L’art des Cyclades by Christian Zervos in Context

When Christian Zervos published L’art des Cyclades in 1958, art critics and connoisseurs loved it. By contrast, archaeologists remained from cautiously indifferent to critical, until Colin Renfrew’s work allowed the book to resurface in 1991. This paper examines Zervos’ work on the early Cyclades and its reception as a publication that presents prehistoric artifacts as expressions of an artistic spirit, rather than as sources of information about past ways of life. Zervos as an author is seen as a social actor that functioned, conversed and intersected with other persons and groups, theories, agendas and practices of both archaeological research and art connoisseurship during the post-war period in Greece. The clash between Zervos and Christos Karouzos as well as Spyridon Marinatos, then doyens of Greek archaeology, sheds light upon the archaeological and heritage discourses during the crucial period of the recovery of the country from the devastating effects of World War II.