Sculpture Without Culture: Problems of Chronology in 'Primitive' Art
In his influential book, Roma: L'arte romana nel centro di potere, Ranuccio Bianchi
Bandinelli made a brief but intriguing comment on the 'Shepherd Relief' from Lucera:
'È assai difficile datare un frammento come questo, perché il primitivismo e la noncultura non hanno una data, sono forme eterne' (In the florid English edition, 'they
exist sub specie aeternitatis'). He refers here not simply to the various forms of nonclassical or abstract art in Italy that occupy much of his work, but to images whose
style and iconography is too simple or anomalous to fitted into frameworks of
classification and chronology.
The idea of 'non-culture' seems the antithesis of everything that historical and
archaeological studies concern themselves with. If an object has no distinctive
cultural form, then where can it fit in a discipline that places so much emphasis on
typology and analogy, in which both material and visual cultures are central? Yet
simple, 'non-cultural' forms are widespread in the sculpture of the Roman provinces.
In Roman Britain, for example, we find not only objects that are almost completely
undateable (such as the simpler forms of 'Celtic' heads, some of which might be
placed anywhere between the late Iron Age and the Early Modern period), but also
works that can be confidently placed in the Roman period, but cannot be dated more
precisely than 'first to fourth century AD'. Similar stories can be told for many other
parts of the Empire.
Illustrating these problems with selected examples (including sculptures of such
limited elaboration or skill that they barely appear in any discussion of art), this paper
examines the treatment of such 'non-culture', using cross-cultural comparisons
(including the 'primitive art' of African cultures). It analyses the implications of such
material's subsistence on the fringes of classical art. The paper also examines the
extent to which such material can be redeemed by those dating methods that are
available, and how it can be considered alongside more elaborate works in order to
enhance our understanding of Roman art as a whole.
In conclusion, the paper returns briefly to fundamental problems about the dating of
Roman provincial sculpture in general, which are relevant to the consideration of 'the
primitive': how do we construct a story of art out of material which defies
periodization? How do we avoid the tendency to eliminate the pluralism of sculpture
by typological methods of dating? And how should we study bad art?