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Art and Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Michael Squire
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Extract

‘An anonymous product of an impersonal craft’: that is how Rhys Carpenter characterized Greek sculpture in 1960, and it's an assessment that has long dominated the field. Carpenter was challenging the traditional workings of classical archaeology, not least its infatuation with individual ‘masters’. While responding to past precedent, however, his comments also looked forward in time, heralding a decidedly postmodern turn. From our perspective in 2020, six decades after his book was first published, Carpenter can be seen to anticipate what Roland Barthes would dub the ‘death of the author’: ‘the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author’, as Barthes put it.

Type
Subject Reviews
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 67 , Special Issue 1: Aristocracy and Monetization , April 2020 , pp. 103 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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References

1 Carpenter, R., Greek Sculpture (Chicago, IL, 1960), v–viGoogle Scholar. Carpenter seems to have learned from art historical trends earlier in the twentieth century, not least from German ‘Bildwissenschaft’: particularly important was Wölfflin, H., Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der neueren Kunst (Munich, 1915)Google Scholar, advocating an ‘art history without names’, which ‘does not just explain things on the basis of individual artists’ (v); see also Bredekamp, H., ‘A Neglected Tradition? Art History as Bildwissenschaft’, Critical Inquiry 29 (2003), 418–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Barthes, R., ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image, Music, Text, trans. Heath, S. (New York, 1977), 142–8Google Scholar, quotation from 148; the article was first published in 1967. See also e.g. Hurwit, J. H., ‘The Death of the Sculptor’, AJA 101 (1997), 587–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burke, S., The Death and Return of the Author. Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida (Edinburgh, 1998)Google Scholar.

3 Particularly important has been the ‘Der Neue Overbeck’ project, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (2004–11). By collecting, translating, and commenting upon all known ancient literary and epigraphic texts pertaining to Greek sculptors and painters, the project sought to update and translate nineteenth-century catalogues by Johannes Overbeck and Emmanuel Loewy: see Kansteiner, S. et al. (eds.), Der Neue Overbeck. Die antiken Schriftquellen zu den bildenden Künsten der Griechen, 5 vols. (Berlin, 2004)Google Scholar, esp. i.xi–liv; see also my review in JRA 28 (2015), 522–36 (with more detailed bibliography). One might also compare a current project at the University of Pisa, <http://www.oltreplinio.it>, accessed 19 November 2019, dedicated to ‘Beyond Pliny: Reception and Transmission of Art Theories, Artists’ Canons, Technical and Artistic Lexicon, Between the Late Classical Period and the Roman Imperial Age; A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Naturalis Historia (Books 33–36)’.

4 Artists and Artistic Production in Ancient Greece. Edited by Seaman, Kristen and Schultz, Peter. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xvi + 242. 70 b/w illustrations, 1 map, 3 tables. Hardback £80, ISBN: 978-1-107-07446-0; paperback £19.99, ISBN: 978-1-107-42623-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Hurwit, J. M., Artists and Signatures in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have responded elsewhere to Hurwit's claims – many of them repeated here (e.g. that ‘Greek Vasaris began to write lives of painters and sculptors at least as early as Douris of Samos (ca. 340–260 bce)’ (183): see Gnomon 89.4 (2017), 343–51.

6 Fundamental here is Tanner, J., The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece. Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation (Cambridge, 2006)Google Scholar; see also on, Tanner's essay ‘Aesthetics and Art History Writing in Comparative Historical Perspective’, Arethusa 43.2 (2010), 267–88Google Scholar.

7 On all such themes, and their confluence in the early modern period, the fundamental intervention still remains Kris, E. and Kurz, O., Die Legende vom Künstler. Ein geschichtlicher Versuch (Vienna, 1934)Google Scholar (= Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist, trans. A. Laing and L. M. Newman [New Haven, CT, 1979]). There is no reference to the work in the present volume.

8 Consider here the hugely scintillating approach of Platt, V. J., ‘The Artist as Anecdote: Creating Creator in Ancient Text and Modern Art History’, in Fletcher, R. and Hanink, J. (eds), Creative Lives in Classical Antiquity: Poets, Artists and Biography (Cambridge, 2016), 274–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 On the semantics of technê, a fundamental resource is the three-volume treatment of the term (and its development between the archaic and classical periods) provided by R. Löbl, ΤΕΧΝΗ – Techne. Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung dieses Worts in der Zeit von Homer bis Aristoteles, 3 vols. (Würzburg, 1998–2008). The work goes uncited in the present volume.

10 For P.Berol. 13044r, see Diels, H., ‘Laterculi Alexandrini aus einem Papyrus ptolemäischer Zeit’, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse (1904), 2Google Scholar. The most recent discussion of the papyrus known to me (complete with further bibliography), is Leyra, I. Pajón, ‘The Order of the Seven Greatest Islands in the Laterculi Alexandrini (P.Berol. 13044r)’, ZPE 192 (2014), 85–8Google Scholar.

11 Given this confusion, the author might have benefited from the translations by Kennedy, G. A., Progymnasmata. Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta, GA, 2004)Google Scholar: the two passages discussed can be found at 117–20 and 3–15. Seaman cites the Greek editions of Rabe and Spengel; there is no reference to e.g. Webb, R., Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Farnham, 2009)Google Scholar.

12 For the project – The Art of Making in Antiquity. Stoneworking in the Roman World, originally funded by the Leverhulme Trust between July 2011 and June 2013 – see <http://www.artofmaking.ac.uk>, accessed 19 November 2019.

13 Visual Power in Ancient Greece and Rome. Between Art and Social Reality. By Hölscher, Tonio. Sather Classical Lectures 73. Oakland, CA, University of California Press, 2018. Pp. xviii + 395. 162 b/w illustrations, 36 maps. Hardback £41, ISBN: 978-0-520-29493-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land. Edited by Hoyland, Robert G. and Williamson, H. G. M.. Oxford Illustrated History. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 402. 141 b/w and colour illustrations, 6 maps. Hardback £30, ISBN: 978-0-19-872439-1Google Scholar.

15 Masada. From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth. By Magness, Jodi. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2018. Pp. xiv + 265. 46 b/w illustrations, 2 maps. Hardback £25, ISBN: 978-0-691-16710-7Google Scholar.

16 For recent bibliography, see e.g. Rozenberg, S., ‘Wall Paintings of the Hellenistic and Herodian Period in the Land of Israel’, Near Eastern Archaeology 77.2 (2014), 119–27Google Scholar; Peleg-Barkat, O., ‘Fit for a King: Architectural Decor in Judaea and Herod as Trendsetter’, BASO 371 (2014), 141–61Google Scholar.

17 Gardens of the Roman Empire. Edited by Jashemski, Wilhelmina F., Gleason, Kathryn L., Hartswick, Kim J., and Malek, Amina-Aïcha. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxxvi + 617. 143 b/w illustrations, 135 colour illustrations, 2 maps, 5 tables. Hardback £220, ISBN: 978-0-521-82161-2Google Scholar.

18 See especially Jashemski, W. F., The Gardens of Pompeii. Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, 2 vols. (New Rochelle, NY, 1979–93)Google Scholar; Jashemski, W. F. and Meyer, F. G., The Natural History of Pompeii (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar.

19 <http://www.gardensoftheromanempire.org>, accessed 19 November 2019.

20 The Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin. Late Republic to Late Antiquity. Edited by Marzano, Annalisa and Métraux, Guy P. R.. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xxxvi + 599. 244 b/w illustrations, 21 maps. Hardback £140, ISBN: 978-1-107-16431-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Mykene. Die sagenhafte Welt des Agamemnon. Sonderausstellung des Badischen Landesmuseums Karlsruhe in Kooperation mit dem Ministerium für Kultur und Sport der Republik Griechenland im Schloss Karlsruhe, vom 1. Dezember 2018 bis 2. Juni 2019. Stuttgart, Philipp von Zabern, 2018. Pp. 392. 500 illustrations. Hardback €39.95, ISBN: 978-3-937345-90-1Google Scholar.

22 Il classico si fa pop. Di scavi, copie e altri pasticci. Edited by Serlorenzi, Mirella, with Barbanera, Marcello and Pinelli, Antonio. Milan, Electa Mondadori, 2018. Pp. 288. Colour illustrations. Paperback €35, ISBN: 978-8-891-82073-0Google Scholar.

23 As such, the project builds on others, not least two recent exhibitions in Milan and Venice in 2015 (in collaboration with Fondazione Prada): see Settis, S. and Anguissola, A., Serial/Portable Classic. The Greek Canon and Its Mutation (Milan, 2015)Google Scholar. Closer to home, there are rich parallels with a London exhibition that closed shortly before Il classico si fa pop opened: see Squire, M. J., Cahill, J., and Allen, R., The Classical Now (London, 2018)Google Scholar.