Cycladic art

Cycladic art , Bronze Age art of the Cyclades , an island group of the central Aegean. Early tomb remains include several types of jugs, pots, and bowls decorated in geometric designs, as well as figural sculptures made of marble. The latter are predominantly female fertility figures of many sizes, restrained in expression and refined in execution. They are frontal and geometric in style. Figures of musicians have also been discovered. In pottery of the 17th cent. BC, found at Phylakopi in Mílos, considerable Minoan influence is discernible (see Minoan civilization ). Cycladic art was absorbed by the Mycenaeans c.1400 BC (see Mycenaean civilization ).

Bibliography: See studies by C. Dovmas (1981) and P. Getz-Preziosi (1987).

Cycladic. Name applied to the Bronze Age art and civilization of the Cyclades (a group of islands in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey), flourishing from about 2500 bc to about 1400 bc, when the islands began to be assimilated into Mycenaean culture. Surviving Cycladic art consists mainly of various types of decorated pottery and of white marble figurines (marble was abundant on the islands, particularly Naxos and Paros). The figurines (of uncertain purpose) are often of a distinctive type, in which the forms of body and facial features are pared down to a radically elegant simplicity that has greatly appealed to modern taste (they have been much forged). Because of the extensive maritime activities of the natives of the islands, Cycladic art was widely disseminated throughout the Mediterranean.