The Oxford Handbook of Roman Imagery and Iconography

Roman imagery and iconography are typically studied under the more general umbrella of Roman art and in broader, medium-specific studies. This handbook focuses primarily on visual imagery in the Roman world, examined by context and period, and the evolving scholarly traditions of iconographic analysis and visual semiotics that have framed the modern study of these images. As such topics—or, more directly, the isolation of these topics from medium-specific or strictly temporal evaluations of Roman art—are uncommon in monograph-length studies, our goal is that this handbook will be an important reference for both the communicative value of images in the Roman world and the tradition of iconographical analysis. The chapters herein represent contributions from a number of leading and emerging authorities on Roman imagery and iconography from across the world, representing a variety of academic traditions and methods of image analysis.

Images and Interpretation of Africans in Roman Art and Social Practice

The representation of foreign cultures with manifest ethnic or “racial” differences, such as unfamiliar physical traits or exotic dress, has been a long-standing and often visceral site for human artistic expression. The visual and material culture of the Roman Empire provides an abundant record of such encounters which render visible complex formulations of ethnicity, social hierarchies, and power. The present chapter focuses on how artists represented the peoples whom Romans referred to as Aethiopians or Nubians (i.e., sub-Saharan or “Black” Africans) in different visual media, and it explores issues related to the social functions, patronage, and viewership of these works. In particular, the chapter discusses the formalized conventions, object types, and display contexts of their representations; examines the two critical axioms of their study (the philological and social historical); and maps out recent approaches to and future directions in their interpretation.

Word & Image

This chapter examines the relationships between visual and verbal media in Roman antiquity. More specifically, it demonstrates how the study of Roman art intersects with the study of ancient Greek and Latin texts, and vice versa. Despite the tendency to segregate areas of scholarly expertise—above all, to separate “classical archaeology” from “classical philology”—any critical engagement with Roman imagery and iconography must go hand in hand with critical readings of written materials. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, it explores some of the ways in which Roman literary texts (both Greek and Latin) engaged with visual subjects. Second, it discusses the textuality of Roman visual culture, surveying the roles that inscriptions played on Roman buildings, statues, mosaics, paintings, and other media. Third, it demonstrates the “intermedial”—or, perhaps better, the “iconotextual”—workings of Roman texts and images, with particular reference to the fourth-century ce picture-poems of Optatian.

Images and Interpretation of “the Other” in Roman Social Practice

This chapter examines the representation and interpretation of “the Other” in Roman social practices. Employing a selection of images, representing ethnically and physically diverse citizens and noncitizens, Romans and non-Romans, surviving on a range of media from both public and private display contexts across the empire, new questions are raised to expand our understanding of diversity and difference in the Roman world. In Roman art, images of “Others” served an important role in the construction of Roman identity, underlining tensions in the representation and categorization of bodies and belonging. Emphasis is placed on viewers and viewing contexts, considering the cosmopolitan milieu of the cities and peoples under Roman rule.

Iconography and Style in Republican and Early Imperial Art (200 bce to 14 ce)

This chapter identifies pertinent trends in the scholarship of late republican and early imperial Roman art, from the early second century bce to the end of the Augustan period. By looking at specific themes and case studies, such as mythological terracottas, historical reliefs, decorative marble statues from elite villas, so-called neoattic art, and honorific as well as funerary portraits, the essentially eclectic nature of artistic themes and styles across a range of media and materials is illustrated. Moreover, based upon these case studies, the chapter explores the relations between stylistic choice and aspects like class, society, and politics. From this it becomes clear that the systematic use of archaizing, classicizing, and Hellenistic styles in the late republican and early imperial period was deeply rooted in a vibrant community of commissioners and artists who acted under the influence of profound sociopolitical transformations in Rome, central Italy, and the wider Mediterranean.

The Iconography of Early Christian Roman Art

Focusing on works of art produced in the third and early fourth centuries, this chapter considers works in four media—sculpture, painting, mosaic, and textile—in order to illuminate how artists working for Christian patrons adapted and ultimately transformed earlier Roman visual traditions. While some traditional Roman media such as sculpture went out of fashion in the period, iconographies were transferred from three- to two-dimensional forms such as mosaics, which became popular in church interiors. Christian image programs in spaces of worship as well as burial used visual strategies such as typology, the comparison of events from the Old and New Testaments, to present statements of belief, including the hope for salvation after death. Many of the images of “Christian art” were also popular with pagans and Jews but took on particular meanings in the context of spaces used by Christians.

Introduction

Roman imagery and iconography are typically studied under the more general umbrella of Roman art in medium-specific studies. This handbook focuses primarily on visual imagery in the Roman world, examined by context and period, and the evolving scholarly traditions of iconographic analysis and visual semiotics that have framed the modern study of these images. As such topics—or, more directly, the isolation of these topics from medium-specific or strictly temporal evaluations of Roman art—are uncommon in monograph-length studies, our goal is that this handbook will be an important reference for both the communicative value of images in the Roman world and the tradition of iconographical analysis. The chapters herein represent contributions from a number of leading and emerging authorities on Roman imagery and iconography from across the world, representing a variety of academic traditions and methods of image analysis.

Secular Art

The definition of Byzantine secular art remains problematic because of the interpenetration of the sacred and secular in all imperial domains, including the city, the home, and the church. Monumental and portable works of art regarded as secular due to their non-religious content or function were produced throughout the Byzantine era and served multiple roles. These included entertainment and indulgence in intellectual or other pleasurable pursuits; self-representation and the expression of ideological messages; protection against evil; and following current fashions. Innovation, invention, subjectivity, erudition, subversiveness, and humor, often associated with nudity and sexual innuendo, are all qualities thought to distinguish Byzantine secular art. The modes of its engagement with Greco-Roman art and with contemporary non-Byzantine artistic traditions need further study.