The Artists of the Ara Pacis: The Process of Hellenization in Roman Relief Sculpture (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome) - Softcover

Conlin, Diane Atnally

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807823430 ISBN 13: 9780807823439

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011

Synopsis

The Ara Pacis Augustae, or Altar of Augustan Peace, was built to commemorate the return to Rome of the emperor Augustus and his general Agrippa, who had been away for many years on military campaigns. Dedicated in 9 B.C., the monument consists of an altar and surrounding wall, both decorated with a series of processional friezes. Art historians and archaeologists have made the Ara Pacis one of the best-known, most-studied monuments of Augustan Rome, but Diane Conlin’s reassessment of the artistic traditions in which its sculptors worked makes a groundbreaking contribution to this scholarship. Illustrated with over 250 photographs, Conlin’s innovative analysis demonstrates that the carvers of the monument’s large processional friezes were not Greek masters, as previously assumed, but Italian-trained sculptors influenced by both native and Hellenic stonecarving practices. Her systematic examination of the physical evidence left by the sculptors themselves — the traces of tool marks, the carving of specific details, the compositional formulas of the friezes — also incorporates an informed understanding of the historical context in which these artists worked.

Originally published in 1997.

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About this title

About the Author

Diane Atnally Conlin received her Ph.D. in classical art and archaeology from the University of Michigan. A fellow of the American Academy in Rome, she has taught Roman art and archaeology at the University of Michigan.

Reviews

Some books are works of love, some are paeans to minutiae. Conlin, a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, gives us both in a very detailed analysis of the long procession friezes of the Ara Pacis and its sculptors, traditions, and style. The altar was commissioned by the Roman Senate to commemorate Augustus Caesar's return from three years of campaigning in Spain and Gaul that established the Pax Augustus. Modern scholarship generally concludes that the artists must have been unknown Greek masters. Conlin documents minute tool marks and aesthetic preferences, and she believes that urban Roman artisans created the altar. The 250 black-and-white photographs provide the opportunity to study the friezes in a detail rarely available to anyone who is not actually crawling over the piece with a magnifying glass. This unique source, detailed and exhaustive, is recommended for large collections on archaeology or classical art.?Mary Morgan Smith, Northland P.L., Pittsburgh
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807823430
• ISBN 13: 9780807823439
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360