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Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
BOOKRoman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Jaś Elsner
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32006
In Roman Eyes, Jaś Elsner seeks to understand the multiple ways that art in ancient Rome formulated the very conditions for its own viewing, and as a result was complicit in the construction of subjectivity in the Roman Empire. The author draws upon a wide variety of visual material, from sculpture and wall paintings to coins and terra-cotta statuettes. He examines the different contexts in which images were used, from the religious to the voyeuristic, from the domestic to the subversive. He reads images alongside and against the rich literary tradition of the Greco-Roman world, including travel writing, prose fiction, satire, poetry, mythology, and pilgrimage accounts. The astonishing picture that emerges reveals the mindsets Romans had when they viewed art—their preoccupations and theories, their cultural biases and loosely held beliefs.
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Print publication date February 2024 (in print)
Print ISBN 9780691096773
EISBN 9780691240244
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Print Status in print
Publisher (in print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • Landscape with Perseus and Andromeda
  • Perseus Rescuing Andromeda
  • Landscape with Perseus and Andromeda
  • Plan of Olympia in Pausanias’ time
  • Atargatis and Hadad
  • St Peter
  • Bride
  • Theseus
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship sailing away
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship in the company of a cupid
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship in the company of a weeping cupid
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship in the company of a weeping cupid and a female winged figure
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship in the company of a weeping cupid and a female winged figure
  • Ariadne weeping while Theseus’ ship sails away, accompanied by a weeping cupid and a female winged figure
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship, accompanied by a weeping cupid and a male onlooker
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship in the company of a weeping cupid, a female winged figure, and two onlookers
  • Ariadne looking out at Theseus’ ship accompanied by a cupid, with a fisherman in the middle distance
  • Hero and Leander
  • Cubiculum D in the Casa dei Vettii, Pompeii (VI.15.1/2)
  • Dionysus and his entourage discovering the sleeping Ariadne
  • Ariadne abandoned with Theseus’ ship in the distance and Dionysus and his entourage approaching
  • Dionysus and his entourage discovering the sleeping Ariadne
  • Ariadne and Dionysus
  • Venus de' Medici
  • Aphrodite of Cnidos (also known as the Venus of Knidos)
  • Narcissus
  • Narcissus by the pool with Eros
  • Pero and Micon
  • Narcissus and Eros
  • Narcissus and Eros
  • Narcissus
  • Atrium of the Casa dell’ Ara Massima, Pompeii (VI.16.15)
  • Narcissus
  • Casa di M. Loreius Tiburtinus or D. Octavius Quarto, Pompeii (II.2.2)
  • Floor mosaic of Narcissus
  • Floor mosaic of Narcissus
  • Narcissus
  • Narcissus by the pool with Eros
  • Narcissus with Eros and Echo
  • Narcissus by the pool accompanied by Eros and Echo
  • Narcissus and Echo, each accompanied by Eros
  • Narcissus and Echo
  • Projecta casket
  • Projecta casket, detail
  • Projecta casket, detail of lid
  • Codex Calendar of A.D. 354 (Romanus 1 ms, Barb. lat. 2154, fol. 1)
  • Projecta casket, interior
  • Projecta casket, view of the front (lid and base) from the left
  • Projecta casket
  • Projecta casket, front from above
  • Projecta casket, detail of Venus
  • Projecta casket, back panel of the lid
  • Floor mosaic from a large private baths at Sidi Ghrib near Tunis
  • Projecta casket, left end of the base
  • Sevso casket
  • Sevso casket
  • Apollonius of Tyana, contorniate medallion, obverse
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Coin with head of Claudius, obverse; temple of Artemis at Ephesus, reverse
  • Coin with head of Hadrian, obverse; statue of Diana Ephesia between two stags, reverse
  • Coin with Septimius Severus, obverse; temple of Ephesian Artemis, reverse
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Artemis of Ephesus
  • Mithras
  • Altar from the Via Appia, Rome
  • Sarcophagus of Adelphia, detail of the Magi
  • Conon and his family making sacrifice
  • Lysias, Lysias, Apollophanes, and Zenodotus making sacrifice
  • Julius Terentius Performing a Sacrifice
  • Otes and Iabsymsos with boy acolytes offering an incense sacrifice to five deities (or their statues)
  • Cult relief of the Gad (Fortune) of Dura, from the Temple of the Gadde
  • Cult Stele to the God Aphlad
  • Shrine to the God Mithras (Mithraeum), Dura Europos, reconstruction
  • Christian building, Dura Europos
  • Christian building, Dura Europos, west wall
  • Synagogue, Dura Europos, general view of the west wall
  • Synagogue, Dura Europos, general view to the northwest
  • Synagogue, Dura Europos, west wall
  • Temple of Aaron
  • Temple of Solomon
  • Moses producing a miraculous well in the wilderness
  • Ark of the covenant in the land of the Philistines
  • Prophets of Baal making sacrifice on Mount Carmel
  • Elijah making sacrifice to God on Mount Carmel
  • Panel above the Torah shrine, showing from left to right, a menorah, the temple, and the sacrifice of Isaac
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Contents
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Contents
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32007
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Acknowledgments
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
THIS BOOK IS THE RESULT of a series of essays on related themes written over the last fifteen years. Most have been published earlier, in different forms; all those have been revised here. Chapter 4 and the Epilogue have been written specially for this volume—although I have been...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32008
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Prologue
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
MY EPIGRAPH, A BRIEF POEM by Browning from about 1872 entitled “Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of the Judgment of Paris,” captures many ramifications of the issues I want to address in this book.The epigraph is from Cunningham (2000), 378. I am most grateful to Val Cunningham for...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32009
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1. Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Greco-Roman World
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
A PRINCIPAL ARGUMENT supporting the assertion of a great divide between the arts of Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages has been an assumption about naturalism...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.1-26
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32010
Chapter subject tags:Mural painting and decoration, RomanAesthetics, ClassicalCivilization, Classical, in artVisual perception in artSculpture, Roman

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Part I: Ancient Discourses of Art
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Part One
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32011
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2. Image and Ritual: Pausanias and the Sacred Culture of Greek Art
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
IT IS A CLICHÉ THAT MOST GREEK ART (indeed most ancient art) was religious in function...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.29-48
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32012
Chapter subject tags:Pausanias, active approximately 150-175Aesthetics, ClassicalMythology, Greek, in artGreece--ReligionRituals--Texts--GreeceGods, Greek, in artVotive offeringsSculpture, Greek

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3. Discourses of Style: Connoisseurship in Pausanias and Lucian
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
WE THINK OF THE LANGUAGE of style and connoisseurship as a peculiarly characteristic discourse of twentieth-century art history—not just in the hands of professional scholars but also in the milieu of collectors, auction houses, and dealers...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.49-66
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32013
Chapter subject tags:Pausanias, active approximately 150-175Aesthetics, ClassicalConnoisseurshipWölfflin, Heinrich, 1864-1945Lucian, of SamosataCivilization, Greco-Roman

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4. Ekphrasis and the Gaze: From Roman Poetry to Domestic Wall Painting
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
IT WAS ONLY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY that the term “ekphrasis” came to be applied exclusively to the description of works of art...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.67-109
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32014
Chapter subject tags:Mural painting and decoration, RomanAesthetics, ClassicalMythology, Greek, in artPompeii (Extinct city)EkphrasisPoetry, AncientOvid, 43 B.C.–17 A.D. or 18 A.D. Metamorphoses

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Part II: Ways of Viewing
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Part Two
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32015
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5. Viewing and Creativity: Ovid’s Pygmalion as Viewer
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
OVID’S PYGMALION HAS USUALLY been read as a myth of the artist...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.113-131
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32016
Chapter subject tags:Aesthetics, ClassicalPygmalion (Greek mythology)Sculpture, Roman--Greek influencesOvid, 43 B.C.–17 A.D. or 18 A.D. Metamorphoses

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6. Viewer as Image: Intimations of Narcissus
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
THE STORY OF NARCISSUS HAS PROVED a deep pool, reflecting multiple interpretations...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.132-176
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32017
Chapter subject tags:Aesthetics, ClassicalMythology, Greek, in artNarcissusMural painting and decoration, RomanEkphrasisMosaics, Roman

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7. Viewing and Decadence: Petronius’ Picture Gallery
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
ROMAN SATIRE ARCHETYPALLY TAKES the faults of the present and performs them with a mixture of disgust and fascination, condemnation and envy...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.177-199
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32018
Chapter subject tags:Aesthetics, ClassicalCivilization, Greco-RomanDecadence in artEkphrasisPetronius, Publius, active 24 B.C.-21 B.C.Ethics, Ancient, in literatureErotic art--Italy--RomeMural painting and decoration, Roman

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8. Genders of Viewing: Visualizing Woman in the Casket of Projecta
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
IN THE PURSUIT OF ROMAN VIEWERS, finding the female gaze is a perennial problem. Despite the attempts of some literary critics...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.200-224
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32019
Chapter subject tags:Aesthetics, ClassicalEsquiline TreasureWomen's toiletries, RomanMetal-work, RomanWomen--Rome--History

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9. Viewing the Gods: The Origins of the Icon in the Visual Culture of the Roman East
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
ACCORDING TO THE Historia Augusta, when the emperor Aurelian (A.D. 270–275) had taken over the rebellious town of Tyana in Cappadocia in the eastern part of Asia Minor and was considering the slaughter of its inhabitants...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.225-252
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32020
Chapter subject tags:Aesthetics, ClassicalApollonius, of TyanaAurelian, Emperor of Rome, approximately 215-275Temple of Artemis (Ephesus)Numismatics, RomanIcons, ByzantineRelief (Sculpture), RomanPausanias, active approximately 150-175Lucian, of Samosata

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10. Viewing and Resistance: Art and Religion in Dura Europos
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
IN HIS WONDERFUL ANTHROPOLOGIST’S TRAVEL BOOK, Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss tells the story of the Caduveo and their traditions of body painting...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.253-287
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32021
Chapter subject tags:Dura-Europos (Extinct city)Christianity and other religions--RomanCivilization, Greco-RomanMural painting and decoration, RomanRelief (Sculpture), RomanSynagogues--History

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Epilogue. From Diana via Venus to Isis: Viewing the Deity with Apuleius
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THIS BOOK proposed an account of two forms of visuality in the ancient world—a mimesis-related culture of viewing, and entertaining the fantasies...
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32022
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Bibliography
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Bibliography
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32023
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Index Locorum
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Index Locorum
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32024
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General Index
Jaś Elsner
Description: Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
General Index
Author
Jaś Elsner
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Copyright© 2007 by Princeton University Press
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-32025
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Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text
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