Etruscan Art - Notes

Thus in looking once more at the Regolini-Galassi bronze stand [30] one will notice that all the animals seem to move with a peculiar airy lightness. They tread the ground rather insecurely; as if the artist were not yet quite convinced of the necessity of a firm base line.[20] Indeed this is the salient point. It has long been observed that the animals of these friezes, except in the one next to the bottom, walk directly on the ornamental braided ribbons which separate the superimposed zones.

The matter is one of prime importance for all ancient art. Egyptian art first made base lines obligatory for every object represented in a [p. 58] painting or relief. The reason was partly to introduce an element of formal order. Without base lines the silhouetted images would lack stability and firm direction; they would look haphazard, prehistoric even; that is, less civilized. But another consideration probably also played a role in this Egyptian attitude. The base line effectively severs the figures from the surrounding ground, which by this means, as by an act of will, is declared something outside the representation. Ground and representation become contrasts: the ground has no part in the representation: it has no meaning. Thus by rendering as real the solid soil on which we exist, the Egyptian reliefs eliminate the disquieting notion of the undefined space in which we exist, and which they refuse to represent.

In the light of these considerations it is astonishing how often, in Etruscan Orientalizing art, animals and other figures were still represented without any base line, as if floating in mid-air. The Regolini-Galazzi bronze cauldron and the bronze stand are not the only examples. The five lions on the golden fibula from the same tomb show an identical mode of composition [32]

This free, unsupported manner of representing figures, once outlawed by the Egyptians, subsequently became very rare in most ancient arts. It was not infrequently employed, however, in Assyrian reliefs, probably in order to create the very effect which the Egyptians sought to avoid: to make the relief ground a part of the representation, interpreted as a continuous terrain or open field in which the figures move. By the middle of the seventh century Assyrian reliefs were probably the only leading art form where such representations might still be found. Whether or not this fact had a bearing on the Etruscan monuments before us it is impossible to tell. One thing is certain. From the point of view of Greek orientalizing art these Etruscan representations constituted an irregularity; indeed, an offense. For Greek art, likewise, avoided the unsupported representation of figures, if for different reasons from the Egyptians. The Greeks were not averse to showing space, but they did not want to symbolize it by a mere superimposition of figures. Their Geometric training had taught them to insist on an almost architectural, systematic visualization of the effects of mass and weight; and for this reason the figures in a painting must not appear to float. For Greek art, the base line became a necessity. For the Etruscans at the same time it was still a dispensable detail. [p. 59]

THIRD STAGE: CULMINATION
Wider Range of Art
As the seventh century approaches its last quarter, one notices a palpable change of pace in the development and expansion of Etruscan Orientalizing art; only then did it gain real momentum. This observation is borne out by two statistical facts. First, according to our present knowledge, analysis of the finds has shown that in a tumulus as rich as the Regolini-Galassi Tomb the majority of the contents belongs to the latest burials, dating to the last three decades of the century or even a short time beyond. Second, Orientalizing materials with definite stylistic characteristics become really plentiful only during the same decades. The description of style during the two preceding stages had to be based on comparatively few objects, and in each successive period on only one truly outstanding tomb group. Beyond these narrow limits it is still difficult to establish the status of Orientalizing art in Etruria during its early phases. The last stage offers an entirely different picture. First-rate examples attributable to the last quarter of the seventh century have come to us, not only from the ancient heart district of Etruria--the coastlands around Tarquinia, Cerveteri, and Vetulonia--but from all parts of the country, including such outposts as Palestrina [Praeneste] in the Sabine Hills. These materials corroborate each other. The rule of Orientalizng art had now become very nearly complete. Concomitant with it went an enormous upswing in the popular arts and crafts, which often dealt with the new currents in most [p. 59] interesting ways of their own, as will be seen in Chapter 6. [p. 60]

Formalization of the Animal Style
Also characteristic of this stage is a noticeable increase of Greek influence, reflected especially in the animal friezes, which begin to favour a definitely Greek-Orientalizing selection of imagery. By the same token genuinely oriental details like the Phoenician sphinxes disappear from the Etruscan monuments. In their place appear new beasts of fable like the Greek chimaera, illustrated for example on the bronze skyphos in the Villa Giulia from the Barberini Tomb at Praeneste[21]; Fluted bowls, without foot: the form [33,34]. In examples such as these, Etruscan art shows the effect of the tendencies which then prevailed in the Greek Orientalizing schools, resulting in a more standardized selection of their ornamental zoology. After all, this was the time when Greek art acquired the stock of animals and monsters which has remained a conventional stand-by of all European decoration ever since, including its indelible lions, griffins, and sphinxes.

At the same time, under the influence of both Greek and oriental prototypes, a tendency to subject decoration and animal representation to a stricter concept of geometric order comes to the fore in many Etruscan works. A measure of geometric discipline develops in Etruscan art of the late seventh century. The famous ivory goblet from the Barberini Tomb, now in the Villa Giulia, offers an instructive example [35].[22] The cup itself was the imitation of an oriental fluted bowl, placed on a high foot and surrounded by four supporting statuettes or caryatids; a fashionable form in Etruria at that time. The reliefs round the rim indicate that the artist had knowledge of foreign, probably Syrian, ivory carvings. But the goblet as a whole was an Etruscan work. And the animals which form its frieze certainly look different from those of the Vatican bronze stand [30]. A new formal order has established itself. It is a geometric order, though hardly of inner structure. Each animal can be fitted in a nearly square frame. The order which meets the eye consists in the distribution and equilibrium of visible shapes within an invisibly prescribed, geometric field. What mattered was the resulting normalization of the forms, from the outside, as it were. This geometric order proved quite compatible with the typically Etruscan mannerisms, as for instance the unnaturally long legs of the animals, whose height strangely enhances the softness of their feline walk.

The fact that the animals are securely placed on a base line representing the ground on which they move only carries the obvious insistence on formal stabilization to its logical conclusion. On the whole, this is a new trend in Etruscan art. However, within its own time the Barberini goblet was not an isolated instance. A similar desire for formal stabilization and normalization makes itself felt in other Etruscan works of the same period, for instance the curious ivory hands from the same tomb and in the same museum,[23] the forearms of which are decorated with carved reliefs perhaps imitating embroidered sleeves [36]; more examples will be met with later. We cannot doubt that the future belonged to this trend.

In surveying Etruscan art of the seventh century one may well be astonished at the diversity of formal concepts, exemplified at such short intervals. Almost side by side we find intuitive-fantastic, objective-naturalistic, and geometric-abstract forms. Al these were recognized and practiced simultaneously as possible modes of art; none was binding. Among these materials, [p. 61] a representation like the animal frieze of the Barberini goblet will be judged on exceedingly formal work. If it incorporates progress in one direction--formal order--the freedom and innocence of earlier Etruscan animal drawings were lost in the process. A case can perhaps be made for the greater spontaneity expressed, with a certain pleasing ease, in those earlier and coeval works of Etruscan art which were not so much exposed to the mathematical discipline of the eastern arts. Nevertheless the subsequent development disavowed the earlier works, however much their freshness and innocence may attract us; in retrospect, their now appears the obsolete performance. [p. 62]

1. [A. Akerström, Der geometrische Stil in Italien [Uppsala, 1943], 104, plate 29, figures 1-3. Cf. Dohan, 106]

2. For another specimen, similar to our illustration 24, see Dohan, 76, no. 11.

3. Hencken, 1, 369, figure 362a and b.

4. [Pareti, 233, no. 164. This amphora belonged to the household silver from th so-called cella. The word 'Lathia' inscribed on it probably refers to a man called Larth, as proprietor; M. Pallottino, S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 342. Therefore the woman buried in the 'cella' --a burial already belonging to the beginning of our second Orientalizing stage c. 650-630 according to Pareti--was not the first owner of that set of silver. Pallottino's observation tallies with the fact that the ceramic type of the spiral-amphora was certainly older. The Bocchoris Tomb i self yielded an example [Hencken, 367-8, figure 367b]. Spiral-amphorae made of impasto constituted a leading form of native Orientalizing pottery in Etruria and Latium, both before and around the middle of the seventh century. The latest examples occur in tombs with Late Protocorinthian vases around 630-615. See L. A. Holland, The Faliscans in Prehistoric Times [Papers of the American Academy in Rome, v , 1925], 95-100, figures 1 0-13; Dohan, 61, no. 9.]

5. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco no. 15325; Giglioli, plate 41, figure 1.

6. Herodotus, 1.164. These were the same Phocaeans who later joined their countrymen at Alalia on Corsica, and thereby caused the fatal conflict with the Etruscans and Carthaginians in 538. See also below, p. 112.

7. Domestic wares in the Protocorinthian and Corinthian manner: C. Albizzati, Vasi antichi dipinti del Vaticano, fasc. 11 [Rome, n.d.], 48-63; G. Kubler, 'Some Etruscan Versions of Corinthian Ceramics', Marsyas, 11 [1942], 1-15, plates 1-10; J. G. Szilagyi, 'Le fabbriche di ceramica etrusco-corinzia a Tarquinia', S. Etr., XL [1972], 19-73, plates 1-10.

8. G. Q. Giglioli, 'Materiali per un corpus della ceramica etrusca', S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 241-5, plate 13.

9. Oriental imports: R. D. Barnett, J.H.S., LXVIII [1948], 3-4; idem, A Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories . . . in the British Museum [London, 1957], 129, 134. Oriental craftsmen in Etruria: Huls, 134-7. An example possibly showing transfer of motifs from Greek [Corinthian] ceramic decoration to Etruscan ivory carving: the Chiusi situlae discussed below, Chapter 5, pp. 64-6.

10. See above, Chapter 3, Note 5. For the significance of Phoenician crafts as portable prototypes of iconography, and their possible influence on Etruscan painting of the Archaic period, cf. F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die frühgriechische Kunst [Leipzig and Berlin, 1912], 67-72.

11. Pareti, 304-5, no. 303, plate 39. This stand was found in the so-called anticamera, the contents of which, in the opinion of Pareti, belonged to the same burial as that of the left niche [op. cit., 100-4]. However, the furniture of this section is conspicuously lacking in stylistic unity. It includes pieces certainly antedating the middle of the century, like the Villanovan bronze amphora no. 325 [Pareti, 321, plate 44], with others of much later date.

12. Pareti, 234, no. 196, plates 20-1, who [103-4] ascribed the cauldron to the furniture of the so-called cella. The workmanship is not quite the same, but the similarity of style to the stand was already observed by A. Furtwängler, Olympia, Die Augrabungen, IV [ed. E. Curtius] [Berlin, 1890], 125. Accordingly, I date both pieces to the time of the 'cella', approximately 650-640.

For the history of this type of cauldron see E. Kunze and H. Schleif, 'Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, II', J.D.A.I., LIII [1938], 107-15; F. Matz, Geschichte der griechischen Kunst, 1 [Frankfurt am Main, 1950], 396-400. In Greece, only the earliest cauldrons were decorated with lions' heads; later the protomes were shaped as griffins. The passage in Herodotus, 4.152.4 which mentions 'Argive' cauldrons refers to the latter type.

A complete investigation of the Italian material is lacking. U. Jantzen, Griechische Greifenkessel [Berlin, 1955], puts the Barberini griffin-lion cauldron in his earliest group of hammered bronze protomes, pp. 33-4, and the Vetulonia cauldron in his second, pp. 34-5. H.-V. Herrmann, Die Kessel der orientalisierenden Zeit [Olympische Forschungen, VI] [Berlin, 1966], associates these cauldrons from Praeneste and Vetulonia with one found at Olympia [B 4224, pp. 84-9, plates 1-6]. Cf. also E. Akurgal, Die Kunst Anatoliens [Berlin, 1961], 55-6, figures 35, 39-42. These cauldrons have good claim to be imported pieces. Those from the Regolini-Galassi Tomb were made locally. Their development seems to differ from the Greek; e.g. the lions' heads remained longer in use. Two specimens, Pareti nos. 307-8, have cast lions' heads, turning outwards, attached to their cauldrons by hammered neckpieces. According to Greek standards a date within the second quarter of the century would be assigned to them. The cauldron here under discussion, no. 196, seems to represent a later stage, even from the technical point of view: the lions' heads are turning inward and are entirely cast, not hammered.

13. Pareti, 175-80, no. 1, plate 5. From the same burial as the vase stand no. 303 [30]. For the form of the fibula ['Blattbogenfibel' with transverse staff and foot disc] see J. Sundwall, Die Élteren italilschen Fibeln [Berlin, 1943], 125-7, no. 22. How this giant pin was employed is quite uncertain. Pareti's idea that it formed part of the lady's headgear cannot be maintained. See the review by M. Pallotino, S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 342.

14. Cf. Akurgal, op. cit., 56-69.

15. A. Rumpf, Die Wandmalerei in Veji [Leipzig, 1915], 38-60.

16. See W. von Bissing, J.D.A.I., XXXVIII/XXXIX [1923/4], 224-6; W. L. Brown, The Etruscan Lion[Oxford, 1960], 28, 31, 34; G. Camporeale, La Tomba del Duce [Florence, 1967], 103-4.

17. Rumpf, op.cit., 43.

18. Types of lions: Poulsen, op.cit. [Note 10], 124-5 and figures 134-6, gives a brief account of this zoology. The mane along the back is also found in Protocorinthian lions, e.g. on the Chigi vase. But to transfer this detail to other animals, such as bulls, against all evidence of natural history, seems a habit of Etruscan art.

19. Regional characteristics: in addition to the points discussed in the text above, it should be mentioned that vases with incised decocration continue into this period. A good example of their rather popular style of drawing is the black impasto olla in the Vatican: J. D. Beazley and F. Magi, La raccolta B. Guglielmi nel Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, 1 [Gittà del Vaticano, 1939], 111-19, figurers 1-6, and plate 36. Reflections of Corinthian art are clearly present. The curioius vase from Tragliatello, of Late Protocorinthian form, uses engraved decoration in a similar style. Again one recognizes the Corinthian motifs, e.g. the row of marching soldiers. The drawing is on a level with the Guglielmi vase, or slightly later; probable date, around or a little after 600. G. Q. Giglioli, 'L'oenochoe di Tragliatello', S. Etr., 111 [1929], 111-59, plates 22-7; cf. also F. Slotty, 'Manin Arce', S. Etr., XVIII [1944], 164-80.

20. The absence of base lines in the Regolini-Galassi bronze stand was first observed by Poulsen, op. cit., 124; cf. p. 14, Phoenician examples of the same anomaly.

The matter cannot be discussed here, but a reminder is in place that, while base lines are the rule in Egyptian art, conspicuous exceptions can be found in the art of the Empire: cf., e.g., the wooden chest with a representation of the king's hunt from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the famous reliefs of Sethos I at Karnak, and others [H. SchÉfer and W. Andrae, Die Kunst des alten Orients [Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, II] [Berlin, 1925], plates 336 and 376; pp. 101-3]. Absence of base lines in Cypriote art: in the orbit of Classical art the representation of figures without base lines becomes a provincialism. Interesting examples occur in the Archaic art of Cyprus. In the hunting scenes of the famous ivory box from Enkomi the animals are superimposed as in the Egyptian representations mentioned above [H. T. Bossert, Altsyrien [Tübingen, 1951], 11, no. 166]. The after-effects of this style in provincial Cypriote art can be seen in the limestone box from Tammassos, ibid., 21, no. 54. Cf, with these representations the hunters and animals on the granulated gold bulla from Vulci, H. Mühlestein, Die Kunst der Etrusker [Berlin, 1929], figure 80. Greek art: base lines are the rule; exceptions are very rare. Among the early Greek monuments only the engraved Late Geometric and Subgeometric Boeotian fibulae show a tendency, as a class, to omit base lines from their reprersentations: R. Hampe, Frühe griechische Sagenbilder in Boeotien [Athens, 1936], plates 1-6, 11, 13, 15.

21. C. Densmore Curtis, The Barberini Tomb, M.A.A.R., V [1925], 37-9, no. 73, plates 19-21, figure 1; Mühlestein, op. cit., figures 127-130.

22. Curtis, op. cit., 29-30, no. 36, plate 13, figures 1-3; Mühlestein, op. cit., figures 27, 28; Huls, 46-7, no. 27, plate 17, figure 1. Fluted bowls, without foot: the form was probably Assyrian in origin, see Matz, op. cit. [Note 12], 445 and note 573. A quite different attempt at combining flat bowls on a high foot with caryatids was made in early Greek art: ibid., 382-4, plates 246, 247. Instead of supporting the rim of the bowl, the caryatids are gathered around the stem. The form represented by the Barberini goblet and similar specimens of ivory or black bucchero seems to have been properly Etruscan, but its antecedents are not yet well known; cf. below, illustration 48, and Pareti, 311 and bibliography. Date and workmanship of the Barberini goblet: Etruscan under Syrian influence, G. Hanfmann, Altetruskische Plastik, 1 [Würzburg, 1936], 24-6; Huls, 137-51. The caryatids resemble those from the antechamber in the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, and from the Tomba Calabrese. A date towards the end of the century seems indicated for both burials: Pareti, 459. It would also fit the horsemen portrayed on the companion piece of the Barberini goblet: Curtis, op.cit., plate 14.

23. Curtis, op. cit., 24-6, nos. 22-4, plates 9-11; Mühlestein, op. cit., figures 31, 32; Huls, 44-6, no. 25, plates 13-15, 16, figure 1.