THINKING ABOUT ‘STYLE’ IN THE ‘POST-STYLISTIC ERA

[aggsbach]

Here is a new paper from the Oxford Journal of Archaeology with a fresh look on dating parietal art using both stylistic criteria and C14 AMS data. I found the discussion about how we should define “style” very useful.

Abstract.

THINKING ABOUT ‘STYLE’ IN THE ‘POST-STYLISTIC ERA’: RECONSTRUCTING THE STYLISTIC CONTEXT OF CHAUVET

Over the past decade, new radiocarbon dating from several art caves has conflicted with the traditional stylistic sequence of Palaeolithic art. Using Chauvet as a paradigm, some archaeologists have suggested that stylistic approaches to Palaeolithic art should be rejected in favour of more sophisticated methods, such as AMS radiocarbon dating. Contrary to this proposal, we suggest that the high antiquity of the Chauvet paintings (dated to c.32,000 years BP) does not necessarily imply the end of all stylistic approaches to Palaeolithic art. Taking the recent discoveries (2003) at the site of Hohle Fels and the attribution of the Palaeolithic engravings of the cave of l'Aldène to the Aurignacian (2005) into account, we suggest that the Chauvet paintings can be placed within an Aurignacian stylistic context. Throughout this analysis, we propose some critical thoughts on the concept of ‘style’ and discuss some ways in which stylistic approaches can be used to improve our knowledge of Palaeolithic art.


The whole paper can be found here:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ojoa/26/2

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Here is a new paper from the Oxford Journal of Archaeology with a fresh look on dating parietal art using both stylistic criteria and C14 AMS data. I found the discussion about how we should define “style” very useful.

Many thanks for spotting this article and passing on the info. I have already read it, and all I can say at this time is that it's a very nice review -- as of 2007 -- of the state of the art. I should note that I particularly like it because it fits perfectly well what I had to say, somewhere and a while ago! -- about the stylistic, thematic, and chronological correspondences between Chauvet and the sites from the Swabian region. As for what should happen with the stylistic forms of analysis, well, we’ll have to wait for a new synthesis that will have to take into account radiometric data, when it is available. In this regard, I wonder how Leroi-Gourhan would have reacted to the Chauvet dates and their implications.

Jacques

[aggsbach]

The most important fact is that new interpretations move away from the “great explanations” that have been proposed within the last century beginning with Rainachs “art pour art”, Breuils magic theory and Leroi-Gourhans structuralism. Explaining everything by shamanism is surley not the answer to our questions, but only another “great” and not so new idea that follows an unilinear approach.
I feel that within the last 20 yrs. a new modesty has entered the discussions combined with careful reading of the archaeological sources. The late Leroi-Gourhan surley noted that his great synthesis crumbled down. But maybe he would appreciate the new approaches, because they are not so far away from his meticulous field studies (The Ainu-people, the excavations at Princevent).
Overall an unilinear evolution of ideologies and style for me seems to be unlikely (why should ideologies remained unchanged for 20000 yrs.?). What we find are only clusters of themes and ideologies in time and space (The dangerous animals of Cauvet and the Swabian caves, the Gravettian Venus figurines, the clay figurines from the Pavlovian in Moravia and upper Austria, the abstract Magdalenian female bodies from Lalinde, Gare de Couze, Kniegrotte, Petersfels and Gönnersdorf) that can be used to create modest new short- to middle-ranged theories.

Johannes