Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome

by: Onians, J.

Price: 69,26 EURO

1 copy in stock

 
Classical art and the cultures of Greece and Rome
Author:John Onians

In this highly original inquiry into the foundations of European culture, John Onians argues that the study of classical art provides a unique window into the minds of the Greeks and Romans for whom it was produced. Onians provides a sweeping account that ranges from the Greek Dark Ages to the Christianization of Rome and that reveals how the experience of a constantly changing physical environment influenced the inhabitants of ancient Greece and Rome. Tracing the imaginative life of these peoples through their responses to and their relation with the material world, the author shows how an examination of their artistic activity offers an especially insightful approach to their ideas and attitudes.

The book begins by explaining how the early Greeks—exposed to a rocky landscape, dependent on craft activities, and involved in warfare—saw themselves as made of stone and metal and represented themselves in statues of marble and bronze. Later, in the Hellenistic period, as the awareness of the individual?s power increased, so did the sense of physical and emotional weakness, while, with the rise of Rome, art came to be seen less as representation and more as sign, to be experienced less as a lever on the feelings and more as an aid to memory. By the end of the Roman Empire, Onians contends, inhabitants acquired an unprecedented sense of unstable inner life that enabled them to represent themselves not as solid sculptures but as thin marble slabs, their surfaces animated by veins suggestive of hidden spiritual vitality.

This text argues that the study of classical art provides a unique window into the minds of the Greeks and Romans for whom it was produced. He provides an account that ranges from the Greek dark ages to the Christianisation of Rome

Subjects:
Art Aspect social Grèce
Art Aspect social Rome
Art and society
Art and society Greece
Art and society Rome
Art antique
Art et société Grèce
Art et société Rome
Art grec
Art romain
Art, Ancient
Art, Classical
Arte clásico
Arte y sociedad Grecia
Arte y sociedad Roma
Civilization, Classical
Classical antiquities
Greece
Klassieke oudheid
Kunst
Materiële cultuur
Rome (Empire)

xiii, 306 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome

by: Onians, J.

• ISBN-13: 9780300075335 / 978-0-300-07533-5
• ISBN-03: 0300075332 / 0-300-07533-2
• Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999

Price: 69,26 EURO

1 copy in stock