the ist ime thatthe voce of the working people is heard in iterature Gol Ep. 58) Pato’ theory of Ideas fulfils the same social function for [Athens of the fourth century as ‘German idealism’ did for the ninetcenth century; it furnishes the privileged minority ‘with arguments against realism and relativism... Such an attitude always works out ultimately in fivour of dominating minorities, who righty seein realism an approach to reality that might be dangerous to them, INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 1 wwheteas a dominant majority has nothing to fear from realism. (vol I p.89) rae ne sii yn oy omy rere Fe ee eh as Pde peered ee ee ae ae es eee cenaINTRODUCTION To VOLUME 1 later volumes he includes numerous parentheses in his art-histor narrative directly about the state of polities and culture in om temporary society References to film, symbolic of a concern with th present day and his need to return toi asa sign ofthe continuing relevance of his narrative, occur earir, initially inthe frst volume’ iseussion of “rontlity” and theatricality in Egyptian at (vol Epp 35-6). Later comparisons between late Rema art and flmie repre sentation indicate Hauser’s tenacious desire to connect the past to the present, even when the links seem analytically weak (for example vol. I: pp 99-100). The eategory of artist for Hauser also, arguably, tains a submerged symbolic significance in the first volume, cone ‘emmed as itis with art and societies so apparenty distant from those ‘of his own time and place. Although he is actually very attentive 0 the shifts in the social status and function of producers in ancient and medieval societies (this aspect of his account is very valuable), at the same time he exhibits a tendency to abstract and idealize “the artist’ into a kind of personified proletarian, For instance, culture and society in ancient Egypt were oppressive, he says. and therefore the artist had to work against such ‘resistances to their achievement resistances represented by inadmissale motifs, social prejudices sand faulty powers of judgement ofthe publi, and ams which have either already assimilated these resistances or stand openly and itreconclably opposed to them’ (vo. Ip. 24. I this depiction of the artist asa hetoie antagonist of convention by no means typifies his ‘often careful and differemited account of transformations in the Personas of producers and ther relationship withthe institutions in ‘which training took place, Hauser’ investment in the unexamined notion of ‘atthe value of which he holds tobe ineffable and tran- scendnt, i romantically idealist, a isthe Marxist notion ofa single lass uniquely possessing the power to bring socal emancipation to all ‘The first volume concludes with the end ofthat epoch known as the Middle Ages, an historieal cliché in itself which Hauser does his best to undo by trying to show clear dffeentations in the economic, social intellectual and artistic character ofthe millenium or so of this period. His account ofthe development of ‘gothic naturalism’ and the beginnings of modern anistc individualism is, however, whatever its Marxist perspective, in general accordance with art historical orthodoxy. This observation is not meant as a criticism: House's socal history of the rise of mercantile capitalism and its relationship with the redevelopment of naturalist motivations and capacities in the thiteenth and fourteenth centuries in southern ul tor ee anes Marron scented the ambiows tak of eet era meets aliINTRODUCTION To VOLUME Acknowledgement In the preparation ofthis introduction Ihave realized how much my ‘own biography is implicated in my account of Hauser’ text and t history of art history since 1951. I would like to acknowledge and) thank two individuals influential within this biography: Eric Feri was prepared to give me my first proper job as an art historian Marcia Pointon fist pointed out to me thatthe bourgeoisie wag, indeed, always rising! Notes 1 Sein contrast, Lous Althusser, "Ideology and Ideologies Sate Appar tues in is Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Month Jy Review Press 1971) and Nicos Hadjiacolaoy, 4e1 History and Cla Sigg (London: Puto Pres 1979), 2 Ser Eat Gomibrich, Arrant hon (Princeton, NI: Princeton Unie vesty Press. 196), 23 Ste Flora FS Kaplan (6), Muscuns and she Making of ‘Ourselves The Role of Oberst National Cate Leicester: Leketer University Peay 004) CHAPTER I PREHISTORIC TIMES 1. OLD STONE AGE MAGIC AND NATURALISM yin legend of the Golden Age is very old. We do not I exactly know the sociological reason for reverence for the pest; it may be rooted in tribal and family solidarity or in the endeavour of the priviloged classes to base their privileges ‘on heredity. However that may be, the feeling that what is old must be better i still so strong that art historians and archaeo- ogists do not shrink even from historical falsification when attempting to prove that the style of art which appeals to thera tnost is sso the oldest. Some of them declare the art based on, Strictly formal principles, on the stylization and idealization of life, others that based on the reproduction end preservation of the natural life of things, to bo the earliest evidence of artistic activity, according to whether they seein art a means of dominat~ ing and subjugating reality, or experienee it as an instrament of selfsurrender to nature. Tn other words, corresponding to their particular autocratic and conservative or liberal and progressive views, they rovere either the goometrcally ornamental art forms tr the navaralistcally imitative forms of expression as the older. ‘The monuments of primitive art that survive suggest quite leary, anyhow, and with ever increasing force as research pro- tresses, that naturalism has the prior claim, so that iis becoming, ‘more and more difficult to maintain the theory of the primacy’ fof an art remote from life and nature.t But the most remarkable thing about prehistoric naturalism fs not that itis older than the geometric style, which makes so ‘much more of a primitive impression, but that it already reveals 1PREHISTORIC TIMES all the typical phases of development through which art he ppased in modern times and is not in any sense the merely i Sinetive, stati, ahistorical phenomenon which scholars obse ‘with geometric and rigorously formal art declare i tobe, This 4n art whieh advances from a linear faithfulness to nature ji which individual forms are still shaped somewhat rigidly a laboriously, toa more nimble and sparkling, almost impress Jste technique. Its a process which shows a growing understan ing of how to give the final optical impression an increasing pictorial, instantaneous and apparently spontaneous form. Th scetaracy of the dravwing rises to a level of virtuosity which tal it upon itself to master increasingly difficult attitudes and as increasingly fleeting movements and gestures, inreasingly bol {foreshortenings and intersections. This naturalism is by no mea 1 fixed, stationary formula, but a mobile and living form, whi tackles the rendering of reality sith the most vatied means ‘expression and performs its tak sometimes with leser, sometime with greater skill. The indiscriminately instinctive state of nat has long been left behind, but there is still afar journey yet that state of culture in which rigid artistic formulae are creat ‘We ere the more perplexed hy what is probably the strange phenomenon in the whole history of art because there are no parallels whatover between this prehistoric art and child art oF the art of most of the more recent primitive races. Children's Aravvings and the artistic production of contemporary primitive races are rationalistic, not sensory: they show what the child and the primitive artist know, not what they actually sees they give) ‘theoretically synthetic, not an optically organic picture of the) ‘object. They combine the front-view with the side-view or the) ‘view from abore, leave nothing ont of what they consider worth knowing alout the object, inerease the seale of the biologically ‘and practicelly important, but neglect everything, however im- presive in itself, which plays no direct patt in the context of the object. The peculiar thing about the naturalistic drawings of the la Stone Age is,on the other hand, that they give the visual impression in such direct, unmixed form, fre from all intellec- tual trimmings or restrictions, that we have to wait until modern impressionism to find any parallels in later art. We discover OLD STONE AGE Fea wh ety notes ncn Ce eae oe ee att ata eee eee ee eee, tet A nolaas ts alctacooer Cordeiro epee ee ae ata case oar cna pe eae nil aos sieges et Se ee fi aes Be crane mnanaet incense eo tegen te tae core auton Os maak reser Z deio ions in esa et eran Sree a a eo a ee cing ingen exant oeara es Soo ae cage ee el te an oe pe yo ore whee on bog eminem ete ree eee sige saeierotaesal icy abana mawsteaa pe er ae ceePREHISTORIC TIMES {in no world and life beyond death. In this age of purely practi life everything obviously stil turned around the bare earning a livelihood and there is nothing to justify us in assuming that art served any othor purpose than a means to the procuring of foo, All the indications point rather to the fact that it wa th instrument of a magical technique and as such had a thoroughly [pragmatic function aimed entirely at direct economic objectives, ‘This magic apparently had nothing in common with what we) understand by religion; it knew no prayers, revered no sacred powers and was connected with no other-worldy spiritual beings by any hind of faith, and therefore failed to fulfil what has been escribed as the minimum eondition of an authentic religions) twas a technique without mystery, a matter-of-fact procedure, the objective application of methods which had as lite todo with, ‘mysticism and esoterism as when we set mouse-traps, manure the ‘ground or take a drug, The pictures were part of the technical apparatus ofthis magic; they were the ‘trap’ into which the game: had to go, or rather they were the trap withthe already captured animal—for the picture was both representation and the things represented, both wish and wish-fllilment at one and the same, time. The Palacolithie hunter and painter thought he was in possesion of the thing itself in the picture, thought he had: scquired power over the object inthe portrayal ofthe object. He: believed the real animal actually suffered the killing of the animal portrayed in the picture. The pictorial representation was to his mind nothing but the anticipation of the desired effect; the real event had inevitably to follow the magical sample-action, ot rather to be already contained within it, at both were seperated, from each other merely by the supposedly unreal medium of space and time, It was, therefore, by no means a question of symbolical surrogatory functions but of really purposive action, ewes not the thought that killed, not the faith that achieved the. ‘miracle, but the actual deed, the pictorial representation, the shooting, at the picture, that effected the magic, ‘When the Palacolithic artist painted an animal on the rock, he produced a real animal, For him the world of fiction and pictures, the sphere of art and mere imitation, was not yet a ‘special province of its own, diferent and separate from empirical, ‘ OLD STONE AGE hie did not as yet confront the two different spheres, but ree ja one the direct, undifferentiated continuation of the other. Fro ill have had the same atitude to art as Lévy-Brubl’s Sioux Fad Tndian, who said of a research worker whom he saw prepar= ing sketches 'T know that this man has put many of our bisons Ja bis book. was there when he did it, and since then we have hhad no bison." The concoption of this sphere of art as a direct UMntinvation of ordinary reality never disappears completely espite the later predominance of a conception of art as some- ‘hing opposed to reality. The legend of Pygmalion, who falls in fore with the statue which he has created, comes from this ttutude of mind, There is evidence of a similar approach when the Chinese or Japanese artist paints a branch ara flower and the picture isnot imtended to be a summary and idealization, a re- Tuction or correction of life, like the works of Western art, but ‘imply one branch or blostom more on the tre of reality. Chinese fneedotes and fairy tales about artists relation to their works and the relationship between picture and reality, appearance and being, fiction end life, convey the same idea—fuiry tales in which itis related, for example, how the figures in « picture walk out through # gate into @ real landscape, nto real life. In all these ‘ples the frontiers between art and reality are blurred, only inthe art of historical times the continuity of the two provinces isa fiction within the fiction, whilst in the painting of the Old Stone Age itis a simple fact and a proof that artis stil entirely in th service of life ‘Any other explanation of Palacoithic art, as, for example, Aeoorative of expressive form, is untenable. A whole series of indications argues against such an interpretation, above all the fact that the paintings are often completely hidden in inaccessible, sbwolutely waillumineted corners of the caves where they would have been quite impossible as ‘decorations’. Theie palimpeest-ike sperportion, destraying any decorative effect from the very futset, also argues against such explanations. After all, the painters were not forced to paint their pictures ono over the other. They had space enough. This very superposition of one picture over another points to the fact that the pictures were not created with any intention of providing the eye with aesthetic 5PREHISTORIC TIMES ‘enjoyment but were in flflment of a purpose in which the Jmportant element was that the pictures should be accommodat in certain caves and in certain specific parts of the cave obviously in definite spots considered particularly suitable f ‘magic. There eould be no question of a decorative intention ‘of an urge to express or communicate aesthetic emotion, since pictures were more hidden away than exhibited, There are fact, as has been noted, two different motives from mhich wor of art are derived: come are prodaced simply in order to e others to be seen.* Religious art created putely to the honour God, and more or less all works of art designed to lighten t Darden that weighs on the artist's heart share this working’ secret with the magica art of the Old Stone Age. The Palaoolith artis! who was intent solely on the efficacy of the magic wil nevertheless have derived a cortain aesthetic satisfaction fi his work, even though he considered the aesthetic quality merel 5/8 means to a practical end. The situation is mirrored clearly in the relationship between mime and magic in the ligious dances of primitive peoples. Just as in these dances pleasure in make-believe and imitation is fused with the rei Giously motivated action, so the prehistoric painter will hav depicted the animals in their characteristic attitudes with and satisfaction, despite his surrender to the magical purpose the painting. ‘The best proof that this art was concerned with a magical and not an aesthetic effect, at Teast in its conscious purpose les in the fact that the animals in these pictsires were often repre- ‘sented as pierced hy spears and arrows or were actually shot at ‘with such weapons after the completion of the work. Doubtless this was a killing in effigy. ‘That Palaeolithic art was connected) ‘with magical actions is finally proved by the representations off ‘human figures disguised as animals of Which the majority are) obviously concerned with the performance of magical-miming) dances. Tn these pictures we find—ae for instance in ‘Troi Fréres—combjined animal masks which would be quite uuintelli gible without a magical intention.* ‘The eonnection of Palaeo- Tithic painting with magic also helps us best to explain the naturalism of this at. A representation the aim of which was to © OLD STONE AGE mich Fyart to the animal in the painting—but it could only comely the magic purpose of this art that forced it 0 be seca ek tes Rt pa eceung sca cain ra we simi Thy cet tae eh ret fee soi hg ar wy te omc scons ing nh eta hl he anti h a e pay oe inh nil ll spe eo tePREHISTORIC TIMES ‘Age isso immense and there is such a complete lack of records 4 possible transition between the two that we ean hardly assu 4 direct and continuous development of art forms out of play forms, but must infer the existence of a connecting li coming from outside—and in all probability this will have the magical function of the copy. Yet even those playful, ‘magical forms had a naturalistic tendency, imitating reali however mechanically, and can in no way’ be considered expression of an antisnaturalistic, decorative principle 2. NEW STONE AGE ANIMISM AND GEOMETRISM ‘The naturalistic style prevailed until the end of the P lithic age, that is to say, during a period of many thousands yyearss no change took place until the transition from the Old the New Stone Age, and this was the first stylistic change int hole history of art. It was not until then that the neturali attitude, open to the full range of experience, yielded to narrowly geometric stylization,in which the artist tended rat to shut himself off from the wealth of empirical reality. Insteed representations true to nature, with loving and patient ca devoted to the details of the object, from now on we find ever where schematic and conventional signs, indicating rather tha reproducing the object, like hieroglyphs. Instead of the concret nes of actual living experience, ar now tiesto hold fast the id the concept, the inner substance of thinge—to create sym! rather than likenesses of the object. The Neolithic drawit merely indicate the human figure by two or three simple metre patterns, as for instance by a vertical straight line for body and two semicircles, one facing upwards, the other do ig. O the fat stone surface of these ‘tombs’ the head, which is similar to the natural shape even to the extent of being round, i ‘separated from the body, thet is, from the oblong of the 8 NEW STONE AGE tol by «re he ey are indeed by tod the ta combined either with the mouth or the eyebrows in one sraple geometric figure. A man is characterized by the addition simp Eos a wore by two hemispheres for he bre “rhaage nse chest teeny that sextet contol bye goer using ont ere se atm hich epee era the ep incon in senso the human races mar enon ad sa con of pelinore pan tnderge rch ¢ the mage ati ne tat everyting tha er tlre mr jy pyar tobe erly snl tne ad sarin hypo aera coin pros SGulpesf The lecive snd evcloney sop toa fa Soo lager tg prey on tw i ony 20 aan Phra Sings day bat producing fr Mnkeif Wit the domestiation of animale and plants, with ec treting and grr, ho ba hur ad Sten af ic a aes nel ome ene doped sari oar eae and cance Tore eg te age the SSnted sy ofthe material nee of iy ne ao Stents reine bundy ovo fate nr klaus the bs frm of ep With tee dinette wa ele endowed eas taste ovsnne—tere no dot tat he diferent af cey To se nd dane, nt pinged snd under eile, tala ea explode bagi Tio cgi bor, ition a fatto est! ieresiaton gin cl! feng td aia of the lady rary proton and Tamia pened der nd domi fy ae ond fom ious farming and the defence he Uren frau tne pre Wi ths tanto fom the sage of fda and unin th teeing and ting nt ol th cone at bt thew pth caged Th nomi brn SS tusfarmel nto sttodeommunio scaly tars ‘Sh dnteprted poop plo cgeie, cal nga wal bits Garon Chien guke gto arn tag teinhtchnge tele comsvunty ow ano ely iPREHISTORIC TIMES demarcated turning-point and thinks that, on the one hand, ev the Palaeolithic hunter dvvelt in the same cave sometinues‘prok ably for generations, and, on the other hand that primitive la economy and eattle-rearing wore connected in the early st with a periodical change of domicile, since fields and past became exheusted after a certain time. But oue must not for that, first, the exhaustion ofthe sil became more and more ri with improvement in agricultural techniques, and that, secondly the farmer and the cattle-breeder, however short or long time he stayed in one place, must have had a quite difere relationship to his home, to the piece of land to which he fe hhimeelf attached, from that of the nomadic hunter, howe regularly he returned to his eave. With this attachment to home there developed a style of life completely diferent from: restless, unstable, piretical existence of Palaeolithic mas.‘ now form of economy brought in its train, as opposed to anarchic irregularity of food-gathering and bunting, « certi stability; in placo of a planless economy of depredation, of j ‘managing to exist from one day to the uext, of living, from h to mouth, there now appears a planned economy, regulated fa Tong periods in advance and prepared for various eventual the development moves from the stage of social disintograt 1nd anarchy to that of co-operation, from the ‘stage of the indivi dual search for food" to that of a callectivistio—though 1 necessarily commnist—co-operative group-econo! with common interests, common tasks, common from the condition of unregulated power-reltionships the indi dual groups develop into more or less centralized, more oF li ‘uniformly governed communities, from a contre-lss existent ‘with no settled institutions of any kind, to a life that revolv around home and farm, field and pastare, settlement a sanctuary. ‘Religious rites and acts of worship now took the place ‘magic and soroery. ‘The Palaeolithic age represented & ‘marked by the absolute absence of worship-cults; man was f of the fear of death and starvation, endeavoured to defend hime self against the assaults of enemies and material want, agai pein and death by magic practices, but did not connect the 10 NEW STONE AGE snd evil forte which fl hrs with ny poe behind eves sof eh bogus to breed Pant and ete dose aa begin. Naat hs fate i decay powers endowed with reason veh he aliy to determioe imman deny” WH the sol i of nn'edepeon on grod and bad weather, on errr urbe, lightning and bal plague and fain, onthe iy or inferlityof the earth anes or meagrenen ser ares te conception of ll Kinds of demons and psa eicent and malignant—dstibuting bloing and curses wat the ide of the taknown and mysterio ef the higher dr, of huge, eupremundane and Sunn fc beyond Petr onl he world vided into vo haven a ime fens divided nt vo halves Tse ho pe of ans, efi deieworhip of ble inthe survival f the soul and the ul ORs Sead, Wath belief end worship, however, here stse lo tha owed fr Hol, amulets, ced symbol ‘votive oeringy, Feral ite ond Durlal monuments. The diinction between NESL sid profane ar, boron an ar of eligios representation S5The art of eclatormamematin, sow spear, On the one find, we fad the romain of Sl and of» sepulchral at an ee" ster, thw of eoslar cere, with decorative frm, developed infact x Semper pointed xt, ely fom he Bow of handcraft end tecguen For animism the worlds divid ita a realty and a per- reaiy, «vale plenomenel world and ai invite world of ‘psa moral body and an inmoral sol. The burl usar three make i quite cleor that Neo man wes already ning to conceive use soul ae aubtance divided from the tolp Th magi iow ofthe word i moni sve realty in the frm ofa simple txt of on aterruped and eherest Contin; ut ain aii ora ts Karlee and ‘Si into» tworword pstem, Magi rans and lds fatto the comets, anism i sprue and inclines 10 ‘Sacco, Ln the ote cave thought contd onthe ie of his tre nthe other on that ofthe mori oot, That the min Trae why Pals wt reproduces things tru to fs and Fealiy, wht Noolthic art oppems a styled sd aie super (ror a ordinary empiri But he the begining iPREHISTORIC TIMES of the proces of intelloctuslization and rationalization in at: replacement of concrete pictures and forms by signs and sym abstractions and abbreviations, general types and conventio tokens; the suppression of direct phenomena and experiences thought and interpretation, aecentuation and exaggeration, tortion and denaturalization. The work of artis no longer p the representation of a material object but that of an idea, merely @ reminiscence but aso a visions in other words: the no sensory and conceptual elements of the atts’ imagination di place the sensuous and irrational elements, And thus the pic Js gradually changed into a pictographical sign-language, pictorial abundance is reduced to a non-pictorial or almost pictorial shorthand, 1 final analysis, the Neolithic change of style i ined by two factors frst, by the transition from the paras purely consumptive economy of the hunters and food- gather to the productive and constructive economy of the eattle-breede and tillers of the el; secondly, by the replacement of the m istic, magic-dominated conception of the world by the duals philosophy of animism, that is, by a conception of the wi Which is itself dependent on the new type of economy. Palaeolithic painter was a hunter, and as such he had to be {good observer, he hed to be able to recognize animals and thei characteristics, their habitats and their migrations, from slightest tracks and scents; he hed to have a sharp eye for sii ties and differences, a fine ear for signs and sounds; all his se hhad to be directed outwards to concrote realty. The sa attitude and the same qualities are also important in natural ‘The Neolithic peasant no longer needs the hunter's sharp se his sensitivity and gifts of observation declines ether talen ove all the gift of abstraction and rational thinking —atal {importance both in his methods of production and in his fr tic, strictly concentrated andstylizing art. The most fundamen difference botween this art and naturalism is that it represe reality not as a continuous picture of complete homogeneity, 15 the confrontation of two worlds. With its formalisic urge, ‘opposes the normal appearance of things; it is no longer t imitator, but tho antagonist of natures it does not add a furt 2 NEW STONE AGE eo ne ver mci ale ri of es fe? Ho om cater one el wl ple en? cen eg aca nk nie setg coment, og fom oe Se 0 rum nee at every det reat poe ree at enePREHISTORIC ‘TIMES preserve the means of production, i static and traditionalist, i forms of life are impersonal and stationary and its art forms correspondingly conventional and invariable, Nothing is natural than that there should develop along with the essenti collective and traditional methods of work in peasant soviet solid, inflexible and stable forms in every field of cultural li Hoernes was one of the frst to emphasize the obstinate conser tism ‘which is peculiar both to the style itself as well as 10 ‘ecoriomie nature of the lower peasantry’? and Gordon Chil refers, in his characterization ofthis spirit, tothe remarkable f that the pots of a Neolithic village are all alike."€ The celture of the peasantry, which develops away from the Huet ing economic life of the towns, continues to remain faithful the strictly regulated patterns of life handed down from generation to another, and even in the peasant art of m times shows certain features which are stil related to the historie geametrc style. The change of style from Palaeolithic naturalism to Neolithi {geometrism is not achieved entirely without intermediary ‘As early as the age of the naturalistic style itself, we find bby side with the South French and North Spanish trend, strivi in the direction of impressionism’, an East Spanish group paintings which are more expressionistic than impressionistic character. The producers of these works seem to have given ‘whole attention to physical movements and their dynamics, a in order to give more intensive and suggestive expresion them, they intentionally distort the proportions of the lim draw ludicrously long legs, impossibly thin upper parts of body, distorted arms and dislocated joints. Nevertheless, thi pressionism no more representsa principle opposed to natural than does any later expressionism, The exaggerated empl and the features simplified by exaggeration merely afford ‘more convenient starting point for styizaion and schemnati tion than’ absolutely correct proportions and forms, But gradual simplification and stereotyping of contours, which He Brucil notes in the last phase of Palaeolithic development a defines as the ‘conventionalization’ of naturalistic forms, sents the first real transition to the geometrism of the Neolithi ir NEW STONE AGE He decries the proces in the ue of which the natral- se Giswings are exceed more and more carelely, with ever i ey etection, formal rigty aod elation’ end ses sacs servation hs Unory ofthe devlopmens of geometric ut of naira, «poco which although i oxy have fore od without any internal casa, cold not ave been dent of external confiton. ‘Tho seliematiation takes federecions on theo hand, i poe Ube search fr eat 2 cay understood forms of communication and aatenient, ‘pe thor keener simple and appealing frm of decree hah cow alteay find st th end af the Paaclithic ge Ai ee bade form of pictorial representation develope. the Spamive, the ixformatioe and the doorative in other words, the atralitekenny the pictgrapic ign and the stack “The trantional forms beoween naturalism and geometries correspond to tha Interoedary stages which lad en at fldtatve 1 productive enemy. Tha beginning of agrctare Tod eatle-breeding probably developed even in eatin hunting {He from the preserving of bulls andthe sparing of pete tu periap toters onal The changes ta sudden rerli- the citer Sa ar or in soonomic, bat wil have taken. place gut both spores. And he sane msn interdependence Sit have exited between the tnsional phenornens in bth Fold a between paral nting and natural, on the one hind, and the productive peeantty and. geonerism, on the tthe, Incidentally, we have an atslogy ithe economic atd tial history of moder piniive racen which gives us eon to Conclude tat tis relations typical. The bshinen, wo are Tere and nomads Hke Paocolthic rm, ate a the sage of Aevelapoent which we have called that of the indivi search fer fon wbo have no ktowiedge of wl cooperation, beleve inno spots and demons and are devoted to crude mage and scorn, podoce a netreiie wrt whichieurpeldgly sear {oPalcolthie panting; agin, the negro ofthe West Afcan tzu, who cay on productive agriculture, live ia il ‘munis ed belive in animinm are eit formals Am abtrac, geometrically devised at like Neolithic man.” 15PREHISTORIC ‘TIMES Tes hardly possible to say anything more concrete about economic and sca conditions of these sys than that natu for in connected with individualitic and. anarchinie. og tern witha certain lack of tradition the lack of firm cone tions anda purely secular outlook, wilt geometriam, onthe hand, is connected with a tendoney to sniformity of org tion, with stable insitutions, and a yery largely” religious trientated outlook on life; anything beyond the sneo tater of these relationshpe Based mostly on equivocation, Such a iguously applied concepts slo serio the corzlation Wilhelm Hatsonsein attempts to establish between the rete aye and communiste culeok of the early “agra democracies. He finds an authoritarian, egalitarian and pl hing tendency in both phenomena, but overlooks tho fc those conceptions donot moan the same in tho two dn fl ofan and society and that—by taking such a exible view theve concepi-—on the one Inna, the sme syle can be nected with very diferent socal forms and, om the other, tame soil esto can bo connectd wth tho mot varied tert. What understood by ‘authoritarian’ inthe pla an bo apliod both to autocratic swell to soils, to fe fs wel as to communist orders of city, wilt the limite of {geometric syle are much narrower; they donot oven ent Embrace the art of autcratc cviations, It alone that ‘ecaism, Tho concept of ‘egaliy” is likewise narrower in it Tange when applied to society tha to ar. From the soil Joint of vow is opposed to autocratic principle of every ki it in the sphere of art, where it has meray the sense of superperonal andthe entiniviua, its compete with tos varied order of sciey-—it however, precisely the si Af democracy and cial to which it crresponds leat ofa the final analysis, there ino direct relationship between tnd arti ‘plonning?, Planning a the excason offre, ui inte compsiion inthe fed of economics and planning as striedy dssplined execation of an ett plan, elaborated to last detail, ean atthe very most be brought into a metaph relaonship wth one another in themelves they represent abecltey diferent principles, and ici perecly couelvable th 10 ART AS A PROFESSION sna planned economy and society a formally individualistic art, 5p eling in varity and improvisation, might well come to the Tae There is scarcely any greeter danger for the sociological fPterpretation of cultural structares than such equivecations and eine to which is easier to fall victim. For there is nothing easier fhm to construct striking eonnections between the various styles jn ert and the social patterns predominating at any particular inne, which are based on nothing but metaphor, and there is fothing, more tempting than to make @ show of such daring nalogies. But they are just as fateful traps for truth as the ilusons enumerated by Bacon and they might well be put on bis, Tit of warnings a8 idola acpuivocations 3. THE ARTIST AS MAGICIAN AND PRIEST ART AS A PROFESSION AND DOMESTIC CRAFT “Tw erator of Palaoithic animal drawings wre to all appearances themselves ‘rofesional” hunters—one cam assume ‘mach wath slot asl certainty from theirs Iedge of aimale—and iti improbable that as ‘ati’, or how ver they were called, they would have been exempt from the Gute of food-providing.” But certain signs dfinively indicate {hat some vooitiona difeentaton although perhaps only in this porticlar calling had already taken poe. fas we ase, the representation of animals realy did serve the purposes of tml hen it cam hardly be doubted thatthe person who were Capable of producing such works were simultaneously regarded fe pted withthe power of mage ond venersted ax sch, a ats ‘ch brought with it howerer, certain privileges and t Testa arth emancipation from the duties of food-eeking, Tncident- fly the elaborate and rfined technique of Palaeoithte paintings fo argues that these orks were done not hy diletant but By trained specialists who hd spent considerable part of their Iie learning and practising thei at and who formed a profesional Gla of their own, ‘Tho many ‘sketches, “rough, Graft and corrected “popie’drawing?, which have been found slongside the other surviving pictures, even make it ser highly probable 17PREHISTORIC TIMES that there was an organized educational activity at work, schools, masters, local trends and traditions" The magician, therefor, seems to have been the first representa of specialization and the division of labour, At any rate, emerges from the undifferentiated mass, alongside the ordi magician and medicine-man, asthe first ‘profesional’ and is the possessor of special gifts, the harbinger of the real pri class, which will ater lay claim not only to exceptional sili and knowledge bat also to a kind of charisma and wil a from all ordinary work. But even the partial exemption of lass from the tasks of direct food-secking is evidence of paratively advanced conditions; it means that this society’ already afford the luxury of specialist. As far as those condit are concerned in whieh tan is still dependent on providing his oven daily sustenance, the doctrine of the artistic producti ‘of wealth is perfectly valids at this stage of development ‘existence of works of arti in fact the sign ofa certain abuinda fof the means of subsistence and of a relative freedom from ‘mediate anxiety as for as food is concerned. But it cannot applied to more highly developed conditions without some qual cation, for even though it mey be right that the very fact painters and sculptors are able to exist at all argues a co Aogree of material plenty, which society must be prepared share with these ‘unproductive’ specialist, this principle mast 1no means bo applied according to the method of that primit sociology which makes the golden ages of art simply’ coin swith the epochs of economie prosperity. With the separation of sacred and profane att, artistic activi in the Neolithic age probably passed into the hands of two dif ‘ent groups. The tasks of sepulehral art and the seulpture of as well as the execution of religious dances, which—if one’ apply the results of anthropological researeh to prehistorcal co ditions—now beceme the leading art in the age of animism, ‘were in all probability entrusted exclusively to men, above all ‘magicians and priests. Profane art, on the other hand, which now restricted to craft and had to salve merely decorative ‘lems, probably lay entirely im the hands of women and may Ha formed a part ofthe activity of the home, Hoernes connects 18 Ant AS A PROFESSION mee cater of Nettie art wih the female mais npimary &fmininoyie—he Sache ctr me ieee Si Seon and ders The sbayeon maybe Soe clon load on ea ogeveon, Hho cement soem ho ays i anaes 'mee Si mori pttntely Sy and wt hs sae Sn se cael spritof woman than to that of man. It pr Sette, o pny seen, dsp al it Sy curs a sly ined mote af et, bt J aay aod fet, sng by roon tte I ocieed ante sacl Socenenae pe ‘Gon of the feminine spirit in art.”¥* If one must express oneself Be at ie ons mig aol cnet ie wit tho aca nd the douinewrog et Semen al aburption of et by domestic industry and by ee neck taco wy nine ees cig ther oaiiion a ravgeion tom th sand oie pines how cod pete! tiferentacon fora fn I sci nr conse tome Doreen hay Seen petal conc. Torey dng aya Soper prec cyclin geal hog tn Foe the mere amples bts nt wr merely thse Gi ct nic sai preted by omer bats thse tbe by men oe now posted ss deine eo twe net ge twee ecrp—att an yooh wea ats Ith Semoun doling’ of isk be one muse se og ere edn, momo wl ter mana iw cn sendy ok ack nn nde dove ot i end ct oer tears uae aw dlr hee tj itesteroseywhater he end athe inden Sarco of the ree fr te snp an cscs of cy rca cron Ton thet. Cony hegre ce wih ecg nd conven oy de torsos sng teh evogh ening rogue by the mule ales Heth the inom whi aks *PREHISTORIC TIMES possible, probably contributes much to the simplification of forms, ‘Agriculture and cattle-breeding bring long periods of lei in their tain, Farm work is limited to certain seasons; the wint is long and allows for long vests from labour. Neolithic art bea the marks ofa ‘peasant art, not only because it corresponds wil its imperonal and traditionalistc forms to the conventional a conservative spirit of the peasantry, but also because it is the pg duct of this leisure-time. Buti is by no means at the same time “folk ar’ ike the peasant art of today. At any rate, it nota fall art 0 long as the differentiation of peasant societies into el hhas not been completed-—for ‘folk ert only has a meaning, has been sai, in contrast to the ‘art of a ruling las; the art ‘a mass of people which has not yet divided into ‘ruling and se ing classes, high and fastidious and low and modest classes" can be described as ‘folk art’, for one reason because there is no othe Kind of art at al8¥ And the peasant art of the Neolithic ageism longer a ‘folk art" once this differentiation has been complete for the works created by the fine arts are then destined for th possessing upper class and are executed by that las, that i t say, usually by the women of that lass. When Penelope sits a Toot beside her maids, she i stil, to sone extent, the rich peasant woman and the heiress of the female art of the Neolithic Manual labour, which is Inter looked down on, is sill regard hhere as a perfectly honourable activity, at least in so far a8 i Js carried out by women in the home. “The surviving works of art of the prehistoric age are of quis outstanding importance for the sociology of art—not because were perchanee to a higher degree dependent on social com ditions, but because they allow us to see the relationships bew Social patterns and art forms more clearly than the art of later tages. At any rate, there is nothing in the whole history of a ‘which illuminates xo clearly the connection between a change a syle and the simultaneous change in economic and social com ditions as the transition from the earlier to the later Stone Prehistoric cultures show the marks of their derivation f social conditions more distinctly than later cultures in. whicl forms that have already become partially osified are dragged 20 Feat afer a cave ia Example ofthe Pact fant wh rove fife. by Heat Breil after an ee fad Bt mar Les Fcc From. Examp einen of mame il shh atrlion ofthe North Sonic and sh Pvack cose pings deeop, s enbrpolgial alin of the Od Sion on example ofthe at of1 ART AS A PROFESSION mg from an eaten age and are often amalgamated undise only with the new and still vital forms. The more deve- Uiich the peasant cultures change into more dynamic urban 1 trade and industry, reveals such @ relatively a tex tom « Mall ir opr cogil rn, Bat where a Ife, where there are still no atonomous forms and no differences in principle between the old and the nev, between tradition and modernity, there the sociological explanation of eultural pheno- tmena is tll comparatively simple and plainly feasible. i ata of he lalabrian trend esi 2, sre. eck pin pining th Ong Pe Be copy by GW Stee tga! peal Palate age" Port, Lowe. tbat 1000 Bi From’ the nepal of Stag Example of cary Mesrpota art on the lel of NelCHAPTER IL ANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES 4. STATIC AND DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN ANCIENT-ORIENTAL ART 1 end ofthe Nelthic ago betakons almost a univ Scan of st pf» etn conan and sity eising Then the snared bythe tranin om mere conseenpton to product From primitive individuation to cooperation nv ima by th beginning of independent trad and handicrafts, the of cities end markets, and the agglomeration and differentia ofthe poplin nth aes So re wa ptr of plete change, althogh in bth ese tke place more {gradual alteration than as a sudden subversion. In most of th Trtttiony and cantons of the. Ancient Oriental wel seins ems fever hn rial ne of rl economy the permeation of il fe by religions che aly ae of ary Nicene traditions eon ie by side wi he new urn way af In Egypt and Mesopotamia the peasantry, continues ie radon defined existence, inns othe rns th i ig wanes in te ramen Bs dane ony, ond even th inne aa he delve the pn of traditions sl dicernble oe in the ltt sot most advanced manifestations af i i ae city cultures of these countries. " he deve change inthe new way of lifes exprsed ab sua the ht mary etn ge the snl epee wept ut ha ent al STATIC AND DYNAMIC ELEMENTS eee an tis teane a wat be she ser rouPO cprmet ef nesta cen re crenata to agar be fc tha bur tie ea a Tata pms cman nd pee ‘timed enn Sy rt order to understand it properly, one must feel the living forceg ‘experimenting individualism end expansive novarsiees teat nei ata eres ea a al xt nie nd dey a a he ten ton nat ot tm aya as fe Ne By the inen wanderer al 2 werk nthe hyo the tee cme Theat acme omelet on io nr an tae eae Stroh ar ue is Ancient-Oriental epic, the leading soil forces, cine it iether the status quo and the traditional forme of art anda nf see stan andere The cnpion under which th as wor sxe cco lees mei gt ht wok eric me agen he in as Ive an fev so sine of het magne ts ata: Aa here inthe Ancient Orient under the mos dre fresre roasts ‘he Thy ove tn te ae ema a Yerona facto ae ao eal btn works. For it is a fact that every intent has ton sal prejuics and fu of judgment of the public, and aims which have eae? ie assimilated those etstances er stand opens enpsed tothe Ifthe rena n one dri ac hae 2 ihe th ti’ nt fet Ce hhc cba aad ery turn to 26 evento be amar oft fact that hi achievement umottate for the real thing. Even in the most liberal demo- ey ‘the artist does not move with perfect freedom and un- ye or there he i rected by innumerable consdere- See ee trot mance of bensom aye tae seeatest importance for him personally but in principle oe re ec the dt fa tot and the is ihn cl eer fe nt caavrrontrary to the spititof art, perfect works of art could arise Se ay Dt way the Pe ee se gay of wer pend sor te pret by lal feo td ome ae ae eb cau mays tet Fae a a tions keeles af mnemets we ST al in themes ht the edo a in Fa coueysonly rapa rte aden af a eee ciel rticon cullen tld Se eel geane ea, So ee amin po af 2, THE STATUS OF THE ARTIST AND THE ORGANIZATION OF ARTISTIC PRODUCTION ‘The fist and for a long time the only employers of artists wore priests and princes and their most important workshops Gharing the whole period of Ancient-Oriental culture were in temple and palace Households. In the workshops of these house- holds they worked either as voluntary or compulsory employees, aslabourers able to move about frely or a lifelong slaves. Here far the greatest and most valuable part of the artistic production ‘ofthe time was accomplished. The frst accumulation of land fell into the hands of warriors and robbers, eonquerors and oppressor, chieftains and prinoes; the fit rationally administored proporty may well have been the temple estates, that i to say, the proper~ ties of the gode founded by the princes and managed by the BANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES priests, Therefore itis highly probable that the priests were it regular employers of artists, the ftst to give them missions; the kings will merely have followed! their exemy peient-Oriental art was restricted in the first place, apart f domestic industry, to the earrying out of the tasks set by patrons. Its creations consisted for the most part in votive to the gods and royal memorials, in the requisites of either ‘cult of the gods or the ruler, in instruments of propag designed to serve either the fame of the immortals or the Inumous fame of th hood and the royal house were part of the sume hieratic sj and the tasks which they set the artist of securing their spiiy salvation and endowing them with lesting fame, were uaited the foundation of all primitive religion, the cult of the de Both demanded thatthe artist should provide solemn, stately lofty representations, both encouraged the artist to remain in hs outlook and subjected him to the service of their own servative aims. Both did all they could to prevent innovations art, as well as any kind of veform, since they feared any lterat in the prevailing order of things and declared the traditional of art tobe just as sacred and inviolable asthe traditional relig creeds and forms of worship. The priests allowed the kings De regarded as gods co as to draw them into their own sphere authority and the kings alowed temples to be built for the land priests 0 a to increase their own fame, Each wanted to pr from the prestige of the other; each sought to enlist the help the artist in the fight for the preservation of royal and prietl power. Under such circumstances there could be no more qu tion of an autonomous at, created from purely aesthetic moti and for purely aesthetic purposes, than under those of the historic era, ‘The great works of art, of monumental sculpt ‘and wall-painting, were not created for their own sake and the own beauty. Sculptures were not commissioned in order to set up in front of temples and on the market place—e i classical antiquity or the Renaissance; most of them stood in dark interior ofthe senetuary and in the depth of the sepulehre ‘The demand for pictorial representatious, for works of sepa chal art in particular, was so great in Egypt from the very 26 ORGANIZATION OF ARTISTIC PRODUCTION Ta alr monn a ‘person of the artist himself disappeared almost. entirely the Pits werk, The palctr and wilt remained ononymous Solin ano wey chruding tal own peronaie, Wo know ar fe names of are om Egy ede the master gn tn wens enone to comnts even thee a to thay defied of works We poses, esr, rt upto workshop above al from El Arran ad Pet of sculptor working ata dentable petro the en Ty but the person ofthe att ad the ation of Qe tines of arte dou in every cae, I the wal see ction of tomb ocaonall represent unter or eulpor sePtires his name, we ray suo thatthe ats intended eee cc himelly but tis nether wholly ceils, nor an ‘eve much benefit fom the information in view of the lody of ether deta ofthe history of Egyptian rT ie ‘Canto wo form any cow outine ofthe penoraly of thes ipo howe sll portraits do ot oven give ay ethtasory fa ‘msi sous Wat the artist inquest thought aout Bim {Stand the valu of hie work Iti iets ony whether we ts interpret thom sly a an tempt hy the arto card Ti everyday routine or mother, driven ike the Kings ad the gest oncs of the Kingdom, by the urge to secure inmoral fre Er imoel inthe shadow of thei ome, he wished tose up mmomunet whieh would allow him to curvive fr ver in the menory of man TU rue that we are sunt with the name of maser builders snd mason soups in egy and pcs honours wil have been bestowed on there high car fica, bao the whsle the arti remelns an Undingusbed eran, teem a the must ssc and nota a penalty in hime nica like Lasing’s notion of ¢ ‘Rapin without Rend would Inve been uit imnceivabl. Only in the cae of the master- Seiler si pondble to epeak of divding-line between intel- Inna! end toma wonky ie soulpor td the eine re orANCIENT-ONIENTAL URBAN CULTURES hing Wut mania) workers. The acoltooks of the ler ‘Eibes giv Ui bot ida ofthe subordinate sacl posian of, ‘Sen Hgyptey speak with contempt of te a's bana Yrofeion¥ Compared ni the postion of thse series, Ue painter and sculptor dos nt seem very honourable, fulary in the earlier period of Egyptian hist. Tis Sf dat underestimation of te atin favour of trate i isso fair fom the records of cls sig. And Here the ancient Eas the dependence of cll wats onthe pm Conception of prestige, scoring to whidh manual labour Fegarded as dhnourablegwillfave been even mare ds th ‘withthe Grecks and Romans. Atall vents the esteem in the ans es held grew as general progress developed Tn Nove Kingdom many site aeay log tothe Pager closes and in some fame several generations bold fas a Ywotesion of art witht a Break, which can be regarded i Isl as sgh of «comparatively advanced case eonstiou Bur even now the ale ofthe srs in the hie of exity rather sutordnate, compared with th presumable fureton the preliori rtit- magia. The temple and plate worktops were the greats and m Important, but they were mnt the sole workshoye; such ea rent were so tobe found onthe great pete ete and the Dzau f the higgor cides * Thee leter united several independent workshop which, ia contr tothe routine of temple, plows and esate householi, wed exclusively. Intour "The pure of sch amalgamation ws, on the one a to facta co-operation between diferent craftsmen, end od ether hand, to produce and wll goods n one andthe samp oder to become independent of the meron Inthe te palace ad private workshops the erafsmen sill worked ia the framework of slcotained and elfsufeient household ‘wns ony difrence from te presnt howshols ofthe Neo! Tie age wae that they were fcomparcly Migger and wer ase ently on Toeiga, elton forced labour stcturlly here was no essential difrence betwen them, Ae upped to bth a These, th Brau syste re separation of erkchop routing fromthe housbol, is revolutionary tanoveton i comtil 28 ORGANIZATION OF ARTISTIC PRODUCTION orm of the Sodepondent industry, producing quads the sey, which i longer rested 10 ecainal come eT on the one han caved on se an exclave peo sony vty. and, on the other, proce ts gods forthe fen got This sytem nt only ture the primary producer ee rannal worker, but removes hin fom the cel fame: Tn ihe okay ensayo pings rey och Teves the worer io his heme Bat separste hia ee uo household spiritually by making him work for a fro er rather than for hintel, has the same eft. ‘The toric of the housthold eonotny, im whic predation le Foy co immediateincernal need, thereby broke. In the couse of thir develupment the tan gradually takes aver even thse branches of manual Iabour and ert which were cry the opera province cf the women, soe atthe making Ertirsie products and of textiles” Herodotus remake with Staement that in Egypt men-—slbit foro Ibouren—st at {iim but ths phesomonon wes merely in eosedance with the general trend of development, ich aly Ted to manal ant becoming the exclusive province ofthe male. This in no ‘fey inthe parable of Heracles ot Omphale's pinning hel "he exprestan of the erslavement of the male, bua the jepson of manual crate from the housbold and the nce SEED aifcat manipulation of tae The grit workshop stad to thé royal pslae and the temples ere the sda in which young ers ere tained. I [eal o regard expeclly Uwe worabope connected with dhe temples ws the mot important ianemiters of tadon an sumption the jutiation for which ot generally akon Iniged, however jut as doubt has ometies been cat on the title predominant infcence ofthe priesthaed on the practice the ars All event, the educational nportance of work Shop ves all he greater le longer it wes able to maintain ts tration ond in Us respctsome temple weekshopr wil proebly Have been superior tothe palace workshop, sltioghy on the ther hand, the cost the intellectual entre of te country, wren a piton to exercise «Lind of dtatrhipin mater of Se Inn, bin the tpl di the lc wereANCIENT-ORIENTAL, URAW CULTURES shops the whole practice of art had the same aad ‘harcter. The fact tat fromthe very beginning tace Universally binding rules, niveraly tale made we we tmctods of work, pnts «tem dred fos el Gees This cde samen plac nd ered tion ld on the ane hand oan exces of media ponerse on the ether hand, secured that eomparstiely igh oe Jove whch is sotypial of Egyption ar Haw great eae And pagal hl the Egyptians expended os the cdccrron {he sing generation of young artis shown even'by the ing mater which have heen prserved the te cc ture, the anatomical representation of ined! pane of feds ittended for insctona purposes and, sn specimen shonpices, which demonsested to the pore Alevelopment ofa work of atin all the phases of fe Pre Tho organiation of rtisic work, the prawng ea tated employment of asstant, the spcaitaon lt Saotion of individual eckievemena asso highlytvelogan Eggpt that it reminds one in a way af the ected ee medieval cathedral workshop and in some rereeee ps Ine, individualisizallyongntzed art cin the sed the ‘ery beginning, the whole development stove tsar sandardiaton of production, and tis tendency wes ieee eutset in cordance with the routine f= workchoy Aboes the gradual rationalization of craft pesos exered& heel innoence on artic methods With increasing demande cistom grew of working acontng te seth, mee unit patterns and on lt mechani rete ect va nique of production wes developed whieh enabled tat tipi simpy to be comtraced fom parte enone nent. Tho appiaion ofeach raonalinie rnetote te Production wa, ofcourse, posible only beause e was vena oat Sts the same task over and ever agen, common tig same votive gift, the sime idly the seme tpeleeal ‘ents the same typeof royal images and pitts porta Re as orginly of ubject-maiter wat never very man senesced in Faypt, in fact was generally tabooed, the whale apbiton of the ars as concentrated on thoroughnen end pon of 0 STEREOTYPING OF ART avian, which i © conspicuous even in the les mportans exec and which compensates for the lack of interest and vor a the invention, The demand fr «clea paihed an aplaen why the ona of the Egyptian workshops a rely small in pit of the rtionaieergnieton wefaped there, The fondness ofthe sculptors for works in stone, erPPTie merely tho rough heving ofthe figure out of the block al ‘be left to the assistants, but the finer detailed work and the oul Gmpletion was reserved for the master imposed NArTOW sco roduction fom the very ta 5. THE STEREOTYPING OF ART IN ‘THE MIDDLE KINGDOM “Tho fact thatthe ar ofthe en peids is Is arch? and yl nn thet ofthe Inter perio the care evidence of ow untypical conservatism and conventionalism are ofthe racial ‘Marater af the Egyptian people and of how this charsteriaie oiitier« hstraly conditoned phenomenon changing the St staton develo In the rb ofthe st predyastic ad {ithe int dynastic epoch ther prval «freedom of form and Simpson which i fost later x ais oly won back agai in theta o «genre eltarelverltin, Even th manrgeces frm the later pera of the Od Kingdom, such the “Serie tthe Louvre or the socalled "Vilage Mayor” in Cao, make Sieh fesh and vital impression Uat edo not find thls equal tga ul the day of Amenhotep IV. Perhaps ther never as Sich na tayo Egat a ity Sage of development. Te special comition of life a the new tren civlualon, the aiferenioed weil relations, the ‘pecllation of the memual crafts andthe erancpation of trade contibuted more drely to the spread of individuals than Iner when ti inaonce vas estuced and often fatrsted by feces fighting forthe maintenance oftheir own authority. Nok tl the ons of the Mile Kingdom, when the feudal ario- tracy comer ino the foreground With ie sony emphaaed Closcometousnes do te igi conventions af cours 51ANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES art develop, which suppress any further emergence of sponta forms of expression. The stereotyped style of culic represent tions was well known as early asthe Neolithic age, but the sti ‘ceremonial forms of courtly art are absolutely new and come. prominence here for the first time in the history of hui culture. They reflect the rule of a higher, superindividual order, of a world which owes its greatness and splendour to favour of the king, They are anti-individvalisti, static and ventional, because they are the forms of expression of an out on life, for which descent, class, membership ofa clan or a represents a higher degree of reality than the character ft particular individual, and the abstract rues of conduct and t ‘moral code are much more directly in evidence than whater the individual may fee, think or will. All the good things and charms of life are connected, for the privileged members of society, with their separation from the other clases, and all ‘maxims which they follow assume more or less the character rules of decorum and etiquette. This decorum and etiquette, whole self-tylization of the upper class, demand among othe ns, remote from reality and t present time, Etiquette isthe highest law not merely forthe ordi ary mortal, but alo for the king, and in the imagination of thi society even the gods accept the forms of courtly ceremonial In the end, the portraits of the king become purely rept sentative images; the individual characteristics of the early pet disappear from them without a trace. Finally there is no lor any difference between the impersonal turus of phrave in thei eulogistic inscriptions and the stereotyped character of th features. The self glorifying autobiographical texts which Kings and the great landlords have inscribed on their statues the portrayal of events from their lives are from the very ginning infinitely monotonous; in spite of the abundance monuments which have survived, we seek in them in va individual characteristics and the expression of personal life." fact that the sculptures of the Old Kingdom ate richer in indivie dual features than the biographical records ofthe sane period is 32 STEREOTYPING OF ART sideman i shee i sania sha to be ciara magical fnnetion vemiisoent of Palaclithic art, ena erary ora For in he pra he Rhy wri wartdian-spirit of the deceased, was supposed to find the body SETS id eon med gna i smugly the extn sa ais of the portrayals But inthe Middle Kingdom, SSE ea ot tn a gs are therfore hi nance rate. For eo tga sponses nS Be oe a fron which «Ling eres hss whan he tae Limsel, othe pratceuane of he Nile ee aay exes tel apyearae which blogs singe urly conning Bathe Hogs minstes find courtiers now strive to make just as solemn, calm and a impresion the Hing hint. And taste ecerthe slcieaesnin uty eer eter ieee wage ay aay th gh chet by i gros from onthe Be ceanons oeeptg rsive cond tae pron ann oi rs "he lamuton of the Mile Kingdom can searcly We or- yoinel ers naar age of devdopenIbag oo vrton. Bee toe se piety he er at rt sans the sen ape fom deriving fm te Nel age Shee ath ae ny ghee "lv and annorbecapsned prely interna te hry wert safe mts ekevemen ote ery prod Ie ansehen rier aps eet toi ine tattle ofanre, we mus dea qe Slane ppce irdeto ove cme rey no Sicrytnd ithe whole hay ofa he dee etneen sats an cheoncton mes suton ofan td ik wero epnude, tan er of Senin in the eee et oe ti punpn's determine ot nly ys oes ac ae pena conte canoe te Sve the welthnown psterente— psy sighly touched tp deo mslswhih lve ben daavred the werahop ofANGIENT-ORIENTA vnnay cuLTunes 1 scolgtor Thutmose in EL Amarna prove that the Egypt tit was a ale to ea tinge diferent rom the way he inthe habit presenting them, and we mey esume that ba ast ess deliberately deviated fom the image which be sae ‘the way shown by thse maths." One nly needs to compare Shaping of the iferent parts ofthe body with one abot ‘leary that there was & confit of purpose here and hat fats was moving in two diferent Worldsan antic and txtmarttie wort the same time “Tis most striking charoteritic of Egyptian at, and in ot only in ts sre formal, bt to e greater oieser initsnaurlisie pine of development es wel the ratonl of the technique. The Egyptian never freed themselves pletely fom the once picture" of Neth art ef pi Ficorial representations and hit dratings and never oe {he infuenee of these ‘completing! technique, by hic picture is composed frm several lements which te era Envi the ati mind bt which ae ep fntand often even miaualycontraictory. They forgo del te ison ofthe unity and uniguenes of the vil itpres they renounee perspective, foresortenings and imercetons i Sh res flr nds reancion nstoatt ‘hich proves stronge than any desire they may have to conf Teihflly to naire. How lating the ect Of tach «purely exteral and abst’ prohbiion cn be, and how easly team ecole at times even with ales inhibited aesthetic arp is shown bythe Ea Asiatic panting, which iin many te ior simile to our cnerption oft and in which, eve tal Shadows, for example, are taiao because they a regarded making anal co bral pact onthe behader. The Fay ‘ust have had to some extent this fling that all stenpts Akesive the observer contain an element of bray end Me gority and thatthe metheds of abstract rely formal at "ior relined? tha the deceptive elect of natalism, OF al the satinaisie formal pints in Ancien Oriental and especially in Egyptian vt that fait the mst cone Spicuons and he most character y sonality” we eon ta lbw governing the rpreestation ofthe human igure, dscrered u a i mehr ede dt tas Fer re nor onto irae See ty maencsnng onkeion a a eel divaaybefaed one Ce maak Papen ional abe epee otal representation of the human figure the f= cae a rene tap ban Spee fo eee ee caer aie we Eo ee yey Seah tie a en trenalnt oreo tl ean etree ie gaa he le crn Seeger ca ronal eentenng sans ree etc we ree aE ee een tec acntane, Sores Se a ee ac iemtoag er see eee are paratie k e, Teheran est ne er se a evap Themes % ty Jalius LANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES audlience, lea ig them to the events instead of leading and senting the events to them, and attempting to represent ‘caught red-handed, by chance and by surprise, reduces the and conventions of the theatre to a tininnun. With its rob ilusionism, its forthright and indiscreet directness, its vi tack on the audience, it expresses a democratic conception art, held by liberal, ent-authoritarian societies, just a eleary the whole of the courtly and aristocratic art—by its mere phasis of the stage, the footlights the frame and the sole ie lunmistakable expression of a highly artificial, specially rmissioued occasion, from which its obvious that the patron i initiated connoisseur who dacs not need to be deceived Apart from frontality, Egyptian art displays a whole series ing formulae, which, although they are les ubvious © the conventionalty of mast of the stylistic principles governis this art, especially that of the Middle Kingdom, just as acute Foremost among them is the rule that the lege of a igure always to be drasvn in profile, and that Both of them are to shown from the inside, that i looking from the hig tov; there isthe regulation that the moving leg and the outstrt arm—probably first ofall in order to prevent disturbing ov lappings—must be farther away from the onlookers finaly is the convention that itis always the right side of the figu [portrayed which is turned to the onlooker. Thete traditions, la ‘and regulations were observed with the utmost strictness by th priesthood and the court, the feudal aristocracy and the b cracy of the Middle Kingdom. ‘The feudal lords were all lis kings trying to surpass the real Pharaoh in formality wherev posible, and the higher bureaueraey, which still kept it Strictly ‘secluded from the mille class, was deeply im ‘with the hieratie spirit and felt along thoroughly eonservatin lines. Social conditions did not change until the advent of t Now Kingdom which arose out of the turmoil of the Hyl invasion, Isolated, self-contained traditional Egypt became only a materially and culeurally flaarishing country but beea posessed of a wider vision, creating the beginnings of a supe national workd-culture, Egyptian art not only drew all 3b AGE OF AKHENATON Eas fond diovered that there was also a whole world beyond its 4. NATURALISM IN THE AGE OF AKHENATON seen nat nly the funter eign e nly Sor fomerer of the idea of monotheism, as he is generally Be roe ony the tgp” an the ie nde Jor ws ire hs bean ell at ae Eflovement, Bely hi chi sculptor, ade She eh he HSadactstlearat toma him sobvously anew lore of uty ¢ testy tnt wd int fe Bed mecor sel nonstgionoacinstnscgies Under cee emo of he Mile King ls bth in sarc end onto dys and nutri eppench hich citer men to delight fa mating mew doves New Slee dem merce gh ta prs st erated deans aoured to the esepe le mode net Bi dope timate vd spt ie even more che cacy iestaadanoen slegpreslastieny ey oe ee i dn apse eg en ae ‘ont forFepreseetation of everyayscener and appen thdvasa rental the evnion robe old monumental sc tae eure nth dln and any ons of he ser penal aos lak aoe eaneaes oe oo meee tere how terug eur oem an formal Ue tr sentin Int fal the invade tems are DeANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES exreson of mee orn the acer mv spit mirror Sew sonsiiiy, and yet frontal, the completing” method Prone dren in aceordanca withthe socal rank af the pe Dortzayed and with a complete detegard for he facts till rey Bong with mont ofthe tole of eet form. Tn opto ‘atric tend f he tne this il eury at the tire of which i in sme resets reminscent af the mein Syl, aes well Known, equally dominated by anticlosio, Sivan and form-dnnegatng tenets and yt sl thoroughly chur, ceremonial and conventional ae, We “Amenhotep TV in his fomly ciel, in scenes and stators daily tenth shaman atta) exceed al revise tom, and yet esti moves inetanglar panos tars thew af behest sarface to the olor and il we a ig rdinary morals the pte tl the product ofa se ar intended to serve aa menial theLng I's re at rulers longer portrayed sea oa completely fe of al teammels, but he sl sje fo tho etiquette of the en “Ther ar pictures in which gore sretches ot the at Wh is nearer, now the arm more dant fom the onl, and Aho Bin everytee hans an fot drawn wth geste tat fal sruracy an joints which move more natal bu in espe that tems to have bcos even moe preats Can sto before the grea reform. ne means of expresion employed by naturalism in the of the New Kingdom re wo rch an sue hat hey must ha had long psa ong perio of preparation and perfec Where doy some fe In hat frm aid they Heep th selves lve, Before they emerged under Auhenaton? Whats {hem from destruction ding he sgrsly foal pra te Midie Kingdom? The simwer i snes neural had ena en nent as an undererrent in Egyptian ar and et wana ahie wacs of ts influence, alongside the ofl eye teat i {he noma branches of a. The Eeypog W. pepe Separates this current fom the rst ofa et up a spe es sony fort and ale Egypien ol at Det untortanatel Shot clear mbether he sans by that an art by or forte ppl 2 pest art or an usta art designed fer tw people and “8 AGE OF AKHENATON gether, in any ce hen be speaks ofthe lk’ he means the sus of he pean and arena or the urban, erent seo al dle Cias. ‘The people who remained in primary (icin and within the frasbework of «peasant economy ca Femi cee me inh snes of grin to rt inthe Bld ofthe applied rs, hatin ison Gf art whose influence on the development of syle bee rare constantly les and wos probebly no very important even Gee Ol Kingdom, The artiaos an aris ofthe ploos and tani sh ceo he ppl ay ri ducers of the upper eat they have practically nocing f°Pemon wath the ute of their owe scale, The ‘emo peole, who are exladed from the prvlegs of po and power cannot be reckoned among the publ intererted Fer in the Anion-Orentl despots aby more, fact even Tartan inthe later epoch of story. Painting and sculpt, ig sucha coaly purty, wore alwayt and everywhere the Nekive preserve of tho privileged clases and probably even Sore eaelasively inthe ancient East than in ler times, The immon people hed no the aightes chance of bing able to ply aris ad to acre works of art They buried thelr Sat in the sand without erecting permanent memorial. Even the moce moneyed middle cls could herdly bo said to be of ty era comm pi a te vith the foal lord nd the high bureaucracy Uy were En tense a factor whch eould have had any appeal hence on the destinies far x oppo othe tastes and wishes ef the upper cls We ty ssome tht there was, even inthe Olt Kingdom, ammafactring and trading mie clas alongside the weiigy tho peasant. Tn the Middle Kingdom, thi clas gains isunnglh very romerkably**The ofl eareer which now ‘come open to te member offer got, though, to sar i, tomperatively modest prvpects of Fxing in the socal sale. I fmade and industy it breomes 4 tradition for the son to take Xp the ather' eaing ond thi contributes materially tothe ‘ation ofa more sharply defined idle clas reat Flinders etre doubts whether there was well-to-do mide SeANCIEST.ONIESTAL, URBAN CULTURES clas os early athe Middle Kingdom, but he dos accep tence nthe New Kingdom aan slveady very wealthy neaverscy The fact i that fn the meandine Ey come not only « mila se oferig «highly fei career in the atiy 1 the new elements which were werk their way up frm the lower level of city but eb a bu trata controled state which mas becoming more atl gly centrale aod which bad to replace the vn fe fstocracy by an eno number of crown oficial that to to form a mide ofl la from the ranks of the od tad tal manufacturing cls, From this subordinate sldery offal dom are or the mort par, the new urban mile tvhich now also ego to ply some prt among tose tang Salve interest in art. Dut i wl Moray have had een Serene tastes or demanded anything diferent from at th the upper els which it was emulating, although i asad ppovosed lowes and mbt adored with works ef at it have had, however tbe sated with lew retentions Wo Tn any cae we have no monuments eurviving from the dyna pariod which could positly be regarded s example oom Skpendont popular ar, dint from the art uf the eure temples and te aistcracy The usta mide clas wil bel vee fren hes shor a hel by he clos inspite of isa of intellectual dependence per tay even connect the individualism and naturals ofthe a ‘Athenaton with thie nflaence ofthe ower levels of sey But the eammon people andthe middle ds ner pro or enjoyed the products of an at distinc rom thee ‘of the upper class. y ‘Ther are, therefore, inno sens two diferent types of ae Egypt; there iso fk ar slougide the art ofthe court andl the nobility. Aavsion ca be traced running through the whole of Egyptian at, ie rue, bt it does ot seperate te werk a {vo iinet groupe, it rune rather though the individ mora Aenselves. Besides the weverely convention, sly ceremonial solemnly monumental le, we alo find everywhere sign of les rostained, more spntaneows and natural approach, “Tha Stim expres ont AGE OF AKHENATON ‘ene composition are portrayed inthe two diferent styles, And sae cody a for insttce, the well-known lntesior showing such ons the conventional court sl, that to sy, ine a a onal’ poston, but a servant in a wholly unaected sc auen rom tho ie-view, wit ronal yraetey partly sci, make it abundantly clear that the syle varie specotding tothe nature of tho subject itself. Mombers of arcing cast aro portrayed in the offal style of the cour, se es hombre of the Vower anes ae shown oft in ts jan neural styl. The to ses are dferentated not Bethe dae consiousnes ofthe att who wes in any cate quite to give expromon to his ccanadousten even i be peany uot by the elas-conscousnes ofthe publ, which was ‘et cospltly under the influence and spell of th court, the wehity andthe peerthood, but as we have sd the ste ed mi termined exclusively in accordance withthe nate ofthe Moje. The litle somos of labour showing craftsmen, servants aves at their daily work, which form part ofthe bri SGjuncs of the enstoccy, aro Kept wilin the Linke of {foroughly naturale, uactomurentl ad peyilfrmy, bu thematic of the gods, however unpretentious they nay bey ar frorted in the sje of oficial court at. Tn the coune of the Tnory of ar and trate we repestdly meet this styl Uifercuiatonseording to subject-matter, For example, the dal tanner of characterization employed by Shakowpeer,soording to mhih his servants and clowns speak in everyday prose but hit tos and lds in elaivatelyavustic vest corresponds to this "Tgyptinn’, thematially determined alternation of tle. For Shakopee’ characters do ot speak tho diforent language of the aus ates they ext inal, lke the chara a t medern dram, for instance, who are all rawn naturalistic, ‘wheter they are of high or lw degree, but the members of th Fuling class are portrayed in a tlie manner and expres then trv ina language non-existent in real life, whereas the repre- Sentatives of the common people are described relstically and Spek the idiom of the toe, the inns and the workshop. ‘Anuer scholar thinks hat the mervance or lation of he yrincple of Hrontalty” does not depend on whether the char thANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES acters portrayed belong to aicatc cies ort the eople, but on whether they appear in acon orl Poston. Even if ths obuervation correct to some eater, ust not forget thatthe Kings and lords are fact mora Shown in an sttade of slemn ule an rot, wheteos common fk are shown almetavays maving abot hele work. But the representatives ofthe ruling cas preserve Us refutes dhe theory —the fora of front even when appear in action, ain bate or hunting ean “There far tore sd jsiestion or speaking of thew ence of provincial ar sloogsde the arto the restence tha {folk art alone that of the court. The important a dchievements rginate gsi and again an more xl Yrogres count, atthe royal courte inthe preiactsaf furt—fest in Memphis, then in Thebes an Snaly tn Amara. What takes place in the province far aney Hom capital and the great temples i eomparetinelyunimrtet Ings slowly and abariuly behind te gener developmen represents «elt that has merely pereslted down fom Sr itn ay ne al hhh hen ep of flit. This proving art, which ies imposible Cotsider asthe continuation of the el peasant az, la tended forthelan-owning arisorsyy and owes is very tothe separation of the feel noty om the sours, hich hal been taking place sine the Oth dynasty. The nee nal mobi with ts backward regional elture and der ve provincia srt formed from these element hie Broken aay fom the eal 5. MESOPOTAMIA, ‘The real problem of Mesopotamian art consists in the fe that, despite an economy based predominantly on trade and i dustry, finance and credit, it has a more rigidly disciplined, I changeable, less dynamic character than the art of Egypt, ‘country much more deeply rooted in agriculture and a nat ‘economy. The code of Hammurabi, which dates fromthe thi 2 MESOPOTAMIA ennui nebo tht rad and maul ety, keep saa Mtg of ems highly develo in Ba igo Etna computvely completed oh sy espe to ted pas an the ml i en oe Come a ame a ee iglydecpe here han inp han oe Haptic & spb far the Bb be ca SGI the “busines man’ The greater foal ae ee a ut slongie th re me ne on ey es weve te sherry Te tit te etih teaoet commas si codons agheare aed a smtstnn wih come dynamite samy Per Tite more rigid forme of despotism and the more intolerant ae oa aos hemseles asin oman ae te that nant tat te mere in eet hee wes ony no te Sat ad ope Sere ghee and piste erty tee te ears wt ng nd sae in is ta Peo et and the mae set oe te year even sualer pr inte Fer eRe Rr hag the thr cin es of the st sad Sensei waren ove topes ae ea es for sample We know uma noe of ee Ruse ens ed we dd up istry of Biplina a re scring oe regal the ings No ae ae (aerate cteioSepeny ort we a at a eat thee of amoral ames tse nde ep snide the ih nt tone “Pott ana i prc even mare content a pea at ran ethan Egy Than figure aaaerea ays sek onli ei head re eee cote bt chara aso te 2 essen essary nag ws te les see mete a wh Eneend Sn cia gra Sxou th etonaeprncietontalty ns Seeds han tote Dorerper tho ing ‘3ANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES ions and bulls, in Astyrian architectural soulpture, There hardly a branch of Egyptian art in which the supremely styl ‘approach, renouncing all illusionist, was put into. practice ‘uncompromisingly asin these figures, which have, fom the view, four moving, and from the front view, two stationary five altogether, and which really represent the mixture af animals. The striking contravention of natural law is here d tw purely rational motives: the ereator of this genre obvi intended that the beholder should obtain from all sides self-contained, complete and formally perfect picture of subject. Assyrian art pases through something like a naturals development very lat, certainly not until the eighth and seve centuries 8.¢. The battle and hunting reliefs of Ashur-benicg fare, at least as far as the animals represented are concer excitingly natural and alive, but the human figures are portrayed just as zigidly and still appear in the same decorated and old-fashioned hair and bear dress as 2,000 y before. This isa similar ease of stylistic dualism as in Egypt in age of Akhenaton and shows the same difference in the trea of the human and animal figures as was observed as early as Old Stone Age and which can be seen again and again in course of the history of art. The Palaeolithic age portray animals more naturalisically than man because in thet wor ‘everything revolved around the animal; later ages often do same because they do not consider the animal worthy of stl ‘treatment. 6. ORETE Cretan art presents the sociologist with the mos difficult ‘lem in the whole field of Ancient-Oriental art Tt not only I ‘8 special position of its own beside Egyptian and Mesopotamian fart, but itis an exceptional case in the whole development from the end of the Palaeolithic age until the beginning ofthe classical 1age in Greece, In all this vast period in sthich the abstract geo= ‘metric style predominated, in thie unchanging world of rit ‘waditionalism and rigid forms, Crete presents us with « picture 4 CRETE gots wnetinedenernt i inh noni and ie a es comes ere nl is By wi here be od eet Se lin oe ae el eae ee ee eee conan Sy ee ee ar ae nes cn eect cqpectrfocring Saget rng sate ec ingests pataANGIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES Toad mavis of an enslaved peasantry. Tt has, asin Egypt Eyl strongly rah chaneos there a {he dlght athe opiksed and he amusing, te delete the logat, eames more tthe fore, Hoernes right to em Sao the chivalrous features of Minos ealtare by dreving a tion to the prt played by foie pecesions and foul Public eombats ai ournament by women and theicoqa ‘anners in Cota Iie+¥ This ourly-chivolrus syle aber ser for less igi more spontaneous and more fexble forma lie to develop in contrat tothe stret made of life of the predatory landing baront-a process which recurred i he Reon ceo acd with thse new ptr fea more individu, lily ter art expres unprejuiced delight in atures a But oczordingto another interpretation, Cretan ati no more naturale than, for example, Egeptin ert {ore natural impression, then press tot 5m the syste method emplayed which ae sponsible a the Choice of subject-matter, the abandonment othe ails subjects and the fondness for more secular and epi, ev tna dynamic motif" The ‘chance arrangement ofthe elm of the composition, which s mentioned in the same connection tn essential character of the Cretan ste, showy home thattisnot merely aquestiona the choie of eabjec mater ‘chance arrangement, tht freer, looser, mre pcr poston, isthe expetion of freedom of invention whch Perhaps tbe dseribed ot ‘Eoropeanin canta to the Oe Festrcons of Egyptian and Babylonian ar, and ofa concept ‘high, in contest tothe principle of ooneenration end ol Sedna vor avn and bund fhe materia" The fondness for mere juntapestinn gos 2 far Gretan ar that we find everywhere a widely luzurton goth scored tin only nh encom but a ernamestal painting on vase, sted of geometry ran Akeoration.* And thi freedom from fra earstrit ial or ign he Crt ere a ae i ry Well seuainted withthe productions of Egyptian arty i hey hereon sbandned is monumental, soni and seen ‘ onerE, gms evidence that the grandeur of Egypt wa notin acordanee oa ero tte ant atic ie A ple, Cran ats ha hs ant-aturaisie conven sonata formulaic almost aoys neglect peep, Son ed aba ri: os say ea ae asd te formsaf the human fire ae aay more ve chon thse of animale The relaonship between the Sriaralistic end anti-naturlistic elements is, however, by no saortetsitermined fom the cust, but cnngee wi the seul af the art” Aly Seong hse tomar Meera retirs from a redoinmnly geomet frm als Grey al invented Uy Nes ec, hy way of ely Surly torched somewhat acai reo Not unl the mide of te second lenny at Soe ite midile Minoan para does Crete dicorr som cae St syle and enh ie ax oft development she aan Then, inthe soon half of to mllenunn, Cres anes aft rene and naar forms become ware tnd mae siemaic and eonventiony it and estat ‘Fie sda who ie to rec explanation of histori Tepe Toten ts ivating the Greek aia fm the orth, that stosyyoftesame pple ho a rested the ter sae uylein Grew Other toute th ned for uch Ef eaplenton and se the reson or is change noe the hse evolution of form. It's commen habit tw daw attention tothe ‘modernity? of Cretan rt avs spa characerisie when compared ith Feypon and Mevopttamian art sy however, eax pr Enc estar: he taste of the Gears was ot pared fon nd stl, forall hi organ and vty, Th trinic means ore to compliant an rious lave belinda Son nd ong pres Tet fecos remind yh thei sry clr rightward dang, of te dceratos Inimolern hry seater and Svimming Yat Crete ot tal simulte odes at it ven anated certain ages Ct hose industah ar The "mdernty’ ote Cretan ee bub connected wit factory ke putt of rt and shenm ANCIENT-ORIENTAL URBAN CULTURES mass production for an enormous export market. On te oth hhend, the Grooks avoided the danger of standardization desp fan equally advanced industriaization—but this only proves & in the history of art the same causes by no meats always have same effects or thatthe causes are perhaps all too numerous to completely exhausted by scientific analysis, fe vance nsore (Detail) Tied sina. pce of “6 Principles are already Persie end mateo peret wilh the natalievt 1. 110s. Landon, British Mascum. Dicom B.C— Fxample ofthe called ‘Doerkrprs"—sell own from Asian rca. etlptre acc sith ther tuo satonry lg fom th rnc end Jour moving leas fom the side, ge the mit tens exression to the ant sara inp of foal. 2 wowxpep non. Londo, British Mucum, 7 century B. Alabaster vl fom the palace of shar banirpel in Nine ‘The bate ‘and wing rele of te palae pest the animals sith tiling ata contrat to the fama fe CHAPTER II GREECE AND ROME, 1. THE HEROIC AND THE HOMERIC AGES x Homeric epics are the oldest poems in Greek that r= Vive, but cetlnly ot the olde here were, Its ot con ont o contradictions in thee contents logon of Homer Alma contoe nary features incompatible withthe petal Ui the poet which we should consrct from the sphiisted, fepial and even Sivlos apn of the poms. The tradonal cre of the Blind old singer of Chios largely made up af mores tht go buck to theme when a pt tas a tea ond nied ser. is ines merely the ou tur sigh of tho inward ight tha ls his beng and enables him Shor things others cannot se, This boll infty expenee— tds the lanes ofthe divine sith Hepner “a wcond nat was etrent fn piven, hit a maker of oes routes and ther prot of handicraft can only come fom the rus of thre who ee waft fr war and foray. Bot apart tov this feature, the legendary ‘Homer an alist perfect trample he mythical pot who was il hl-divine wonder worker onda prophet. We find the clearest embodiment of ths ier in Orpheus, the primeval singer who fed aarp rom Api oodiniruction Inthe at of song from the Muse eel th his mice could move not merely men and bea but then telson could rocaim Basydie from the bonds of doth ‘Tomer? no longer bons such tagial pore ut stil ain the fates ‘of a logpned seer and romaine comcoat of & Ipsterous and sacred tnimacy vith the Mie whom he 9 ccnienly invokeGREECE AND ROME We can be sure that the postr ofthe ealost Greeks hat ofall ther peoples ata finiiv age ome ay fermulae, acl saying, ravers and chur song ae work. All these types have somthing in commons they ta termed the situ poetry of the maces. never cured te Imakers of charms and oracular rere, th composers a anu warsehants to erste anything inde telr essentially anonyinous and latended fr the bole common itexpresed ides and folngs that were common tal. Yisual as we Sd on the level erento hy So Fiual poeuy the fete, stones and trectrwnks, witch Greeks revered in ther temple fm the eae mee which can hardy be eso elprre, wo sight ae the OF human shape, These, ike the diet thars and tre primitive community a, the rade and ehumsy atile ‘resionof'« soety that Kis scarcely any diferent lass We Inow nothing shout the socal pon of akers the prt hey payed nthe if of te group orth Shey enjoyed with their contemporaries; but the probed {at they were less highly etecmed than the atst'megiiare tne Palaeolithic ar the piel singer of the Neolithic age Te errmarked that che scalps sha thie mth Daedalus, wo are a could tring weed to ie and make valk det he iad wings fr hin and his som toy ve Sen appears tothe narrator of the legend no more a than his power of carving figures and eignng labyrinth isby no mean the only artit-magicon, but ey be that he the last important one, since the conception of Tera wings his fling Into these seems to sytbolie te ending of te of gic Wir the beginning of the here egy the sal function oouy an the cl onion of the pou changed em The secular and individual outlook of the wate upper d ves pty a ne content and asign ne tasks tote ce Sow abandows is anonyaity ad his psy sland lows its tual and elective character, The Kings nd nobles the Achaea principalities she elt comary th ho gov ts name shin agey are robbers an inter they oo HEROIG AND HOMERIC AGES 4c call themselves ‘planderers of citis'—and thee songs May and profane th tao of Toy, the crown of their ei ibing more than the posi glean of freeboot- i piney. Ther lanes and rrverent pit the outcome Jagan Jans state of war in which they fund themselves, of a a nitores which they achieved and dhe abrupt changes Lie level which they experienced. Vitors over a more sree lk than thetselvee and exploiters of «far more are cleure than ther own they came ermancpated from ee their ancestral religion while despsing the reigioas isan prohibitions of Ue conquered peopl, just boesse Fre’te the conquered? Thus the life of these rots warriors te one of unraly individuals which sete Self shove all ‘elon al law Everything for tenn priz ob fought Mente for pasonal venture, since in their world every thing depos om personal strength, erage kill nd cunning ‘ious socielgial point of ew, the age characterized by the dnive turn vnhich i now taken sway from the primeval Bs toguization and towards the social sytem of feudal mon Sty lying onthe peronal loety of val to thei lord. This etd sf from depending oon, stall ran counter to Kin- Hp releions and in principle overrides the dies of the kn ee ther. The sca ett of feudalism reject the salidrity of Wotan sacs the moral tee become indiidual and rational * {The gual tsation of the tribal uot esting shown in the cnfcs beoween kin ich seem to be more end. more Frequent asthe heroic age advancen. The loyalties of vassals 10 {hr ld of subjects to thelr King and of citizen o tir city trgesroualy and finally become stronger than the vice of {he bol. This process conti over several cantare and finds iseonclsion,thongh with some interruption from arsocracies Bose temelves on amily solidarity, only with the victory of Gemocracy. Clasial tragedy i till permeated with the conic. Betweon the clan state and ve popular states the Araigone of Sepa rovlves round the very same problem of loyalty which, trav cntral to the Tad, In the heroic age this problem doesnot Te tothe level of tage confit since fis no kod with any {rin the current order of oietys hat We ea realuation eHGonbuce AND nome of moral standard and limately the victory of «rhe Ghualiom for hich the feeeboters code of honour i the ‘ali standard Th consequence the poetry of the heroic age is n longer. ery forthe mae; we do ot find songs hymn for tne indvidaat songs about tho fate of edule longer hus the task of rousing men to atl bu rater of taining the heros aftr tho bate b overs has toc prises to name them by name, to spread and perp ory. infact he eric ny ones its erg oth rein a thirst fer glorys to satisfy thie ie principle tacky merit are of secondary importance inthe eyes ofthe ‘Toa certain extent it must recognize tat al ancient ath response oa desire for fae and to the wish to be reno the eyes of amemprares sod posterity? The sary of i status who set fire tothe temple of Dana at Epica so make ‘ame immoral gives an idea othe undiminished yer one Inter times, ofthis psn, which, however, es never so cea the hei ge: The pet ofthe here ong oe bes Of pa foo hee ts ft eee and source af thie insptation, The subjects ofthe poy are longer hopes and wishes, magtl ceremonies or amici ‘bt tales of secs encore and Hy war With th a appearance af situ function, potry tos sree fl becomes epi in this mad give birth to the odes ean poetry we know of, hich i eelar and independents Felgion, Infect thes poem originate in «hind a ws rep Chronile o how the war going. At fist they pohly con hemelves tothe att news of the sucess wale on ss an the profitable forays of the tribe “The newest sang the loudest epplase’, aye Homer (Od 1,551, Sand tone Demos and Phemio sing ofthe lates events othe day hissinger are no longer more chronicler far the mar sop meantime become a mixture of history nd sga sind ake on Style ofthe alla, mngting dramatic and elements th erie No doubt this was already theese with te hee lye lies of which the epics are bull shough in their ese the element was the characteristic on 2 HEROIG AND HOMERIC AGES saved by the warriors and heroes themselves; tat isto say, both went earache can arr into their soul (Od. XXII, 547,8) and cherish memories of the "The picture of the socal poston of the poet which we get rif elm of shh ee pe Fara so oe oat fcr ile we sp anh la ae Aigatied character.* We can form no notion of these, unless we ‘suiue that anecdotes such as the adultery of Aphrodite originated inthis way?GREECE AND ROME In the plastic ats, the Achaeans eontinue the Cretan ‘Mycencan tradition, and the social postion of the artist hhave been very different from that of the artis-craftsman, Grete, At any rate, it is inconceivable that a sculptor or pa could ever have sprung from the nobility or belonged to rociety. In fact, the essays of princes and nobles in poetry and familiarity ofthe professional poets with the practice af war ound to increase the social distance between the artist worked with his hands and the poet sho worked with his bra ‘This new circumstance is the chief cause of the higher standing of the poet in the heroic age, compared with that of scribe in the ancient Bast ‘The Dorian invasion brings the end of the age in which like enterprises and adventures are immediately translated song and saga. The Dorians were a rude and sober-min pessent folk who made no songs about their victories, and “heroic’ people they drove out are no longer so Keen on adv after they have settled on the coast of Asia Minor, ‘Their mil ‘monarchies become peaceful agricultural snd commercial cracies in which the former kings are merely great landl and wheress formerly the princes and theie.retinues could ‘expensive lives at the cost ofthe rst of the community, we now more widely distributed and the display of the upper ci is correspondingly diminished.* They are content with modest style of living and the commissions which they give sculptors and painters in their new homeland are a first no ‘on a quite petty scale. All the more splendid isthe poctical duction of the time. The refugees tok their heroic lays them to Tonia where, in the midst of foreign peoples and the influence of foreign cultures, the epic emerges over ‘course of three centuries. Under the final Ionie form, we can detect the older Aeolic material, can distinguish the varie sources and note the varying quality of the different parts the abruptness of some of the transitions, but we do not i just how much of its artistic quality the epic ores to the be lay nor how the merit of this incomparable achievement be apportioned hetween individuals, schools and generations ‘Poets. Above al, we do not Know whether some one person 54 HEROIC AND HOMERIG AGES reece ok za renin and noble audience; the rhapsode recites from the epics at the se cee ie ee ec om tee a pipeyrpore ie ter cen rer i i res ee ees Been eis oer ee paneer er oh no nr th els heGREECE AND ROME. jured up the events of history and saga, The composition of and its recitation were still not separate, specialized cll Dut the reciter was not, as formerly, necessarily the poets ‘hapsode is something between a poet and an actors the dialogues which are put in the mouths of characters in the ‘and which necessarily required some histrionic skill n the form the bridge between the recitation of an epic and the formance of a drama. The Homer of the legend is som between Demodokos and the Homerida, between the bards the rhapsodes. He is at once a priestly seer and wan ‘minstrel, son of the Muse and mendlicant. His figure lacks tion and is nothing but a summing-yp and personification of development from the heroic lay of the Achaean princes to Tonian epic In all probability the shapsodes could writes for though’ ‘a much later date there were still prople who could rete ‘whole of Homer by heart, recitation slone without any wai sis would have gradually brought about complete dissolution the epics. We must imagine the rhapsodes rather as trained accomplished literary men who were more concerned to pi than to add to the store of their poetry. The very fat that are called ‘sons of Homer’ and’ clung to the legend of t escent from the master shows the conservative and clan character of their school. Te has, titles of the guilds, such as Homeridsi, Asklepiadi ste., are tobe regarded simply as arbitrary symbols, and that members neither themselves believed, nor expected anyone to believe in a common descent; others have m guilds generally have their origin in kinship and that the varie trades were all originally the monopoly of diferent lans.*™ fever that may be, the rhapsodes formed a closed. prof marked off from other groups, of highly specialized lit trained in an ancient tradition and having nothi such thing as “folk pootry’. Greek ‘folk epi’ ie @ pure im of romantic philologsts; the Homeric poems ere ‘popular’, whether in their final or even in their ‘The finished epics are no longer court poetry, whi lay was just this its motifs, style and audience and everythi 56 HENOIG AND HOMERIC AGES sect ee hatin ae res tog Nielungendied did which after its birth and early develop- tie MSiris taken among the people ty the wandering amemels and so passed through a folk poetry stage before ultim= ae dean courtly fmt whch ne how i? On So rae ‘ay of the hervic ages! Achaesns and Acolians took to their Coe ee mel Wl a Pcie eer reer ieee se ce ae Se ee ee eal Ce eT ee Capen aaron aero pecs remo tere el ig ea ae aaa Se ee ee ea oes each ite aie jose ott oat See ean eg oe eee See fe es ey ea seyGREECE AND ROME rman of the peopl el never ned and the common al fm omequce, nthe whe af Homer thee iat Case ofa noma ising oot ofthe css he was born in Sno real critic nthe eps either of Kings or ai ‘here, the only character who ri against che Ling very epitome ofthe orth pers, lacking all elation Danner ad all he grace of aca intereause, ‘Thu, the swerly“bourges’festures tat have Been served i I Similet# do not, on the whole, reflect any bourgeis sie the hei dels of the ago ave alneady impated i Me ‘There ib altealy a marked tension berncen the eulok af humane poet and the beaviour of his rough hers Nee nly in the Odyaey that we meet with the erie Homer 5 ot merey tae Odyses Helens to ferent ald Achilles and one more akin wo the poet's owns There are that dhe noble, indy and generous Hector has isaced Fer hero ofthe iad in the pot’ aletions™ Al this Shows that the etn he nity wes changing notte wet of the epic derived le moral standards ona new, ble publ in any eae, theyre not writen for 8 al Iinded nai, bt or an unarie oednling ars ‘Only when we eon to Hesiod do we ge poo that, in th word of the prosant. The ot rea fel pocey itis nota poetry that pus from mouth to out nor suc could compere ith handy anscote round th ie Sl Jeco, sanford and ideal ere those uf the pesinieof ppresed by the lnd-owsing natty. The histre igi of Frid’ work i dv to ie beng the very hist ierery resin of weil won and of cae sutagonisn. ts tre a ‘avoostes concltion, seks to calm and coucle—the time las wastrel arb the fst ime tat the fof the working people ir lerd Sn Iteratre, the fst tice Speak up for wi uti and gains aritrrines an le Tm shor, «poet forthe ia ine aes up pola and tional mlnionfnsted ofthe ack which religion al court Sa Ind signed to him, setting upto bea teacher, phllnepber Chammion ofan oppresed ase Tes not ea 4 exalish the historical relationship HEROIC AND HOMERIC. AGES somes ty ad ie ctor gamer at Ts wi Elogant conventions fie eres tare no obvious fot sce the sher aad sceratie yl ofthis geomet) ie atte ipts to find the principles of this art in Homer* have aietny and repetition, the sole ‘geometrical’ elements in poetry, ont und pln que oft Home nh ements reprerent but te outer lager of rey, the rin geomerrcl painting. and sulpare they sre. the Tey eve tthe whl comprion. The easton of he $iepsncy ein tho fc hat te ope developed in Ase Miner, deoring pot of the Aegean and Oriental cultures and the tte prof wld trades hat Gime, The hme of he geometrical ro te oes hand was om te mainland of Greer, among portan and Bocotinn pewsants. The syle of the Homer sr rooted into seh of en trba 0d raropoltan pope Ei vw marl he expo 9 oxy sec pople ef farmers and cheperds who have Fgoruly ir themselves off from foreign influences. Subsequent arti a Snes of thee bo tendencies; weve i eal aconed ih tne economic unity of lth conto the Aegan, a aleve {Tasco and digs gee es “The erly geometral teat the end ofthe tenth oot, ater to contac of einguation and barbarian init a nee Tne ofGovlopment in the West At fist we ind everywhere Sime heany,awkvrard and ugly form the same summary and ‘Shematc inode of expresiny ttl ite by He difeentiated foal sles everywhere emerge, The bet haown ofthe and that which has most artistic merit, s the Dipylon style which Toure in Arca between O00 and 700 stl lead relined fd sont mannered, deicate and feat, It shove how even oss art through long and uninterrupted patie, ca ave Thon of precomren tedhow an organic type of onarent, tosed uj the sractare of the eject to ba decorated, cat Aegenecte into a -poudo-etone dcoraton"™ whove abtact Ghinter, einer or ployuly daorting nature, no longer mike any prtenco of being derived om the fom of the CBjea. For compl, there cin be son upon a ngeect of 3BGREECE AND ROME, Dipylon vase in the Louvre a ‘death-bed scene’, with the laid out, weeping women around oF rather on top of the where they have to form a border, and sortorsng men on side and below the main picture, which is square and bears ‘elation to the round form of the vase. All theve figures ean taken as you will, either as belonging to the picture of as ‘ornament. Finally, the whole is squeezed into a net of work pattern. The figures are all alike; they are all making. same gesture with their arms, erssing them to form a tri whose bottom point isthe waist of these wasp-vwaisted and legged figures. There is no trace either of depth or of ‘orders the bodies are without volume or weight; al is just pattern and play of lines which are frozen into stripes and ba fiekds and friezes, squares and triangles undoubtedly the Violent and uncompromising stlization of reality since Neol times, and far more uniform and consistent than anything Egyptian art. 2. THE ARCHAIC STYLE AND ANT AT THE COURTS OF THE TYRANTS ‘Not until 700 n.6., when utban forms of life begin even: the mainland to supplant those of peasant society, docs rigidity of the geometrical forms begin to relax. The now are style, which now succeeds the geometrical, originates in a thesis of the styles of Kast and West, of urbanized Tonia, on fone hand and the stil almost completely agricultural mai ‘on the other. Between the end of the Mycenean and the ning ofthe archaic period in Greece, nether palaces nor femy were erected, nor is there montimental art of any kind; we nothing from this period but the slight remains of an ert that wholly restricted to the field of pottery. But with the archel style, the product of a flourishing commerce and wealthy t and successfal colonization, a new period of monumental slp and architecture begins. This is the art of a society whose has risen from the level of peasants to that of city magnates, fan aristocracy which is beginning to spend its rents in the tows 0 ARCHAIG STYLE ae pat in instr and trade, This art shows nothing ofthe and iy nd static outlook of the peasent. I is urban, not merely my momenta tasks it undertakes, but im its diate for in an its suncepbilty to foreign invences. Admit, sad gveraed by amomber of formal pinipes ove al the Sines of fontality and symmetry, of cubic form and the woos rdamental aspect (E, Loew), 20 that the geometrical gle con hrdly be suid to have completely ended util the sak st tye a begun. But within these imitations, the trends Chip rca syle are very varied and make a hig step towards of lnm. Both the elegant, clever atte style of the Toan Bist and the masive, powerful, dynamic forms of early Dorian Rijpre in spite of all their archaic elumsines ae aiming all akin at an expansion and diferentation of the means of ion available to the art, Tn the Bast, the Tonic element aie ll the development isin the direction of refinement, Fevonty and formalisms its ideals realized inthe courtly art of Te Tyrents Woman is here a i Grete the main subject; the irof the Tonian coats and ilands finds its compete expresion fe uhore ttive staves of maidens elegantly clad, with bai care- filly dressed, richly bejewelled and: decorously smiling, with ‘rich, judging by the wealth of fins, the temples must have een filed. Tei to be noted that the achsic artists ike their Girton forerunners, never represent woman naked; they seek Aheirplostc eects notin the nude, fore but in contume and in an intimation of the bed under is clinging robes. The arsterscy ilned representations of the mde which ie ‘democratic Tike atl’ Jllus Lange); at fest even the male nude wes tolerated tmiy, i seems, es propaganda forthe atbleie games for their ti sh hoya th my of Mod Olympia, where thee Statues of young men were put up wes certainly the most valu- thle propaganda site in Greece, since iv wes here that the publi tqinion ofthe whole country and the sense of national unity romoted by ie artcracy were formed "The archaic at ofthe sath and seventh centuries 20. f the ant oa nobility which was ell very rich and in complete couzal. bith machinery of government, but whose political and economic Feston wat already threatened. ‘The process by which it was 1onnecr AND RoME deposed from ts comomic leadership by the urban Bourg tuts ene in Kind devalued owing tothe huge prot ea the new mozey economy, at going on contincmaly during archaic era. Only in tie cea stuaion doe the ar first become conscious of it etetial characters begins to emphasize it pei rts of character as Com tion for it evident infertority in the economies and las characteris, which hardly ome into ts esscou because they were simply taken for granted, are now elma Bo special virtues and eatllencsjuslying specl prvleges sow sets out, in the hour of danger, a progeemme oie oi ‘would never have bem sd down so postively o indeed fla butso sry in Ges when this manner of Ife ws sl may ally secure snow tat the fonnstions ofthe cts of ni ae Ind: the conception of areté with ts dominant tate Dhysal fines end military dhpne, built up on a rad Bir and races of daloagadhia the idea ofa right b tween bodily and spiritual, physical and moral quali sophrasyn, the ela elles, pin and oder While the epics sill find appreciative audience and Iinitatoron the mena a well inthe wands he Choral and reflective lrg, with ie dizet bearing upon the em of the hour, naturally had greater appeal tobi was fighting for its exsence tha the old tchioned ere From the outset, gnomie ports such as Solon, clgist suc ‘Tyrac and Thc capsr of ehoral works ike Siva and Pindar, fered the noble earnest moral tacingy ad ane warnings, instead of amusing tales adtentare, The po ‘sat once the expression of prsotal feelings, pte propapen tnd meal phsopy md the pacts ate pe ese stiitual leaders bith of the nobility and ofthe nation, The i tht of keeping the nobles alive to thelr perilous post ‘ot aloing them to forge thee former greets Thon fnthusiase penegyrist of the ethics of tulene is prkape et who expreses the deepest disgust forthe new nutcragy fSntrating Hs plein meonnes with the mole vitues ‘magnifcene and generosity; bit even in his work re ca thers which the areé dea was facing, for, Uhh ith pa a ARCHAIG STYLE Asem, aioe aco sng smc 1th Joan te nem commercial tceyy and so undermines eae are me The et whch now Fe Pian oa one rote Ca ee ese a tne me poe ter nett Geek eae tea Toe i vedians, its true, could only take possession of Pinda’s estate FE nee ee eatstegren ne eat cpm pee ae eee wage oneyton af We fot a narrowness oo that it could appeal to the wider and a et Fee ge he eacuive cite af his ow Tegel earch derma torial ee ei ant et Ne Fe ed ai bat aad ne ay de se lu kha ees Fe cmp poser wey be toe Sa mn Qi walter Den Pe a wares ny em a tage Sa i ia pony wa beg ered ee Om Phat dessee wp a i ako Sei re poe Te et fe uaporeie ol pater oe ee athe hinted eran Soe en ecient Cen ee er Dt comeg tn ne Fe en tio nioly manyaad col rcs hai posed othe pc I tho performers of the choral Iti were profesional artist, cee en ety attend than re aa tna Wagan apes nee bas pre wit Rae pao ‘ol skin esl of ths dvion of labor to show how he a eae woken me voigs ‘famoteur mates attaches to him as it does to the poet, who's Seen eee write The cbr dager "3GAEECE AND ROME forma widespread and well-organized profesion that pot send out for performance Iris they lnve been comma Write on the astmption that this will noe meet with Technical diffe anynher. Just as todey a eondtog expect to ind tolerable orchosr in any big twat A that date a poet cold count upon finding «tained ‘heer fr public or private fetivines- These cuits mere ttined by te noble nies aad were an instrument tap completely under thei conte “The forms of ontemporary eupture and punting are deermined by the etic of bly nd the aisocate todiy and sprtual beasty, even iti perhops nt = & inthe poetry. The sates, sully catlogued as “Apollo Young nobles wo had won victory inthe Olympic Ga the figures such sds ofthe Agia pediment with dey ‘of btly vigour and heir le carriage, are the prt Duro the astoraic erlang syed the old faconed test of Pindar. Te sume manly Heal bese onthe concep Tie asa contest (gon, the sami tpn protect of ara breding and allround alee tals. forms he subject sculpt and yetry alike. Partipation tn the Olympic G wras'a preserve ofthe nas they tlone pases the mean ‘quired forthe taining ad forthe competion ise. The 1st of victors dates fom the year 776 .cy ut theft statue a victor, according to Patna, wat dedzne 396 Be tween these dates the asaracy was a its best Mey wecon thatthe states of itrs were inroduce to spur hem Jes ambious, le spied generations that sacradd tea The satus of ethletes dono sim tobe individual ike they are idealized portraits whove sole purse, it seem, ae preserve the memory ofthe particular Vcory and ta mike agai fr the genes. Probably in many iss th ase fever sen Ue vitor and had to base his pret po Aescription of the subject" Plinys remark that iets hal claim to have a portatsikenes afer thee third victory Fefero later ies. There i no reason to think that ash of stones erected daring the archaic perio were ever koe but later on it i quite polo tht the Creeks made the cs ncaa sree scion hte mat oy, he 4 sal yh sally I eto rengued wih Fe ee inde and dh deta ofthe competition In ay it ls yun ena ate noi 7 i archaic period of Greek art, in spite of the eonsider~ Sg asin wh wa ade ring ti pith the development of commerce and of urban society, and Bern re rate eae gg an iioes and was also based in the main upon trade and Ferber ta on aan cise atin ewe ce rae en rt inc ry Wit pee ce LED Seg Roo ng 6 weet eo rear he inh yada en caeGREECE AND ROME. personality." Neither in the prehistoric nor in the esrly epochs, nor during the geometrical period of Greek sr, wee anything like an individual style of personal ideals of ambi —ot any vate, there is no sign whatever thatthe artist any feelings of this ort. Soliloquies such as the poems of lochus or Sappho, the claim to be distinguished from all artists which is advanced by Aristonothos, attempts to say thing already said in a different, though not necessarily ite new and heralds « development now proceeds without a set-bick (apart from the early Ages) to the present day ‘There was, however, strong opposition to be overcome in Dorian lands. Avistocracy in general does not favour Aalisms it bases its claim to privilege upon virtues which ‘common to the whole class or at least to whole clans, And Dorian nobility ofthe archaie peviod was specially disinclny individualistic impulses and ideals, in contrast in particular 1 nobility ofthe heroic age or ofthe Ionian commercial cent ‘The hero covets fame, the trader gain; both are individ bbut for the Dorian landed gentry the former hervic ideals lost their power while the pursuit of money and profit i in them fear rather than hope. Iti thus only natural that should have retired behind the traditions of their cass and to hold up the onrush of individualism, many of whose conquests indemocratic character, ‘Th their system of contralized monarchy harks back to {ratic days, they set themselves to undermine the elon ‘They set mits to the exploitation of the people hy the na families and they completed the transformation ofthe old production for subsistence into commercial production for sl 0 completing the triumph of the tradesman over the land ‘The Tyrants themselves are wealthy and usually well-born chants who take advantage of the ever more frequent con 66 ARCHAIC STYLE st ae rae Cee eee Se ena a ‘e2h in artistic attractions, They are connoisseurs, and as such Tere roperly been called the forerunners of the Rensisance ave a and the ‘first of theMedic?’.** Like the ares in the Ten Renaissance, they seek to gloss over the illegitimacy ar ie te i nse vo rer at Syrocse we ad Dtchyidey Pindar Epica torreon forme Which eve characteristic otc The Sarin the srs refined inet, ands somewhat ier Ionenrion but developed toa sil higher degree at the isthe we nile AGREECE AND ROME 1 comprehension ofits sensible form, free of all magical or hoc implications. The setting up of the statues of athletog hhave had some conncetion ‘with religious ritual, the I ‘maidens may have verved as votive offerings, but one only 'o look at them to convince oneself that they have nothing with religious feeling and very little with cule tredtions, pare them with any work of Ancient-Oriental art and you realize the freedom, even the wilfulness, of their conception, the ancient Basta work of art, be it inthe form of God oF 4 requisite of religious ritual. Ilustrations of the most everyday scenes are intimately related to faith in imo and worship of the dead. This relationship between art and ‘though never so intimate, is found for a while in Greek arty ‘most-ancient Greek works may really have been just oferings, as Pausanias surprisingly remarks ofthe Acropolis, tures in general But in the late archaie period, the intimate relationship between art and religion iv dissolved ‘the production of secular works is constantly on the increase the cost of religious. Religion lives and has its influence, ‘though art is no longer its servant; in fact, the age ofthe T) isthe wene ofa religious renaissance which on al sides throws new ecstatic confessions of faith, new seeret cults and new ‘but at fst these develop undergronnd and do not as yet reach, light of art. Thus we no longer find art being comraissioned Stimulated by religion, but, om the contrary, we find in period religious zeal being inspired by the increased shill of artist. The custom of offering to the Gods representations living beings as votive gifts draws nev life from the artis’ power of making these more imposing, more attractive and to nature, and so more pleasing to the Gods," The temples begin to he filled with seulptures, but the artist sno lo Alependent upon the priests, is not under their tutelage, and not receive commissions from thems his patrons are now cities, the Tyrants and, for les expensive works, wealthy pri individuals also, The works which he executes for them are’ expected to have magical or saving power, and even when serve a stcred purpose, they make no elaitn whatever tobe sa themselves, 68 ARCHAIG STYLE re here mee empty no eancepton of ati 90 so. Natta te tase ne Ahr * form of spiritual endeavour is entirely determined by t0 on ervey Dut euch forms have the power tnd we 2 eaten tha ipl re le Sees As ann as on el cour and rein Saree atthe sougge or hehe begins 0 ly Semel Fan uses whine hed rginalydoveoped ‘feapons and tools to aid him in his necessity. He begins enquiring. ser ee ea fo explanations ere ns nme ne teeing oir i a oledg aves place fre eng, meats forthe roof uate ome sti ‘iwi shat th gays ore end of mage vod sta, an pel oped co peers «mse once erctnand ci tense tpuntionaecmnn vaisareted ee ame exes prac rts on sak end foe te Hey Chee Tn the fae ways the commands an pbb Sew ond bon which er crignlly ust exelent smn comtan fe sty pose aie tet etine seit tha stat trea and perfec he moral peel a vee tint prea cmplete to eon rea, Te etcencnt tothe accommo” fro iy whether teed ator tral. Bee tem there mas fe vy se heel rocarh ho raion knoweige and no rt merad ara an sci whose eet min anay bo sie an ej os pre fre Tis abandonment o the Siow tn ar nly eae and imelighle ava eaqon in Sergi infor of ene aut eewhichee ts meri affin sea mei a ny ag tac Ravaver eared lade nie hry of re ‘iheonga and ach entries hey te Grech Toni, srt ioe nt they dacneed th ie of sence a pure aac inet wars ofe pure, parpeen ere Ue frp for pu Tart ange is mga Int te ae hin ape rion oeGREECE AND Kom in a prid that can be equated with the rule ofthe Ty wih the archaic style, It may We that this change Inated in any period aime that ts the eruption oa impulse whowe ist itiathne rea oes el Ing ‘rls works of al, forall thei magia tal o Pry, we can detect feature hee or there, ie ‘etch of variation, which ds stm to be foe ond tho pore play of rultsnian whose atentinn wanderet ‘moment from the praca! tack in hand. Who the eg an be sure how lich of an Fayption sate of go magi propanol and ha ch pve ong festheileceatin detached from te struggle rhe ond ‘dat But whatever the pecs extent th seth 'n the art of prehinoric and ealyhstrs times i semag {hat until the Grek archaic pred art nas exentaly ul Garefie play with forms, the eapaiy to went an ipl fend in itself to sear for playing, mat merely eo Ting and influencing reaity—all hsv dieoery ofthe, of this ago. Even if there i ame primeval imple Unroughy the fc hat eo get the upper hands tee of ar are created fr thee own sles very Signe, although the llegdlyastonomous forme which thie ae no doubt sociology conditioned and may serve i pupae ‘Tho autonomy ofthe various creative powers macann Achieved without a eran formating of his sia a this begins with readiness to vale psu achsevemonte longer exclusively scoring to thes wells foe ier aconring to an inner perfection of their own. If forex ‘nes enemy is admized for he efieney or hs brevery, hs of all qualities that could be injurious to onl bing sn deni to him, tht i a step towards the neutzleaion formalization of value. ‘The mt eanspcusus tie of formalization is sport, the pay frm ofthe he sruge por Jooce, But art an science ae ala play forms ad the tame true in a sense even of morality in so far as & man's mora ‘becomes pure sltsuficien ahivement of his ohm, hot uence by any ext al considerations. With the separation 70 apictoal faction from one another and from the totality “tars rignl unity of octal ism, his undo ot og knowledge, his rounded word picture, ar shattered i erst ere nd art pres pins ier spe nos sing spat 2 rth ite i igh fms ch ‘es detached frm pracilcosieratins ond aims. Her ot ileion oe many evo: ose Tie Pom, consis and ealuationy but ll ther now See il war ebeddel nan amar mag Te se is mya imaginton and lig dgmay i never to te practeal purpose in hand, With the Gree, on se sys we fort ie tea ence that mt merely aac free fom religious ble ond supestion, but Which sielgee of all Gonglt af any posible wity. Tn art the ‘etary bencen wef and pare form snot sharply drown, veins change meer axgnae toa dete hea, ut Teo, we muy tae nt te ransormaton foo pei wepian cultural ld and during te seventh eatsy- Srey Betng, However, the Homer pcm av belong to te worl Fetotimus fons ince theyre by no means reign, rece Spey in one, net asimpl agglomeration of the kaowedge, Siar an experience ofthe tines but ee pore or almost pure fonry, A any rat, th tendency towards sundry fre a Tot, in eras in aenc, a the ond of the seventh century “he eomer to the questi why the change tok place jus ths time and places leary to be found in heeft of eaonia- fim and inte rncsons which io amang foreign peoples and {atures must have had upon the Greeks The foreigners who Stronied them upon all sides in Asa Minor made them coe fSotsof cr om nv gens andi elf

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