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The Representation of Space in Graeco-Roman Art

Relief Sculpture, Problems of Form, and Modern Historiography
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2024
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Image & Context
This book is in the series
Volume 24 | Image & Context

About this book

This book assesses the role of relief in the representation of space in Graeco-Roman artistic practice and its study – from Winckelmann to the mid-twentieth century – when Classical art developed as a theoretical discipline. The role of relief in the history of ancient sculpture has long been acknowledged, yet the problems posed by an engagement with the representation of space have not been a subject of specific and sustained inquiry. Neither a conventional history nor a comprehensive historiography, this book traces the study of relief – of its formal character, its artistic purpose, its aesthetic significance, and its historical treatment. The contribution to scholarship is three-fold: (1) By means of a wide array of examples, the book demonstrates that the visual strategies employed to represent space during the Graeco-Roman period were a continuously evolving repertory tied to the refinement of techniques and the transformation of styles that those techniques brought into being. (2) It examines ideas now commonplace, based on scholarship now long-neglected if not completely forgotten. And (3) it reveals how competing interpretations of the representation of space in relief elaborated new approaches to the monuments and their representations.

Author / Editor information

Michael Koortbojian, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Reviews

"Especially valuable for scholars seeking to address gaps in architectural or historical contexts [...] the book successfully employs older scholarship to enrich our understanding of the physical composition of relief artworks and Graeco-Roman paintings. In this way K.'s book stands as a masterful synthesis of historical, aesthetic and practical insights into Graeco-Roman relief art and its spatial representation."
Jessica Venner, in: The Classical Review, published online 2014: 1-3 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X24001392)

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    I
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    Preface & Acknowledgments

    V
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  • Publicly Available

    Table of Content

    VII
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    Introduction

    1
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    1. The Laws of Relief

    11
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    2. Between Two Planes

    61
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    3. Insistent Planarity

    89
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    4. Manifold Forms and Styles

    131
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    5. The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

    165
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    6. The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space

    203
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    7. The Rejection of Space

    249
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    Coda

    279
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    Notes

    285
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    Bibliography

    312
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    List of Figure Sources

    344
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    Index 1: General

    350
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    Index 2: Persons

    355
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    Index 3: Individual Monuments and Works of Art

    358
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 6, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9783111086521
Hardcover published on:
November 6, 2023
Hardcover ISBN:
9783111037400
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
8
Main content:
360
Illustrations:
250
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111086521
eBook ISBN: 9783111086521
Hardcover ISBN: 9783111037400
Keywords for this book
Ancient art; Imperium Romanum; Visual communication; Visual studies
Audience(s) for this book
Archaeologists, Classicists, Art historians, scholars in the field of visual studies
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