The Animated Image: Roman Theory on Naturalism, Vividness and Divine PowerMany Romans wrote about the belief that an image - a sculpture or painting, as well as a verbal description or a personage on stage - is not a representation, but the image’s prototype or that an image had particular aspects of life. A first group of authors explained these believes as incorrect observation or wrong mental processing by the beholder. Other authors pointed at the excellent craftsmanship of the maker of the image. A third group looked at the supernatural involvement of its prototype, often a god. Together these discourses on the animation of images bring us to what intellectuals from all over the Roman empire saw as reprehensible or acceptable in beholding images as works of art or as cult images. Moreover, these discourses touch upon ontological and epistemological problems. The barrier between life and death was explored and also the conditions to obtain knowledge from observation. |
Contents
7 | |
9 | |
25 | |
26 | |
Ovids Pygmalion | 33 |
Naturalism and wealth | 37 |
Portraits and memory | 38 |
Portraits and power | 41 |
Visual and verbal | 97 |
O1 The role of the beholder | 101 |
Life and animation in dance theatre and spectacle Lucians The Dance | 109 |
Rhetoric and theatre | 112 |
Roman stories on theatre | 116 |
O Gorgias and Plato on tragedy | 120 |
Aristotles defence of tragedy | 124 |
Aristotle used in the imperial period | 128 |
Damnatio memoriae | 44 |
Creating an aura of divinity | 49 |
Portraits in speech | 52 |
Enargeia as epistemological requirement and rhetorical virtue Quintilian on vividness | 57 |
Quintilian on enargeia and phantasia | 58 |
The prehistory of enargeia | 61 |
Enargeia in epistemological writings | 66 |
Ciceros use of inlustris and evidentia | 71 |
Enargeia in the handbooks of rhetoric and literary criticism | 73 |
Means to achieve enargeia | 77 |
Creation and impact of art literature and speech Callistratus On the Statue of a Bacchante | 83 |
Callistratus ekphrasis | 85 |
Inspiration and observation | 88 |
Phantasia in observation | 92 |
Art literature and truth | 95 |
O Munera and public executions | 130 |
Cult statues at the boundaries of humanity Plutarch on supernatural animation | 137 |
Ritualcentred visuality | 139 |
Tied up and bloodthirsty | 143 |
Naturalistic nonnaturalistic and aniconic statues | 145 |
Cult statues as symbols | 147 |
15O Lucian on cult statues | 150 |
Clement on idolatry | 152 |
Supernatural animation in rhetoric and literary criticism | 154 |
Epilogue Erotic reactions to Praxiteles Cnidian Aphrodite | 161 |
Notes | 171 |
195 | |
215 | |
List of illustrations | 221 |
Other editions - View all
The Animated Image: Roman Theory on Naturalism, Vividness and Divine Power Stijn Bussels No preview available - 2012 |
The Animated Image: Roman Theory on Naturalism, Vividness and Divine Power Stijn Bussels No preview available - 2012 |
Common terms and phrases
achieve actor agency anecdote aniconic animation of images Aphrodite Apollonius Aristotle Aristotle’s audience authors Bacchante beholder belief Callistratus Cambridge University Press century chapter Cicero clear concept context contrast cult images cult statues damnatio memoriae dance pantomime dancer deception described Dionysus discussed effect ekphrasis Elsner emotions emperor emphasises enargeia epistemological evidentia example explicitly express eyes famous goddess gods Gorgias Greek handbooks of rhetoric Hellenistic honour human idea imperial period incontrovertible knowledge ivory Latin linked look Lucian mask mental images mimesis mind Musei Capitolini natural appearance naturalistic observation orator Ovid painting pantomime passage Pausanias persuasion phantasia Phidias philosophical Philostratus Plato Pliny Pliny’s Plutarch poet poetry portraits Praxiteles present prototype Pygmalion Quintilian representational aspect represented role Roman Rome Scopas sculpture Second Sophistic seen speech Stoic story supernatural animation techn¯e term enargeia texts theatre theatrical performance tion tragedy tragic Translation viewer visual artist visual arts visual images visualisation vividness writes Zeus