Misplaced Pages

#263736

49-462: The painted tombs of the necropolis are the largest documentation of Etruscan pictorial art , and they are singular testaments to Etruscans' quotidian life, ceremonies, and mythology . Some of the tombs are monumental, cut in rock and topped by tumuli , accessible by means of inclined corridors or stairways. Many different subjects are shown in the frescos, including rituals, animals, magical themes, dance and musical instruments. The best known tombs are

98-531: A New York Times article of 1894, workers in the marble quarries were among the most neglected labourers in Italy. Many of them were ex-convicts or fugitives from justice. The work at the quarries was so tough and arduous that almost any aspirant worker with sufficient muscle and endurance was employed, regardless of their background. The quarry workers and stone carvers had radical beliefs that set them apart from others. Anarchism and general radicalism became part of

147-567: A banqueting man or woman (but not always) and the container part was either decorated in relief in the front only or, on more elaborate stone pieces, carved on its sides. During this period, the terracotta urns were being mass-produced using clay in Northern Etruria (specifically in and around Chiusi ). Often the scenes decorated in relief on the front of the urn were depicting generic Greek influenced scenes. The production of these urns did not require skilled artists and so what we are left with

196-657: A large number of items on loan from the National Archaeological Museum, Florence and the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum in Volterra . Carrara marble Carrara marble , or Luna marble ( marmor lunense ) to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara in

245-496: A mass of fragments, but sculptures from tombs, including the distinctive form of sarcophagus tops with near life-size reclining figures, have usually survived in good condition, although the painting on them has usually suffered. Small bronze pieces, often including sculptural decoration, became an important industry in later periods, exported to the Romans and others. See the "Metalwork" section below for these, and "Funerary art" for tomb art. The famous bronze " Capitoline Wolf " in

294-541: A pure white marble (coloring in other marbles arises from intermixture with other minerals present in the limestone as it is converted to marble by heat or pressure). However, by the end of the 20th century, the known deposits of statuario near Carrara were played out. The quarries continue to remove and ship up to a million tons/year of less-esteemed marble, mostly for export. This is predominantly streaked with black or grey. Bianco Carrara classified in C and CD variations as well as Bianco Venatino and Statuarietto are by far

343-719: A series that creates in effect a portable wall-painting. The "Boccanera" tomb at the Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri contained five panels almost a metre high set round the wall, which are now in the British Museum . Three of them form a single scene, apparently the Judgement of Paris , while the other two flanked the inside of the entrance, with sphinxes acting as tomb guardians . They date to about 560 BC. Fragments of similar panels have been found in city centre sites, presumably from temples, elite houses and other buildings, where

392-422: Is often mediocre, unprofessional art, made en masse. However the colour choices on the urns offer evidence as to dating, as colours used changed over time. Etruscan art was often religious in character and, hence, strongly connected to the requirements of Etruscan religion . The Etruscan afterlife was negative, in contrast to the positive view in ancient Egypt where it was but a continuation of earthly life, or

441-510: Is primarily dominated by depictions of religion and in particular the funerary cult , whether or not that is a true reflection of Etruscan art as a whole. Etruscan tombs were heavily looted from early on, initially for precious metals. From the Renaissance onwards Etruscan objects, especially painted vases and sarcophagi, were keenly collected. Many were exported before this was forbidden, and most major museum collections of classical art around

490-483: Is the best-preserved and most complete of the surviving works. The Etruscans had a strong tradition of working in bronze from very early times, and their small bronzes were widely exported. Apart from cast bronze, the Etruscans were also skilled at the engraving of cast pieces with complex linear images, whose lines were filled with a white material to highlight them; in modern museum conditions with this filling lost, and

539-603: The Archeological Civic Museum in Bologna , as well as more local collections near important sites such as Cerveteri , Orvieto and Perugia . Some painted tombs, now emptied of their contents, can be viewed at necropoli such as Cerveteri. in 2021/22, there was a major exhibition of Etruscan art at the MARQ Archaeological Museum of Alicante , Spain . The exhibition, Etruscans: The Dawn of Rome , featured

SECTION 10

#1732845104264

588-536: The Capitoline Museum , Rome , was long regarded as Etruscan, its age is now disputed, it may actually date from the 12th century. The Apollo of Veii is a good example of the mastery with which Etruscan artists produced these large art pieces. It was made, along with others, to adorn the temple at Portanaccio 's roof line. Although its style is reminiscent of the Greek Kroisos Kouros , having statues on

637-565: The Etruscan culture into theirs but would also be greatly influenced by them and their art. Etruscan art is usually divided into a number of periods: The Etruscans were very accomplished sculptors, with many surviving examples in terracotta , both small-scale and monumental, bronze, and alabaster . However, there is very little in stone, in contrast to the Greeks and Romans. Terracotta sculptures from temples have nearly all had to be reconstructed from

686-557: The International Union of Geological Sciences as a Global Heritage Stone Resource . Calcite , obtained from an 80 kg sample of Carrara marble, is used as the IAEA -603 isotopic standard in mass spectrometry for the calibration of δ O and δ C. The black yeast Micrococcus halobius can colonize Carrara marble by forming a biofilm and producing gluconic , lactic , pyruvic and succinic acids from glucose , as seen in

735-693: The Macedonian royal tombs at Vergina . The whole tradition of Greek painting on walls and panels, arguably the form of art that Greek contemporaries considered their greatest, is almost entirely lost, giving the Etruscan tradition, which undoubtedly drew much from Greek examples, an added importance, even if it does not approach the quality and sophistication of the best Greek masters. It is clear from literary sources that temples, houses and other buildings also had wall-paintings, but these have all been lost, like their Greek equivalents. The Etruscan tombs, which housed

784-791: The Tomb of the Leopards , of Hunting and Fishing , of the Augurs , of the Triclinium , the Blue Demons and of the Bulls . Many of the artifacts found in the necropolis and some of the frescos have been brought to the neighboring Tarquinia National Museum in order to preserve them. The paintings and wall decorations of the Tomb of the Baron, discovered in 1827, were also reproduced on

833-499: The fresco wall-paintings, which show scenes of feasting and some narrative mythological subjects. Bucchero wares in black were the early and native styles of fine Etruscan pottery. There was also a tradition of elaborate Etruscan vase painting , which sprang from its Greek equivalent; the Etruscans were the main export market for Greek vases . Etruscan temples were heavily decorated with colourfully painted terracotta antefixes and other fittings, which survive in large numbers where

882-497: The province of Massa and Carrara in the Lunigiana , the northernmost tip of modern-day Tuscany , Italy. More marble has been extracted from the over 650 quarry sites near Carrara than from any other place. The pure white statuario grade was used for monumental sculpture , as "it has a high tensile strength, can take a high gloss polish and holds very fine detail". By the late 20th century Carrara's highest-grade marble had run out;

931-515: The 17th and 18th centuries, the marble quarries were monitored by the Cybo and Malaspina families who ruled over the Duchy of Massa and Carrara . The family created the "Office of Marble" in 1564 to regulate the marble mining industry. The city of Massa , in particular, saw much of its plan redesigned (new roads, plazas, intersections, pavings) in order to make it worthy of an Italian country's capital. Following

980-544: The 7th through the 4th centuries BC, and is a major element in Etruscan art. It was strongly influenced by Greek vase painting , followed the main trends in style, especially those of Athens , over the period, but lagging behind by some decades. The Etruscans used the same techniques, and largely the same shapes. Both the black-figure vase painting and the later red-figure vase painting techniques were used. The subjects were also very often drawn from Greek mythology in later periods. Besides being producers in their own right,

1029-440: The Etruscans seem largely to have adopted. Symposium scenes are common, and sport and hunting scenes are found. The depiction of human anatomy never approaches Greek levels. The concept of proportion does not appear in any surviving frescoes and we frequently find portrayals of animals or men out of proportion. Various types of ornament cover much of the surface between figurative scenes. Etruscan vase paintings were produced from

SECTION 20

#1732845104264

1078-419: The Etruscans were the main export market for Greek pottery outside Greece, and some Greek painters probably moved to Etruria, where richly decorated vases were a standard element of grave inventories. It has been suggested that many or most elaborately painted vases were specifically bought to be used in burials, as a substitute, cheaper and less likely to attract robbers, for the vessels in silver and bronze that

1127-645: The Maffioli, then the Buffa, supplied the marble for the facade of the Certosa di Pavia , also taking care of the transport of the material which, by ship, after having circumnavigated Italy, reached the construction site of the monastery after having sailed up the Po and the Ticino by boat. Starting from the 16th century, Genoese stonecutters-merchants also entered this flourishing trade. In

1176-458: The Villanovan period simple round tombs carved from rock for cremation burials can be seen at the site. Towards the end of the 8th century BC, the first funerary chambers appeared as family tombs due to the rise to power of an aristocracy. These appeared on the surface as tumuli , sometimes assuming impressive proportions to enhance the power and prestige of the nobles, as can be seen especially in

1225-504: The confident relations with the gods as in ancient Greece . Roman interest in Etruscan religion centred on their methods of divination and propitiating and discovering the will of the gods, rather than the gods themselves, which may have distorted the information that has come down to us. Most remains of Etruscan funerary art have been found in excavations of cemeteries (as at Cerveteri , Tarquinia , Populonia , Orvieto , Vetulonia , Norchia ), meaning that what we see of Etruscan art

1274-564: The considerable ongoing production is of stone with a greyish tint, or streaks of black or grey on white. This is still attractive as an architectural facing, or for tiles. Carrara marble has been used since the time of Ancient Rome , when it was called marmor lunense , or "Luni marble". In the Middle Ages, most of the quarries were owned by the Marquis Malaspina who in turn rented them to families of Carrara masters who managed both

1323-436: The dead on their journey to the beyond, scenes in the nether world, processions of magistrates and other symbols of the rank of the eminent members of the families buried there. Among the most notable painted tombs famous for the artistic quality of their frescoes are: Etruscan art Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 10th and 1st centuries BC. From around 750 BC it

1372-607: The elite would have used in life. More fully characteristic of Etruscan ceramic art are the burnished, unglazed bucchero terracotta wares, rendered black in a reducing kiln deprived of oxygen. This was an Etruscan development based on the pottery techniques of the Villanovan period. Often decorated with white lines, these may have eventually represented a traditional "heritage" style kept in use specially for tomb wares. A few large terracotta pinakes or plaques, much larger than are typical in Greek art, have been found in tombs, some forming

1421-505: The extinction of the Cybo-Malaspina family, the state was ruled by the House of Austria-Este and management of the mines rested with them. Massa Cathedral is built entirely of Carrara marble and the old Ducal Palace of Massa was used to showcase the stone. By the end of the 19th century, Carrara had become a cradle of anarchism in Italy, in particular among the quarry workers. According to

1470-533: The extraction and transport of the precious material. Some of them, such as the Maffioli, who rented some quarries north of Carrara, in the Torano area, or, around 1490, Giovanni Pietro Buffa, who bought marble on credit from local quarrymen and then resold it on the Venetian market, were able to create a dense commercial network, exporting the marble even to distant locations. Just to cite an example, starting from 1474, first

1519-630: The heritage of the stone carvers. Many violent revolutionists who had been expelled from Belgium and Switzerland went to Carrara in 1885 and founded the first anarchist group in Italy. In Carrara, the anarchist Galileo Palla remarked, "even the stones are anarchists." The quarry workers were the main actors of the Lunigiana revolt in January 1894. The Apuan Alps above Carrara show evidence of at least 650 quarry sites, with about half of them currently abandoned or worked out. The Carrara quarries have produced more marble than any other place on earth. Working

Monterozzi necropolis - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-583: The late 6th century they did so in terracotta sarcophagi. These sarcophagi were decorated with an image of the deceased reclining on the lid alone or sometimes with a spouse. The Etruscans invented the custom of placing figures on the lid which later influenced the Romans to do the same. Funerary urns that were like miniature versions of the sarcophagi, with a reclining figure on the lid, became widely popular in Etruria. The Hellenistic period funerary urns were generally made in two pieces. The top lid usually depicted

1617-443: The lid. The later and more numerous types show him or her reclining on the left side, facing the spectator and frequently holding a libation vessel; occasionally a man displays an inscribed scroll listing his ancestry and the magisterial offices he occupied. During the second half of the 4th century BC sculpted and painted sarcophagi of nenfro , marble and alabaster came into use. They were deposited on rock-carved benches or against

1666-493: The mirror's reflective surface) are in a low relief . The Etruscans excelled in portraying humans. Throughout their history they used two sets of burial practices: cremation and inhumation . Cinerary urns (for cremation) and sarcophagi (for inhumation) have been found together in the same tomb showing that throughout generations, both forms were used at the same time. In the 7th century they started depicting human heads on canopic urns and when they started burying their dead in

1715-516: The most common types with more expensive exotic variations such as Calacatta Gold, Calacatta Borghini, Calacatta Macchia Vecchia, Arabescato Cervaiole and Arabescato Vagli quarried throughout the Carrara area. Bardiglio has more black, and has been used since Roman times for architectural facings and floors. The marble from Carrara was used for some of the most remarkable buildings in Ancient Rome : It

1764-476: The painting becomes part of the plaster, and consequently an integral part of the wall. Colours were created from ground up minerals of different colours and were then mixed to the paint. Fine brushes were made of animal hair. From the mid 4th century BC chiaroscuro modelling began to be used to portray depth and volume. Sometimes scenes of everyday life are portrayed, but more often traditional mythological scenes, usually recognisable from Greek mythology , which

1813-491: The quarries is and has always been dangerous. In September 1911, a collapsing cliff face at the Bettogli Quarry crushed 10 workers who were on lunch break under a precipice. A 2014 video made at a Carrara quarry shows workers with missing fingers, and workers performing hazardous, painfully noisy work who are not wearing protective gear of any kind. The prize yield from Carrara quarries through millennia has been statuario ,

1862-409: The remains of whole lineages, were apparently sites for recurrent family rituals, and the subjects of paintings probably have a more religious character than might at first appear. A few detachable painted terracotta panels have been found in tombs, up to about a metre tall, and fragments in city centres. The frescoes are created by applying paint on top of fresh plaster, so that when the plaster dries

1911-404: The so-called King and Queen tombs. There were about 600 tumuli still visible in the 19th century, following which many were razed after excavation. The tumuli usually covered subterranean chambers carved into the rock, containing sarcophagi and personal possessions of the deceased, and many of which have wall paintings. The earliest sarcophagi are carved with the image of the deceased supine on

1960-411: The subjects include scenes of everyday life. The Etruscans were masters of bronze-working as shown by the many outstanding examples in museums, and from accounts of the statues sent to Rome after their conquest. According to Pliny, the Romans looted 2,000 bronze statues from the city of Volsinii alone after capturing it. The Monteleone chariot is one of the finest examples of large bronzework and

2009-448: The surface inevitably somewhat degraded, they are often much less striking and harder to read than would have been the case originally. This technique was mostly applied to the roundish backs of polished bronze mirrors and to the sides of cistae . A major centre for cista manufacture was Praeneste , which somewhat like early Rome was an Italic-speaking town in the Etruscan cultural sphere. Some mirrors, or mirror covers (used to protect

Monterozzi necropolis - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-577: The top of the roof was an original Etruscan idea. The Etruscan paintings that have survived are almost all wall frescoes from tombs, mainly located in Tarquinia , and dating from roughly 670 BC to 200 BC, with the peak of production between about 520 and 440 BC. The Greeks very rarely painted their tombs in the equivalent period, with rare exceptions such as the Tomb of the Diver in Paestum and southern Italy, and

2107-422: The walls in the now very large underground chambers. Sarcophagi were also decorated with reliefs of symbolic or mythological content, often derived from Tarentine models. Sarcophagi of this type, which continue until the second century, are found in such numbers at Tarquinia that they must have been manufactured locally. The walls of the tomb-chambers of the late period are painted with underworld demons escorting

2156-622: The walls of the so-called Etruscan Cabinet in the Castle of Racconigi . Along with the Banditaccia Necropolis , Monterozzi was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, notable as " the depiction of daily life in the frescoed tombs, many of which are replicas of Etruscan houses, is a unique testimony to this vanished culture ". The burial ground dates from the Iron Age , or Villanovan period (9th century BC), up to Roman times. From

2205-616: The wooden superstructure has vanished. Etruscan art was strongly connected to religion ; the afterlife was of major importance in Etruscan art. The Etruscans emerged from the Villanovan culture . Due to the proximity and/or commercial contact to Etruria , other ancient cultures influenced Etruscan art during the Orientalizing period , such as Greece , Phoenicia , Egypt , Assyria and the Middle East . The Romans would later come to absorb

2254-714: The world have good selections. But the major collections remain in Italian museums in Rome, Florence, and other cities in areas that were formerly Etruscan, which include the results of modern archaeology . Major collections in Italy include the National Etruscan Museum ( Italian : Museo Nazionale Etrusco ) in the Villa Giulia in Rome, National Archaeological Museum in Florence, Vatican Museums , Tarquinia National Museum , and

2303-511: Was also used in many sculptures of the Renaissance including Michelangelo 's David (1501–1504) whilst the statue to Robert Burns , which commands a central position in Dumfries , was carved in Carrara by Italian craftsmen working to Amelia Robertson Hill 's model. It was unveiled by future UK Prime Minister Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery on 6 April 1882. Other notable occurrences include: Carrara marble has been designated by

2352-588: Was famous and widely exported, but relatively few large examples have survived (the material was too valuable, and recycled later). In contrast to terracotta and bronze, there was relatively little Etruscan sculpture in stone, despite the Etruscans controlling fine sources of marble, including Carrara marble , which seems not to have been exploited until the Romans. The great majority of survivals came from tombs, which were typically crammed with sarcophagi and grave goods , and terracotta fragments of architectural sculpture, mostly around temples. Tombs have produced all

2401-403: Was heavily influenced by Greek art , which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta (especially life-size on sarcophagi or temples), wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced. Etruscan sculpture in cast bronze

#263736