Etruscan Art - Notes

Chapter 10 Transitional Reliefs and Wall Paintings
[Note: References to plates are included in the text. The plates are not included in this computer document.

I N D E X

Tarquinia Door Reliefs
Tomba Campana
The Problem of Meaning

T E X T
Tarquinia Door Reliefs
From the art of the transitional period, around the turn of the century, emerged the first examples of a clearly greecizing Archaic style in Etruria. Foremost amongst them are the so-called door reliefs of Tarquinia.[1] They form an interesting class of monuments, but also pose an archaeological problem not yet solved. Almost all examples hail from Tarquinia; all were found in tombs, but in no case has the original purpose been discovered. Some had been used as stone slabs closing the inner doors of tombs, though in circumstances which make it clear that such was not their original destination. Their decoration rather seems to imitate a structural element of architecture, such as the carved beams of a wooden ceiling; but the exact nature of this construction has not yet been explained.

To exemplify the type I illustrate a specimen from Targuinia, of rather fine workmanship [76]. The decoration of broad bands framed by guilloche patterns is characteristic of the whole group. Usually the horizontal bands are filled with frieze-like, continuous representations: in the example here selected, this part shows two processions facing each other antithetically. The procession to the right [which is the better preserved] represents a woman, a winged griffin, a rider on horseback, and a winged sphinx; one recognizes the echo of a Greek orientalizing vocabulary. The vertical bands, on the other hand, are divided by superimposed squares; each square within its guilloche frame encloses one figure as a rule. Only occasionally are two figures shown in a common action, such as for instance the man leading a prisoner away in our illustration 76. In the same example the remaining squares include an ibex, a lion, and a winged figure in the Greek 'kneeling-running' position, meaning that we are to understand this wondrous creature as shown in hurried flight. Twice a centaur is seen carrying a huge tree over his shoulder, pictured in the early Greek manner as a nude man from whose back grow the body, hind legs, and long curving tail of a horse. [p. 119]

In the ornate richness of this decoration the most distinctive feature is the Greek character of its imagery. The centaur was a monster of Greek invention; Greek also is the form of the winged demon.[2] Ionian elements can be observed in all reliefs of this class, for instance in the guilloche or head-and-reel patterns. But the figural representations remind us mostly of Corinthian vase painting. The stylistic importance of square frames has already been mentioned in connection with the Regolini-Galassi Tomb bracelets [pp. 68-9] and the equally transitional Caeretan red ware [pp. 83-4]. More than ever, with the Tarquinia doors, one feels the disciplining effect of these frames; the strictness of the allotted space imposes a geometric rule on the figural representations. Indeed the insistence on a geometric definition will be quite frequently noticed in Etruscan art at this stage.

In the relief before us the tendency towards geometrization operates in the angular structures of the images, as well as their formal relation to the frames. It can even be detected in the freely lined up figures of the horizontal bar, horsemen and animals alike, each of which could just as well be inscribed in a metope. Along the vertical bands the squares are stacked one upon another, as in the Greek embossed shield handles from Argos. No doubt the concepts of composition and formal arrangement underlying these reliefs were indebted to Greek, chiefly Doric, prototypes."[3] But, as often happens in Etruscan art, the reliefs themselves form a type not found in Greek art as we know it. The superimposed panels may have been derived from Argive bronze reliefs and blown up to a much larger size. They represent transpositions rather than copies and are in that sense a novel creation of art. The skill with which this transfer was carried out, from one material to another and from one purpose to another, varied considerably with the individual specimens. Some examples are of very coarse workmanship; the artisans were not always equal to the task. As was said before, possibly the masons who produced these reliefs did not even deal with Greek prototypes directly but imitated domestic woodwork, the decoration of which was in turn based on the imported prototypes. In the slab here illustrated, the carving technique, which is of very good quality, would be equally suitable for a relief made of wood, and, with some colour added, would produce a quite magnificent example of ornamented woodwork, for instance in a ceiling. [p. 120]

Tomba Campana
The beginnings of monumental painting in Etruria - as distinguished from vase painting - must likewise be ascribed to the end of the Orientalizing period, or rather to the time of transition between Orientalizing and Archaic art which can be identified, approximately, with the decades immediately before and after 600.

The extant examples of Etruscan monumental painting are mostly if not exclusively wall paintings in tombs. The paintings made for the living which also existed in temples and perhaps in private homes have almost all perished. Even with these reservations in mind, the material which survived must be deemed of the greatest importance. It constitutes an indispensable chapter in the history of ancient art. As it is, Etruscan art now offers almost the only available testimony of ancient monumental painting before the Romans.[4] How we would judge the same works if more ancient Greek paintings were preserved it is of course impossible to say. Obviously the condition of al Etruscan art applies to these paintings also: the general standards of representation were set by the Greeks. Yet the wall paintings serve us better than many other monuments to perceive the limitations within which this statement holds. It is easy to see that they stand in some relation to the Greek art of their time, without which they would not have come into existence. The exact nature of this connection is not equally clear.[5] Thus the Etruscan tomb paintings soon developed a characteristic iconography, mostly based on Greek art but adapted to its own purposes. More decisive because more elemental is their stylistic conformity to Greek art, which could only be brought about by an adoption of principles, over and above the imitation of [p. 121] chance prototypes. Indeed the standards which these Etruscans works shared for instance with Greek vase painting pertained first of all to methods of representation. The reliance on outline design; the expansion of figures in the plane; the sideways action of human figures and the standardization of their postures, all confirm this essential identity of principles. The same close agreement will be observed in the folds of draperies and, come the time, the use of shading in the rendering of solid objects. These are important points indeed: they imply basic attitudes towards principles of painting and the representation of space. Accordingly we must not in this Etruscan art expect approaches to the problems of visual reality on a level significantly different from the Greek; for instance, no concept of space beyond that which contemporary Greek art could provide.

All this means no more than that Etruscan painting, throughout its history, remained on the level of a classical art, broadly speaking. It does not mean that its products can always be accepted as substitutes for the Greek works which are lost; there is a great deal both about their style and their themes which strikes us as properly Etruscan and, to that measure, not Greek. The reason is that the general standards which both arts had in common left much leeway in their specific application. No exact counterparts of the Etruscan tomb paintings have been found in Greece. Nor could wall paintings such as did exist in Greece be easily transported. For this reason alone the prototypes to which the painters of the Etruscan tombs may have had access cannot have been on a scale with their own work. Numerous problems of arrangement, design, and iconography had to be worked out on the spot. It is obvious that this was precisely what happened. No other area of Etruscan art bespeaks a consistent and indigenous development as intelligibly as do the great wall paintings of the Archaic period. The results can scarcely be confounded with Greek art, in spite of the similarities in principle. In their actual effect and Etruscan look these paintings require a description apart from Greek art. The deviations may no more than constitute a difference of degree, not a total contrast; but the history of art must reckon with them. In so far as we call this art Archaic Etruscan, we merely acknowledge that it presents a special aspect of the common Archaic style.[6]

The earliest tomb sufficiently preserved to make critical discussion possible is the Tomba Campana near Veii [77]. The paintings, now [p. 121] badly faded, surround the rear door of the main funeral chamber.Development of Etruscan wall paintings: M. Pallottino, Etruscan Painting [Geneva, 1952]. Their technique, ibid., 18-19.

On either side two rectangular fields are stacked one upon the other, each framed by simple lines on three sides but left open towards the corners, where the a joining walls provide a natural limitation. Thus in effect these paintings appear as four near-square, closed compositions flanking the door. This would constitute a very unusual architectural arrangement in Greek art, though not in the Orient, where decoration by superimposed panels, flanking a door or niche, can be found in both Egypt and Assyria. Yet rather than having recourse to such far-fetched examples one may connect the order of panels in the Campana paintings with the superimposed fields of the Tarquinia reliefs. In this way it can be explained as an enlargement, applied to painted architectural decoration, of a decorative scheme ultimately borrowed from Greek minor arts.

The style of representation in the Campana Tomb appears replete with orientalizing reminiscences not yet fully overcome. Such features are the fabulous zoology shown; the stilted, high legs of the animals; and the habit of filling empty space with apparently meaningless ornament. On the other hand the elongated, taut, and somewhat abstract outlines of the humans rather conform to an Early Archaic sense of geometry. In this respect the man behind the horse in the field to the upper right can be likened to the spear-throwers from Brolio [above, pp. 98-9]. Whether or not a specific meaning was implied with this imagery it is now difficult to decide. Perhaps the monsters and animals in the lower fields served as guardians of the door. On the other hand the scene on the upper right has been convincingly explained as representing a hunter's departure: if the explanation holds true, this would be the first representation of its kind--a scene from ordinary life, of daily occurrence--in Etruscan art.[7] The man was dismounted from the horse which his slender page is leading; a small boy and a hunting leopard ride on the horse. Even the filler ornament may temporarily assume a meaning and stand for the dense forest or underbrush; at any rate, refer to outside nature. That the hunter denoted the owner of the tomb would be a logical assumption, in accordance with later Etruscan funerary decoration. But here again the ancient Etruscan reluctance to press art into the service of a specific message makes a confident decision impossible. Like a daydreaming child, this art lingers in the twilight between reality and fancy. The possible realism of the one panel dissolves in the adjoining world of fable. Yet, vague though it be, it forebodes an attitude towards the world of man which differs significantly from the mainstream of Greek art.

The colours are divided into two or more areas of different colour, regardless of natural conditions. However a certain structural value can be discerned in this method: for instance in the representation of a quadruped, the leg nearest the observer may be distinguished from the other, which is farther away, by its colour; or the shoulder joints are of one colour with the leg, contrasting with the neck or rump of the same animal, to clarify anatomical divisions in a manner which had previously become customary in popular Etruscan art. The overall effect of the entire representation must have resembled a decorative hanging. It covered the wall like a large tapestry. [p. 122]

The Problem of Meaning
At first glance it may seem that the adherence to frames in all these monuments entailed at least a temporary regression of content. Compared for instance to the continuous narratives around the ivory situlae from the Pania Tomb [37] the range of subject matter in the Tarquinia doors appears severely restricted. No narratives can be identified among the square compositions; representations of action of any kind are rare. In addition to the prisoner being led away, already mentioned [76], one can cite an erotic scene of a type also found in Corinthian vases in another relief of the same class;[8] similarly, in the Campana Tomb, perhaps the 'Departure for the Hunt'.

All these representations can be classified as genre scenes. As such they form an innovation in Etruscan art. A certain thematic coherence, however feebly expressed, sets them apart from mere decorative art. Neither is the meaning limited to the most general scope of imagery, the showing only of an example of a species, which was the rule of earlier Orientalizing art. These compositions specify a theme, namely an activity or a situation. But they do not tell a story, or clearly link the situation shown with names of persons either real or mythical. Therefore they must not be thrown together with mythical narratives. The thematic precision of a genre scene rests in the impersonal yet characteristic situation which it represents, such as 'a hunt' or 'a banquet'. It is not vested in a personal character, as would be the case of history, in which the situation and events derive their interest from a hero and his doings. So defined, as a kind of subject matter dealing with activities rather than actions, genre scenes represent one of the important possibilities of art. Their inclusion in the Etruscan repertoire at the start of the Archaic period must be considered a significant event, especially since in Greek art the themes of daily life always remained subjects of lesser importance, mostly confined to minor arts such as vase painting. Etruscan art, which on the whole showed itself more inclined to face life directly, and not necessarily by way of a mythical transformation, evidently was less reluctant to accept themes of this kind in monumental painting. The hunt, especially, forms an example to the point. It was then a subject of old standing, well established in Egyptian and Near Eastern art as a pastime of kings and nobles. Yet in Greece hunting was not often represented as a genre scene. The hunts of Greek art were mostly mythical, even among the vase paintings.[9]

The hunting pictures of the Campana Tomb describes its act in so indefinitely that doubts as to its meaning may well arise. It obviously assumes an intermediary place between the generic representations of the preceding stage and the specified subjects of Archaic and Classical art. The Tarquinia reliefs, and especially the compositions inscribed in squares, strike an even more conservative attitude in this respect. Most of their imagery continues on the level of [p. 123] generic meaning. Nor was their manner of composition limited to the workshops of Tarquinia alone. A stele from Vulci, now in Florence,[10] [11] presents the same arrangement of superimposed squares, divided by guilloche bands, each containing one single group or figure [78]. Together all these works form an interconnecting group. By style and composition the Vulci stele was obviously related to the Tarquinia reliefs. At the same time the man marching behind his horse in the top field should be compared to the 'page' in the hunting scene of Campana Tomb.

Nevertheless, regardless of their mostly generic character, all representations in this group look distinctly more modern than their Orientalizing forerunners. This is especially true of the Tarquinia reliefs and the stele from Vulci. Because the frames isolate the figures which they enclose, they also impart to them a new sense of importance. By this emphasis, if for no other reason, the images become special objects of attention and studies in realty with a meaning quite their own; even though there be no action and some of them no more than visualize a make-believe reality of things which the mind may invent. These works address us in a language of art which avails itself of a rudimentary grammar; they speak, as it were, in pure nouns, using verbs hardly at all. Their disconnected pictures resemble illustrations of a primer from which children learn to read. Yet in trying to determine their meaning we recognize them as an elementary exercise, preparatory to an attitude towards subject matter which many arts and artists have at some time required. The isolated representation of a single object, though natural to sculptors, remained rare in ancient painting. It became a matter of increasing interest to painters only after the Renaissance. Dürer's 'Hare' or Rembrandt's 'Polish Rider' of course exemplify infinitely more complex performances, pictorially; but the essential elements of such separate representations we find already present in our Archaic reliefs. Condensed into one simple form, in each framed field, a fact of existence or a mythical phantom comes alive. In the clear formal definition of the reality incorporated, rather than a context discursively demonstrated, consists the true meaning of each image. [p. 124]