La sculpture ibérique dans son contexte méditerranéen. L'évolution des recherches

Abstract

A century after the revelation of the iberic sculpture, its study takes advantage to day of a new attention. But a problem remains, that of its exact origins. The quality of its best pieces and chiefly its iconographie repertory induced many authors to recognize there the greek and phenician artists' hand. Commercial and artistic relations with other peoples certainly existed : it is sufficient to mention Etruscan people, not remote from the Iberian Peninsula. The discovery of several falcata in the necropolis of Aleria, in Corsica, proves moreover that Iberians themselves willingly traveled to the Tyrrhenian Sea. For nearly twenty years, some authors have been defending the hypothesis of the autonomy of iberic art. Though they give admittance into greek influences in local iconography, they mainly insist on the character of freedom and autonomy in this art, principally in sculpture. For them, this art was created on a native substratum, with its peculiar traditions, making freely choice of pictures and shapes among the mediterranean inheritance, in order to interpret its own myths.