Professor Wickhoff on Roman Art

The Journal of Roman Studies ◽

10.2307/295577 ◽

1917 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 1-26

Author(s):

Percy Gardner

Keyword(s):

Roman Art ◽

History Of ◽

Greek Art ◽

Greek Sculpture ◽

Roman Age

Until recent years, Roman art had not seriously engaged the attention of the historians of art. It had been regarded as a sort of supplementary chapter to Greek art. In his great history of Greek sculpture Overbeck had inserted two or three chapters on the monuments of the Roman age. Collignon in France and Ernest Gardner in England in their works on Greek sculpture only briefly touched on the sculptural monuments of Rome.

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Peopled Scrolls: a Hellenistic Motif in Imperial Art

Papers of the British School at Rome ◽

10.1017/s0068246200006139 ◽

1950 ◽

Vol 18 ◽

pp. 1-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

J. M. C. Toynbee ◽

J. B. Ward Perkins

Keyword(s):

Fourth Century ◽

Roman Art ◽

Religious Symbolism ◽

History Of ◽

Imperial Art ◽

Roman Age ◽

Constituent Elements ◽

Primitive Notion

The peopling of floral scrolls with living creatures is a decorative device which enjoyed unrivalled popularity throughout the whole history of Imperial art and in almost every country of the Empire. Its full cultivation and flowering were achieved in the Roman age; but its roots, like those of nearly every Roman art-motif, are in the late classical Greek and Hellenistic worlds. These roots were varied and complex. The primitive notion of spirits indwelling in trees and plants, and at a later stage personified in visible shape, may have played a part; some of the constituent elements can certainly be traced back to religious symbolism; and more immediate was the influence of the naturalistic trend of fourth-century art, which favoured the idea of rendering birds, insects, and small beasts in their native setting. In Hellenistic and Imperial times, as these elements mingled and the motif became more widespread, fancy came gradually to outweigh fact; and a delight in incongruity for its own sake found ready expression in the peopling of vine- and acanthus-rinceaux with mythological and genre scenes and figures, framed in the foliage or poised on slender stems, or with human figures and such solid quadrupeds as dogs, bulls, horses, bears, panthers, and lions, careering through the leafy whorls or springing from the hearts of flowers.

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The Origin of Verism in Roman Portraits

The Journal of Roman Studies ◽

10.2307/298742 ◽

1955 ◽

Vol 45 (1-2) ◽

pp. 39-46 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Gisela M. A. Richter

Keyword(s):

Recent Theory ◽

Roman Art ◽

History Of Art ◽

History Of ◽

Physical Defects ◽

The Creation ◽

Greek Art ◽

The Many

Was the verism of Roman Republican portraits due to Italic, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, or Greek influence? This question has been much discussed, especially of late. Of particular interest is the recent theory that late Egyptian portraits played a decisive part. In this article I want first to discuss the evidence for the various influences that have been considered potent in the creation of Roman verism, and then try from this evidence to deduce which factor, or which factors, were the most potent. I shall examine in particular the Egyptian and the Greek theories, for in these fields I may perhaps have something new to say, whereas the Italian side has been thoroughly explored.The question at issue is an important one; for, as Schweitzer has said, the birth of Republican Roman portraiture was as momentous a happening in the history of art as was the birth of individualistic representation in Greek art. The many different views that have been held regarding the origin testify to the complexity of the question. If a convincing solution could be obtained, it would clarify, I think, our whole understanding of that great phenomenon—the origin of Roman art.First I must define the word ‘verism’, which has only comparatively recently entered our archaeological vocabulary. Verism I take to mean a somewhat dry realism, a realism which shows the person portrayed as he really is, without idealizing tendencies, with wrinkles and warts and other physical defects, and also, what is more important, with an expression not of a philosopher or poet or visionary, but of what might be called a man of affairs.

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Greek Sculpture

Classics ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0131 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Carol C. Mattusch

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

Ancient Technology ◽

Recent Scholarship ◽

Literary Sources ◽

Architectural Sculpture ◽

History Of ◽

The Subject ◽

Greek Art ◽

Greek Sculpture ◽

History Book

In his History of the Art of Antiquity (1764; Winckelmann 2006 in General Overviews), J. J. Winckelmann proposed a chronology of Greek art based upon style. Following his lead, scholars used ancient literary sources to assign extant freestanding sculptures to artists and to name specific works mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (Book 34 on bronze and Book 36 on marble), and by other ancient authors. Pliny’s separation of artists working in bronze from those working in marble revealed that the Greeks preferred bronze for their public sculpture, whereas it now appears that the Romans more often used marble for sculptures in public and in their homes. Pliny’s division of media and his prejudice against the art of his own times led scholars to distinguish between Greek bronze originals, which rarely survive, and Roman marble copies, of which there are many survivors. Even though this notion is now understood to be overly simplified, textbooks covering classical sculpture still tend to privilege bronzes over marbles. At the same time, Roman marble versions of classical statue types continue to be used as substitutes for lost Greek statues. Recent scholarship takes into account ancient technology, taste, and ancient art markets (Ridgway 1984 in Roman Copies, Modern Adaptations; Mattusch 1996 in Archaizing and Classicizing Sculpture), and modern bias (Donohue 2005 in General Overviews), and, along with traditional stylistic studies, yields a more balanced understanding of freestanding Greek sculpture and a far more revealing picture of Roman sophistication in the production of sculptures in the classical style. Studies of the ancient marble trade may help to pin down some chronological questions that cannot be solved purely on the basis of style and the literary testimonia, and new analyses of such famous works as the Aphrodite of Melos (Hamiaux 1998 in Museum Catalogues) and the widely popular classicizing reliefs of dancing maenads (see Alice A. Donohue, “Ai Bakchai choreuousi: The Reliefs of the Dancing Bacchantes,” Hephaistos 16/17 [1998/1999]: 7–46) are leading to the revision of textbooks. Excellent photographs are a valuable tool for research in this field, and works that have them are so noted, even if the accompanying texts are less useful. Because many works address not just freestanding sculpture and relief but also architectural sculpture they are included here, even though the subject is better suited to consideration with the buildings which the sculptures adorned. General textbooks on Greek art are not part of this bibliography.

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A Silver Dish from the Tyne

The Journal of Hellenic Studies ◽

10.2307/624523 ◽

1915 ◽

Vol 35 ◽

pp. 66-75

Author(s):

P. Gardner

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Fourth Century ◽

Clear Indication ◽

The North ◽

North Bank ◽

History Of ◽

Greek Art ◽

Roman Age ◽

Late Roman

In the Journal of Roman Studies for last year Professor Haverfield gives an account of certain silver vessels of the late Roman age found on the banks of the Tyne, near Corbridge, in the eighteenth century. I wish to discuss in some detail one of these vessels, which has great importance for the history of late Greek art. This is the remarkable dish or lanx found in 1735 on the north bank of the Tyne, now belonging to the Duke of Northumberland, and kept at his castle of Alnwick.Other vessels of silver were found, not with it, but near the same spot: a two-handled cup, a bowl bearing the Christ monogram, a silver basin, a small silver vase. Professor Haverfield has figured these, so far as he could. That all these vases belonged together is probable though not certain. Only one of them bears a clear indication of date, the Christian monogram, in the form which it takes on coins of the Constantine period. This particular vessel one would naturally give to the time of Constantine, that is, to the earlier part of the fourth century. It does not follow that all the vessels are of this date: but as we shall see presently, it is a date not unsuitable for the dish which we are considering.

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