These two very different materials are treated together here because they
were the most important, most common, and most competitive materials
used for both the honorific statue and portrait displayed in a private
context. In the current context, any white stone, marble or (technically
more correct) limestone, which takes a polish is understood as
marble. Marble is by far the dominant surviving material for portraits.
However, although it was quarried around most of the Mediterranean,
the high quality marble which was desired for statuary was only supplied
by a relatively limited number of quarries in Italy, Greece and Asia
Minor.
Archive for January, 2010
The traditional local building materials of the Roman Republic, travertine, tufa and limestone were also employed for portraits in Rome and
in Italic cities during the Republican period. They seem, however, to have gone out of fashion for portraiture by the end of the Republic when
they were replaced by either marble or by the more dense limestone.
Limestone of varying quality was quarried throughout the Mediterranean
often on or very close to the habitation or cult site itself and it was used
extensively for portraiture, particularly in rural sanctuaries and tombs.
Unlike marble and bronze, limestone is not mentioned in inscriptions
as a material for honorific statues set up by the public. The silence in
the inscriptional evidence, however, may be because it was so prevalent
that it was considered ‘not worth mentioning’. However, there is evidence
that limestone was even used for representing the emperor in areas with
no marble resources. As different limestones have their own specific
character, local sculptors developed special skills and styles in carving
the stone, or they continued working in a tradition developed generations
before.
From material remains we receive few glimpses of the importance of
painting as a portrait medium.Most of the evidence derives from mural
painting, whereas portraits painted on wooden panels or linen have disappeared almost entirely, except in Egypt where preservation conditions
have been exceptionally good. However, portraits painted on wooden
panels were a mode of representation that was probably as significant
as marble or bronze. An abundance of evidence, both inscriptional and
literary, demonstrates that paintings were a significant portrait medium
in all parts of the Empire, including Rome. Dio, for example, first mentions
painted portraits when he explains that in A.D. 45 Claudius found
the public spaces in Rome so overcrowded with portraits that he had
them moved somewhere else.
Bearing in mind the basic aspects of public honour and private commemoration outlined above focus is now on modes of representation.
Materiality, technique and the choice of material as giving meaning to
portraits are often overlooked. Material enhanced the aesthetic appeal
of a portrait and it carried cultural, contextual, social and economic
properties that changed with time.
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William Hogarth (1697–1764), English painter, engraver, and philosopher of aesthetics. Hogarth was the son of a Latin teacher and scholar whose financial failure led him to apprentice young William to a silver engraver. At age twenty-two, the young engraver set up in business for himself, producing shop cards, book illustrations, and original satires. He associated himself with the tradition of English satiric literature from Butler and Dryden to Swift, Pope, and Gay.
17
Jan
Lyceums and Museums
Critics and scholars have long debated the significance, charge, and scope of modern museums, variously considered as temples to the fine arts, monuments to science, repositories of history, showcases for political authority, social institutions marketing an image of cultural hegemony, instruments of nationalist propaganda, and, most broadly and pervasively, as a set of “disciplinary” practices engaged in controlling, classifying, and containing objects through explicit architectural means. Although the public institution as we understand it today emerged at the end of the eighteenth century, many museums had already been established by private individuals prior to the epistemological break ushered in by the French Revolution.
14
Jan
Pre-Raphaelites
Pre-Raphaelites The first thing likely to strike anyone looking at poems and paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists is that they have little in common. The label “Pre-Raphaelite” leads a reader or viewer to expect some uniformity arising from a common aesthetic philosophy, technique, or goal, but the Pre-Raphaelites rarely provide such uniformity, despite the heroic efforts of later critics to locate it. Even within the literary and artistic work of a given member, it is easy to find a variety of styles and approaches that prevents easy generalizations.
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11
Jan
Bibiena family
Bibiena family (Galli da) Italian painters, architects, and designers. Three generations of Galli da Bibienas were active throughout Europe from the Counter- Reformation to the Enlightenment, a period spanning approximately 1680 to 1780. Students of the baroque, an age that loved illusion, they adopted an exuberant style that made use of new architectural forms, ornate columns, trompe l’œil, overstatement, and exaggerated modelling. Their patrons were emperors and kings, and members of the nobility, as well as the Catholic Church and wealthy merchants in major towns throughout the Italian peninsula, Europe, and Russia; and they spent many years away from the family home in Bologna designing, building, and decorating gardens, palaces, villas, churches; planning and organizing spectacular royal coronations, weddings, and funerals; constructing horseshoe-shaped, many-tiered court playhouses and modern public or community theatres; designing theatre interiors; creating innovative scenery; and engineering stage machinery for operas and ballets by Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Antonio Caldara, and Carl Heinrich Graun.
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