International Congres Archaeology and Rock Art - La PAZ, 20-25 Juny 2012
Monday May 14 2012
Place: International Congres Archaeology and Rock Art Session III Aesthetics and Rock Art - La PAZ, 20-25 Juny 2012
Author: Marta Bazzanella, Giovanni Kezich, Luca Pisoni
Institution: Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina
Adress: via Mach, 2 I-38010 San Michele all'Adige (TN)
Contact: martabazzanella@gmail.com
Website of the event: www.siarbcongress.org
Adio pastori! Ethics and aesthetics of an alphabetized pastoral subculture. The case of Fiemme in the Eastern Alps (1680-1940).
The slopes of Mt. Cornon were subject in the recent past to intensive use in a local economy based on forestry, tillage and grazing. Down through the centuries, the shepherds working in the area left thousands of inscriptions on the rock using the red ochre.. The most common types of inscription were initials, abbreviations, dates, names, animal head counts, drawings, sacred images, doodlings and greetings. In contrast to pre- and proto-historic rupestrian art, the original meaning of our graphemes is still accessible for the reason that some of the last authors of the writings are alive.
The writings specifically make use of alphabetic signs and numbers, as a significant display of the acquired ability to write,. In this perspective, the recurrent “tag”-like format of the shepherd-writers, not unlike that of the contemporary graffiti-writers of the metropolitan suburbs, can be seen as the embodiment of a specific aesthetic of self-esteem, group distinction and individual pride, and as the specific voice of a community of marginal workers exiled on the mountain flanks. This perspective, which is directly linked to that of the social sharing of the aestethic of writings, can be made more general, and projected into the most distant past.
