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...

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...…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…