Luxury and Different Artistic Traditions in the Levant

Analysis of Luxurious Forms: The Levant, Greece, and Beyond

According to Feldman (2002), 13th and 14th century B.C.E. Mediterranean art is often characterized as international in nature. This means that across many different regions and geographical areas, works of art and artifacts exhibit similar features, reflecting the cross-pollination of different ideas and material forms. This is underlined by the fact that such internationalization is particularly reflected in portable luxury goods such as ivory, gold, and alabaster across the Levant, into Cypress and beyond. The wealthy could easily transport and exchange such materials into their homes, without regard to cultural tradition. However, Feldman (2002) attempts to add nuance and complexity to the term “international,” suggesting that within the very broad characterization there is considerably more variety, stylistically speaking, than might seem to exist on the surface.

Feldman (2002) specifically posits that an indigenous Levantine versus a true international style in many luxury goods exists on a continuum. She suggests there are more indigenous, common forms and motifs than previously acknowledged within many specific areas during this period. A much smaller percentage of objects exhibit a truly compositionally international style. For example, in her analysis of the site of Ugarit, Feldman (2002) notes one ivory head “displays strong formal parallels with a stone head from an earlier Levantine context” including eyes with raised rims, arched eyebrows, and a prominent nose which she states associates it with a deity from the Baal au foudre and another statue of the god El (p.12).

Feldman’s (2002) point is that rather than purely international in scope, these images are very squarely located within the context of a highly specific, very particular tradition, but they have been misinterpreted as seemingly human. In Ugarit and the Levant of this period, she stresses, there is an indigenous tradition that is enclosed and separated from the international tradition which lack such identifying associations and markers with these specific gods. Feldman (2002) does acknowledge that the political instability of this period in the region did lead to a lack of so-called monumental art (requiring centralized resources and organization), combined with competition for resources. But hared materials, cross-pollination of ideas, and shared themes and materials in the region runs a gamut of indigenous to international.

It is important not to classify all art from this period as essentially of the same era of art, although she does acknowledge that luxury goods that were easily portable share more formulaic elements and images, such as one furniture panel she analyzes containing both Egyptian and Hittite iconography (Feldman, 2002). However, some Greek pieces are notable for their indigenous style, such as some elaborate ivory works from Cyprus which she states show koine expression, in a manner which is much more indigenous in quality even than the Levant pieces of the Mediterranean. This makes sense to some degree, given that Greece was made up of many city-states, often in the form of disconnected islands, each forming its own unique cultural expression. Even though many such city-states engaged in empire-building or were part of empires, they also retained unique and self-enclosed cultural references.

Yet Feldman (2002) notes that this is not true in another example, that of the attack scenes of lions, griffins, and bulls found on one faience found in Delos. It is extremely similar to many such vases also found both in mainland Cypress and the Levant that, “All these luxurious objects have in common a restricted repertoire of motific elements and themes” (p.21). Their nonnarrative vignettes and are probably linked to specific manufacturing sites because of their degree of similarity and are difficult, partially because of their fragmented nature, to link to a specific tradition within Greece (Feldman, 2002). She is more comfortable calling such Greek designs international in quality.