Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa, von den Anfängen bis um 500 vor Christi

Abstract

ALTHOUGH written history begins in Europe two thousand years later than in Egypt or Meso potamia, the archaeological record is nowhere longer or more continuous. Art is more the object of the archaeologist than the philologist; and in this domain Europe is exceptionally rich. The men of the Old Stone Age decorated bones or cave walls with marvellous drawings which recall to life an extinct fauna. But the naturalism of pakeolithic art passed away with the advent of more modern climatic conditions; in France and Spain, the centres of quaternary art, only conven tionalised and esthetically worthless survivals are to be found on the walls of Copper Age cave-shelters and dolmens. Only in the extreme north did a naturalistic art, stylistically if not genetically akin to that of the cave-men, persist throughout the New Stone Age among backward food-gathering tribes. From that period, which saw the establishment of food-producing economy, no artistic products have elsewhere come down to us save geometrically decorated vases and rude clay figurines. Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa, von den Anfangen bis um 500 vor Christi. Von Moritz Hoernes. Dritte Auflage, durchgesehen und erganzt von Oswald Menghin. Pp. xix + 864. (Wien: Kunstverlag Anton Schroll und Co., 1925.) 30 gold marks.