Hellenistic artworks are celebrated for innovations such as narrative, characterization, and description. The most striking examples are works associated with the Hellenistic courts. Their revolutionary appearance is usually attributed to Alexander the Great's conquest of the Near East, the start of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and Greek-Eastern interactions. In Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art, Kristen Seaman offers a new approach to Hellenistic art by investigating an internal development in Greek cultural production, notably, advances in rhetoric. Rhetorical education taught kings, artists, and courtiers how to be Greek, giving them a common intellectual and cultural background from which they approached art. Seaman explores how rhetorical techniques helped artists and their royal patrons construct Hellenism through their innovative art in the scholarly atmospheres of Pergamon and Alexandria. Drawing upon artistic, literary, and historical evidence, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to students and scholars in art and archaeology, Classics, and ancient history.

'… Seaman’s book presents a fresh, stimulating, and captivating reading. The breadth of her argument – one that bridges the boundaries of literary and historical studies, archaeology, art history, and, to a certain degree, cultural anthropology – provides what appears to be one of the richest, most articulate, and immersive surveys of Hellenistic imagery. The book is beautifully illustrated, with many black-and-white figures and color plates that assist the reader in followingSeaman’s arguments and descriptions.'

Lucrezia Mastropietro Source: CAA Reviews