The roman mosaic of Doulaincourt (original) (raw)
Between Global and Local: Geometric Patterns of Gallic Roman Mosaics
2018
directly or not, you all have helped me in this project. Thanks to Dr. Effie Athanassopoulos for assisting with funding applications. I would also like to thank the entire faculty and staff of the School of Art, Art History, and Design, you have all made my time at UNL a wonderful experience. Additionally, a special thank you to all my fellow graduate students at UNL during my time here for their understanding, encouragement, and friendship. I wish to thank all my family and friends who continue to support me through all my higher education. To the Loyola Girls for their friendship and reminders that there is more to life than this thesis. Thanks also to the UCL crew who seem to have accepted that one MA was not enough for me. Gratitude to Dr. Robert Babcock for his support, friendship, and mentoring during my time in Nebraska. I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Lorraine Edwards for everything she has done for me, the list exceeds the allotted space, but especially for her kindness, patience, and reassurance through everything and anything. The warmest of thanks to Richard Loutzenheiser for his friendship, again, an endless list, and for reminding me that I am braver than I believe, stronger than I seem, v and smarter than I think. Thank you to Dr. Chris Siwicki, whose patience and humor have been much appreciated during this project. To my brother, Sam, for always being there for me. Lastly, a huge thank you to my parents, for their constant and never-ending love and support. vi Grant Information This research would not have been possible without the generous funding made available from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Initial support from the Anthropology Department Weakly Fund in the summer of 2016 to France encouraged me to pursue this project and to expand it further. A Scholarly grant from the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts allowed me to travel to the south of France and western Germany to see the mosaics in person. Additionally, the School of Art, Art History, and Design Trabold fund contributed to my field work and research in 2016 and 2017. A Presentation of Scholarly Activity Grant from the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts facilitated the presentation of my thesis research at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in Ancient History in London. Lastly, I would like to thank the Associate Dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, Dr. Christopher Marks, for his advice and his administration of the Graduate Advisory Board.
Roman Mosaics in the J. Paul Getty Museum, by Alexis Belis
With an introduction by Christine Kondoleon, and contributions by Nicole Budrovich, Kenneth Lapatin, and Sean Leatherbury In Roman decor, elaborate mosaics transformed entire rooms into spectacular settings of vibrant color, figural imagery, and abstract design. Intricate patterns and narrative scenes were created by setting tesserae—small pieces of stone or glass—into floors and walls. The mosaics in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum span the second through the sixth centuries AD and reveal the diversity of compositions found throughout the empire during this period. Recovered from various archaeological contexts, these mosaics provide a glimpse into the richly embellished architecture of the ancient world. This optimized online catalogue enables the reader to explore these ancient objects using zoomable high-resolution photography, embedded glossary terms, comparative images linked to sites on the web, and interactive maps drawn from the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire. The complete catalogue, as well as object data and main images, can be downloaded for free in multiple formats. For readers who wish to have a bound reference copy, a paperback version is available for sale.
The Classical Review, 2007
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Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie VII. Historia del Arte , 2025
In the 1880s, the rector of the Campo Santo Teutonico in the Vatican State, Monsignor Anton de Waal, commissioned the Villeroy & Boch company to provide antique-style floors for his archaeological museum. This was a typical small museum set up as a series of period rooms, who brought to the heart of Rome a very common practice in the panorama of historicism and the revival of early Christian archaeology in German art and industries. This essay analyses this story and presents many unpublished archive documents. The text contributes to the reconstruction of an artistic and industrial product intended for a museum that is now lost, and to its reading in an international context.
Światowit IV-A, 2002, pp. 99-105., 2004
The mosaic from Sheikh Zuweid on the western coast of North Sinai, discovered in 1913, as well as the mosaic brought to light in 1919 at Vinon near Aix-en-Provence in southern France had to wait until the end of the 20th century for scholarly studies to focus again on their iconography, but also their iconological program. It is the reading of this program that one can truly call sensational. The mosaic from Sinai consists of three panels: Hippolytus and Phaedra, a Dionysian cortege and an inscription surrounded with motifs referring to the fauna and flora of a Nilotic landscape as well as to iconography of the seasons of Spring and Fall. The mosaic from Vinon also consists of three pictures: Dionysus offering Ikarios the grapevine, the Three Graces and a panel depicting a voracious goat defiling the gift of Dionysus. Inscriptions accompany both the mosaics, in Latin at Sheikh Zued and in Greek at Vinon. Numerous apotropaic symbols and inscriptions are known, but never before has a mythological picture been interpreted as apotropaic. The latest research has shown that the owners of the respective estates had chosen mythological themes in order to protect them and their property from the Evil Eye and Hatred. Dionysian motifs are associated with the putative function of the rooms, where banquets with music and dancing must have been held, and wine must have flowed in abundance. The allusion to the abundance of the Nile was meant to ensure the prosperity and wealth of the house, in similarity to the Dionysian motifs as a matter of fact. Dionysus, Heracles and Venus were patrons of the houses. The interpretation of the two mosaics takes advantage of studies in the field of the history of mentality of the communities standing on the threshold of post-classical times. At the same time, it constitutes a huge step forward in the understanding of this category of finds. The two mosaics confirm what Artemidoros of Daldis (2nd century AD) had to say about the status of pictures: that they could be synonymous in meaning (see: M.T. Olszewski, Le statut de l'image selon Artémidore et l'art romain, in: Morlier, H. ed., IXe Colloque international pour l'étude de la mosaïque antique et médiévale, Roma 5.11.2001-10.11.2001, Collection de l'Ecole Française de Rome 352/2, Rome 2005, pp. 859-880). See also: M.T. Olszewski, La mosaïque de style naïf de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï, Archeologia (Warsaw) 53, 2002, pp. 45–61, pls III+VI; M.T. Olszewski, Mauvais œil et protection contre l'envie dans la mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï (IV-Ve siècle), in: Paunier, D., Schmidt, Ch (ed. by), la Mosaïque gréco-romaine VIII. Actes du VIIIe Colloque international de la mosaïque antique et médiévale, Lausanne 1997 (2001), pp. 276-301. La célèbre mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède, situé au nord-ouest du Sinaï, ainsi que celle de Vinon dans la Gaule Narbonaise ont été découvertes dans les années dix du XXe siècle. Depuis leurs mises à jour jusqu’à la fin du siècle dernier, elles devaient attendre deux réexamens scientifiques qui ont apportés une analyse iconographique plus complète ainsi que deux nouvelles lectures iconologiques que l’on peut sans doute considerer comme sensationelles ! La mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède est composée de trois tableaux superposés. Deux panneaux représentent des scenes mythologiques: procession dionysiaque et Hippolyte et Phèdre. La troisième image comporte une inscription de bienvenue bordée au-dessus et au-dessous d’animaux et de plantes; une allusion aux scènes nilotiques et à la symbolique printanière et automnale. La mosaïque de Vinon est également composée de trois tableaux qui sont cependant juxtaposés. Ils représentent, au centre, les trois Grâces et deux scènes à caractère dionysiaques. Celle de gauche représente le don de la vigne (grappes de raisins) par Dionysos à Icarios et celle de droite, le sacrilège de la vigne par un bouc. Les deux mosaïques sont accompagnées par des inscriptions en grec et latin. Elles sont datées à la première moitié du Ve siècle. On connais plusieurs inscriptions, images et symboles de caractère apothropaïque. C’est pourtant la première fois que des images mythologiques ont dévoilées aux chercheurs leurs sens prophylactique et apotropaïque. Les propriétaires de ces deux résidences ornées de belles mosaïques ont choisis ces thèmes mythologiques pour protéger et écarter le Mauvais Œil et l’Envie. Les sujets dionysiaques dans les salles à manger évoquent probablement des fêtes joyeuses arrosées de vin où la danse et la musique constituaient des éléments essentiels. Par contre, l’abondance nilotique évoquait sans doute le bonheur et l’opulence des dons de la Nature sur les tables de la maison; cette signification concernait certainement aussi les scènes dionysiaques. Les maisons ont été protégées par Dionysos, Héraclès et Vénus. Pour interpréter ces deux œuvres, les auteurs ont utilisé des recherches sur “l’histoire de la mentalité” des sociétés administrées par les Romains. La lecture de ces deux mosaïques confirme ce que l’on vient de découvrir en étudiant le célèbre texte d’Artémidore de Daldis (IIe siècle) sur les images synonimiques (cf. M.T. Olszewski, Le statut de l'image selon Artémidore et l'art romain, in: Morlier, H. ed., IXe Colloque international pour l'étude de la mosaïque antique et médiévale, Roma 5.11.2001-10.11.2001, Collection de l'Ecole Française de Rome 352/2, Rome 2005, pp. 859-880). Voir M.T. Olszewski, La mosaïque de style naïf de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï, Archeologia (Warsaw) 53, 2002, pp. 45–61, pls III+VI; M.T. Olszewski, Mauvais œil et protection contre l'envie dans la mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï (IV-Ve siècle), in: Paunier, D., Schmidt, Ch (ed. by), la Mosaïque gréco-romaine VIII. Actes du VIIIe Colloque international de la mosaïque antique et médiévale, Lausanne 1997 (2001), pp. 276-301.
Identity in mosaics of the north-western Roman provinces
2013
Much of the recent scholarship on the phenomenon of Romanization has largely focussed on the concept of regional identity. Indeed, this concept has been utilised in order to demonstrate the nuanced nature of the Roman empire in terms of the cultural differences that exist between provinces, between classes, and between genders. 1 Mosaics can reveal the attitudes of the creator, the patron, and the intended audience, and "may be seen as one index of Romanisation". 2 By way of this physical manifestation of cultural differences (or, indeed, similarities), we can render the theory of regional identity more tangible. In this paper, I shall compare the mosaics of Caerleon, Cologne and Trier in order to explore three topics: