The Casa del Menandro in Pompeii: rhetoric and the topology of Roman wall painting

Rhetoric was fundamental to education and to cultural aspiration in the Greek and Roman worlds. It was one of the key aspects of antiquity that slipped under the line between the ancient world and Christianity erected by the early Church in late antiquity. Ancient rhetorical theory is obsessed with examples and discussions drawn from visual material. This book mines this rich seam of theoretical analysis from within Roman culture to present an internalist model for some aspects of how the Romans understood, made and appreciated their art. The understanding of public monuments like the Arch of Titus or Trajan's Column or of imperial statuary, domestic wall painting, funerary altars and sarcophagi, as well as of intimate items like children's dolls, is greatly enriched by being placed in relevant rhetorical contexts created by the Roman world.SCOPUS: bk.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Questions on “world art history”

The choice of this theme for debate has been stimulated by recent discussions of the globalization of art history, and the increasing emphasis placed in the discipline on the notion of “world art history,” perhaps best exemplified by the books of James Elkins and David Summers: James Elkins, Is Art History Global? and David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism.  Most of the discussion has focused on Renaissance and later art, but the purpose of this debate..

Ancient viewing and modern art history

Ancient Viewing and Modem Art History (pp. 4 17-437) Le présent article examine s'il existe, chez les écrivains grecs du monde romain, une connaissance historique de l'art qui s'intéresse à la définition du style artistique. Il porte en particulier sur Pausanias, pour les notions de «mains» individuelles et pour quelques cas d'identifications d'artistes; et sur Lucien, pour les idées de styles ethnique et/ou régional. Ces deux théories du style sont très répandues dans l'histoire moderne de l'art, et le présent article tente de comparer la pratique moderne avec ces antécédents greco-romains.Elsner Jas. Ancient viewing and modern art history. In: Mètis. Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens, vol. 13, 1998. pp. 417-437