5th year art history notes - For Friday

Please take down the following notes into art history copies for Friday 30th Nov. 

The Bronze Age (2000 BC – 500BC)

The changes that marked the arrival of a new culture in Ireland began in the north and east of the country.  Burials of cremated human remains under the cover of a new type of pottery, often in a stone – lined cist grave, mark the arrival of the beaker people, called after their distinctive pottery.  During the Early Bronze Age, stone age culture survived for some time in the south and west of the country, while Bronze Age society and technology were developing in the north, east and midlands.

The clear differences between bronze age and stone age art suggest that the people who developed metal technology in Ireland were of a different culture to the stone age people.  The Beaker people originated in mainland Europe and probably came in search of copper and gold deposits.  There is certainly evidence of Irish gold and copper being traded into Europe and Britain, which suggests links with the wider European community.

The nature of the decoration on bronze age objects is fundamentally different from stone age design; it is the result of combining basic geometric shapes with the most up to date technology of the time.  Metal was cast, hammered, twisted and cut into shapes to create the range of forms preferred by the bronze age artists.  Forms and designs were created by mechanical means using a compass and straight edge rather than the freehand designs found in stone age art.

Bronze Age structures (architecture)

The design of tombs changed during the bronze age and suggests a new type of culture in Irish society.  In the greater part of the country, the dead were laid to rest in pits. These usually took the form of a small stone – lined box about a metre in length which contained an upturned pot with cremated remains underneath.  In the west of Ireland, wedge tombs, which were related to the court cairns built in the stone age, were still being constructed.  None of these burial sites had the drama of the Stone age monuments. 

Ceremonial sites made of circular earthen banks of standing stones and hilltop forts are now regarded as Bronze Age structures that continued to have been little practiced except for a few examples of rock art found in counties Cork, Kerry and Donegal.  Designs were very simple, mainly little hollow cup marks surrounded by circles, sometimes with radiating lines.  Little remains of bronze age human settlement.  Houses and fences seem to have been made of wood, which would have rotted away over the centuries, though evidence of a widespread population has survived through burial sites and finds of bronze age objects.

Metalwork

Mining for gold and copper was carried out at a number of locations in Ireland during the Bronze Age.  Evidence of Bronze Age metalworking has been found at Mount Gabriel in Co. Cork, the Vale of Avoca in Co. Wicklow and in the Mourne mountains.  It was low technology mining.  Gold was probably found in nuggets or by panning alluvial deposits in rivers.  Copper was mined by roasting ore- bearing rock with fire and cracking it by throwing cold water on it.  The broken stone would then be dug out and the bits with the highest concentration of copper oxides would be selected and smelted over a charcoal fire.  The resulting molten copper was poured into stone moulds and cast into the shapes of axes, knives, sickles of whatever shape was required.  As technology improved, more sophisticated moulds were made and tin (imported from England) was mixed with the copper to make the alloy bronze.  Bronze is harder than copper and can hold a sharp edge for longer.