Kilmer, 'Oxford History of Classical Art', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9410
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9410-kilmer-oxford
John Boardman (ed.), The Oxford History of Classical Art.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. 378; 396 numbered b&w
plus 7 unnumbered illustrations, 28 colour), 3 maps. $45.00. ISBN
0-19-814386-9.
Reviewed by Martin F. Kilmer -- University of Ottawa
An Editorial Preface gives the rules: the pictures form the
meat of this meal; extra spices, vegetables, and pasta or
potatoes come from the written matter. The editor's Introduction
(ch. 1) sets out to explain the meaning(s) of the title chosen
for the book: there will be nothing on the Mycenaeans; we shall
virtually ignore the Etruscans [why, since Geometric and Archaic
Greece are covered?]; Christian art of the later empire will get
short treatment because it is too important to deal with
en-passant.
The first text chapter (2) shows a significant benefit to be
gained from the limitations Boardman has imposed. Alan
Johnston best known for his works on Greek letters, letter-forms,
and literacy, and his books and articles on trade and
trademarks writes on Pre-Classical Greece. There is a capsule
description of the Geometric period and more leisured dealing
with Orientalizing (artistic trends; birth of literature and
literacy; developments in government and in warfare). The
Archaic period sculpture, architecture, pottery, minor
arts provides the bulk of the chapter. Johnston's style is
admirably suited to this approach. Information and opinion,
though clearly demarcated, move smoothly, pari passu, and
virtually painlessly. Only in retrospect does one realize just
how much has been ingested. The illustrations (pp. 24-82) are
admirably chosen. There are many old favourites but even they
are given often in new photographs of excellent quality and many
less known but equally deserving of attention. Text accompanying
the photographs not only describes and identifies, but serves to
place each object in its place in time, and in its social and
artistic milieu. The theoretical of the continuous text is thus
expanded substantially by illustrating the concrete and
individual the spices and condiments, and the continuity, added
in the text to the pictures. Athens and Attica get most space;
but there is also Corinthian, Laconian, Euboian, Ionian, West
Greek. Geographical diversity is important for this period. It
is to be regretted that the other ethnai whose cultures
informed Greeks much as Greek culture helped shape them Etruscan
and Phoenician particularly have been dealt with only as
supplements, and with little illustration.
The choice of illustrations is also influenced here, as
elsewhere in the book, by the fact that many of the most
important (perhaps more the best known?) monuments are already
illustrated in the Oxford History of the Classical World,
for which this volume is meant as a supplement, though it often
goes far beyond that limited goal.
Boardman writes ch. 3, on the Classical period proper. 84
'This is Classicism in its narrower sense, attempting to perceive
patterns, to set standards. In this the playwrights,
philosophers, and politicians of the fifth and fourth centuries
BC achieved no little success. So did the artists.' This should
be taken with 89 'Like his fellow[s,] playwrights and
philosophers, he sought a way of reconciling the variety of human
experience and appearance with absolute rules or forms. {He}
sought to achieve an equilibrium between the almost opposed
interests of absolute proportion and anatomical realism.'
'Propaganda begins to get the upper hand over simple piety.'
85 'Funeral mores say at least as much about the aspirations of
the survivors as they do about the merits of the dead.'
(Dexileos?) 85 Greek art moves towards becoming a koinh
in the fourth c., with patronage by kings and satraps in Karia
and Lykia, kings and tyrants and fledgling 'democracies' in
Sicily and southern Italy. 'Portraits' of living and recently
dead individuals begin to be produced, eventually becoming visual
replicas.
Controversy: Silver plate is probably an indication the
wealthy had their bullion converted into vessels, rather than
that artists kept stocks of precious materials. (86) 'Pots
decently decorated with about five or six figures cost about two
or three days' wages which is not altogether cheap but did not
put them beyond the range of the ordinary household (which used
them, as we can judge from excavations). There was foreign trade
in painted pottery, the potential for profit clearly outweighing
the risk of loss or damage.
(87) on large-scale marble sculpture: master sculptors
prepared models (in clay); workshop apprentices copied and carved
them. (99) The complex process of 'lost wax' casting is
described in a picture caption. Seven illustrations two in
color of the Royal Tombs of Vergina and two pages of description
reflect a temporary shift of equilibrium to the north and
Macedonia.
Ch. 4: Hellenistic R.R.R. Smith. Much distilled from Smith's
recent book on Hellenistic art. Prestige and wealth of artists
(152); elaborate and costly decoration of private houses (154);
invention of tesselate mosaic and of the emblema
technique; growing wealth of middle classes with consonant
increase of jewelry and other gold and silver artifacts;
invention and elaboration of artistic environments for the human
figure (including mythological landscape); extension and
refinement of perspective drawing; elaborate scene-painting for
the stage; illustration of scientific 'books'; invention of the
portrait, especially the ruler-portrait with its combination of
recognizable image and conventional 'characterization' for
propaganda purposes. Here I felt most keenly the absence of
Etruscan and other Italic art of this period: the portrait in its
modern sense {both painted and sculptural} is frequent in Italy,
and develops at times quite differently from and virtually
independent of its Greek near-contemporaries (see also below).
The text to the Terme Ruler (194) expresses the Greek end clearly
for the class of ruler portraits; the Terme Boxer (211) and the
Artemision jockey (212) the generic (?) athlete.
There is excellent discussion of the sources, literary and
physical, and cogent discussion of the limitations of each.
Smith does not shy away from controversy. The handbook format,
however, requires a simplicity which may leave readers thinking
that we know about this period much about which in fact
scholars are still actively debating: the dates of the Sperlonga
statues and their Hellenistic (?) originals and what we mean by
'originals' in such a case; the date(s), purpose(s), origins, and
authorship of the 'Pergamene' Gauls; and so on. Illustration is
generous 75 b&w plates, four pages of colour and the text is
brisk, trenchant, and informative.
Ch. 5's title, 'Rome: the Republic and early Empire', is a
little misleading. There is little on the Republic, other than a
highly compressed history, and particularly little illustration
earlier than the first century BC/BCE. The author, J.J. Pollitt,
looks most carefully at the time from Augustus' accession to the
end of the reign of Hadrian. Private housing, Imperial palaces,
public buildings, wall painting, sculpture public and private,
all are represented private housing primarily in the
illustrations, the others in both text and image. Coins,
seal-stones, mosaic this is rich and varied fare. Italy takes
pride of place, and Rome within Italy.
My disappointments and disagreements are few and relatively
minor. Capitoline 'Brutus' (fig. 237) is tentatively dated
around 300 BC with Martin Robertson (A History of Greek
Art, Cambridge 1975 ad pl. 190a) I would date it in
the period 125-75 BC. The head comes from a whole
figure perhaps, as Pollitt suggests (with Brendel/Richardson),
equestrian.
(226-7): Pollitt virtually as an 'aside' attributes the verism
of the arts of the lower classes in the first centuries of the
Empire to the 'plebeian' tradition, an interpretation favoured
particularly by Bianchi Bandinelli and his followers. A decade
ago Bianca Maria Felletti Maj, in La tradizione italica nell'
arte romana, demonstrated that this is rather the Italic
tradition geographic tradition, not class distinction. This
needs to be acknowledged it has much more than mere political
relevance to commend it. The art of the Tetrarchy, even more
than that of the early third century, owes a great deal to this
tradition and to its continuance not only in the art of freedmen
and merchants but in many 'private' portraits of emperors and
their courtiers.
On fig. 261: 'Gladiatorial games probably had their origin in
Etruscan funeral rites which sanctioned bloody death in order to
appease the potentially menacing deities of the Underworld'.
Many Etruscan scholars would disagree. The Roman tradition says
that the Etruscan custom of theatrical performances at funerals
was introduced to Rome in the late third century B.C. Scholars
have made this into gladiatorial shows, but with scant supporting
evidence. It has always struck me as curious, if this were a
true accounting, that amphitheatres are virtually unknown in
Roman Etruria. Campania is a much more probable source and the
long Republican tradition (continued well on into the empire) of
grave reliefs of gladiators in combat, principally from Samnium
and Campania, gives this notion excellent archaeological support;
and the fact that the first permanent amphitheatre was built in
the Campanian city of Pompeii cannot be simple coincidence. One
might also suggest that the Flavian Amphitheatre was not just
state architecture (228), not merely a crowd-pleaser, but a
statement of the integration of an Italic tradition into the
mainstream of life in the Urbs, the symbolic centre of the
Empire.
Janet Hoskinson's 'The later Roman period' (ch. 6) begins with
Antoninus Pius and follows through to the early fifth century and
Theodosius. She clarifies at the start the arbitrary nature of
the end points, giving plausible arguments for their usefulness.
If the reign of Trajan sees the empire at its largest, and that
of Hadrian the Empire at its most secure, one can see the reign
of Antoninus Pius as the beginning of decline war primarily
defensive; the army less Roman than provincial; government
through bureaucrats; and so on. In art, subject matter is to
remain 'Roman', though style is more and more regionalized.
In the ch. 2, Alan Johnston made clear that there is a
difference between development in art as its makers see it and
the 'trends' that later scholars can elicit from it. This
chapter has in common with Archaic and pre-Archaic Greece the
fact that there is no effective central 'authority' controlling
the evolution of art; moreover, it must chronicle the
developments of a diaspora, rather than those of kindred cultures
whose future was to be fused. The Arch of Constantine serves as
model for the later Empire, acting as it did as a sort of
catchment basin for much from the earlier period. There is clear
recognition that there is a style discernible in the
Constantinian reliefs on the Arch which cannot reasonably be
dismissed as the result of poor craftsmanship. The echoes of the
Italic stream (here called 'non-classical', 'popular',
'plebeian') are too strong for that. Eastern influences and
Christian art also provide elements of the new style (301). 'The
non-classical element in Roman art came to the forefront in the
later Empire because it was better suited than the classical
style to the changed priorities which art was trying to express.
.. while the classical showed forms in natural, even if
idealized, terms and was concerned with the harmonious
representation of external appearances, the non-classical
approach tended to concentrate on expressing the intrinsic
qualities of its subject-matter and on setting it within the
total scheme of things. The style which resulted was spare yet
powerful in its ability to convey ideas by emphasis on
significant details. ... It ... came close to the aesthetic
philosophy of Plotinus, which saw art as the representation of
concept rather than perceptions.'
(304) 'The representation of the successful hunt on the
sarcophagus [354] may look back to past achievements of the
deceased, or forward to eternal recreation in the afterlife; it
may be a statement about the mores of his social class, or
express a belief in the ability of virtue to overcome the forces
of death. The image contains all these possibilities at once,
but does not force us to choose just one of them; the totality is
acceptable. That in effect sums up the potency of later Roman
art: its vigour is linked to the multiplicity of ways in which it
expresses the interests of a society in transition.'
Though little is said here explicitly in the text about the
extent of the Empire, the monuments chosen for illustration make
very clear the fact that Empire, in this later period, means
something quite different from what it had meant in the time of
Augustus. Under Augustus, the major building programs we know of
were in Rome (Theatre of Marcellus, Baths of Agrippa, two Fora,
and so on) and at centres which already had considerable
importance in Roman history: Carthage, for example, got a new
forum. Under Septimius Severus an enormous building program was
undertaken at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania [302]. Diocletian
built his retirement home at Salonae (Split) in Dalmatia in the
former Yugoslavia [304]; Galerius built a triumphal arch at his
capital, Salonica (Therme, Thessalonica) in northern Greece
[336]; and Maxentius built a residence (at least some scholars
think he did) at Piazza Armerina in Sicily [305]. Constantine
had imperial capitals at Constantinople (the former Byzantium) on
the Propontis and at Trier [303], as well as at Mediolanum
(Milan). In one sense, the Empire was where the emperor
was; in another sense, clearly, Rome was no longer the centre of
the universe; and no geographical region of the Empire had
convincing reason to claim primacy over any other.
Boardman returns to supply the final chapter (7) 'The
diffusion of Classical art'. An impressive two-page satellite
map gives the find-spots of the items illustrated. Three chunks
of time, and three rather different phenomena, are all to be
included under the term 'diffusion'. First is the pre-Archaic
and early Archaic phenomenon of colonization, especially in the
West, and the processes by which, in the hinterland, local
artistic fashion changed because of contact with Greek artifacts,
Greek artisans and artists, Greek taste. Second is the
Hellenistic period, inaugurated by Alexander's conquests of
Persia, Egypt, etc., and continued with the kingdoms of the
Successors and the substantial expansion of trade, settlement,
and a different form of colonization. Third is the period of
Roman empire: in some senses continuing the Hellenistic age by
spreading a Greek-influenced 'Roman' art into Europe and N.
Africa; but also something rather different in that in its
earlier phase there was a substantial effort towards uniformity,
only gradually replaced by the reassertion of local and regional
styles and tastes as the centrality of the Empire weakened. In
this chapter, we have some Etruscan art, as an instance of
'translations from the Greek'. Boardman has, I think, some
difficulty with this: for one of the Boccanera slabs [359A], he
does not mention the subject, a particularly witty Judgment of
Paris. Hera/Juno/Uni and Aphrodite/Venus/Turan were on the panel
to the right of this. There is only one large-scale wall
painting, a rather dingy reproduction of dancers from the Tomb of
the Triclinium [359B]. The marvellous pioneering achievements of
Etruscan painters in the fourth century and the early third the
portraits from Orvieto, Tarquinia, and Vulci; complex perspective
drawing from Tarquinia (Amazon Sarcophagus) and Vulci (Francois
Tomb: this also has the earliest surviving painting illustrating
Roman history, and some fine painted portraits) are effectively
dismissed. Etruscan painters, we are told, 'sometimes [show]
some awareness of new Greek styles of drawing, with shading and
highlighting of detail, though never approaching the more
significant new styles which we first glimpse in the Macedonian
graves of the fourth century'. For most of what Boardman admires
in the painted tombs of Vergina we can show in earlier examples
from Etruria. Diffusion is rarely in only one direction.
Perhaps the Etruscans would have fared better in the hands of
someone more sympathetic to them.
It would be absurd to expect 'justice' in a chapter so
eclectic in subjects. More sensibly, one would expect
variety and that there is in abundance. A Persian frieze from
Persepolis; Greco-Persian seals of high Classical date and style;
a Libyco-Punic grave monument of Hellenistic date from Dougga in
N. Africa. Greco-Scythian art is represented by one of the large
gold fish-shaped relief plaques (used as horse harness) now in
Berlin, with its reliefs of lions hunting deer, a flock of fish
complete with mer-shepherd; and the fish's tail fins ending as
rams' heads separated by a flying eagle.
This is a very handsome book. Its price is not at all
excessive for a textbook, particularly for a year-long course.
Taken as supplement to the Oxford History of the Classical
World (available also as two paperback volumes: Greece and
the Hellenistic World, and The Roman World) it will do
particularly well the task it sets out to perform.