Prehistoric Art in Europe

Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; Pelican History of Art Ser., 1985. 508 pages, illustrations; 21 cm. Firm binding, creased spine. Clean inside copy. A good reading copy. "Until around 10,000 BC art in Europe appears to have been in advance of the rest of the world and throws light on the total history of early man. The great masterpieces of cave-painting at Lascaux are well known, and one tradition of early sculpture is from the first surprizingly classical. With the shelter paintings of the Spanish Levant and the clay modelling and painted pottery of eastern Europe in the fourth and third millennia BC fresh artistic problems were tackled. Later still evolved the high technical accomplishment of the metal-workers, and this study concludes with an account of the new departures of Celtic La Tene art of the last four centuries BC." - Publisher. CONTENTS: 1. THE BEGINNING; The first sculpture (30,000-15,000); The first drawings (25,000-15,000); The beginning of relief (23,000-15,000); Divine image and magic drum; 2. UPPER PALEOLITHIC ART: 15,000-8000; Sculpture and modelling; Magdalenian relief; Line, shading, pattern; Colour, perspective, illusion; Animals dead and alive; Situation and subject: canvas and composition; 'The splendour of forms yet to come'; 3. MESOLITHIC ART: 8000-2000; Northern Europe; Southern Europe; The end of the mesolithic and the Near East; 4. NEOLITHIC ART IN EASTERN EUROPE; Background and problems: dates and stages; A potter's and modeller's art; Clay modelling: the human figure; A modeller's art: other subjects; The potter's art: skeuomorph and spiral; The potter; Chalcolithic Varna, copper and gold; 5. FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO THE BALTIC: SIXTH TO THIRD MILLENNIUM; The western Mediterranean: Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, and Iberia; The Atlantic West; From the Caucasus to the Baltic; Gods and emblems; 6. BRONZE AGE ART: 2000-1200; Metals; The background; Bronze Age potters of Eastern Europe; Metallurgical schools; The riches of the North; Stonehenge and Irish gold; 7. FERMENT AND NEW BEGINNINGS: 1200-500; The Northern arts; 'Razor style' and the tableau in the boat; The carved rocks; Cast bronze figures; Val Camonica; Iron and Orientalizing; Hallstatt geometric; Sea-roads west; 8. CONTINENTAL ART IN THE LAST CENTURIES B.C.; The background; La Tene art; The early style; The second or 'Waldalgesheim' style; The plastic style; The sword style; Monumental La Tene art; South-east Europe and Gundestrup; Pots; 9. INSULAR LA TENE AND THE PROBLEM OF LA TENE ART; La Tene art as language; Triskele.. 2nd. Paperback. Good. 8vo.