From Naturalism to Essentialism in Theran and Minoan Art

By essentialist is meant representation not of literal nature but of the essential characteristics, including the relative proportions of parts to each other, of a real world form. A series of plant representations, crocuses, lilies, papyrus and other plants, is studied on the basis of the theory proposed and botanical identifications, in particular Crocus cartwrightianus and Cyperus papyrus, are made or confirmed.

The mental or cognitive processes which resulted in Minoan and Theran representational images are the subject of this paper. Botanical examples from wall paintings will be used to support the theoretical position developed here.

The relationship between real world forms and their representation in 'art' is highly complex. First, real world forms are themselves infinitely varied. Plants of a single species, for example, may vary in form, size and colour and their appearances change not only throughout the growing season, but also as a result of their position in the ground and in the play of light and shade. In turn, as E.H. Gombrich, in Art and illusion (5th edn. 1977), and many others have shown, representation is influenced or determined by many different cultural factors, for example local representational rules or conventions, symbolic values, purpose and medium of representation, as well as by the perhaps universal tendency in the ancient world to paint, sculpt or engrave generalised real world forms rather than individual specimens. Further, how can observers from different and later, for example modern, cultural contexts understand the intentions and establish real world identifications behind earlier, for example Theran or Minoan, representations? There are deep methodological questions here, sufficient to discourage deconstructionists from attempting to proceed at all.

Before we come to the approach developed here, which was first set out in a paper to the 7th International Cretological Congress in 1991 (Warren 1995), it is necessary to review previous work. G. Walberg's illuminating discussion in Tradition and innovation. Essays in Minoan art (1986) is an appropriate starting point, taking up earlier studies on this question by A. Furumark (1941, 133-150), H.A. Groenewegen-Frankfort (1951) and W. Schiering (1965) particularly. Walberg essentially accepts Furumark's broad division of Minoan non-abstract representation into pictorial and pictorialised images (Furumark 1941, 133-135, 150); by the former is meant the representation of objects in a more or less naturalistic manner; by the latter is meant something more complex, the addition to abstract motifs of naturalistic elements to produce a pictorialised image of an animal or plant form. Walberg, while querying any sharpness of division between the two categories, accepted that the great majority of pictorialised and even quite naturalistic images relied deeply on the use of inherited abstract formulae like J-, C- and S-spirals, petaloid loops and circular, whirling patterns. There is much force in this analysis, but I do not think it fully explains the (for the moment) naturalistic images of Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan/Late Cycladic I, with which periods we are here concerned. Many of these images seem startlingly new; they seem to express something more of real world forms than new combinations of traditional formulae.

S.A. Immerwahr agrees with the concept of pictorialisation and, like Walberg, sees Minoan landscape paintings as the outcome of an indigenous tradition which had previously moved towards naturalistic representations on seals and pottery (Immerwahr 1990, 30-34, 41). She recognises that the artists of the wall paintings delight in the natural environment and paint recognisable species (Immerwahr 1990, 45), but: "with more artistry than realism" (ibid., 41) and "always tempered by convention or artist's license" (ibid., 50). This formulation is, in effect, close to Walberg's and therefore open, in my view, to reformulation; in particular the concepts of convention and artistic licence may benefit from re-examination.

The theoretical position developed here was already hinted at by E.H. Hall in 1906, in her detailed analysis of Minoan patterns, and by Y.E.G. Kenna, and it has recently been explored by E. Fiandra. In arguing that EM III vase painters created "types of natural forms out of geometric elements" Hall emphasised that "naturalistic designs do not necessarily begin as a realistic reproduction of a particular natural object but as an arrangement of lines which suggest rather than picture natural forms" (Hall 1906, 12). The Furumark-Walberg concept of pictorialisation emerges directly from this. Kenna meanwhile, in his analysis of the motifs of 'talismanic' seals, described "a movement away from verisimilitude, a concern with the basic structure of form" (Kenna 1969, 29). More recently E. Fiandra, analysing design and style in Minoan pottery and the basis of many motifs in nature, writes: "The artist focuses his attention on details which primarily arouse interest, but also admiration. The memory acts as an intermediary in the transfer of the 'form' from the moment of its observation to the moment of its representation. The elements are first selected, then through a simplifying process, identified according to their essential lines, dissected, and finally reassembled according to a free interpretive process" (Fiandra 1990, 118). These are the analytical backgrounds to the position presented here.

The proposition is that, in the part of their work concerned with representation of the real world, Minoan and Theran painters, sculptors and engravers, astonishingly acute and detailed in their observational powers, mentally translated distinct real world identities into images on a representational spectrum which ranged from near naturalistic through to essentialist. By near naturalistic is meant an image closely, though never exactly, copying nature; by essentialist is meant an image which reproduces not literal nature but rather the essential characteristics, including the relative proportions of parts to each other, of a real world form. By noting the essential characteristics of an image we may today be able to identify the real world form, even if with less assurance than in the case of near naturalistic images.

We may now examine a series of plant paintings from Theran, Knossian and Tell el Dab'a murals in relation to the theoretical representational spectrum proposed.

CROCUSES

Among Minoan wall paintings of crocuses those from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos (LM IA) and from Ronom 14 atAyia Triada form the richest collections. Evans's Crocus Panel (1928, 458-459 and fig. 271) (Fig. 1) has clumps of rose-coloured (Evans) crocuses (on an orange ground) above blue coloured ones (on a white ground); below this white band was a deep red band with "tufts of yellow crocuses" (Evans). Evans(1928, 464) alsorefersto white and orange (perhaps the yellow of the panel) crocuses, and the "free choice of colouring". He takes the pink and blue clumps of the panel as arranged in the same formal way and adds: "A careful comparison of the different clumps shows such an amount of conformity in the arrangement of the leaves and flowers as to lead to the conclusion that the repetition of the designs was aided in some artificial manner" (Evans 1928, 458). This observation, based on a small amount of evidence, is fully confirmed by the many formally arranged clumps of crocuses as the field in which the Theran saffron gatherers pick their blooms (Doumas 1992, inside front and back covers, figs. 116, 118, 120, 122-123, 127-129; Pls. 8, 11, 12; Douskos 1980, Marinatos 1987 and Amigues 1988 for saffron collection and use).

M.A.S. Cameron published and illustrated in detail six clear crocus fragments from the House of the Frescoes (Cameron 1968, nos. 30-32, 38-40), with rose-red flowers, dark red styles and olive green leaves on a white ground (Figs. 2 (= Evans 1928, fig. 266B) and 3). Four further fragments had been illustrated in colour by E.J. Forsdyke (1929, 12-13 and frontispiece: e,g,i,k), with pink and red flowers and buds and greenish brown leaves, on a white ground, and white with orange leaves on a red ground. (Flowers very similar to crocuses, orange on a red ground, are called tulips by Forsdyke (1929, frontispiece: j), probably correctly in view of their black anthers, like those of Tulipa orphanidea or T. saxatilis (both found in Crete).) In addition, the part of the House of the Frescoes scene with monkeys includes a clump of sky blue crocuses (Cameron 1967, 50 and pl. IIA (right end)), perhaps those on a white ground referred to above.

To the LM IA House of the Frescoes crocuses we may add, among others, two groups from the LM IB wall paintings of the North Building on the Stratigraphical Museum site at Knossos. The flowers (perianth segments) of one group are painted deep maroon, the styles or style branches red; at the base of the flowers on the outside is a detail seemingly not found in the House of the Frescoes, a pale blue calyx; the tubes and leaves are greyish brown (Fig. 4). The plants are on a yellow ground. From the same room in the building came the fresco of the garlands (Warren 1985). One of the circular garlands consists of pale blue crocuses with long, deep red styles and black, stellate calyces (Warren 1988, fig. 15 centre (monochrome) (Fig. 5 centre).

From Ayia Triada four groups have been published, three of them best studied from Stevenson Smith's publication of Gillieron's astonishingly accurate and brilliant copies in the Fogg Museum of Art (Stevenson Smith 1965, 77-79 and figs. 107-109; Halbherr et al. 1977, fig. 147 for the fourth clump). Two groups have pale flowers on a dark ground (Figs. 6, 8 bottom left piece), two dark on a pale ground (Fig. 7). In all cases the styles (three dark, probably red, one white), a pair to each flower, are prominent; at their tips (stigmas) some are slightly thickened, others divided into tiny branches. They also have calyces, dark on light blooms, light on dark.

On Thera the evidence for crocuses from the wall paintings is tantalisingly defective, in contrast to the frequent and often rather slapdash representations of crocuses on pottery. From House Beta Room 6 one scene shows fragmentary bovines among crocuses (Marinatos 1972, 38; Doumas 1992, fig. 91). The clump illustrated by Doumas is almost wholly restored, with the flowers painted pale blue and with prominent, thinnish red styles. The many clumps of crocuses in the Saffron Gatherers fresco have two pairs of long red styles (not three styles as in nature) and appropriate leaves, but apparently no flowers (perianth segments). However there were flowers originally, still just faintly visible on two clumps.⁽¹⁾ But on the Lustral Basin scene two clumps behind the girl with the injured foot do preserve the flowers, pale purple or lilac in colour (Doumas 1992, fig. 100).

How naturalistic are the Minoan and Theran plants? They show many naturalistic characteristics of crocuses - leaves, leaf size and shape, flower shape and prominent red styles, tube, clustering of blooms - and no one has had any difficulty recognising the genus. Other features do not occur in nature - the rayed or divided calyces, the orange or brown colour of some leaves, the almost regular placing of the clumps. The chromatic choices - deep maroon, red, pink, white, pale/sky blue, pale purple or lilac, and perhaps yellow - could reflect nature, but apart from white and lilac only in a general way, by using the range of the Minoan and Theran palettes to represent generally the bold colours, though never the veining of real world specimens.

Seven species are known from Crete (Mathew 1982; 1983; Turland, Chilton and Press 1993, 177-178) and about the same number (not quite the same species) from the Cyclades (Mathew 1983). If the prominent (emerging beyond the flower), but not excessively long styles on the paintings, with stigmas as described above, are a reflection of nature, then Crocus cartwrightianus, the wild saffron crocus, is relevant (Mathew 1982, 55-56 and pl. 29; 1983, 70; Baumann 1993, pl. 303 (disregard the caption); Blamey and Grey-Wilson 1993, no. 2326 and pl. 170) (Fig. 9), but not C. tournefortii with its single, very long and much branched style (Mathew 1982, 115-116 and pl. 78; Blamey and Grey-Wilson 1993, no. 2331 and pl. 170), not C. sativus with its very long, flopping styles and very long leaves (Mathew 1982, pl. 29a; Blamey and Grey-Wilson 1993, no. 2327 and pl. 170). The upright styles of the Theran Saffron Gatherer's crocuses correspond well to those of C. cartwrightianus, while the Cretan painted ones, again like Crocus cartwrightianus, have highly appropriate stigmas and curve slightly over the tops of the segmems (petals), though less than those of C. sativus. C. cartwrightianus has pale to deep lilac, purple or white flowers, the darker colours being conspicuously veined. C. oreocreticus has pale bluish lilac to purple flowers with darker veining, and their exterior is pale silvery or buff coloured (Mathew 1982, 58-59 and pl. 31). The pale blue calyces of the Knossian LM IB maroon crocuses might just be representing this feature, as may some of the Ayia Triada crocuses(Stevenson Smith 1965, fig.108), though in nature it is the whole outer segment which is silvery or buff; and the styles of Crocus oreocreticus are shorter than those on the paintings.

The conclusions are clear. The crocuses of the wall paintings naturalistically reproduce the flower and leaf shapes, the style form and style colour and two of the flower colours of C. cartwrightianus; with the exception of white, lilac and, if its use is certain, yellow, they do not reproduce the flower colours accurately and they never reproduce the veining; many flowers have an unnatural calyx. The paintings are in fact good examples of representations on the naturalistic side of the naturalistic-essentialist spectrum as defined above, but some of the bold chromatic choices resemble an essential, not naturalistic characteristic of the real world forms. The fact that the Theran plants are growing in an open, rocky location also offers support for identification as C. cartwrightianus, the wild saffron crocus which grows in Attica, the Cyclades and western Crete, and not C. sativus.

LILIES

Two well known lily paintings may be seen to lie even nearer to the naturalistic end of the spectrum than the crocuses, though even the lilies are not fully naturalistic. They are the white Madonna lily, Lilium candidum, in the superb painting from Amnissos (Marinatos and Hirmer 1960, pl. XXII; Cameron 1978, pl. 1; for the plant Hepper 1990, pl. 18; Baumann 1993, pl. 342) (Fig. 10), and the red lilies of the 'Spring fresco' from Akrotiri Delta Room 2 (Doumas 1992, figs. 69-71; Pl. 15). On the lilies of each painting all the elements except one are naturalistic. The Amnissos lilies have the correct (white) colour, upright, trumpet-shaped flowers and multiple blooms of Lilium candidum, but also the strongly recurved petals foreign to this species but normal on species like the red Lilium chalcedonicum (Polunin 1980, pl. 57 no. 1618a; Baumann 1993, pls. 372-374). In turn the red lilies at Akrotiri have the correct colour, extremely recurved petals and relatively few blooms per plant of lilies such as Lilium chalcedonicum, but they also have the upright, trumpet-like form of Lilium candidum flowers and not the pendulous form of those of Lilium chalcedonicum (for which see Fig. 11). The element of hybridism or combining of naturalistic elements of different species was first shown by O. Rackham at the Second International Scientific Congress on Thera and the Aegean World (Rackham 1978, 756). It results in a near but not wholly naturalistic representation in each case. It could, however, be argued that the Minoan and Theran painters simply had a standard way of painting a lily and used red or white in order to make any necessary distinction from the background colour. That may have been so, but such an intention and procedure do not contradict a deliberate approach to observing and representing the details of real world forms, modified in the manner described.

RED-PINK FLOWERS

From Xeste 3 Room 3b upper floor comes a painting of a group of mature women, of whom three are preserved, carrying magnificent bunches of flowers (Marinatos 1976, 36-37 and pls. 65-66; N. Marinatos 1984, 68 and figs. 45-46; Lazarides 1973-74, 24 and pl. 31β-γ; Doumas 1992, figs. 131-134). One of them holds flowers with pink petals outlined in thick red, and a central red dot (Pl. 4). Similar flowers, differing only in their somewhat thinner red outlines and centre consisting of tiny brown dots around a solid blob, also brown, made up one of the circular garlands of the fresco of that name from the LM IB North Building on the Stratigraphical Museum site at Knossos (Warren 1988, pl. 15 left end) (Fig. 5 left). This garland was to the left of that comprising the pale blue crocuses, discussed above. A third painting with an image very close to these Aegean flowers comes from Tell el-Dab'a (Bietak 1994, 50 and pl. 18 A (piece F8) (Fig. 12). It may be suggested that this is a flower, with twelve petals rendered with a red outline of the same proportionate thickness as the Knossian garland flowers, and a gold interior with a solid central red dot, as on the Theran flowers.

Marinatos thought the Theran flowers likely to have been the Cretan cistus from which ladanum is collected (1976, 36-37), Cistus creticus subsp. creticus, rather than wild roses, and I suggested the cistus or Rosa canina for the Knossian flowers (Warren 1988, 24). For the Theran flowers, function, in the form of a gathered and carried bunch, may favour roses rather than cistus, since the latter is not a cut flower and the blooms last only one day. In fact none of the three depictions, with their red outlines, closely or naturalistically represents any plant. Nor, in this case, can we much stress essential charactertics beyond the pink interiors and, at Knossos, the dotted centres. Here then we admit the representations are too general even for an essentialist, let alone a naturalistic identification, even if roses or cistus look the least improbable. A naturalistic representation of Cistus creticus may in fact be identified on the Blue Bird fresco from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos (Evans 1928, pl. XI = restoration painting; the original is less clear), rather than the usually accepted (and as such unique) rose (Fig. 13). The pink petals, dotted centre and absence of outline are just discernible, as well as the green grey leaves and buds, quite closely resembling the real world form (for which Polunin and Huxley 1965, pl. 101; Polunin 1969, 254, no. 787 and pl. 77; Huxley and Taylor 1977, pl. 169; Blamey and Grey-Wilson 1993, 140-141, no. 962 and pl. 83) (Fig. 14). 

PAPYRUS

In the House of the Ladies the south, west and north walls of Room 1 were decorated with tall plants (around 1.30 m. high), perhaps twelve in all, in four groups (Marinatos 1972, 38-39, pl. 94, col. pls. E, F, and rear cover; Doumas 1992, figs. 2-5) (Fig. 15). Their essential characteristics are (1) large size, (2) plain, tall stem, (3) thick leaves springing in an outward curve from the base of the stem to one-third the height of the plant, (4) fan-shaped head with calyx and bract, topped by a row of horizontal anthers, (5) greenish grey colour, with golden bract and anthers, and black for all the plant outlines and for the 'flower' head veins.

Marinatos (1972, 38-39) proposed that here was a representation of the sea daffodil, Pancratium maritimum (Fig. 16). This common and attractive seashore plant has white flowers, several to each flower tube, with stamens topped by horizontal, golden anthers; a long, green flower tube; no calyx; narrow leaves, which are longer than the flower head; a characteristically horizontal, windblown flower position; and a height usually around 0.30 m., but which can reach a maximum of 0.60 m. (Polunin 1969, 510 no. 1673 and pl. 174; Warren 1976, 90 and n.4; Sfikas 1987, 276 and col. pl. on 278; Baumann 1993, 174 pls. 346-347). Of these characteristics the horizontal, golden anthers are present in the painting, as is the general form of the flower, with its dentate upper profile. But most are not, the leaves, stem, calyx and undivided flower head, as well as the flower colour and the size of the painted plant being quite different. I argued in 1977 that the paintings belonged to a large and well known class of representations of papyrus, Cyperus papyrus (Fig. 17), that they are in fact outstanding instances of that class (Warren 1976). At the same date as those from Thera a parallel form occurs in the House of the Frescoes (Evans 1928, figs. 264, 285A; Cameron 1967, 46-57, 69-71, figs. 1 (leafless stems), 3-4 (hybrid papyrus head/reed stems (Fig. 19), for which see also Evans 1928, pl. X, figs. 266c, 285c; Cameron 1968, 30 no. 33. col pl. B3 and fig. 13) and pl. II for considerable additions to the Monkeys and Papyrus painting) (Fig. 18). The papyrus identification for the Theran plants, which also occur on the river scene of the miniature fresco from the West House (Morgan 1988, pls. 6-7, 24, 27 (top left corner), 51, 181), has been accepted by several workers (Rackham 1978, 757; Marinatos 1984, 94-96, 104-105, 127; Morgan 1988, 22; Immerwahr 1990, 209 n.25) and Morgan has published a very full and convincing discussion of Aegean representations (1988, 21-24). C.G. Doumas, however, has recently reverted to S.Marinatos's original identification (Doumas 1992, 34-35, following Baumann 1984/1993, 174 pls. 348-349), on the basis of comparing a completely artificially arranged picture of dried Pancratium flowers, with the outer petals removed and leaves cut and arranged to resemble those of the painting! This does not appear to compare like with like. In any case the great plants of the House of the Ladies are surely not to be thought of as dead and dried, but very much alive and growing; and the points made above against Pancratium still apply. In fact the theory of vision set out in this paper explains the paintings well. They are good examples of essentialism as here defined, showing essential characteristics of the papyrus: tall, plain stem, confinement of leaves to the base of the stem (though not set on the lower part of it as in nature), bracts at the base of the 'flower' head, a fan-shaped head to recall the umbelliferous form of the many-leafed head in nature. L. Morgan has thoroughly discussed these details (Morgan 1988, 21 and fig. 8), adding the ingenious suggestion that the golden 'anthers' of the painting might stand for the tiny florets of the real world form (Morgan 1988, 21-22 and fig. 9). Moreover Evans had already proposed that one of the white flowers on the House of the Frescoes painting represented Pancratium maritimum (Evans 1928, 456, pl. XI (bottom right corner) and figs. 267-269) (Fig. 20). This image is not naturalistic, but does convey essential characteristics of the real world form, especially the divided petals and the long stamens with yellow anthers, and probably (since it is restored) the long flower tube progressing smoothly into the flower. His comparison with the drawn specimen from Sibthorp's Flora Graeca (Evans 1928, fig. 267) (Fig. 21) is apt. These flowers bear no resemblance to the papyrus paintings.

REEDS

Finally, we have an outstanding example of essentialism in the great painting of reeds from Akrotiri, Xeste 3, Room 3b upper floor, presented by A. Vlachopoulos at the Symposium (Vlachopoulos here, vol. II; cf. Doumas 1992, 131 and fig. 135 showing small fragments of reed surrounding the duck). We have noticed above reeds painted separately alongside papyrus and papyrus-reed combinations in the House of the Frescoes at Knossos, but here on Thera we have a magnificent rendering of tall stems and leaf forms in either golden yellow or grey paint, well spaced for visual effect. One need only compare the painting with the fine dense bed of Arundo donax in the old stream bed at the south end of the Akrotiri site to see how essential characteristics of tall reeds are represented, rather than closely naturalistic, densely packed forms.

CONCLUSIONS

A theory of vision, namely that painters observed real world forms in remarkable detail, then selected and transferred into images from their mental spectrum or mind's eye sometimes naturalistic forms, sometimes essential characteristics of what.they had observed, may explain painted forms.

The paintings from Amnissos, Ayia Triada, Knossos, Thera and Tell el-Dab'a discussed here lie at different points along a visual spectrum from near naturalistic to essentialist. The Amnissos and Theran lilies are near naturalistic, the crocuses from all sites and the probable cistus from the House of the Frescoes somewhat less so; the papyrus paintings from Thera and from the House of the Frescoes and the sea daffodils from the latter painting are not naturalistic, but display essential characteristics of their real world forms, here defined as essentialism. The pink flowers with red outlines show characteristics of roses and of Cistus creticus, but are too general for certain identification. The Theran reeds from Xeste 3 are an outstanding example of essentialism. Representation, particularly on the essentialist side of the spectrum, is also affected and effected by other factors such as symbolic value, as in the Egyptian-derived triadic form of the papyrus paintings. In any case, at whatever point a representational image lies on the visual spectrum during the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan/Late Cycladic I period, it owes more to real world forms, to observation of them and to selection of their essential characteristics than to recombinations of older abstract and pictorialised motifs or to convention or artistic licence.

(1). See Doumas 1992, fig. 123 (Pl. 11): the clump on the left edge (behind the women tipping out the crocus styles before the goddess) and that in the top left corner. The original, now very faded colour appears to have been pale blue or pink. Other clumps, for example Doumas 1992, fig. 127, show blank areas around the styles, where the painted flower would have been.

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