Introduction
The study of form or morphology is one of the fundamental bases of classification analysis in the archaeology of art. Unlike anthropology that denied the study of art almost entirely until the 1960s (Morphy 1994), archaeology of art was established at the beginning of the twentieth century. It began with the study of form as general configuration of the object, to establish the first typological or stylistic classifications of the “primitive,” prehistoric, or exotic arts. Today, recent trends linked to material culture studies allow us to go beyond initial, essentially descriptive and functional, approximations of these visual artifacts to deal with form in its material dimension.
Definition
Form, in archaeology of art, is defined as the fundamental physical property of an object, from its material composition to its constructive composition and contrast with its environment. In the archaeology of art, the study of form corresponds with the analyses of the different...
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Further Reading
Corbey, R. & R. Layton. 2006. Archaeology and art, in J. Bintliff (ed.) A companion to archaeology. London and New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Morphy, M. & M. Perkins. (ed.) 2006. The anthropology of art. London and New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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Sepúlveda, M. (2014). Form in the Archaeology of Art. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_783
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