Theme:
1. Artefacts, Buildings & Ecofacts
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
CANCELLED Creativity under Pressure… Prehistoric Art in Times of Crisis and Transition
Content:
Art is a means of coping with precarious social and emotional phases in the development of individuals and societies. It thus offers deeper insights into the evolution and transformation of ideational and ideological concepts. With this unique ontological dimension, iconography and style indirectly reflect the perception of the ecological, economic and social situation and living conditions. The link between stages of change and conceptual and stylistic transformations in art enable the analysis of their reciprocal dynamics – the study of visual culture can thus prove useful to spot and understand transitions. How do changes in art and other archaeological remains correlate? Did climate change influence the production and use of visual art? Are those artistic expressions more innovative or more conservative during those phases, more visible, more complex, more codified? How do they contribute to or justify new ideologies or ways of life?
Case studies from all prehistoric epochs offer the possibility to address art in periods of instability and crises, gradual and abrupt change, but also supposedly stable periods from two perspectives: the reciprocal causal links between artistic innovation on the one hand and changes in other areas of society, life and ecological systems on the other. This allows the characterisation of transitional phases through art as their consequence and expression, but also enables contextual analysis of artistic creation in otherwise well-documented periods of change. Both approaches involve an in-depth, multi-disciplinary reference to archaeological, ethnographic, archaeometric and palaeoecological data.
The session aims to develop patterns and universally valid mechanisms that serve to model cross-cultural scenarios. It invites critical contributions on all kinds of artistic expression both as the result or stimulant of those transition processes. They are meant to illustrate the extent to which both interacting fields manifest themselves in the material culture of Stone, Bronze and Iron Age communities in Europe. Furthermore, contributions with a comparative cultural anthropological or ethnoarchaeological approach are appreciated.
Keywords:
art, prehistory, iconography, ideology, crisis, change
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Holger Wendling (Austria) 1,2,3
Co-organisers:
Gadea Cabanillas de la Torre (France) 4
Elena Paillet (France) 4
Affiliations:
1. Salzburg Museum, Austria
2. Keltenmuseum Hallein, Austria
3. LMU Munich, Germany
4. Regional Archaeological Service, Brittany, UMR 6566, France
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