Cheshire Cat and Mickey Mouse: analysis, interpretation and the art of the La Tène Iron Age

Abstract

Nearly seventy years ago Wilhelm Worringer first wrote that ‘ultimately all our definitions of art are definitions of classical art’ (Worringer, 1953, 132). Today, the study of Western European art history, old or modern, the products of peasant craft-centres or urban ‘schools’, has in the course of time developed its own methodology and, almost, mystique. In contrast, the study of many branches of prehistoric art in Europe and elsewhere is all too often seen as a mere extension of the skilled but subjective approaches of classical archaeology without considering the suitability of the latter's application. The use of the classical art-historian's intuitive methods built up not just from visual exprience but a detailed background of literary, historical and philosophical studies must in fact be almost entirely denied the student of prehistoric or primitive art. It is perhaps only natural that principles of classical art history should be applied to later European prehistory, though it is often difficult to arrive at a precise definition of these principles. It was Johann Joachim Winckelmann who made the first systematic application of categories of style to the history of art (Gombrich, 1968, 319). Sir John Beazley, the greatest of all modern classical art historians followed in this tradition basing attributions ‘on the grounds of tell-tale traits of individual mannerisms’ (Carpenter, 1963, 115 ff.) a scheme first applied to painting less than a century ago by the Italian physician Giovanni Morelli (Gombrich, 1968, 309 ff.) and followed at the turn of the nineteenth century in the study of Italian painting (Lermolieff, 1892–3). With Beazley it is, however, difficult to follow step by step his methods of work.

A Late Iron Age Cast Bronze Head Probably from Chepstow

“…More distant descendants of this latter style can be found, however, in Britain. Perhaps the most obvious examples are the spouts from Leg Piekarski in Poland (a boar, from its crest), in our view indisputably a British export (Megaw 1963;Megaw 1970a dolphins, each with a bird's head at its tail end, and possibly part of an oil-lamp hanger. Their publisher, following Mansel Spratling, considers them to be Romano-British in origin, though they were discovered in the River Weser at Dorverden, Kr.…”

“…Horses are most commonly to be seen on coins rather than in three dimensions. In Britain, the fantastic creatures found on the European continent in early La Tene I on brooches and flagons, or in the third-century Disney style (Megaw 1970b) of (frequently reversible) animal figures, are not known. More distant descendants of this latter style can be found, however, in Britain.…”

“…This, however, is almost certainly from a period earlier than La Tene III, and is more closely associated with other Disney style pieces such as the owl and the more naturalistic bull from the Bra cauldron (Klindt-Jensen 1953, frontispiece and pi. 11 ;Megaw 1970a, no. 162), the chariot pieces probably from Paris, (Megaw 1970a, nos.…”

“…162), the chariot pieces probably from Paris, (Megaw 1970a, nos. 166-8) or the little plastic bull's head handle said to come from Macon, Saone-et-Loire (Megaw 1962;Megaw 1970a, no. 161).…”

The Line, the Void and the Current: Iron Age Art from a Design Theory Perspective

“…; Jacobsthal , 161–3) have also seen art historical analyses (overview in Garrow and Gosden , 44–56; cf. Olivier ; Megaw , 261–2, 276). Such studies also identified the limits of modern interpretation (Joy , 44; Müller ).…”