The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention - article ; n°1 ; vol.11, pg 21-27

Sinclair Hood

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Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément - Année 1985 - Volume 11 - Numéro 1 - Pages 21-27
7 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: BULLETIN_DE_CORRESPONDANCE_HELLENIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1985
• Nombre de lectures: 49
• Langue: English

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Sinclair Hood
The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention
In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 11, 1985. pp. 21-27.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Hood Sinclair. The primitive aspects of Minoan artistic convention. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 11,
1985. pp. 21-27.
doi : 10.3406/bch.1985.5264
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bch_0304-2456_1985_sup_11_1_5264THE PRIMITIVE ASPECTS OF MINOAN ARTISTIC CONVENTION
One clue to the unique character of the Minoan civilisation of Bronze Age Crète
is its conservatism. Many of the traits peculiar to the Minoan civilisation appear
to be survivais of primitive features that had once been shared with the inhabitants
of other parts of the Near East, but which passed out of fashion or were abandoned
there while they lingered in Crète.1
One possible example of such a survival may be illustrated by the type of dress
worn by Cretan men in the earlier part of the Bronze Age, as seen for instance on
figurines left by votaries in peak sanctuaries like Petsofas.2 A similar type of dress
appears on Predynastic figurines in Egypt, and the Minoan cod-piece may simply
reflect the survival in Crète of a fashion that was once gênerai throughout a wide
région of the Near East including Egypt and adjacent areas such as Syria and
Palestine.3
In the field of religion the évident prédominance of a female deity and the hints
of the existence of matriarchal customs in social life may similarly reflect a state
of things that had prevailed in much earlier times throughout the Near East but
continued later in Crète. The unpleasant practices which the excavations of John
Sakellarakis and Peter Warren appear to suggest— human sacrifice and the slaughter
and eating of children in a ritual context— are perhaps other aspects of a primeval
tradition that lingered in Crète into a mature phase of the Bronze Age there.
The circular tombs which flourished during the early part of the Bronze Age
in some areas of Crète could be another legacy of this spirit of conservatism. This
is on the assumption that such tombs are derived from primitive circular houses of the
type found in various régions of the Near East, including Palestine and Cyprus,
in the earliest times. The Cretan circular tombs of the Early Bronze Age may be
merely houses of this primitive type retained for the dead long after the living had
abandoned them in favour of ones of more flexible plan with rectangular rooms.
Following this line of thought I believe that one of the most striking aspects
of Minoan art, and a key to its originality, is the way in which it retained primitive
(1) Cf. S. Hood, The Minoans (1971), p. 31.
(2) E.g. C. Zervos, L'Art de la Crète (1956), p. 192f., flgs. 232-233.
(3) As suggested in S. Hood, The Minoans (1971), p. 31. 22 Sinclair hood [BCH Suppl XI
conventions into an âge when they had long been abandoned in other parts of the
civilised world of the Near East.4
The most décisive and important of thèse primitive features which were retained
by Minoan artists— and by Cycladic and Mycenaean ones following in their steps —
was the liberty to dispense with a ground-line for figures of men and animais when
it suited them. Many of the figures in the Thera wall-paintings of the 16th century
B.C. are represented 'in the air' without their feet resting on ground-lines.5 The
same is still true in the case of the much later of the 13th century B.C.
in the Palace of Nestor at Pylos on the Greek mainland.6 Even when a convenient
ground-line was readily available the artist might choose to ignore it.7
The animais and other figures depicted in the great cave-sanctuaries of the
Upper Palaeolithic in France and Spain were set in a comparable manner without
ground-lines on the rocky walls and ceilings. I hâve not corne across any examples
of artificial ground-lines on which figures stand in Palaeolithic cave art, although
it is true that in some instances natural lines in the rock seem to hâve been deliber-
ately adopted as ground-lines for the figures.8 A lack of artificial ground-lines
is also a feature of the later rock-shelter art of Spain and Portugal. It is interesting
that an absence of for the figures similarly appears to be a feature of the
art of Çatal Huyuk assignable to the Early Neolithic of Anatolia.9
In Egyptian art from the time of the Old Kingdom onwards a ground-line
on which figures could stand was de rigueur. But it was not always so in Egypt.
Ground-lines are entirely lacking for instance in the paintings which graced the walls
of Predynastic Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis.10 Tomb 100 was probably a royal
sepulchre in which one of the Predynastic kings of this région of Egypt was buried.11
Ground-lines are still only employed in a partial and haphazard manner on the
carved slate palettes of late and earliest Dynastie times. For example,
there are no ground-lines for the figures on the Two Gazelles palette;12 but on that
of Narmer, dating from about the time of the beginning of the First Dynasty, ground-
lines are much in évidence.13
Not many remains of large-scale early painting hâve survived to us elsewhere
in the Near East. But a fragmentary wall-painting at Teleilat Ghassul in Palestine,
contemporary perhaps with an early phase of the Predynastic period in Egypt,
shows a ground-line on which the feet of several figures or their footstools are rest-
(4) Cf. S. Hood, Arts (1978), p. 235.
(5) E.g. the warriors and animais above them in the Miniature Frieze from the West House, Thera VI,
Colour Plate 7 (right).
(6) E.g. M. L. Lang, PN II (1969), Nos. 5 H 5, 16 H 43, 21 H 48, 28 H 64, 12 C 43.
(7) E.g. Thera IV, Colour Plate D.
(8) Several examples in Lascaux, e.g. the 'Unicorn' and 'Chinese' horse (F. Windels, The Lascaux Cave
Paintings [1949], p. 52f.).
(9) J. Mellaart, Çatal Huyuk (1967), passim.
(10) J. E. Quibell and F. W. Green, Hierakonpolis Part II (1902), p. 20-22, pi. LXXV-LXXVIII.
For the date of the tomb, see H. Case and J. C. Payne, Journal of Egyplian Archaeology 48 (1962), p. 5-18;
J. C. Payne, ibid. 49 (1973), p. 31-35. I am grateful to Dr. Alessandra Nibbi for thèse références.
(11) See Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 48 (1962), p. 17f.; ibid. 59 (1973), p. 34.
(12) W. M. F. Pétrie, Cérémonial Slale Palettes (1953), pi. E.
(13) Ibid., pi. J and K. PRIMITIVE MINOAN ARTISTIC CONVENTION 23 1985]
ing.14 A smaller figure, however, to their left is depicted as if floating in the air
above the ground-line; and in gênerai what has survived of wall décoration from
Teleilat Ghassul appears to hâve been slapped on to a background in the casual and
unorganised fashion characteristic of the earlier paintings of Çatal Hiiyuk and the
Iberian rock-shelters.
The wall-paintings of Tel Uqair in Mesopotamia are considerably later than those
of Teleilat Ghassul and are assigned to the Uruk period.15 There is some use of
ground-lines in them; but the léopard which flanks the altar stairs is resting in the
air, as are the figures in the Warka stèle dates from this or from the succeeding
Jemdet Nasr period.16 The stèle is as innocent of ground-lines as are many
of the roughly contemporary slate relief palettes of Egypt.
Ground-lines were evidently standard, however, in Mesopotamia by the time
of the Stèle of the Vultures (stèle of Ur Nammu) dating from the time of the First
Dynasty of Ur.17 The ground-line hère is partly composed of the bodies of fallen
enemies on top of which the men of Ur are trampling their way to victory. Compare
the rather later stèle of Naram Sin of the Dynasty of Akkad.18 Ground-lines appear
to be présent everywhere in the wall-paintings at Mari assigned to the time of
Hammurabi or not much earlier.19
A second primitive feature of Minoan art, which is to some extent connected
with this liberty to dispense with ground-lines, is freedom from the necessity of a rigid
or formai scheme of composition. Cretan artists, and Mycenaean ones after them,
were quite capable of devising formai compositions, or ones of a heraldic nature
with symmetrically arranged pairs of animais, when it suited them. But, like
the Mesolithic artists and those of Çatal Hiiyuk after them, they felt able to dispense
with anything of the kind when they wished. Scènes in their paintings were normally
unrestrained by vertical boundary lines, and might go round the corners of rooms,
as in the case of the Thera Monkey Fresco.20 Vertical borders for scènes in paintings,
as found on the Knossos Taureador Fresco, were exceptional.21
A third primitive feature of Minoan art, which is also connected with the liberty
to dispense with ground-lines, is the convention of the Flying Gallop for running
animais together with the related of the Knielauf run for human figures.
A version of the Flying Gallop for animais is found as early as the Upper Palaeolithic,
although it does not appear to be common then;22 but in a developed form it is characte
ristic of the later rock-shelter art of Iberia. The Knielauf pose for running