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Swallow Imagery in the Spring Fresco Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee Volume 6 Issue 1 Article 14 April 2015 Swallow Imagery in the Spring Fresco Chloe Lovelace University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit Recommended Citation Lovelace, Chloe (2015) "Swallow Imagery in the Spring Fresco," Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee: Vol. 6 : Iss. 1 , Article 14. Available at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit/vol6/iss1/14 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Volunteer, Open Access, Library Journals (VOL Journals), published in partnership with The University of Tennessee (UT) University Libraries. This article has been accepted for inclusion in Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee by an authorized editor. For more information, please visit https://trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit. Pursuit: The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee Copyright © The University of Tennessee PURSUIT trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit Swallow Imagery in the Spring Fresco CHLOE LOVELACE Advisor: Dr. Aleydis Van de Moortel The Spring Fresco, or the fresco of the Room of the Lilies, from the Delta Complex at the Late Bronze Age site of Akrotiri is considered to be the first painting of a nature scene in European art history. With this has come significant analysis of the fresco, which covers three walls of the small room. There has been much discussion regarding the room’s purpose and the iconographic meaning of the images in the fresco, especially in regards to the flying swallows. Initially thought to be birds in courtship, the birds are now thought to be engaging in behavior that is much more substantive. Present scholarly opinion is divided about whether they display parental or combative behavior. However, neither of these explanations fully accounts for all the bird behavior depicted in this room or for the birds’ relationship to the other components of the painting: the lilies and the multi-colored rocks. Moreover, neither interpretation accords well with the purported cultic function of the room. This paper seeks to ofer an alternative explanation of the swallows and the lilies as representations of the cycle of life. This interpretation accounts for all of the swallow and lily images in the room and it fits its cultic context much better, thus providing a deeper and more holistic understanding of the entire assemblage. 149 150 LOVELACE Introduction The town of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Thera in the archipelago of Santorini was destroyed by a volcanic eruption early in the Late Cycladic I phase. Its inhabitants deserted the settlement for safer grounds, anticipating the eruption, and all that is left are the material remains of a once-thriving Cycladic culture. Because of the town’s Plinian demise, Akrotiri is the most well-preserved site of the Bronze Age Aegean. Excavations from 1967-1975 led by Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos brought to light the vibrancy of the town, in part as a result of the discovery of a myriad of frescoes located in various buildings of the site. Because of their natural preservation and the concerted efforts of Marinatos and his successors, Akrotiri allows archaeologists and art historians to search for consistent decorative motifs and iconography throughout the town, as well as trace the cultural relations between the Cycladic peoples and Minoan Crete. There are several complexes with wall paintings in the town, including the West House, House Beta, Xestes 3 and 4, The House of the Ladies, and the Delta complex. The Delta complex (partially shown in Fig. 1) is architecturally unremarkable and provides little new information regarding Cycladic daily life not already exhibited by the West House and the Xeste complexes. However, artistically, it houses one of the most important frescoes in Akrotiri, named the Spring Fresco by Marinatos, or the Room of the Lilies.1 Fig. 1: Map of the Delta Complex at Akrotiri (Palyvou 1986: 190, Fig. 9). The Spring Fresco was found in Delta 2, a small interior room in the north part of the Delta complex. It measures only 2.30 meters by 2.50 meters, and has a door fanked by a window in its east wall.2 Because of its location nestled in between much larger spaces of the Delta complex and its thick walls relative to the other rooms,3 it is unlikely that the room was intended for frequent public use, as it would not have been ft for heavy foot traffc.4 The fresco covers the north, south, and west walls of the room and shows lilies blooming atop craggy multi-colored rocks. Among these fowers, there are swallows fying independently and in pairs (Fig. 2). The swallows are the main focus of contention in the modern debate about the iconographic meaning of the fresco. Originally considered by Marinatos to be mating birds,5 present scholarly opinion is divided about whether they display parental or combative behavior. Mary B. Hollinshead believes the birds show a display of affection only ft for the adult-fedging relationship,6 whereas Karen Foster contends that the birds are engaging in aggressive behavior, Pursuit: The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee Swallow Imagery 151 which may be symbolic of the potential violence of the overarching Minoan culture.7 None of these interpretations fully accounts for all of the bird’s behavior or for their relationship to the other components of the paintings--the lilies and the rocks. This paper will offer an alternative explanation of the fresco. It will be argued that both the birds and the lilies are representative of the cycle of life, rather than of spring time. This analysis will incorporate the volcanic rock formations as well, which are often overlooked in studies of the painting. Fig. 2: The Room with the Spring Fresco, or the Room of the Lilies (Morgan, 2005:Plate 1.2) The appearance of the lilies lends the fresco an appearance of springtime imagery, which has contributed to a scholarly consensus that the room was likely used for cultic purposes, with the painting showing the “religious signifcance of the natural world”.8 This interpretation is already found in Marinatos’ excavation notes, which associated the nature of the painting with a spring festival worshipping the Spring Goddess of Nature.9 The notion of such a festival does not accord well, however, with the smallness and isolated character of the room, which had little room for many people to view or visit. Rather, it is more reasonable to assume that it served a private cultic function.10 The objects found inside the room, which included a wooden bed, vessels and vases of variable shapes and sizes as well as a leaf shaped knife and the handle of a bronze frying pan11 are not intrinsically cultic items, and rather suggest a use as a domestic space. However, because of the room’s location on the ground-foor level, it is unlikely that it would have been constructed as a private domestic room, as all other domestic spaces in the town were located on the upper level of complexes.12 Further, because of its elaborate wall decorations, it is unlikely to have been originally a storage space, even though storage spaces were located on the ground or basement foors. The Spring Fresco is the only painting of its caliber on a ground-foor level structure at Akrotiri. With the given evidence, scholars have concluded that room Delta 2 had initially been used as a cultic or religious space13 and then fell into disuse and became a storage area, either before or at the time of destruction.14 This conclusion seems to be the most plausible explanation for the array of materials found in the Volume 6, Issue 1 152 LOVELACE room, and still allows for a cultic function of the wall painting. Iconography: previous interpretations Debate about the iconographic signifcance of the painting is directly associated with the room’s function, as both topics inform one another. Spyridon Marinatos believed that the swallows in the scene were courting one another; the pairs of swallows were depicted in a ritualistic fight pattern whereas the individual birds were fying in search of prospective mates. His daughter Nanno Marinatos proposed that the room served a religious function by offering a beautiful place in which to contemplate thoughts regarding nature and perform cultic tasks, utilizing the nature scene as a backdrop.15 Images of birds are generally considered to carry religious symbolism in the Bronze Age Aegean. Sometimes birds are indicative of the presence of a deity, and this further contributed to the idea that the room served a religious purpose. However both interpretations focused only on the swallows and did not lead to a complete understanding of the room. Moreover, they took the Spring Fresco at face value as merely a tool of decoration. By assuming that the birds are in the process of courtship, the belief is established that swallows exist in the painting for whimsy, or for artistic license, rather than for an actual purpose. Since other paintings from Akrotiri and Minoan Crete are not primarily decorative, but intentional and symbolic, I believe that an interpretation of the birds as having a passive decorative function in the room would be inconsistent with the iconographic record of that time. A very different explanation is offered by Hollinshead in her 1989 article, “The Swallows and Artists of Room Delta 2 at Akrotiri, Thera.”16 She argues that the swallows exhibit parental behavior rather than romantic love or courtship. Hollinshead specifcally looks at the pair of birds on the north wall who are fying towards one another, beaks touching (Fig.
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