SUMMARY. 246 Obraz, umenie a kultúra doby železnej na Slovensku: umelecký a estetický pohľad

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1 246 Obraz, umenie a kultúra doby železnej na Slovensku: umelecký a estetický pohľad SUMMARY Each phenomena, each event or object hides several moments and levels of understanding in itself: it supposes several approaches towards the understanding. The selection of levels of verification should not fully depend only on the will and the decision making of the researcher, but even on the need of the science and the researched topic itself. Especially, if the author requests general (at least certain) validity, or very likely, the complexity of research. In order, any theoretician or researcher, not to neglect his mission, there is no better way than to choose an interdisciplinary approach and look at the researched matter of fact in the whole being of the overall universal fullness and richness. Interdisciplinary approach can work at the first sight in its asymmetrical aspect as disordered and unsystematical, or even anarchistic, regarding the rules and internal relation of particular disciplines. It is not like this. We understand the interdisciplinarity as the communication and understanding of plurality of conceptions, opinions, solutions, various professionals, various sciences and final products. It is the form of dialogue and cooperation of the knowing subjects following the same problem and leading to harmony and deeper knowledge. The result is non-violent harmony with temporary validity and interdisciplinary limit. Interdisciplinarity is the form of verification of validity and functionality of particular method, progress, term usage, principle, etc. through the stretching of the fixed set boundaries of sciences or the form of rationality. It is a temporary number one in terms of the information exchange based on analysis and synthesis, creating various levels of entireness, which are changing and rearranging flexibly. Simpler said, interdisciplinary research follows one problem from different perspectives, what is still shown as the most productive way of theoretical thinking. Prehistory, as the longest and the oldest historical period, followed by primeval ages offers a lot of topics and impulses of theoretical observation, either we research the objects themselves, or we study social and cultural structure of society through them. All the problems of the oldest history are interconnected and we need to look at them entirely from the point of view of structure. Artifacts cannot be fully understood as the forms of art if we do not allow the art and aesthetical theory to express their opinion on them. Without the participation of aestheticians, it is impossible to clarify, for instance, the principle of creation, or contemporary interest in prehistoric art, if we, of course, do not want to understand it just as the reference to the past and nothing else. It is fully understandable that historical development of particular disciplines in former Czechoslovakia (and before in the Austrian-Hungarian Kingdom) and their frequent fight to survive exhausted concerned professionals in the past and did not allow them to look for the new ways of inspecting the problems of archeology, history or numismatics. We focused mainly on the building and the profiling of own science, systematics and methodology, and they (mainly present the generation of theoreticians) found themselves in the trap of mechanized, even though systematically profiled processes. That is also the reason why the submitted work has been striving to fill this vacuum of the participation of theory and aesthetics itself in the research and interpretation of prehistoric artifacts and offer them a well-deserved space for realization. Another motive was to relieve the closure of typological sets at a reflexive level and to show the other and even possible way of how to work with archeological material.

2 Summary 247 Aesthetics is often understood as newer discipline clarifying the need for the presence or its reality, which seems to be distant to a viewer, or in comparison to the contrast, as traditional (practically old-fashioned) science researching and explaining the beauty, or noble, tragic and ugly. This narrowmindedness is not the full coverage of its possibilities and dispositions. Aesthetics as a scientific discipline should follow the reality around us and believe that our world is able to develop and induce the aesthetical states by its every single element and mediate an aesthetical experience to its recipient. Aesthetics researches the richness of our experiences and human existence, impulses, which influence it, but even the states, situations and reactions, which they cause. It also refers to material artifacts in this way, which interact with the man and create his/her experiential, intellectual and spiritual world. The application of similar optics, approaches and researches should (what publication has perhaps proved) be, even though with certain restraints, possible even at the Iron Age in Slovakia. Analysis of material fundament had to be performed by direct research and interpretation of artifacts and head towards the conclusions at the level of visual culture. Character of selected problem required to present even fundamental contextual facts of a given period right next to the aesthetic reevaluation of historical facts and archeological findings. Therefore, in The Picture, Art and Culture of the Iron Age, it is not about a pure aesthetic or artistic research, which is not possible without archeological findings after all, but about some completion of the view on culture of the Iron Age. This fact had reflected even in the segmentation of work, which offers three independent, but logically interconnected units. The first part approaches the opinions on prehistoric artifacts in the literature of Central-European theoreticians. It is not about systematic history, but about intense search for the suitable statements in the researched (chronological and even geographic) area. In spite of the absence of formulated aesthetic conceptions and analysis of prehistoric art/artifacts, authors, whose spontaneous remarks overreached the range of Fine Arts or archeological explanations, appeared. Indications, which often reach central problems of aesthetic research and bring relevant and very interesting opinions. We classify into this group of theoreticians B. Krička (style/taste), V. Ondrouch (imitation/original) and L. Zachar (originality, norm, beauty), whose observations were, otherwise, partial, but all the more interesting. The opinions of Josef Čapek and Jan Dekan are of a great aesthetic potential, because they do not directly refer to the Iron Age, but generally fill their function. It is about the islands of aesthetical opinions, which I divided into aesthetically relevant and irrelevant regarding the correctness of used terminology of researched analysis. A special problem of the researched material presents prehistoric art and its understanding and classification into the history of visual arts. The first attempts to introduce the history of art in Slovakia in 1930 failed (V. Wagner, J. Hofman). An exceptional project was brought by J. Filip in 1941 (Art Craft in Prehistory), where he succeeded to interconnect art terminology and archeological exploration in an extraordinary way. Work aiming and dealing with the problem of prehistoric creativity in Slovakia appears as late as in 1942 (V. Krička), and in spite of its minor size, it approached prehistoric artifacts relatively ambitiously. We cannot omit the successful Polish effort of J. Kostrzewski (1931) The Origins of Human Culture. There were more publications published within the researched thematic directions between 1958 and 1990, but the integration of prehistoric art into the unit of the history of art happened as late as in 1991 by the publication Slovakia in

3 248 Obraz, umenie a kultúra doby železnej na Slovensku: umelecký a estetický pohľad Pictures: Visual Art. This proves that prehistoric artifacts were indeed reflected within technical literature in the context of art, but it was necessary to perform great research, while they acquired a stable place in the history of Slovak art. P. Bujnák and J. Volko- Starohorský thought of prehistory at aesthetic-philosophical level at the beginning of the 20 th century. Among archeologists, especially L. Zachar, K. Pieta (they characterize art by typification and generalization of particular artifacts), J. Filip, V. Budinský-Kríčka, M. Pichlerová (they consider the pottery as the most valuable examples of the art of Slovak prehistory) and the last but not least even J. Bouzek, who is philosophizing on prehistoric creativity, are interesting by their approach to art. Verification of the approach to prehistoric art and analysis of possible ways of understanding of prehistoric art, has brought the author to the opinion, that inductive estimation and individual examination of selected artifacts such as an art, is not scientifically productive and leads nowhere. The reader, but also author, must orientate themselves in material basis and must be able to distinguish artistic objects and objects of cult function. Without determination of borders, without any definition of prehistoric art, we are lost on the academic grounds, especially in reasoning environment of artistic and aesthetic theory. The core section of this work aims to advance the actual discourse in the field of defining the art and the effort to modify it into some theoretically reasonable and even practically functional definition, with the emphasis on the researched time. Theoretical scopes of definition work with analytical tradition (M. Mandelbaum, M. Weitz), functionalistic (D. Ciporanov, N. Goodman, J. Mukařovský, E., M. Zemach), aesthetical (M. C. Beardlsey, R. Stecker), contextual (J. Levinson), institutional (T. Cohen, A. Danto, G. Dickie, S. Davies) and cluster (S. Fokt, B. Gaut, O. Vodă) definitions. It is about relatively controversial, often compromised reflection, which offers the conclusions at two levels. Language, thus discourse, which does not talk about art, but the use of the term itself; (2) definition such as setting the criteria, when we can talk about art. At discourse level, responding to M. Weitz, the art can be understood as art (present understanding of the term and its descriptive use) and art (application of the term respecting prehistoric context of artifacts and evaluative usage of the term). At definition level, I came to cluster-disjunctive definition, which says: Any object of prehistoric world (with the focus on the Iron Age and our perspective of inspection) can be understood as art when it: A) is (1) material, (2) formally complex and coherent artifact made with extraordinary skills, (3) aesthetic or worth, separating from the group of objects of everyday activity, providing an aesthetical experience; B) shows (4) identifiable (meta)artifacts layers and meanings and (5) the presence of triad of functions (aesthetical, symbolic, referential [counts on the change of status of object; it is necessary that a representative of prehistoric art should fill at least one function of triad in every stage]); C) supposes (6) the visibility of form and identifiable relation to other art production of selected historic and cultural stage, (7) referential competency of artifact to mediate complex meanings, limited by the knowledge of context, (8) membership to certain cultural tradition, within which the object represented some standardized and generally accepted status and (9) identifiable aim to create/present aesthetically impressive artifact;

4 Summary 249 D) must (10) be a candidate for the admission of the status of art, (11) be a candidate for the classification to the history of art, (12) contextually hold a position or gain a position in the world of art, or cultural heritage knowing the art, without dissonances; E) and (13) aesthetical understanding is necessary within the reception. Within cluster-disjunctive definition, thirteen categories have been made in this way, divided into five groups, which follow their unique internal relationship. From the above mentioned requirements, group A and E have the necessary character, or present criteria, which are common, but even independently obligatory. Group B presents disjunctive criteria, which are mutually represented. The rest criteria groups C and D present satisfactory conditions, while particular conditions of the art objects identification are not necessary individually. The whole group of attributes as such is necessary for the application of definition, as all the criteria do not need to be fulfilled; however, at least one criterion of group C and D has to be fulfilled. The application of theoretical discoveries of the first two entities and The Picture, Art and Culture of the Iron Age in Slovakia can be found in the last part of the article. In terms of the rules of research of the known and the latest discoveries, we have the most approaching cultural situation of the Iron Age, filled with notified aesthetical participation, mostly in the form of significant, or aesthetic interpretations of particular artifacts. This interconnection is the result of the effort to present monolithic entity, in spite of its limited parts, which does not use the realms of the Iron Age as illustrative material for the development of certain theories, but really interconnects aesthetic, historical and artistic-scientific approaches. This article is, in terms of archeological exploration, divided into the Hallstatt and the La Tène period; the greatest emphasis out of Slovakia is on the ethnicities of Thracians, Scythians and Celts, as the entities, which significantly intervened the researched area. Research material became a scope for the verification of the relevance of more theories, for instance: formalism, functionalism, structuralism, semiotics, etc. From an aesthetic point of view, figural painting of Kalenderberg culture presents very considerable material of exploration, which confirms internal integrity through culturally given contents, but indexes the internal dynamics beginning with keeping the normative rules. In fact, in case of aesthetic norm on contextual and fashionably preferred form of decoration, which satisfies aesthetic needs of society, but is also open to external impulses and changes. Those, as it is shown, come slowly (within one culture) and continuously change and transform the form (the most often the formal one) of artistic artifact. It is about continuous and gradual regeneration and actualization of the valid aesthetic norm. The vegetable motive of a tree rises from such a decoration arranged by norm. Formally, in all analyzed scenes of Kalenderberg culture, it is about sophisticated stylization in accordance with the abstraction and geometricism representing essential elements of visual similarity. Basically, the author of particular scenes strongly abstracted what was seen till he achieved the use of essential (standardized) universal symbols. In prehistory and the early days of history, the aesthetic form had ambiguous character: (1) it was about the type of energy, which could not be limited for a long time; (2) creativity and freedom in art practice was limited by a certain amount of slowly changing rules, which, indeed, are not normative, but chronologically have temporal and spatially

5 250 Obraz, umenie a kultúra doby železnej na Slovensku: umelecký a estetický pohľad limited validity in an unchanged form. It is visible mainly in the change of artifacts and pottery decorative techniques of particular cultures from a long-term point of view. The problem of understanding of artistic artifacts is complicated by destroyed statuettes, such as the sculpture from Hrčeľ. Recent interventions generally have aesthetically significant impact, while this negativistic meaning does not need to be a deficiency, neither a handicap of such a change. Interventions, which we interpret as intentional, can hold certain significance (information) with it, which is not related neither to form, nor to content of the destroyed object, even though it influences it, but directly to the act of destruction of a particular artifact. The act of destruction of artifacts can be a bearer of a significance, as well as potential aesthetic qualities, which can be assessed at two levels: (1) the prehistoric man could perceive a certain act of destruction (ritual ceremony, during which even the researched objects were destroyed and then stored piously) can be understood as the termination of a particular tendency, tradition, cycle of operation and functionality object purpose; (2) the current recipient who identifies the act of destruction itself as a part of cult practices, searches the meaning in this act, which can be theoretically expressed only in general terms. At the same time, discovery, or knowledge on the intentionality of destruction works as stimulus/moment, which influences on the aesthetic understanding and forces a member to include him/her into interpretation. The contrast in pottery production is interesting, among Thracian Scythian environment and original domestic cultures. Domestic background has improved pottery processes and shapes for the centuries, when domestic potters produced and reached unprecedented perfection. However, around the 6 th century BC, material basis had changed and in spite of the fact that for Thracian Scythian horizon is typical rather a metal good, pottery proves radical change in preference. Aesthetical function leaves its dominant position (as it was for instance in the case of Kalenderberg culture) and holds only a secondary, additional role. However, the new cultural circle paradoxically uses more ideal production technology, but at the same time returns back to older, outworn, thicker and simpler shapes. On the other hand, other cultures producing pottery by hands, but with incomparably masterpiece result, were introduced in Slovakia. The aesthetic norm of the Thracian Scythian period had a form of combined recommendations of domestic and foreign tradition. In spite of preferring the Thracian Scythian norm, the task to make the products according to the ruling taste had been performed by domestic craftsmen based on their own experiences this stands mainly for the first generation of producers, who produced the goods of previous tradition, thus we talk about the transition period. Also it seems the later generations produced the goods according to older patterns and hence, the native, original element has never disappeared from the applied aesthetic norm, even though thethracian Scythian one became dominant. Working with structuralist methodology, it was necessary to introduce a working term of archeo-context, which does not identify only the original meanings, but reveals even the ways of identification of original meanings and takes care of a contemporary understanding at the same time. The plastic holder of Celtic culture from Slovenská Nová Ves in a shape of a hog enabled to confront the structuralist approach and iconographic interpretation. We could summarize that if it was about a cult artifact in the researched case, which should provide a wandering/outlasting the life even after death and maybe to open the gate of a new world or to prove the return of deceased, we cannot miss the composition of this detail into the evaluation of artifact. We can see the stylized hog, which is different from the other images typical for the Celtic world and has a significant

6 Summary 251 place in Celtic animal pantheon, as a specific representative of foreign influences. The hog, as Celtic myths say, crossed the worlds and allured/accompanied the hunters to the other bank, he was a traveller. He came to our territory as well. He did not find any response and understanding among us, as a foreign element belonging to a not so foreign culture. He could accompany a deceased to the other world and be his companion on the journey through the afterlife. As a guardian, as a guide. The archeo-context of imaging of the hog clearly illustrate the relationship to the other world, but also shows the selfassertion, which the hog presented. The article concludes the problem of Celtic coinage, which expanded very well during the La Tène period in Slovakia. The author revaluates terminological correctness of the marking of particular events/scenes together with illustrating the article and images. He mutually compares and confronts semiotic significance and the essence, where he considers: realistic presentation, stylized presentations, symbol, sign and ornament. When assessing the type of presentation, he knows how to theoretically explain particular terms in the same way, important even for the understanding of Celtic culture, which is internally and structurally immune towards our information and reflections. I hope that the presented book sufficiently defended aesthetic independency of prehistory and prehistoric artifacts. Maybe, it confirmed that the structure of prehistoric world was not simpler than the present reality and that to look at prehistoric artifacts through the optics of aesthetic research is irrelevant and even necessary for historical discourse. Above the technical analyses, prehistoric production, as it was presented, holds the position of a fully-valued member of aesthetic experience, which can happen only in case of presented interest from the side of the recipient and in case of layered perception. The presented publication proves the worth, but even the uniqueness and complexity, as well as miscellaneousness of art of the Iron Age in Slovakia on the example of artistic landmarks of the Iron Age.