It's Early in the morning, a bit bored so going to share a little about "style" and The Green Jasper Workshop of ancient Northern Syria.
Having several years lapidary experience and shop owner, most notably with high end jaspers and agates, I really appreciate and am in awe of ancient Near Eastern cylinder seal artisan's and as well, more recent 18th and 19th century Chinese lapidaries. I actively research my Syrian ancestry, can't ignore and do acknowledge that somehow that ancestry sees this along with my interest in Early Syrian Gnosticism. In turn, not only guided me to continually learn more about these Near Eastern cylinder seal treasures but also validated that to me by finding a way of gifting a first cylinder seal to me that I wear daily as my own personal and yes, "magical amulet".
In regard to "style", it really is important to learn about different workshops and the artisan's methods and techniques. I can relate to and appreciate what is meant by "recognizing style" and not just in regard to ancient Near Eastern lapidary cylinder seal workshops. Having several years' experience with Chinese antiques I enjoy researching and deciphering "styles" in paintings, calligraphy and motifs for Chinese antiques of different mediums. This has all somehow come full circle for what is now a sincere interest in Near Eastern cylinder seals, especially those of the Old Syrian Popular Style.
There are multiple opinions related to understanding "style", I would like to share a couple. One by Oscar White Muscarella. "Few students learn what to look for (they look but do not see), or how to study artifacts. Many are not taught to perceive the conceptual difference between the components of a scene, the iconography or subject matter, and its style. In fact, few learn about style in the first place. Style (a word - even non-art historians - claim to understand but stutter when asked to define) can be understood here in simple and material terms to mean at the least for how particular polities/peoples uniquely depicted, executed and ordered all the elements and features chosen for representation - body parts, posture, clothing, motifs, material realia, etc., and exactly how they represent these in specific contexts and ambiance. Methods of execution and manufacture must be comprehended and how this changed over time. Sensitivity to style also means recognizing what may or may not be uncanonical, borderland attributes, such as so-called provincial or peripheral styles and workmanship".
Another, in an article by Irene Winder, "The Affective Properties of Styles". "Much of what one can do with style depends upon how one defines style, but rather a range of operative definitions varying with user and analytical task to be performed. For my purposes, I would take the position that once there is anything in the work, we can call form, then there is style. Style is a function of a period, place, workshop, or hand. It is inherent in the work, and it is thus what is apparent".
A little about the "Green Jasper Lapidary Workshop", Middle Bronze Age. The following is a combination of Barbara Porter's, "Old Syrian Popular Style Cylinder Seals", and Dominique Collon's, "First Impressions".
For Syrian cylinder seal workshops of the Middle Bronze Age each city or court had its own seal cutter, and the profession would have been passed down from father to son or master to apprentice, and in that process, some created by the same hand. North Syrian workshop had a distinct regional style that emerged primarily from craft hubs such as Aleppo, Tell Halaf, Carchemish and Arslan Tash that blended local Levantine traditions with Anatolian (Hittite), Mesopotamian and Egyptian influences.
Dominique Collon assessed "The Green Jasper Cylinder Seal Workshop" by the type of stone, subject matter, compositional similarities, style, and the operative elements in defining the workshop. Beatrice Teissier explains some of the variety of perceptions of workshops in Middle Bronze Age Syria as, "as a group of seals showing not only homogeneity of style but also of detail. A distinction should be made between seals that can be attributed to workshops within a defined time period within the Middle Bronze Age and the exceptional Green Jasper Group which lasted with differing styles into the Late Bronze Age, but which nevertheless maintained a tradition of working with jasper".
