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HAMPE, ROLAND; SIMON, ERIKA; BOARDMAN, JOHN (FOREWORD) The Birth of Greek Art From the Mycenaean to the Archaic PeriodThames & Hudson, 1981. Hardcover quarto, 316pp, 60 colour and 444 monochrome illustrations. Light spotting to page edges, little soiling; boards very good; dustwrapper lightly worn with some minor scorings. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] How far back can we trace the origins of Greek Art? Is it confined to the fortunes of great City States such as Athens and Corinth, or are flickerings of its glory to be seen in earlier cultures? And, if so, who were these precursors, and what do we know of them? This brilliant and scholarly book demonstrates how the roots of Greek Art reach back long before its generally accepted beginnings in 1000 BC, when, as scholars have previously held, it was the product of a gradual renaissance following the destruction of the Bronze Age civilizations. The authors argue, on the basis of works of art richly illustrated and fully analysed here, that the origins of Greek Art do not lie in the so-called Dark Ages, but that they should be sought in the Golden Age of Mycenae 600 years earlier. This fascinating society was once believed to have totally succumbed to waves of destruction before the Dark Ages in about 1000 BC, but it can now be seen to have survived in Greek myths and artistic conventions right through to the high period of Classical Art. This confirms the discovery, made through the decipherment of Linear B, that the Mycenaeans spoke an early form of Greek and were thus the direct cultural precursors of Classical Greek civilization. The novel approach taken by the authors concentrates on this astonishing continuity of Greek Art. By examining the objects class by class - architecture, metalwork, pottery, engraved gems, jewellery, sculpture, ivory, stone vessels, weapons - they are able to show how certain techniques and materials have survived throughout the centuries, and how some were lost for ever. Their superb blend of scholarship and of rich and wide-ranging illustration offers the reader a unique opportunity to understand the complex and potent strands of tradition that culminate in the splendours of Ancient Greece.
Offered for AUD 131.25 = appr. US$ 136.80 by: Lamdha Books - Book number: 7461