Recarving, Reuse, and Re-Membrance: A Case Study into Late-Antique Portraiture Practices (original) (raw)
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Rethinking re-carving: revitalising Roman portraits in the third century
Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia
Research on the re-use of Roman material culture has often focused on repurposed architectural elements or re-carved portraits, and new approaches have increasingly focused on culture, context and memory with praxis, agency meaning, materiality, and reception as key issues. Sculpted portraits have been key players in the scholarly discourse beginning with the portraits of Rome’s ‘bad emperors’ such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian reconfigured as a result of damnatio memoriae in the first century. The third century, however, proves to be a critical moment that witnesses a shift towards affirmative interventions that seek to refurbish and access the positive and legitimising aspects of the original images. Portraits are now redacted from likenesses of ‘good emperors’ such as Augustus, Hadrian, and Trajan to invoke the venerable authority of the imperial past. Private portraiture in the third century also provides evidence for secondary interventions not motivated by denigration but by...
The Roman freestanding portrait bust: Origins, context, and early history. (Volumes I and II)
1993
The freestanding bust consists of a head, neck, shoulders, and chest raised up from its resting surface by a squared undersupport. It was a common format for portraiture in the Roman empire, but little attention has been paid to the freestanding bust itself, either as an artistic format or a social phenomenon. Although they are often thought to have served as ancestral portraits in the houses of Roman aristocrats, the origin and function of freestanding busts are by no means certain. Through examination of surviving datable busts and investigation of their contexts, in this study I attempt to determine when this portrait format was first used and by whom and for what purpose it was invented. I first examine the antecedents of the freestanding portrait bust and assess the evidence for the date when it was first used. That evidence suggests that the freestanding bust was used first in the city of Rome shortly after the mid-first century B.C. The sculptors who created the earliest freestanding busts and the patrons who commissioned them were not influenced by abbreviated portrait formats from Egypt, the Near East, or Greece. Instead, they drew upon the long tradition of abbreviated funerary portrait sculpture of Italy itself. After examining numerous busts, I have discovered that many sculptures presumed to be freestanding portrait busts are not in fact freestanding busts, but rather busts intended for portrait herms. By examining the contexts of freestanding busts and herm busts, I demonstrate that the freestanding bust had a more sharply defined function than did the herm bust and was used by a smaller segment of Roman society. Herm portraits were placed in domestic and public settings and could portray both elite and non-elite subjects. During the early Empire, freestanding busts were used for tomb portraits of non-elite persons, primarily freed slaves. Finally, by plotting the measurements of datable freestanding busts and comparing their shapes, I demonstrate that the common practice of dating portraits by means of the proportions and shape of the busts on which they appear, is unreliable.Ph.D.Ancient historyArchaeologyArt historyCommunication and the ArtsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129142/2/9332136.pd
Between the Living and the Dead: Use, Reuse, and Imitation of Painted Portraits in Late Antiquity
Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2022
Painted portraits on wood and cloth were common in the ancient world and prized as authentic and lifelike images. Affordable, portable, and desirable, they were an important form of representation, but rarely survive in the archaeological record outside Egypt. This article approaches the study of painted portraiture in a way that does not necessitate the survival of the images themselves. It analyzes evidence for the use, reuse, and imitation of painted portraits in the catacombs of 4th-c. Rome by examining the remains of settings and attachments for portraits, the shadows left by them on walls, and portraits in other media which imitate panel paintings. The article considers why painted portraits were so effective in funerary contexts and what connection they may have had to domestic portraiture. It also explores the development of panel portrait imitation through the phenomenon of the “square nimbus.”
Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome , 2010
As an expression of memoria damnata, sculptural portraits of the leaders of Rome and their family members were recut into images of other individuals, usually imperial successors or other prominent personages. Such recutting was a practical way of conserving sculptural works in marble, an expensive commodity in the ancient world. In the last thirty years or so, scholars have become more cognizant of the fact that a number of portraits, not previously recognized as recut, were indeed reworked in some way. But even when there is general agreement that a sculpture as been refashioned, debate has continued not only as to whose portrait was recut but also which portrait types of that person had served for the original image. This paper examines some of the problems in detecting recutting and how the new digital technology might be used to help us understand better the process of recutting marble portraits. More specifically, three-dimensional models of both recut and unrecut portraits can now be easily created by using a portable scanner recently developed for plastic surgery. This new technology can offer new insights into how portraits were refashioned. For example, a three-dimensional image of a portrait suspected to have been recut can be projected inside an unrecut portrait in order to determine how recutting might have been executed. Also discussed in this paper are some of the limitations in the application of this three-dimensional digital technology.
Effigies. Ancient Portraiture as Figuration of the Particular. Morphomata 53
Morphomata, 2021
This volume shows how the portraits of the Greeks and Romans gave shape to and reinforced the perceptions of the particular character of a person. These considerations are based on intensive archaeological research, which in recent decades has successfully addressed questions of typology, identification, and historical classification of ancient portraits. Three aspects are examined in the interweaving of case studies and general reflections: the preconditions for the creation of portraits; the medial conditions of the creation processes; the efficacy of the created form.