Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text

Jaś Elsner

Published by Princeton University Press 2007

Roman Eyes

Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text

Jaś Elsner

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691240244

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Roman Eyes, Jas Elsner seeks to understand the multiple ways that art in ancient Rome formulated the very conditions for its own viewing, and as a result was complicit in the construction of subjectivity in the Roman Empire.

Elsner draws upon a wide variety of visual material, from sculpture and wall paintings to coins and terra-cotta statuettes. He examines the different contexts in which images were used, from the religious to the voyeuristic, from the domestic to the subversive. He reads images alongside and against the rich literary tradition of the Greco-Roman world, including travel writing, prose fiction, satire, poetry, mythology, and pilgrimage accounts. The astonishing picture that emerges reveals the mindsets Romans had when they viewed art--their preoccupations and theories, their cultural biases and loosely held beliefs.

Roman Eyes is not a history of official public art--the monumental sculptures, arches, and buildings we typically associate with ancient Rome, and that tend to dominate the field. Rather, Elsner looks at smaller objects used or displayed in private settings and closed religious rituals, including tapestries, ivories, altars, jewelry, and even silverware. In many cases, he focuses on works of art that no longer exist, providing a rare window into the aesthetic and religious lives of the ancient Romans.

Author / Editor information

Jaś Elsner is Humfry Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Archaeology at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, and Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. His books include Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph and Art and the Roman Viewer.

Reviews

"Jaś Elsner is the predominant contemporary scholar of the relationship between classical art and ancient subjectivity. His is a sensibility particularly attuned to the way in which viewing, desire, social constructions and generic discourses interplay and interact. It is simply impossible not to take his arguments into consideration if one works on Roman material culture and the place of art in literature."—Shadi Bartsch, University of Chicago

"The major virtue of this work, quite simply, is its author. Jaś Elsner is by now one of the most well-known figures in the field of ancient art history, respected for his notable erudition, extensive range of interests and expertise, his continuing productivity, and above all, for the originality of his mind. This volume stands both as a kind of convenient introduction to a number of issues that have engaged Elsner's attention over these last years—and continue to do so—and as a rich feast of sophisticated and often brilliant readings of individual texts and artifacts, always written with clarity and style."—Froma Zeitlin, Princeton University

"A book that is largely a collection of previously published papers runs the risk of presenting a disjointed argument. But that is not the case here. Elsner's revisions have provided a complex, but coherent argument that explores the act of viewing in the GrecoRoman world and makes a number of important observations. The interweaving of text and image, the exploration of cult practice and the discussion of private art in its context means that the book will be of interest to more than those interested in art history. It deserves to find a prominent place in collections dealing with Roman material culture."---John Geyssen, Phoenix

"[V]ery well and clearly written . . . and well presented. . . . Roman Eyes in particular counts as a bargain these days."---Victor Castellani, European Legacy

"The handsomely produced book . . . [is] sure to do much to shift the parameters of Roman 'art history' even further and to enrich its discussion."---Peter Stewart, Art History

"This volume is and will remain a significant contribution to the discourse on Roman art. What it does, it does admirably although it clings tenaciously to a single approach with its own limitations. It is useful as one piece of a complex puzzle about the intentions and reception of art."---Diana E. E. Kleiner, International Journal of the Classical Tradition

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	C
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Prologue Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
1 Between Mimesis and Divine Power Visuality in the Greco-Roman World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1 Ancient Discourses of Art
2. Image and Ritual Pausanias and the Sacred Culture of Greek Art Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
3. Discourses of Style Connoisseurship in Pausanias and Lucian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4. Ekphrasis and the Gaze From Roman Poetry to Domestic Wall Painting Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
Part 2 Ways of Viewing
5. Viewing and Creativity Ovid’s Pygmalion as Viewer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
6. Viewer as Image Intimations of Narcissus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
7. Viewing and Decadence Petronius’ Picture Gallery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
8. Genders of Viewing Visualizing Woman in the Casket of Projecta Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
9. Viewing the Gods The Origins of the Icon in the Visual Culture of the Roman East Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
10. Viewing and Resistance Art and Religion in Dura Europos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Epilogue From Diana via Venus to Isis Viewing the Deity with Apuleius Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303
Index Locorum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335
General Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343