Tonio Hölscher, Visual Power in Ancient Greece and Rome. Between Art and Social Reality, Oakland (University of California Press) 2018, 426 S., ISBN 978-0-520-96788-5 (geb.), $ 49,95

Tonio H(ölscher)’s 2018 monograph stems from the author’s contribution, eleven years earlier, to the Sather Classical Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley. It draws on the ‘visual turn’ and its increasing impact on Classical Archaeology which has been felt since at least the 1980s. Within this tradition, contextual approaches focusing on the meaning of images, the order of visuality, and the idea of ‘living with images’ rather than simply ‘viewing’ images have resulted in a robust body of scholarship and fresh readings of Greek and Roman Art. The reader may recall seminal works such as P. Zanker’s 1988 “Power of Images”, or J. R. Clark’s 1991 “The Houses of Roman Italy” alongside H.’s contributions to the shifting paradigm, such as the recent “La vie des images grecques. Sociétés de statues, rôles des artistes et notions esthétiques dans l’art grec ancient” (2015).

“Visual Power in Ancient Greece and Rome” discusses such approaches in a structured manner with reference to a multitude of examples, from the Homeric epics to the late Roman Emperors. In 333 pages of text and nearly 200 illustrations, the author brings together an impressively broad range of material and textual evidence and places it into a methodological context that reiterates, questions, and clarifies some of the existing theories and concepts on the power visual culture exercised on Greek and Roman social, cultural and political structures. H.’s authority is, of course, well-known not only to experts but also to students fresh in the field of Classics. The first will be reminded of debates and shortcomings in the existing discourse; the latter are likely to become familiar with the ‘visuality’ of Classical material culture for the first time. Both will be inspired to delve more into the theoretical premises the author is pointing to and to explore case studies that remain somewhat neglected in teaching curricula and mainstream handbooks on Greco-Roman Art. Both are also offered a rare account that examines cases from Greek and Roman culture alongside each other and thus highlights similarities, continuity, and divergence.

The author replicates the outline of his lectures at Berkeley to organise the material thematically into seven chapters. What is at stake here is the coherence of the endeavour as a unified monograph and the extent to which it serves the author’s goals: to explore the “social function of visuality” (9), “to disclose general phenomena and raise general questions of cultural visuality that go beyond classical antiquity” (10), and “to understand cultural concepts and practices […] within a wide, common, cultural horizon”. Each chapter approaches visuality from a different angle: spatiality, memory, individual identity, reality, representation, and decor. H. explains that the chapters “can be read as independent units, but they build upon each other in a systematic way”. This can explain the slight imbalance with chapter 1 being far longer than the other chapters; yet I do wonder, however, if it justifies the lack of a concluding chapter. The introduction points to the importance and terminology of visuality as detected in ancient sources and touches on anthropological and cognitive perspectives. The author highlights the nature of ‘viewing’ as a reciprocal encounter and introduces phenomenological concepts that recur in various parts of the book, such as ‘conceptual reality’ and ‘life world’. He also discusses the distinction (and lack thereof) between images and reality; deciphering in this way the book’s subtitle “Between Art and Social Reality”.

Chapter 1 “Space, Action, and Images” engages with the notion of ‘relational’ as opposed to merely ‘physical’ space to examine the spatial context of images. H. discusses the encounters emerging during performed rituals from the point of visuality at sanctuaries and as civic political space. Another dichotomy that permeates this chapter is the one between ‘experienced’ and ‘conceptual’ space: the first is relevant to individuals’ actual actions in the real physical world, whereas the latter refers to theoretical constructs of spatiality deriving from religious and cultural ideologies. The physical rendering and decoration of city gates and the topography of religious and triumphant processions are discussed. This highlights the role visuality played in establishing links between asty and chora and less rigid ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ distinctions. Early in the chapter, human activities that bridge real and conceptual space are distinguished into “cognitive perception”, “active shaping”, and “social action and interaction” (21–26). The author presents these notions with plenty of referencing to international scholarship and succeeds in his “attempt at systematizing” (15). This theoretical framework underlines the analysis of the case studies in a rather loose manner, and about seventy pages later, the reader would have appreciated a summary pointing back to the theory. Some of the examples are well-known and heavily studied, such as the dedications at Delphi and Olympia; these are nicely balanced with less known and highly intriguing cases (e.g. late Archaic Thasos, the Tropaeum Alpium at La Turbie in Gallia Cisalpina).

Chapter 2 “Time, Memory, and Images” turns to two broad and pivotal functions of visual culture: memory-making and its preservation, and visual culture’s impact on collective identity. The structure follows the same pattern as in the first chapter, with a theoretical preamble followed by three main sections. H. distinguishes two different types of memory: the first one derives from the knowledge of tradition and models (also called ‘cultural knowledge’), while the second is the ‘historical memory’ resulting from familiarity with recent events of the past. For his survey of ‘cultural knowledge’, H. selects examples from Augustan Rome and the media of sculpture and architectural reliefs. He focuses on the transliteration of Greek modes of representation into Roman contexts and their transformation into new Roman traditions. A chronological overview from Athens’ mythical past to the Persian Wars demonstrates the significance of commemorative spots in the topography of the polis for memory- and collective identity-making. Rome’s topography is examined in the same way with an emphasis on Romulus and further kings featuring in its proto-history. In the last main section, H. raises the issue of ‘presentification’ (which appears again in greater detail in chapter 5) in the sense of public monuments bringing events of the historical past to the present at monumental scale. H.’s chapter is less text-focused than Elsner and Squire’s “Sight and Memory. The Visual Art of Roman Mnemonics” (in: M. Squire [ed.], Sight and the Ancient Senses, London 2016, 180–204), however the two contributions complement each other and constitute an excellent up-to-date starting point for a reader wishing to explore this topic.

In the third chapter H. explores the political and social significance of the visual representation of individuals with a strong emphasis on Greek and Roman portraiture. He engages with the long-standing debate over actual physiognomy vs. idealistic representation and discusses different possibilities within this span. At the same time, he puts back on the table the importance of individuality and physiognomy of the real person if we want to fully comprehend portraiture’s goals and effects in its original context. H. offers a concise diachronic survey of the relationship between reality and invention in portraiture. Body posture, standardisation of gestures, dress, and attributes are also assessed. The parallels with contemporary public figures and their staged capturing in visual media give vibrancy to the account and can aid readers who are new to the topic.

The following two chapters are relevant especially to the second leg of the book’s subtitle: “Social Reality”. Chapter 4 expands on questions raised in chapter 3 on the balance between art and reality. Here the prelude brings back the key concept of ‘life world’, made by the material world alongside cultural constructs, conceived, and perceived reality. This then justifies a positive assessment of symbiosis rather than collusion between art and reality. Here H. relies on the abundant scholarship on images as language, the semiotics of visual culture, and its relationship with text. A dense discussion of some theoretical milestones, from Lessing’s art theory and Panofskian semiology, to Magritte’s painting, leads to the finding that “we may understand them [Greek images] as ‘re-presentations’ of ‘conceptual reality’” (210). To demonstrate this further, H. points to the freedom of Greek pottery painters in using their perception and interpretation of facts – such as military victories – when representing them. In the section about the human body, there is some overlap with the previous chapter, but here H. discusses terminology in greater detail. The overlap continues in another brief section on individuality and on page 246 the Pompeii Alexander mosaic makes a second appearance with some descriptive content already discussed in detail in the previous chapter. Given the emphasis on theory and the key issue of social reality, chapter 4 could have been placed right after the introduction; yet some readers may still find it useful as a reminder of the discourse and a mini-conclusion at about half-way through the book.

The penultimate chapter focuses on how images were used, with the author starting from the traditional user-image-viewer set of interactions; he identifies three ‘functions’ of images, representation, decoration, and discourse in the sense of images acting as stimuli for further reflection and discussion among the viewers. The third ‘function’ is, in fact, the social agency of images, a much-discussed topic in American and British scholarship (e.g. the influential “Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory” by A. Gell, published in 1998). Representation and decoration are precisely the topics of chapters 5 and 6; it is not clear why ‘agency’ is not afforded a dedicated chapter. Presentification and the significance of spatial context for visuality are again highlighted as fundamental aspects of representation. Discussion of these issues has already taken place in chapters 3 and 1 respectively, and, therefore, initially, the goal of chapter 5 is somewhat muddled. It becomes clear once the analysis of the case studies begins, with the author emphasising the impact of religious dedications and honorific statues on reciprocal relations in ancient societies of Classical Antiquity. The metopes attributed to the Archaic Treasury of the Sikyonians at Delphi stand out as a case study: in a concise contextual analysis, H. highlights the role of the iconography in representing aristocratic values and social norms of the time. The author also argues against the existence of ancient equivalents to modern museums and focuses on the religious and political function of displaying artwork. “Rarely and only in closed circles, were questions of ‘art’ discussed and reflected in terms of absolute aesthetic categories. Interesting and relevant as such reflections are […], they are of little effect upon the ordinary social practice of images” (289). Given the comeback of aesthetics into the scholarship discourse, some may find these observations problematic (for a recent example, I. Sluiter – R. M. Rosen [eds.], Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity, Leiden – Boston 2012).

H. closes with the second function of images – decoration. He addresses the old problem of limited visibility of ancient art and how this can be reconciled with visual culture’s role in communicating specific messages. Selected cases from Greek vase-painting and the decoration of Roman architecture exemplify the paradox of ‘low visibility-high meaning’ and its counterpart ‘high visibility-low meaning’. After a summary of such debates, a theoretical excursus on “aesthetic quality” and “semantic significance” delays the conclusions. The wary reader will notice that on page 322 we find again definitions of ‘Representation’ and ‘Decor’, as in the previous chapter (253 f.); it is up to them to decide how they expand upon each other. Eventually, the author points to the autonomy of works of art (328) and how this is crucial for the processes of ‘living with images’; in other words, the analysis leans towards an appreciation of the agency of images, a concept H. calls ‘the essence’ of images (330), which can explain the paradoxes concerning visibility.

Overall, the author fulfils the goal of cohesion, with theoretical concepts discussed from different angles in different chapters, some signposting between the various sections, and clear mini-conclusions. The frequent use of bullet-point lists instead of continuous prose gives a feeling of presentation slides reminding the reader that the book stems from the original oral delivery of the lectures. In a few (very limited) instances, some arguments are left hanging: on page 213 we read that an argument about the Athenian Acropolis korai occurred in the previous chapter, where, in fact, the korai are mentioned in passing (191). Similarly, in chapter 2, H.’s aim at drawing some general conclusions “regarding our own – scientific as well as social – dealings with identity, tradition, and the past” (100) is lost in the analysis exclusively of ancient monuments. In this sense, the overarching goal of raising general questions on visuality beyond Greece and Rome remains somewhat in the background. Also, the less knowledgeable reader, in particular, may face some challenges: in some maps, the monochromy of the images requires clearer signposting (e.g. maps 20 and 21), while others do not depict clearly what the caption indicates (for example, there is no legend identifying the numbers on map 9). Typos and errors though are very limited (e.g. on p. 102, figs. 38, 39 should read figs. 40, 39; “Zues” instead ‘Zeus’ on map 24). The rich citations in nearly 50 pages of endnotes contain insightful critique of certain approaches and make H.’s monograph an indispensable resource. The system of referencing though – with most endnote numbers at the end of each paragraph – is rather impractical and distracting for the reader (of course, this may well be related to the publisher’s specifications and not to the author’s preference). The lack of a bibliography is also a little disappointing. This omission is partly mitigated by the three handy indices, including a subject-index which lists key theoretical concepts.

“Visual Power” succeeds and is unique in collecting into one place key elements from the recent discourse on visuality and its social functions in Greece and Rome. The endeavour is certainly current, as it adds strikingly into the trend of approaching Graeco-Roman Antiquity as a unified world (we may recall A. Chaniotis’ recent “Age of Conquests. The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian”, Harvard 2018). Hölscher’s calibre is evident most remarkably in the critical analysis of difficult and long-standing debates, the multi-layered discussion of theories, the richness of the sources, and his ability to see the ‘big-picture’ of both worlds.