Nadia Jijina
The State Hermitage Museum; Saint Petersburg State University, Russia
The problem of style development belongs to the mainstream of art research. Discussion on presuppositions and circumstances of the development of such an important phenomenon as an artistic style has been kept on for centuries. Volumes are devoted to major styles in European art. Yet, for the art of the Classical world, the collocation of “provincial art” up to now remains just a combination of words instead of getting the status of a term. At first glance, due to its ordinary sounding and common sense meaning, these widespread words need no additional theoretic comprehension. Still, it seems likely that it is worth working out an exact definition and strict criteria for this uncertain, but significant notion.
Discussion about art of the North Pontic area brings us to the idea that category of style in this remote province of the Classical world includes contradictory components like the Classical, basically Greek one, and the local — barbarian, which lies far from the Hellenic concepts of beauty, harmony and ideal.
In this context the word “provincial” by no means sounds negative, but we pose a question: where is the fine line beyond which art changes into craft? Is it possible to use the collocation “barbarian taste” as a scholarly term? Does a new artistic continuity originate from the interaction of diverse cultures like seen from the history of graeco-barbarian contacts in the North Pontic region?
In the author’s opinion, the analysis of some plaster-cast applique used to decorate Bosporan wooden sarcophagi during the early ages CE, helps us come to at least one of the ways to define the notion of “provincial style” as applied to the items dating back to Classical Antiquity.