Author: Jaś Elsner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192842015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Western culture saw some of the most significant and innovative developments take place during the passage from antiquity to the middle ages. This stimulating new book investigates the role of the visual arts as both reflections and agents of those changes. It tackles two inter-related periodsof internal transformation within the Roman Empire: the phenomenon known as the 'Second Sophistic' (c. ad 100300)two centuries of self-conscious and enthusiastic hellenism, and the era of late antiquity (c. ad 250450) when the empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity. Vases, murals, statues, and masonry are explored in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion. By examining questions of reception, viewing, and the culture of spectacle alongside the more traditional art-historical themes of imperial patronage and stylisticchange, Jas Elsner presents a fresh and challenging account of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins. 'a highly individual work . . . wonderful visual and comparative analysis . . . I can think of no other general book on Roman art that deals so elegantly and informatively with the theme of visuality and visual desire.' Professor Natalie Boymel Kampen, Barnard College, New York 'exciting and original . . . a vibrant impression of creative energy and innovation held in constant tension by the persistence of more traditional motifs and techniques. Elsner constantly surprises and intrigues the reader by approaching familiar material in new ways.' Professor Averil Cameron,Keble College, Oxford
Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph
Author: Jaś Elsner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192842015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Western culture saw some of the most significant and innovative developments take place during the passage from antiquity to the middle ages. This stimulating new book investigates the role of the visual arts as both reflections and agents of those changes. It tackles two inter-related periodsof internal transformation within the Roman Empire: the phenomenon known as the 'Second Sophistic' (c. ad 100300)two centuries of self-conscious and enthusiastic hellenism, and the era of late antiquity (c. ad 250450) when the empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity. Vases, murals, statues, and masonry are explored in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion. By examining questions of reception, viewing, and the culture of spectacle alongside the more traditional art-historical themes of imperial patronage and stylisticchange, Jas Elsner presents a fresh and challenging account of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins. 'a highly individual work . . . wonderful visual and comparative analysis . . . I can think of no other general book on Roman art that deals so elegantly and informatively with the theme of visuality and visual desire.' Professor Natalie Boymel Kampen, Barnard College, New York 'exciting and original . . . a vibrant impression of creative energy and innovation held in constant tension by the persistence of more traditional motifs and techniques. Elsner constantly surprises and intrigues the reader by approaching familiar material in new ways.' Professor Averil Cameron,Keble College, Oxford
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192842015
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
Western culture saw some of the most significant and innovative developments take place during the passage from antiquity to the middle ages. This stimulating new book investigates the role of the visual arts as both reflections and agents of those changes. It tackles two inter-related periodsof internal transformation within the Roman Empire: the phenomenon known as the 'Second Sophistic' (c. ad 100300)two centuries of self-conscious and enthusiastic hellenism, and the era of late antiquity (c. ad 250450) when the empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity. Vases, murals, statues, and masonry are explored in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion. By examining questions of reception, viewing, and the culture of spectacle alongside the more traditional art-historical themes of imperial patronage and stylisticchange, Jas Elsner presents a fresh and challenging account of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins. 'a highly individual work . . . wonderful visual and comparative analysis . . . I can think of no other general book on Roman art that deals so elegantly and informatively with the theme of visuality and visual desire.' Professor Natalie Boymel Kampen, Barnard College, New York 'exciting and original . . . a vibrant impression of creative energy and innovation held in constant tension by the persistence of more traditional motifs and techniques. Elsner constantly surprises and intrigues the reader by approaching familiar material in new ways.' Professor Averil Cameron,Keble College, Oxford
Imperial Triumph
Author: Michael Kulikowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781846683701
Category : Rome
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Imperial Triumph presents the history of Rome at the height of its imperial power. Beginning with the reign of Hadrian in Rome and ending with the death of Julian the Apostate on campaign in Persia, it offers an intimate account of the twists and often deadly turns of imperial politics in which successive emperors rose and fell with sometimes bewildering rapidity. Yet, despite this volatility, the Romans were able to see off successive attacks by Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths and to extend and entrench their position as masters of Europe and the Mediterranean. This books shows how they managed to do it. Professor Michael Kulikowski describes the empire's cultural integration in the second century, the political crises of the third when Rome's Mediterranean world became subject to the larger forces of Eurasian history, and the remaking of Roman imperial institutions in the fourth century under Constantine and his son Constantius II. The Constantinian revolution, Professor Kulikowski argues, was the pivot on which imperial fortunes turned - and the beginning of the parting of ways between the eastern and western empires.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781846683701
Category : Rome
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Imperial Triumph presents the history of Rome at the height of its imperial power. Beginning with the reign of Hadrian in Rome and ending with the death of Julian the Apostate on campaign in Persia, it offers an intimate account of the twists and often deadly turns of imperial politics in which successive emperors rose and fell with sometimes bewildering rapidity. Yet, despite this volatility, the Romans were able to see off successive attacks by Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths and to extend and entrench their position as masters of Europe and the Mediterranean. This books shows how they managed to do it. Professor Michael Kulikowski describes the empire's cultural integration in the second century, the political crises of the third when Rome's Mediterranean world became subject to the larger forces of Eurasian history, and the remaking of Roman imperial institutions in the fourth century under Constantine and his son Constantius II. The Constantinian revolution, Professor Kulikowski argues, was the pivot on which imperial fortunes turned - and the beginning of the parting of ways between the eastern and western empires.
The Triumph of Pleasure
Author: Georgia Cowart
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226116387
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
With a particular focus on the court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, and opera-ballet, Georgia J. Cowart tells the long-neglected story of how the festive arts deployed an intricate network of subversive satire to undermine the rhetoric of sovereign authority.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226116387
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332
Book Description
With a particular focus on the court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, and opera-ballet, Georgia J. Cowart tells the long-neglected story of how the festive arts deployed an intricate network of subversive satire to undermine the rhetoric of sovereign authority.
Eternal Victory
Author: Michael McCormick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521386593
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
The Roman triumph's resurgence is documented from the Tetrarchy through the end of the Macedonian dynasty in Byzantium and to Charlemagne's successors in the early medieval West.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521386593
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
The Roman triumph's resurgence is documented from the Tetrarchy through the end of the Macedonian dynasty in Byzantium and to Charlemagne's successors in the early medieval West.
Imperial Tragedy
Author: Michael Kulikowski
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782832467
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
For centuries, Rome was one of the world's largest imperial powers, its influence spread across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle-East, its military force successfully fighting off attacks by the Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths. Then came the definitive split, the Vandal sack of Rome, and the crumbling of the West from Empire into kingdoms first nominally under Imperial rule and then, one by one, beyond it. Imperial Tragedy tells the story of Rome's gradual collapse. Full of palace intrigue, religious conflicts and military history, as well as details of the shifts in social, religious and political structures, Imperial Tragedy contests the idea that Rome fell due to external invasions. Instead, it focuses on how the choices and conditions of those living within the empire led to its fall. For it was not a single catastrophic moment that broke the Empire but a creeping process; by the time people understood that Rome had fallen, the west of the Empire had long since broken the Imperial yoke.
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782832467
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
For centuries, Rome was one of the world's largest imperial powers, its influence spread across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle-East, its military force successfully fighting off attacks by the Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths. Then came the definitive split, the Vandal sack of Rome, and the crumbling of the West from Empire into kingdoms first nominally under Imperial rule and then, one by one, beyond it. Imperial Tragedy tells the story of Rome's gradual collapse. Full of palace intrigue, religious conflicts and military history, as well as details of the shifts in social, religious and political structures, Imperial Tragedy contests the idea that Rome fell due to external invasions. Instead, it focuses on how the choices and conditions of those living within the empire led to its fall. For it was not a single catastrophic moment that broke the Empire but a creeping process; by the time people understood that Rome had fallen, the west of the Empire had long since broken the Imperial yoke.
The Triumph of Empire
Author: Michael Kulikowski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674974255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
“A genuinely bracing and innovative history of Rome.” —Times Literary Supplement The Triumph of Empire takes us into the political heart of imperial Rome and recounts the extraordinary challenges overcome by a flourishing empire. Roman politics could resemble a blood sport: rivals resorted to assassination as emperors rose and fell with bewildering speed, their reigns sometimes measured in weeks. Factionalism and intrigue sapped the empire from within, and imperial succession was never entirely assured. Michael Kulikowski begins with the reign of Hadrian, who visited the farthest reaches of his domain and created a stable frontier, and takes us through the rules of Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian to Constantine, who overhauled the government, introduced a new state religion, and founded a second Rome. Despite Rome’s political volatility, imperial forces managed to defeat successive attacks from Goths, Germans, Persians, and Parthians. “This is a wonderfully broad sweep of Roman history. It tells the fascinating story of imperial rule from the enigmatic Hadrian through the dozens of warlords and usurpers who fought for the throne in the third century AD to the Christian emperors of the fourth—after the biggest religious and cultural revolution the world has ever seen.” —Mary Beard, author of SPQR “This was an era of great change, and Kulikowski is an excellent and insightful guide.” —Adrian Goldsworthy, Wall Street Journal
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674974255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
“A genuinely bracing and innovative history of Rome.” —Times Literary Supplement The Triumph of Empire takes us into the political heart of imperial Rome and recounts the extraordinary challenges overcome by a flourishing empire. Roman politics could resemble a blood sport: rivals resorted to assassination as emperors rose and fell with bewildering speed, their reigns sometimes measured in weeks. Factionalism and intrigue sapped the empire from within, and imperial succession was never entirely assured. Michael Kulikowski begins with the reign of Hadrian, who visited the farthest reaches of his domain and created a stable frontier, and takes us through the rules of Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian to Constantine, who overhauled the government, introduced a new state religion, and founded a second Rome. Despite Rome’s political volatility, imperial forces managed to defeat successive attacks from Goths, Germans, Persians, and Parthians. “This is a wonderfully broad sweep of Roman history. It tells the fascinating story of imperial rule from the enigmatic Hadrian through the dozens of warlords and usurpers who fought for the throne in the third century AD to the Christian emperors of the fourth—after the biggest religious and cultural revolution the world has ever seen.” —Mary Beard, author of SPQR “This was an era of great change, and Kulikowski is an excellent and insightful guide.” —Adrian Goldsworthy, Wall Street Journal
The Roman Triumph
Author: Mary Beard
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674032187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443
Book Description
It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he’d captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days. A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar’s chariot? Or when Pompey’s elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general’s show? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and “victory” in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory. Her richly illustrated work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture—and for monarchs, dynasts and generals ever since. But how can we re-create the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes “history.”
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674032187
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 443
Book Description
It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his most glamorous prisoners, as well as the booty he’d captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days. A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side. What did it mean when the axle broke under Julius Caesar’s chariot? Or when Pompey’s elephants got stuck trying to squeeze through an arch? Or when exotic or pathetic prisoners stole the general’s show? And what are the implications of the Roman triumph, as a celebration of imperialism and military might, for questions about military power and “victory” in our own day? The triumph, Mary Beard contends, prompted the Romans to question as well as celebrate military glory. Her richly illustrated work is a testament to the profound importance of the triumph in Roman culture—and for monarchs, dynasts and generals ever since. But how can we re-create the ceremony as it was celebrated in Rome? How can we piece together its elusive traces in art and literature? Beard addresses these questions, opening a window on the intriguing process of sifting through and making sense of what constitutes “history.”
The Architecture of the Roman Triumph
Author: Maggie L. Popkin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107103576
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This book offers the first critical study of the architecture of the Roman triumph, ancient Rome's most important victory ritual. Through case studies ranging from the republican to imperial periods, it demonstrates how powerfully monuments shaped how Romans performed, experienced, and remembered triumphs and, consequently, how Romans conceived of an urban identity for their city. Monuments highlighted Roman conquests of foreign peoples, enabled Romans to envision future triumphs, made triumphs more memorable through emotional arousal of spectators, and even generated distorted memories of triumphs that might never have occurred. This book illustrates the far-reaching impact of the architecture of the triumph on how Romans thought about this ritual and, ultimately, their own place within the Mediterranean world. In doing so, it offers a new model for historicizing the interrelations between monuments, individual and shared memory, and collective identities.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107103576
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
This book offers the first critical study of the architecture of the Roman triumph, ancient Rome's most important victory ritual. Through case studies ranging from the republican to imperial periods, it demonstrates how powerfully monuments shaped how Romans performed, experienced, and remembered triumphs and, consequently, how Romans conceived of an urban identity for their city. Monuments highlighted Roman conquests of foreign peoples, enabled Romans to envision future triumphs, made triumphs more memorable through emotional arousal of spectators, and even generated distorted memories of triumphs that might never have occurred. This book illustrates the far-reaching impact of the architecture of the triumph on how Romans thought about this ritual and, ultimately, their own place within the Mediterranean world. In doing so, it offers a new model for historicizing the interrelations between monuments, individual and shared memory, and collective identities.
KOINE
Author: Derek Counts
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782973664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
The Oxford English Dictionary defines koine as 'a set of cultural or other attributes common to various groups' . This volume merges an academic career over a half century in breadth and scope with an editorial vision that brings together a chorus of scholarly contributions echoing the core principles of R. Ross Holloways own unique perspective on ancient Mediterranean studies. Through broadly conceived themes, the four individual sections of this volume (I. A View of Classical Art: Iconography in Context; II. Crossroads of the Mediterranean: Cultural Entanglements Across the Connecting Sea; III. Coins as Culture: Art and Coinage from Sicily; and IV. Discovery and Discourse, Archaeology and Interpretation) are an attempt to capture the many and varied trajectories of thought that have marked his career and serve as testimony to the significance of his research. The twenty-four papers (plus four introductory essays to the individual sections, biographical sketch and main introduction) contain recent research on subjects ranging from the Kleophrades Painter to the Black Sea, Sicilian Coinage and archaeology in modern Rome.
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782973664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
The Oxford English Dictionary defines koine as 'a set of cultural or other attributes common to various groups' . This volume merges an academic career over a half century in breadth and scope with an editorial vision that brings together a chorus of scholarly contributions echoing the core principles of R. Ross Holloways own unique perspective on ancient Mediterranean studies. Through broadly conceived themes, the four individual sections of this volume (I. A View of Classical Art: Iconography in Context; II. Crossroads of the Mediterranean: Cultural Entanglements Across the Connecting Sea; III. Coins as Culture: Art and Coinage from Sicily; and IV. Discovery and Discourse, Archaeology and Interpretation) are an attempt to capture the many and varied trajectories of thought that have marked his career and serve as testimony to the significance of his research. The twenty-four papers (plus four introductory essays to the individual sections, biographical sketch and main introduction) contain recent research on subjects ranging from the Kleophrades Painter to the Black Sea, Sicilian Coinage and archaeology in modern Rome.
Ovid
Author: Francesca K.A. Martelli
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004450068
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97
Book Description
In this volume, Francesca Martelli outlines some of the main contours of recent, current and future research on Ovid. Her study looks back to the rehabilitation of Ovid's oeuvre in the 1980s, and considers the post-modern aesthetic prerogatives and post-structuralist theoretical concerns that drove the critical recuperation of his poetry throughout that decade and in the decades that followed. But it also looks forward, by considering how the themes of this poet's oeuvre answer to a variety of new materialist concerns that are now gaining currency in the humanities and social sciences. It highlights the ecopoetic sensibility of the Metamorphoses, for example, and unpacks the environmental narratives that this poem yields when read in dialogue with the discourses of critical posthumanism. And it closes by considering the hauntological aesthetics of Ovid's exile poetry as a comment on the effects of the principate on time, space, media, and art.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004450068
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97
Book Description
In this volume, Francesca Martelli outlines some of the main contours of recent, current and future research on Ovid. Her study looks back to the rehabilitation of Ovid's oeuvre in the 1980s, and considers the post-modern aesthetic prerogatives and post-structuralist theoretical concerns that drove the critical recuperation of his poetry throughout that decade and in the decades that followed. But it also looks forward, by considering how the themes of this poet's oeuvre answer to a variety of new materialist concerns that are now gaining currency in the humanities and social sciences. It highlights the ecopoetic sensibility of the Metamorphoses, for example, and unpacks the environmental narratives that this poem yields when read in dialogue with the discourses of critical posthumanism. And it closes by considering the hauntological aesthetics of Ovid's exile poetry as a comment on the effects of the principate on time, space, media, and art.