Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T20:18:10.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Art and Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2021

Michael Squire
Michael Squire*
Affiliation:
King's College London, UK
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For many, the era of COVID-19 has been short of colour. All the more reason, perhaps, to welcome this round-up's starter for ten: a multihued survey of polychromy in Roman portraiture. Facing the Colours of Roman Portraiture is a book that really does lend itself to being judged by its cover: as we turn the volume from back to front, a marble portrait magically metamorphoses between battered original and technicolour reconstruction.

Type
Subject Reviews
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , October 2021 , pp. 329 - 341
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Facing the Colours of Roman Portraiture. Exploring the Materiality of Ancient Polychrome Forms. By Amalie Skovmøller. Image & Context 19. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020. Pp. xi + 361. 198 colour illustrations. Hardback £118, ISBN: 978-3-11-056366-5.

2 In this connection, it is worth noting one forthcoming book in particular: W. Fitzgerald, The Living Death of Antiquity. Neoclassical Aesthetics (Oxford, 2021).

3 The main debt here is to S. Bussels, The Animated Image. Roman Theory on Naturalism, Vividness and Divine Power (Leiden, 2012).

4 The author here refers to an earlier contribution: A. Skovmøller and B. Hildebrandt, ‘Multi-Sensory Encounters: The Aesthetic Impact of Roman Coloured Statues’, in E. O'Brien and H. Hunter-Crawley (eds.), The Senses and Visual Culture from Antiquity to the Renaissance (London, 2019), 53–5.

5 For the point, in the context of a statue that is given key programmatic significance in Skovmøller's introduction (15–20), see Squire, M. J., ‘Embodied Ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus’, Art History 36 (2013), 242–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 263–4. In the context of polychrome Archaic Greek sculpture, see Dietrich, N., ‘Framing Archaic Sculpture: Figure, Ornament and Script’, in Platt, V. J. and Squire, M. J. (eds.), The Frame in Classical Art. A Cultural History (Cambridge, 2017), 270–316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Painting, Poetry, and the Invention of Tenderness in the Early Roman Empire. By Hérica Valladares. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. xviii + 247. 92 b/w illustrations, 8 colour plates. Hardback £75, ISBN: 978-1-108-83541-1

7 Fundamental on this relationship (and perhaps underplayed in Valladares account?) is A. Grüner, Venus Ordinis. Der Wandel von Malerei und Literatur im Zeitalter der römischen Bürgerkriege (Paderborn, 2004).

8 Strangely, Kampen's last monograph goes without reference in the book: Kampen, N. B., Family Fictions in Roman Art. Essays on the Representation of Powerful People (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar.

9 Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art. By Kristen Seaman. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xv + 186. 49 b/w illustrations, 8 colour plates, 1 map. Hardback £75, ISBN: 978-1-108-49091-7.

10 Elsner, J. and Meyer, M. (eds.), Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Seaman, K. and Schultz, P. (eds.), Artists and Artistic Production in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussion, see my review in G&R 67.1 (2020), 103–7.

12 Note here that some have doubted even the first-century ad date for Theon's Progymnasmata: for an argument for a late antique date (cited at 136, n. 21), see Heath, M., ‘Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata’, GRBS 43 (2002), 129–60Google Scholar.

13 A Short History of the Etruscans. By Corinna Riva. Short Histories. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. Pp. xx + 261. 77 b/w illustrations. Hardback £45, ISBN: 978-1-7807-6616-4; paperback £14.99, ISBN: 978-1-7807-6615-7.

14 C. Smith, The Etruscans. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2014). I wonder what the author would make of Riva's dismissive summary that the book was ‘written by an ancient historian’ (xiii).

15 Aegean Bronze Age Art. Meaning in the Making. By Carl Knappett. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xvi + 248. 90 b/w and colour illustrations. Hardback £34.99, ISBN: 978-1-108-42943-6.

16 P. Adrych, R. Bracey, D. Dalglish, S. Lenk, and R. Wood, Images of Mithra (Oxford, 2017).

17 Vessels. The Object as Container. Edited by C. Brittenham. Visual Conversations in Art and Archaeology. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 178. 97 b/w and colour illustrations. Hardback £30, ISBN: 978-0-19-883257-7.

18 Conditions of Visibility. Edited by R. Neer. Visual Conversations in Art and Archaeology. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 150. 66 b/w and colour illustrations. Hardback £30, ISBN: 978-0-19-884556-0.

19 Figurines. Figuration and The Sense of Scale. Edited by Jaś Elsner. Visual Conversations in Art and Archaeology. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xvi + 189. 79 b/w and colour illustrations. Hardback £30, ISBN: 978-0-19-886109-6.

20 For a related recent interrogation of the point, see the essays in J. Elsner (ed.), Comparativism in Art History (London, 2017).

21 Figurines in Hellenistic Babylonia. Miniaturisation and Cultural Hybridity. By Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 320. 109 colour and 12 b/w illustrations, 1 map. Hardback £75, ISBN 978-1-108-48814-3.

22 Painting, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Rome. By Nathaniel B. Jones. Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xviii + 291. 74 b/w and 15 colour illustrations. Hardback £75, ISBN: 978-1-108-42012-9.

23 Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity. Between Reading and Seeing. By Sean V. Leatherbury. London, Routledge, 2020. Image, Text, and Culture in Classical Antiquity. London, Routledge, 2020. Pp. xv + 366. 96 b/w and 30 colour illustrations. Hardback £120, ISBN: 978-1-4724-5918-3.

24 Roman Architecture and Urbanism. From the Origins to Late Antiquity. By Fikret Yegül and Diane Favro. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi + 897. 828 b/w illustrations, 32 colour plates, 7 maps. Hardback £230, ISBN: 978-0-521-47071-1.

25 Engraved Gems and Propaganda in the Roman Republic and under Augustus. By Paweł Gołyźniak. Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 65. Oxford, Archaeopress Publishing, 2020. Pp. viii + 606. 1015 (mostly) colour illustrations, 52 maps, 29 charts. Hardback £90, ISBN: 978-1-78969-539-7.

26 See <http://archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id=%7BF81E84A2-AEA8-4EBF-A141-8E57469A3E07%7D>, accessed 22 June 2021.

27 Casting the Parthenon Sculptures from the Eighteenth Century to the Digital Age. By Emma M. Payne. London, Bloomsbury, 2021. Pp. xii + 212. 93 b/w illustrations. Hardback £85, ISBN: 978-1-3501-2034-1.

28 Cornua de Pompéi. Trompettes romaines de la gladiature. Edited by Christophe Vendries. Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2019. Pp. 124. 60 b/w and 74 colour illustrations. Paperback €32, ISBN: 978-2-7535-7895-2.

29 Polis, Platz und Porträt. Die Bildnisstatuen auf der Agora von Athen im Späthellenismus und in der Kaiserzeit (86 v. Chr.–267 n. Chr.). By Silvio Leone. Urban Spaces 9. Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020. Pp. x + 276. 133 b/w illustrations. Hardback £109, ISBN: 978-3-11-065283-3.

30 Troy on Display. Scepticism and Wonder at Schliemann's First Exhibition. By Abigail Baker. London, Bloomsbury, 2020. Pp. xi + 263. 39 b/w illustrations. Hardback £85, ISBN: 978-1-7883-1358-2.

31 A. Villing, L. Fitton, V. Donnellan, and A. Shapland (eds.), Troy. Myth and Reality (London, 2019). Other recent relevant titles include N. Mac Sweeney, Troy. Myth, City, Icon (London, 2018), and J. Haywood and N. Mac Sweeney, Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War. Dialogues on Tradition (London, 2018).

32 The Torlonia Marbles. Collecting Masterpieces. Edited by Salvatore Settis and Carlo Gasparri. Milan, Electa, 2020. Pp. 336. Colour illustrations. Hardback €39, ISBN: 978-88-918-2925-2. The catalogue is also available in Italian, along with a bilingual ‘guida breve’ (non vidi).

33 Visconti, P. E., Catalogo del Museo Torlonia di Sculture Antico, third edition (Rome, 1880), 6Google Scholar.