Peter Schultz and Ralf Von den Hoff (eds). Structure, Image, ornament: architectural sculpture in the Greek world

Authors

  • Ruth Allen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32028/jga.v1i.682

Abstract

Greek (and Roman) architectural sculpture has frequently suffered reductive treatment from scholars. Either it has been broken up into stand-alone artworks divorced from their original display-contexts and studied only for what they can tell us of the development of style and subject, or it has been treated as ancillary to the building, or, in the case of temples, preparatory to the worshipper’s experience of the statue inside. This is in part a matter of historiography: the removal and display by Grand Tourists of sculptural features such as the Parthenon and Bassai friezes only encourages this kind of looking. It is also in part a matter of logistics: architectural sculpture was always hard to see, and the use of photography to aid its modern study not only separates the sculpture from its setting even further but also magnifies and flattens it, transforming a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional picture.

References

Connelly, J.B. 2014. The Parthenon Enigma: A Journey into Legend. London: Head of Zeus.

Elsner, J. 1996. Inventing imperium: texts and the propaganda of monuments in Augustan Rome, in J. Elsner (ed.) Art and Text in Roman Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 32–54.

Neer, R. 2010. The Emergence of the Classical Style. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Osborne, R. 1987. The viewing and obscuring of the Parthenon frieze. Journal of Hellenic Studies 107: 98–105

Spawforth, T. 2006. The Complete Greek Temples. London: Thames & Hudson.

Vidal-Naquet, P. 2005. L’Atlantide: petite histoire d’un mythe platonicien. Paris: Belles Lettres.

Wilson Jones, M. 2014. Origins of Classical Architecture: Temples, Orders and Gifts to the Gods in Ancient Greece. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

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Published

01/01/2015

How to Cite

Allen , R. (2016). Peter Schultz and Ralf Von den Hoff (eds). Structure, Image, ornament: architectural sculpture in the Greek world. Journal of Greek Archaeology, 1, 492–494. https://doi.org/10.32028/jga.v1i.682

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