Bronze Age Idols - an old ideal for modern art

Stone idols spread across the eastern Mediterranean during Bronze Age. There are various different types. But they all share a strong abstraction of the human characteristics. That is why they have been widely ignored as “primitive art” during the 19^th century. But with the rise of Modernism in the late 19^th and early 20^th century Bronze Age idols have been declared an ancient ideal for Modern art.

Here is an example from ancient Anatolia, the modern state of Turkey. The so-called Kusura type idol dates to the 3^rd Millennium BC. It is made of white, finely crystalline limestone. The famous archeologist Heinrich Schliemann had one of those idols in his collection as early as the late 19^th century.



Kusura-type idol