The Representation of Space in Graeco-Roman Art: Relief Sculpture, Problems of Form, and Modern Historiography 9783111086521, 9783111037400

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Michael Koortbojian The Representation of Space in Graeco-Roman Art

Image & Context Edited by François Lissarrague †, Rolf Schneider & R.  R.  R. Smith   Editorial Board: Bettina Bergmann, Ruth Bielfeldt, Jane Fejfer, Chris Hallett, Susanne Muth, Alain Schnapp & Salvatore Settis

Volume 24

De Gruyter

Michael Koortbojian

The Representation of Space in Graeco-Roman Art Relief Sculpture, Problems of Form, and Modern Historiography

De Gruyter

This publication is made possible in part by a grant from the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University

      ISBN 978-3-11-103740-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-108652-1 ISSN 1868-4777   Library of Congress Control Number: 2023938211   Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National­ bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.   © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston   Cover image: Circular relief depicting Apollo and Artemis slaying the Niobids, first century bc (?). Marble, 95 cm (diameter). London, British Museum, inv. 1877,0727.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Cover: Martin Zech, Bremen Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz GmbH & Co. KG, Lemförde Printing and Binding: Beltz Grafische Betriebe GmbH, Bad Langensalza   www.degruyter.com

Preface & Acknowledgments

This book was a long time in the making. Its origin was a graduate seminar on the broader topic of the representation of space given while I taught at Johns Hopkins. The impetus was the realization that, for graduate students, the history and practice of formalism in the study of ancient art had become terra incognita. The experiment was successful and it was repeated some years later for the graduate students at Princeton; I learned a great deal from both experiences, and owe a substantial debt to all the students involved. Both of these seminars led, eventually and circuitously, to the present book. Along the way, some of the material that appears in Chapter 3 figured in a lecture about Adolf Hildebrand given at Princeton in 2016; one aspect of Chapter 5 formed the basis of a lecture at Brown in 2015; and one example that figures in Chapter 6 was discussed at a conference in Oxford in 2015. The various responses of audiences on all three occasions was salutary, and the versions of those arguments that have found their way into this book are much improved thanks to the comments and criticisms in each venue. A first draft of the full scope of the arguments presented here emerged from a very productive year spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2017–2018), and I want to express my profound appreciation for the advice and friendship of a number of my colleagues there: Angelos Chaniotis, Glenn Bowersock, Kathy Coleman, Hartwin Brandt, Frederik Vervaet, and Giulia Puma. Several people deserve even greater thanks. I am very indebted to Nathan Stobaugh, not only for his careful scrutiny of my German translations, but also for his even more scrupulous reading of an earlier version of the entire text, making many illuminating suggestions and saving me from errors of numerous kinds. I am no less indebted to Gianfranco Adornato, who read an early draft of the entire book and made many extremely thoughtful suggestions for improvement. I owe thanks as well to Rui Nakamura for allowing me to reproduce the diagram of the Parthenon frieze; to Chrissy Parmentieri for facilitating

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Preface & Acknowledgments

a visit to the Liverpool Museum’s storage facility; to Thomas Mannnack at the Beazley Archive for prompt and informative replies to my queries; and for assistance in acquiring photographs to Daria Lanzuolo, Katja Piesker, Eleni Tzimi, Francesca Cappellini, Berna Güler, Leda Costaki, Lisa Schado, Julia Lenaghan, Katarina Brandt, John Pollini, Will Wooton, and Noel Lenski. And, last but not least, the librarians at the Marquand Art and Archaeology Library of Princeton University and of the Social Science and Humanities Library of the Institute for Advanced Study have been, as always, unfailingly helpful. I am extremely grateful that Rolf Schneider was willing to add this book to the series Image and Context and I am beholden to he and Mirko Vonderstein for seeing it come to fruition, a fact that owes much to the excellent work of Andreas Brandmair and his team, especially to the heroic efforts of the indefatigable Jessica Bartz. But my greatest debt is to Christina Corsiglia, without whose encouragement, criticisms, and most of all, demands for explanations, this, and all my other efforts (in life as well as in scholarship) would surely amount to so much less; to her, thirty years after the first time I thanked her so publicly, my gratitude still knows no bounds. Princeton, 2023

Table of Content

Preface & Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. The Laws of Relief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Problem of the Neutral Ground. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture. . . . . . . . . . The Characteristics of Figural Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relief ’s Two Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grund and Fläche. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 23 38 46 48 56

2. Between Two Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Contained Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Real” Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Science, Sight, and Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Imbricated Spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unbounded Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62 67 69 79 84

3. Insistent Planarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Ancient and Modern Authorities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “One-Sidedness”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Many-Sidedness” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Decline of the Archaic Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Complete in Itself ”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fronts and Sides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90 93 100 107 113 117

VIII358

4. Manifold Forms and Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Multiple Kinds of Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pictorial and Sculptural. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kinds of Space – Mixed, Combined, and Misunderstood. . . . . Manifold Spatiality as a Stylistic Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Materiality, Technique, and Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133 140 144 150 154

5.  The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 The Debate about Pictorial Relief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



167 172 186 194

6.  The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Wickhoff ’s Exempla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Painted Landscapes, Sculptural Friezes, and their ­Paradoxical Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Landscape without Verisimilitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 “Work-arounds”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 The Elaboration of the Implicit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 “That Most Elementary Effect of Nature”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 7. The Rejection of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Perspectives without Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nothing “Behind” the Foreground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Figures without Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Repudiation of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

251 260 263 268

Coda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Figure Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index 1: General. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index 2: Persons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index 3: Individual Monuments and Works of Art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

285 312 344 350 355 358

Introduction

Das Wesen des Reliefstils liegt aber nicht in seiner Höhe oder Flachheit, sondern in seinem Verhältnis zum Raum, der bei einem faktisch flachen Relief stärker vorhanden sein kann als bei einem vollrunden. The essence of relief style is not seen in the height of its elements or their flatness, but in its relation to space, which can be more strongly present in a virtually flat relief than in one fully in the round. Carl Weickert, 1925

Il problema della rappresentazione dello spazio nel rilievo ha un’importanza fondamentale, non solo per la comprensione dell’arte ellenistica e romana e delle loro reciproche relazioni, ma anche per la storia di tutta l’arte occidentale. The problem of the representation of space in relief has a fundamental importance, not only for the comprehension of Hellenistic and Roman art and their reciprocal relations, but also for the entire history of Western art. Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, 1933

All relief is literally sculptural and always three-dimensional; it is only metaphorically pictorial, if and when it suggests a sense of space that exceeds the extent of its physical presence. The twin essential dilemmas that confront relief as an ambitious representational medium are simply put: it employs real space, but not enough of it for what it is often asked to depict, and, in many instances, its imagery is thwarted by the fact that the medium is too material to be effectively illusionistic. Like all the representational media, relief sculpture’s most profound aesthetic aspiration  – to imply more than it can be – is stymied by the fundamental limitations of its basic form, whose actual physical depth is inadequate to the effective registration of the space it purports to represent. As it juxtaposes figures and ground, relief forces one to shift attention from the real and material character of its images to the illusionism required to appreciate their setting. In

2Introduction

this clash between a manifest presentness and the ambient that presence implies, relief’s reality always has the potential to undermine its illusionism, and to compromise its representation of space. During the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the problem of relief and the intrinsic question of the representation of space played a major part in much of the study of ancient art. These issues emerged as part of an overall re-evaluation of the relationship between the art of the Greeks and the Romans, and, in particular, as a central aspect of an attempt to distinguish the two traditions and their formal characters. As the essays of the present volume reveal, each side of the debate had its partisans, and each point of view its key monuments (although in many instances they were, in fact, the same ones). Yet the vitality of this episode of scholarship was limited. Historically, major discoveries continually challenged the credibility of the views espoused, and theoretically – as Otto Brendel pointed out with force and clarity in a trenchant essay 70 years ago1 – the entire episode and its focus on space was undone, ultimately, by a critical failure to recognize that our perception of space is essential and not a culturally-driven form: the experience of space is generally human and its expression a fundamental problem of all art […]. [And], at least in this unqualified form, the proposed antithesis between spatial (Roman) and non-spatial (Greek) representations cannot be right.2

The problem of space in relief could not bear the weight it was asked to shoulder in this long-running debate. There is now no doubt that the question of the relationship between Greek and Roman art was poorly posed, and that the depiction of space could not provide an answer. Like some of the other categories of Brendel’s analysis (ethnic origin, national schools, etc.), space, as a primary heuristic instrument, has, by and large, fallen by the scholarly wayside. It has, for the most part, evaporated in subsequent scholarship, which has focused, in contrast, on the problem of pluralism. Nevertheless, the questions that surround the representation of space in relief, as an aspect of ancient artistic practice, remain.3 Some of these questions, in historical retrospect and in present-day art historical scholarship, are the focus of the present set of essays. What follows does not constitute an over-arching account of Roman art or its historiography as a whole. Rather, it is an attempt to assess the fundamental role of relief and its various capacities and means for the representation of space, as these have been understood in the formative period of modern scholarship on Graeco-Roman artistic practice  – that is, from Winckelmann to the mid-twentieth century, during which time Classical art history developed as a serious and theoretically-anchored discipline. For while the prominent part played by relief in the history of ancient sculpture has long been acknowledged, the problems posed by its engage-

Introduction

3

ment with the representation of space have not been the subject of specific and sustained inquiry.4 The chapters of the present book are, collectively, an effort at such an analysis. More specifically, they endeavor to trace the origin and development of many now-conventional ideas about relief: its formal character, its artistic purpose, its aesthetic significance, and its historical treatment. Such a treatment is particularly warranted, as a great many of those ideas, and the authors who espoused them, are now long-neglected if not completely forgotten. A wide array of examples is summoned throughout to demonstrate that the visual strategies employed to represent space during the Graeco-Roman period were not bound to a specific time, place, or culture. Thus, in a variety of ways, the chapters that follow offer both an evaluation of that history and its historiography, and, in some instances, a proposal of new interpretations. Space is conventionally understood as a negative element in artworks as well as in lived experience. Lacking intrinsic shape and perceptible volume, it fails to correspond to what we think of as a form, one that can be, in and of itself, represented. Scholarly interest in the problem of space’s representation has traditionally been allied, across all artistic periods and fields of study, to an interest in the phenomenon of perspective, whether as a specific artistic device or as merely a means for the approximation of optical experience. For in antiquity the artistic employment of perspective had been, as a rule, unscientific, whether due to its lack of demonstrable conformity with Euclidean principles or some prescient variation on Leon Battista Alberti’s costruzione legittima. Yet an appeal to science has always, explicitly or implicitly, marked the broad and ongoing dispute about the representation of space, and the role of perspective as a pictorial phenomenon amidst critical appraisals of the spatial character of works of art, both ancient and modern, can hardly be overestimated. In this sense, scholarly deliberation about specific practices mirrored a broader concern with the depiction of space, tout court. Something like perspective – and antiquity, in unsystematic fashion, knew a variety of methods for the suggestion of space – had long served as a means for describing the world and the interrelations of its constitutive elements. This was true despite the fact that it is sometimes still debated whether or not antiquity knew the actual coordination and regular diminution of orthogonals towards a common “vanishing point,” the practice known since its systemization in the Renaissance as “legitimate” or geometrical perspective. Euclid understood its geometry, and explicated its underlying rules in both his Optics and Catoptrics. Yet that knowledge is not in evidence in surviving ancient paintings: these demonstrate how the mere suggestion of a “convergence” of receding forms, and the arrange-

4Introduction

ment of architectonic elements in parallel to one another and symmetrically disposed, could effectively convey an illusion of depth. The representational problems posed by relief are, in general, distinctly different, and in contrast to the study of painted space, have seldom been pursued. The material and illusionistic aspects of relief are firmly intertwined.5 Concerning their materiality, reliefs might project, three-dimensionally, in differing degrees. The basic distinctions are known as alto, mezzo, and basso, yet the mere description of their difference in such terms, while acknowledging the depth to which figural forms were carved, can hardly be deemed an analytical approach to their varying depictions of space. Indeed, actual dimensions are a relative phenomenon, and do not always correspond to these conventional distinctions. The size of a panel, the scale of the figures it displays, and the projection of their sculpted forms all play a role in the aesthetic effect of relief, despite the relative proportion of figural projection. One must ask, then, what counts as high relief? The larger the panel and its figures, the more those forms approximate the relative proportions of nature and emerge from their blank ground into real space, rendering, at times, more than half their bodily mass; on small panels, the same designs produce very little projection. By contrast, what should be considered low relief? The Parthenon frieze constitutes the most famous example of how little projection was required to achieve manifold sculptural effects. In Greek tradition, such shallow carving was at times elaborated by a subtle hollowing of the background around a figure’s contours, thus accentuating its forms as it exaggerated their physicality, yet maintaining them within the confines of their projecting border. And finally, in the Roman period in particular, the effect of very low relief produced an often unnatural flattening of forms, especially in those instances where differing levels of relief were simultaneously employed so as to produce an effect of recession in depth. Rather, there are several fundamentally different ways for a sculptor to address the problem of depicting space and to cope with the problems this entailed. Such solutions might be deemed “strategies of compensation,” approaches to representation that could alleviate any perceived shortcomings of relief as a sculptural form. One solution was obvious: to simply deny the problem. This was done in two fundamentally different ways. On the one hand, designs could be carved in very low relief on a surface with figures that display minimal projection, their forms thus being rendered essentially graphically (cf. e.  g., the discussions below of figs. 1.8, 1.21 and 6.11). Such reliefs forsake any compelling claim to three-dimensionality, and an impression of space is suggested primarily by means of composition and juxtaposition. While being set higher in a pictorial format generally indicates further away, on these reliefs an inconsistent scaling of the figural elements thwarts any persuasive sense of a recession of space. On

Introduction

5

the other hand, from early on in Greek tradition, high relief had attempted to overcome the “perspectival” dilemma by manifesting a greater physical presence, almost fully three-dimensional, of its representations: thus the only space that mattered was real space. This was a solution that dominated the metope as a form. Normally, such an approach only suffices for a panel defined by dominant, individuated figures, placed directly in the foreground. For example, figural forms might be set out against a neutral ground that denies any illusionistic recession into depth, and declares, as a consequence, that the space of relief is actual space, into which the sculpted forms project (cf., e.g, the discussions below of figs. 2.5, 4.28, and 4.36). Such representations, even when framed, “contain” no space, merely the figures themselves; thus the metope was the relief format ideally suited for a strategy that rejected the inclusion of elements of staffage and setting. These were, of course, the two representational aspects that were essential for virtually any conception of perspective. By contrast, a direct confrontation of the space problem led, generally, in another direction. This was an attempt to establish one of two antithetical senses of space – real and illusionistic; for, to a great extent, relief was recalcitrant, if not wholly ineffective, when pressed to embrace them both simultaneously. Real space was elaborated by the addition of architecture that appeared to contain its figural forms and their actions (cf. e.  g., figs. 1.13 and 6.23), often emphasized by their greater projection in high relief. In this way sculptors might give form to the ambient within which the figures were placed, despite, at times, marked disparities of scale that resulted from affording those figures a sufficient size that their subjects would be readily discerned. But one consequence of this solution and its emphasis on high relief’s three-dimensionality was that the resulting sense of space was limited to that enclosed by the framing elements. The other approach attempted to represent, by means of illusion, an implicitly continuous and unlimited sense of space, one that was rational, homogenous, and – most significantly – that sought to depict a sense of space receding before us, such as we know it in experience. Even if the sculptural translation of a single-point perspectival view, as if a window onto a depicted world, was not in evidence in antiquity, it was, at times possible for sculptors to describe a scene with staggered planes, figures at differing scales, and with something resembling the effect of aerial perspective, so as to produce in relief the implication of recession into a depicted distance (cf. e.  g., figs. 4.4, 4.7, 4.15, 5.21 and 5.30). These basic responses to the representation of space in relief were not the only possibilities, but they are arguably the most prevalent. They were articulated in works of art across the centuries by means of many variations, as shall become clear in the chapters that ensue. They were a set of obvious, and for the most part, opposing solutions. As the varied dates of

6Introduction

the examples to be examined demonstrate, they do not suggest a chronology nor do they play a role in some sort of “development”; rather, they constitute a repertory of solutions, almost all of which were available by the later Hellenistic period, which were variously and contemporaneously employed. They signify a set of alternatives that demonstrates how the formal principles of relief were varyingly adapted by sculptors to establish a diverse array of mimetic characteristics. Above all, this repertory suggests that the representation of space in relief was not so much an aesthetic challenge to be definitively resolved, but an optical problem to be rationalized by means of visual forms. Historiographically, the specific study of relief appears as a rather neglected aspect, not only of the Greek/Roman question, but of the larger panorama of ancient art forms. The differing solutions outlined above were among those particularly acknowledged by a sequence of scholarly studies, beginning in the 1850s. Indeed, social – rather than formal or stylistic – concerns have provided the basis for much of the later twentieth century focus in the study of Roman art. This was not always the case, but the controversies that surrounded the problem of the representation of space in particular have, along with their protagonists, long since faded from currency. As Brendel so convincingly explained more than two generations ago, the arguments for the role of space in Greek and Roman relief were, to a great degree, ideological, and were rooted in a desire both to elevate the status of Roman artistic accomplishment and to distinguish its productions from those of the Greek world. In nearly all such discussions, the status of relief became decisive, and the question of its representation of space became one of several that were deemed definitive. Many of the participants in those early discussions invoked in the following chapters are no longer common names in contemporary scholarship, and in certain cases, their signal contributions to the topic no longer rank as major accomplishments. A few, notably Franz Wickhoff and Alois Riegl, still hold a significant place in the history of Classical art, if not of art history more broadly. Others, for example, Emanuel Loewy, are hardly remembered by contemporary scholarship; and others – Heinrich Brunn, Rhys Carpenter, Alexander Conze, Edmond Courbaud, Christopher Dawson, Conrad Fiedler, Ernst Gardner, Per Gustave Hamberg, Roger Hinks, Hans Kähler, Giudo Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Friedrich Koepp, Gerhard Krahmer, Julius Lange, Hans Lietzmann, Hans Peter L'Orange, Edmund von Mach, Fried­ rich Matz, Johannes Overbeck, Humphrey Payne, Adolf Philippi, Gerhard Rodenwaldt, Theodore Schreiber, Bernhard Schweitzer, Johannes Sieveking, Carl Weickert, or Heinrich Wölfflin – are the authors of books and articles, if not largely forgotten, seemingly seldom read, if modern bibliographies are held to be representative. A notable exception among the protagonists of

Introduction

7

these chapters is Adolf Hildebrand, whose important theoretical role in the modern tradition has insured his currency, albeit hardly among Classicists.6 Here I sketch the broad outlines of the following chapters. In each, the argument proceeds, jointly, by the examination of the historical tradition’s early critical ideas and the images they were held to explain. 1 The Laws of Relief. The book begins with the nineteenth century discussions of the “true” Greek style of relief, with its figures set off from what was referred to as a “neutral ground”: the non-representational character of the flat (or, in the case of vase painting, empty) background from which the figures visually, and physically, in the case of relief, emerge. Discussion focusses on the articulation of this issue in the work of Brunn, and what he termed the “laws of relief ”: those formal and fundamentally empirical principles that determined the style of the fifth century. His concept of “twin planes” (the empty, flat background and an imagined frontal plane parallel to it) that, in his view, contained the space of Classical relief, was among the most prominent of such principles, and was hugely influential, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 2 Between Two Planes. This chapter addresses the (mostly un-acknowledged) afterlife of Brunn’s ideas, and their continued adaptation to an ever-wider range of examples over the course of two generations. The shortcomings of Brunn’s “twin planes,” despite its formative role for a wholly conservative tradition in criticism, was gradually recognized and emended, as space began to play a major role in the development of a revision of the relationship between Greek and Roman art – a relationship that had not fundamentally changed since the time of Winckelmann. The chapter surveys the growing set of examples whose complexity, revealed by criticism of Brunn’s ideas over the course of decades, gradually transformed his notion of artistic “laws.” It ends with a discussion of the new claims, at the turn of the century, for a sense of “unbounded space,” a concept tied to the revitalization of the role of perspective in art, which should be understood against the backdrop of new scientific developments related to space and time (think: Einstein). 3 Insistent Planarity. The scholarly preoccupation with art’s relation to the plane has long been fundamental (since Alberti and the Renaissance) to the representation of space. But, in contrast to most treatments, the present discussion is set in the context of sculpture rather than painting. It attempts to trace the developments of style and of the representation of space that brought about both the naturalism of the “Greek Revolution” of the Classical age and the new conceptual independence of works of art that came in its wake. In this chapter the formative role of Hildebrand’s ideas, born from the practice of sculpture, is shown to have stimulated his Classical colleagues’ revision of their interpretations of the art of

8Introduction

the past. Hildebrand’s influence was all the more profound in that it dovetailed with the major contributions of Lange and Loewy, whose notions of frontality, an essentially relief-like vision, described a formative role for relief in the gradual emergence of independent, free-standing sculpture. 4 Manifold Forms and Styles. This chapter re-introduces the ideas of Matz to the pluralism discussion, and establishes his fundamental role in the history of artistic style. But it develops these ideas in a direction distinct from that of Matz (or indeed, of anyone else), to point out that stylistic multiplicity was, at times, displayed within individual works – with contrasting styles employed, as it were, side-by-side. The representation of space lay at the heart of these developments, and often emerged, juxtaposed in varying forms, in a host of examples. A central aspect of the argument is that relief, and its various modes for the representation of space, fueled the emergence of stylistic variety and formalistic pluralism. 5 The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief. The notion of “relief-painting” emerged in the late nineteenth-century and established what was regarded as a new genre. This chapter attempts to divide the evidence into three distinct groups, according to subject, and to suggest not only that each had its own forms and characteristics, but how the representation of space was central, in differing ways, to each. By these means old subjects were given new forms; this transformed how those subjects might be depicted, according to a newly perceived appropriateness of form, genre, and subject matter. 6 The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space. This chapter takes up Wickhoff’s question of whether or not a coherent image of landscape existed in antiquity, one that did not depend on its animation by figural subjects. The topic was central to discussions of narrative in the 1960s and ’70s, but Wickhoff’s fundamental theoretical role has never been fully acknowledged. The chapter surveys the formal possibilities displayed by a series of examples – in painting as well as relief – along with the theoretical explanations of them offered by three generations of Classical scholars. All endeavored to point out art’s fundamental inability to produce what Hildebrand had called “that most elementary effect of Nature,” that sense of spatial continuity with the world around us that we experience as a fundamental aspect of life. Hildebrand, perhaps naively, saw this as an attainable goal; art was, nevertheless, recalcitrant, and a sequence of scholars, over the decades, grappled with the dilemma such idealism posed. 7 The Rejection of Space. The final chapter reviews the historical fate of the Classical style and the collapse of those scholarly claims for the persuasiveness and the cogency of its naturalism. Late Roman art, as is well known, largely rejected classicism in what is usually regarded as an attempt to find new modes of expression. This chapter brings the discus-

Introduction

9

sion of space and its representation to a close by focusing on those works of art that, seemingly defiantly, repudiated the long tradition of attempted naturalistic spatial depiction, and effectively answered the question, posed in Chapter 6, in the negative. The “demise” of the representation of space is shown to have been part and parcel of a new emphasis on the effectiveness of images, on their independence from experience and their mirroring of nature, as well on their profoundly conceptual – rather than merely illusionistic – character. A few words are in order to explain what this book is and is not. The essays it comprises are devoted to a series of inter-related topics central to the historiography of ancient relief and, in particular, relief’s pictorial qualities. Each of the chapters treats its subject in roughly chronological fashion, following mainly on the commentaries of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What follows does not attempt to present a conventional or comprehensive history, or its historiography. Nor do these chapters, as a group, make any pretense to being a full account of their enlisted examples or of the corpus of ancient monuments as a whole. Rather, these essays are focused on how a series of monuments illuminate our understanding of a single concern, the representation of space, in one artistic form, relief. Thus these chapters make no claim to treat, in any thorough manner, the contexts, iconography, function, or patronage, of the works that are discussed; all are significant aspects of their study, but in most instances, as should become clear, these matters lie outside the scope of the present endeavor. Finally – the larger, over-arching argument might be framed as a series of questions: Why, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, did the problem of the representation of space in relief matter? Of what was such an art historical concern the index? In what sorts of historical arguments did it play such a prominent role, and what has been their fate? And what, if anything, has changed in more modern historiography since the heyday of those scholarly debates that the following chapters survey? Such questions drive the discussions that follow. Nevertheless, what has not changed, to invoke Hildebrand, is the problem of form: that aspect of the representation of space persists. The variety of solutions to this problem – perhaps we might say, problems – provide a running theme throughout the history of ancient sculpture and its interpretations. Bianchi Bandinelli, with whose words we began, did not overestimate its importance; the ensuing chapters hope to sketch its complexity.

1.  The Laws of Relief

Non dobbiamo confondere l’illusionismo con il tentativo del semplice rendimento prospettico, oppure con la rappresentazione di un primo e secondo piano più o meno esplicitamente espresso e nemmeno negare al rilievo greco ogni interesse alla spazialità. Tutto lo svolgimento dell’arte greca, dopo l’arcaismo, è colmo dello sforzo verso la libertà spaziale. Esempi di bassorilievi nei quali lo sfondo piano sia pensato inesistente possono essere addotti da ogni tempo della scultura greca. We ought not confuse illusionism with a simple attempt at a perspectival rendering, or with the representation of a first and second plane more or less explicitly depicted; nor should we deny to Greek relief any interest in spatiality. The entire development of Greek art, after the archaic period, is filled with efforts to effect a free and open sense of space. Examples of relief, in which the background plane might be thought not to exist can be adduced from every period of Greek sculpture. Rannucio Bianchi Bandinelli, 19331

Over the course of the fifth and fourth centuries, sculptors gradually availed themselves of elaborate compositions and increasingly complex figural poses, both of which demanded a greater attention to their represented interrelations. The gradual adoption of a host of various strategies to convincingly effect these new developments constitutes the realization of the Classical style in the full range of its expressive potential. Many of these strategies were fundamentally pictorial, and although they were widespread in vase painting, they seemingly violated representational conventions that were regarded as fundamental to the practice of relief. For it was a staple of nineteenth-century criticism, as it had been since the eighteenth, that each medium had its own principles. Long ago, Brunn was explicit about such Gesetzen des Reliefs: Man möchte sagen: die älteren Künstler dachten sich ihre Figuren von vorn herein im Style des Reliefs; sie fühlten, dass eine naturgemässe Rundung, wie statuarische Bildung sie erheischt, durch die Forderungen des Reliefs geradezu ausgeschlossen ist; dass nicht das Relief nach den Bewegungen der Figuren, sondern die Darstellung der Bewegungen nach den Gesetzen des Reliefs gestaltet werden müsse.

12

The Laws of Relief One might say that the older artists conceived their figures from the outset in the style of relief; they felt that a natural in-the-round-ness, as statuary form required, is almost excluded by the demands of relief; [and] that a relief should not be designed according to the movements of the figures, but the representation of the movements according to the laws of relief.2

Brunn was not the only scholar of his era to assert a set of principles for relief. A generation later, both Lange and Courbaud would invoke something similar, Loewy would be even more explicit, and even Riegl, concerned with the wholly divergent character of late Roman relief, would make the same sort of claim (we shall examine all of these instances in due course). Loewy noted that the seven “peculiarities” he acknowledged as essential to “drawing” in archaic Greek art were united by a single common principle, one not limited to the Archaic style: “an independence of [artistic works from] the real appearance of objects.” For Brunn, Courbaud, Lange, Loewy, and Riegl – and they were not alone – the “laws” of art, not nature, were primary.3 Such principles – for example, flatness, or a resistance to foreshortening – are evident, most conspicuously, in the depiction of movement in parallel with the plane of the block. The splaying-out of figural forms and their appendages was an obligatory consequence of a neutral background plane if foreshortening was to be avoided. For, on the one hand, the abstract character of forms that are the result of foreshortening are partial and less readily comprehended than those aspects that are offered fully to their beholders. Loewy was to point this out in an argument about the relative recognizability of simple images, by which he understood certain aspects of archaic art (although, by his own admission, it was clear that the phenomenon was not limited to the archaic period, neither chronologically nor stylistically). These aspects were to be understood in relation to what he called “spontaneous memory-pictures,” Erinnerungsbilder (see Ch. 2, below), mental images that allowed one to relate such artistic forms to those apprehended in the natural world: Ein gerade vorgestreckter Arm ist ihm unerträglich, nur in ihrer vollsten, erschöpfenden Ansicht vermag es die Form zu fassen und zu behalten; und so wenig als hier duldet es sonstwie sich abwendende, verkürzende, der Auffassung teilweise entziehende Flächen: ausgebreitet, geebnet muss jede Form vor dem geistigen Auge liegen. Das naive Gedankenbild kann nur ein flaches sein. An arm that is extended forward is intolerable since the elementary imagination can apprehend a form, and retain it, only when seen in its fullest and most comprehensive aspect; and neither here nor elsewhere will it endure any surfaces that, by being turned away and foreshortened, partly escape apprehension. In the mind’s eye every form must be expanded and smoothed out: the spontaneous mental image cannot be other than flat.4

The Problem of the Neutral Ground

13

On the other hand, any foreshortening required a sense of receeding space in which such movement might be effected. Thus, according to Brunn, since the ability of relief sculpture to suggest ambient space was, in principle, severely limited, such radical elements of composition that challenged our imaginative faculty’s ability to adequately resolve them as a coherent image were, to his mind, foreign to relief’s fundamental character. This first chapter assesses the critical ideas of Brunn and the response to them by the leading scholars of the following generation, a number of whom have already been mentioned. Among the most striking engagements with Brunn’s views was that articulated by Conze, the editor of the monumental publication of the Attic grave reliefs (1893  ff), whose development of the idea of pictorial relief and its illusionism would lead in a new direction, while in the next generation, that of Wickhoff would advocate yet another alternative. The problem was deemed essential, as we shall see, generation after generation. More than a century later, Carpenter would state the predicament succinctly: “we must necessarily imagine a space in which [movement] can take place.”5

The Problem of the Neutral Ground Among the various “laws of relief ” invoked by Brunn was an emphasis on the representational neutrality of a panel’s flat, empty background plane, which, as we have seen, Bianchi Bandinelli regarded as if, at least potentially, non-existent. The formal problems posed by the neutral background are readily observed and analyzed. A famous stele from Salamis (fig. 1.1) with the upper border of its original architecture preserved, provides a notable example. This displays figures carved with their postures addressed to the plane.6 They, and the now headless cat crouching atop the adjacent pillar, are arrayed receding progressively in a shallow space before a blank ground, and their presence is given added emphasis by the youth’s raised arm, which is dramatically undercut so that the wrist emerges as a fully three-dimensional form. Divorced from the background plane, it emerges into real space, although its independence from the marble block is only subtly recognized – when viewed, for example, at an angle, or when the emphatic shadow falling on the background is understood as its consequence. A grave stele commemorating Hieron and Lysippe from Rhamnous (fig. 1.2) provides another, later, example.7 Now separated from its original architectural frame, the slab, in markedly high relief, depicts two standing figures who once clasped hands, and thus constitutes an early instance of what would become a time-honored display of marital affec-

14

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.1 “Cat stele” from Salamis, ca. 420 BC. Marble, 1.05 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 715.

tion. Husband and wife stand on a ledge, projecting from the base of the slab, their forms deeply undercut, with their bodies emerging almost three-dimensionally from the blank ground against which they are ­silhouetted. The formal character of figure-ground relations shared by both of these reliefs – that is, the isolation of figural forms before a blank ground – exemplify a Graeco-Roman tradition of long standing. Something similar is found on the early imperial grave altar (fig. 1.3) now in the Vatican, where Ti. Claudius Dionysos clasps hands with his wife Claudia Preponti. The pair stand on a raised groundline, carved in high relief against, and clearly divorced from, the blank background plane of the altar’s block.8 These figures’ plastic forms project from an expanse that serves as their foil, and its undifferentiated plane effectively disguises the merely partial presence of their depictions, whose continuation and fulfillment, in their proper three-dimensionality, remains implicit. The scene is only partly framed by moldings, at the upper and lower borders, in a manner typical of this conventional altar form. The blank background’s potential to suggest illusionistic space is thus reduced, something underscored as the block’s material surface is given emphasis by the text carved upon it. What is absent here is any depiction of either space or place. The artifice of the groundline, effectively a shelf on which the figures stand, fails

The Problem of the Neutral Ground

15 Fig. 1.2 Grave stele of Hieron and Lysippe from Rhamnous, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 1.81 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 833. Fig. 1.3 Grave altar of Ti. Claudius Dionysos and Claudia Preponti, ca. 40–50 AD. Marble, 97 cm (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 9836

to provide even the slightest indication of setting. As the altar’s relief depicts the represented pair of husband and wife in an idealized detachment from the world, it endows their relationship, as in the case of Hieron and Lysippe (fig.  1.2), with a corresponding sense of the timeless and eternal. The visual conventions employed in these three examples, and in particular, the relationships between figure and ground exemplified by them, were clearly variations of a common practice of high relief. Projective forms might be so predominant that they could appear as if fully three-dimensional sculptures affixed to the front of their support. This was an old formal solution, seen even when the figures were compressed within what is essentially the same plane, whether oriented frontally or laterally. Moreover, the absence of setting denies these works of art the capacity to elicit an illusion of a depicted world to which the figures belong, a characteristic absence that may be observed in the metopes attributed to the Sikyonian Treasury at Delphi (fig. 1.4: ca. 575–550), the frieze of the Siphnian Treasury (fig. 1.5: ca. 525), the metopes from the Athenian Treasury at Delphi (fig. 1.6: ca. 490), or those of the Parthenon (fig. 1.7: ca. 440s); compare those of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (figs. 2.6, 2.7, 2.8: ca. 470–460).9 In contrast to all such instances, a second mode of presentation abjures such emphatic physicality in favor of the subtle opticality of low relief. A good example is provided by a late archaic votive relief in Athens (fig. 1.8), a dedication to Athena.10 Here the calligraphic description of the figures’ poses, gestures, and costumes appear in a welter of linear forms without

16

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.4 Metope (“Cattle raid”) from the Sikyonian Treasury at Delphi, ca. 575–550 BC. ­Limestone, 62 cm (H). Delphi, Museum.

Fig. 1.5 Seated figures from the east frieze of the ­Siphnian Treasury, ca. 525 BC. Marble, 64 cm (H). Delphi, Museum.

significant variation in relief depth. The phenomenon is demonstrated most famously on the Parthenon frieze (fig. 1.9), whose dynamism and expressive force belie its mostly shallow carving.11 There low relief produces few projections, limited foreshortening, and thus a restrained role for shadows, all of which diminish the illusion of spatial extension in depth. Again, the Roman period provides another extreme example: the frieze on the entablature of the Arch at Susa (fig. 1.10). This provincial work’s sculptural embellishment is the antithesis of that commonly employed in the imperial period, as, for example, on the Arch of Titus (cf. fig. 1.14).

The Problem of the Neutral Ground

17 Fig. 1.6 Metope (Theseus and an Amazon) from the Treasury of the Athenians, ca. 490 BC. Marble, 67 cm (H). Delphi, Museum.

The Susa frieze is, by comparison, rather crude, simple in design, and, most significantly, in very low relief. Its figures stand to the full height of the frieze (even where, as on the scene surrounding the altar, the scale relationships that result are strikingly anti-naturalistic). All appear to move parallel to its front surface, their torsos in many instances turned toward the plane, legs often in parallel with it, and heads mostly posed frontally or in profile. Virtually none of its elements projects radically from the ground, nor do they seem to recede into depth; there is relatively little overlapping of the figural forms, and as a result, very little sense of spatial illusion. Indeed, the colossal scale of the sacrificial animals makes plain that naturalism was here clearly subordinated to symbolism. The flattened relief forms, with their rudimentary outlines, seem to lie against the ground plane, appliqué-like without any visible sculptural effect.12

Fig. 1.7 Metope (South 27) from the Parthenon, 447–438 BC. Marble, 1.37 m (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1816,0610.11. Fig. 1.8 Votive relief: dedication of pig to Athena, ca. 490–480 BC. Marble, 66.5 cm (H). Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. 581.

18

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.9 Parthenon frieze (North 37–43), 447–438 BC. Marble, 1.06 m (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1816,0610.46b.

Fig. 1.10 Arch at Susa frieze (detail), late first century BC. Marble, 52 cm (H). Susa, in situ.

One might compare the somewhat more complex representation, also of Roman date, found on an altar dedicated to Neptune in Turin (fig. 1.11).13 This example displays, in some respects, a similar treatment to the altar of Claudius and his wife: it is framed at top and bottom only; its figures all stand on a raised artificial ground line; and its inscription is set directly, unframed, above and below, on the blank background. Here, however, the greater cast of characters are less three-dimensional, despite their being staggered in three overlapping rows. And while this overlapping suggests their arrangement in depth, the entire group, pressed close to the frontal plane, exhibits neither diminution of scale nor any hint of receding ground on which they are presumably set. As their forms project, together with the heavy protruding line on which they stand, they seem, like the figures of Claudius and Claudia, as if to hover before the altar’s planar surface. The same strategy of employing projecting forms is strikingly augmented on other monuments in a variety of ways, notably on the naiskosframed stele that emerged with the revival of private burials in Athens around 410. Two distinct tendencies may be observed here. First, figures, either in low or high relief, were isolated by the form of the stelai, whether this was established by the reserved field of the so-called sunken relief type

The Problem of the Neutral Ground

19 Fig. 1.11 Altar to Neptune, ca. 100 AD. Marble, 90 cm (H). Turin, Museo d’Antichità.

(in German, Bildfeldstelen) (fig. 1.12) or by a fully-articulated architectural frame (fig.  1.13). In the former the figures might exceed these framing devices, as if spilling out into the beholder’s space;14 in the latter, the figures might be emphatically presented as if fully three-dimensional within their naiskoi, perhaps nowhere more vividly than on the famous stele of Aristonautes, thus producing monuments that can scarcely be called works in relief.15 This Athenian warrior is carved almost in the round and stands on what appears as a rocky ground, whose character suggests a landscape wholly incompatible with, although contained by, the architectonic surround. The design has the effect of exaggerating the manifest physicality of this figure’s pose and gesture, situating them in real space. Extremely high relief assimilates the protagonist’s appearance to independent, fully

20

Fig. 1.12 Grave stele of the family of Hermaphilos, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 71.5 cm (H). Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Skulpturen­sammlung (Albertinum), inv. Hm 147. Fig. 1.13 Funerary naiskos of ­Aristonautes, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 2.48 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 738.

The Laws of Relief

three-dimensional works of sculpture, a relationship that is attested vividly by other reliefs that manifestly “replicate” famous statues.16 This aspect of Aristonautes’ formal character, the tendency towards greater three-dimensionality, whether actual or merely implied, provides the aesthetic antecedent of many Roman works. Despite dramatic differences that distinguish a wide variety of monuments, this particular characteristic remained for centuries a constitutive element of design and visual effect. For example, on the Arch of Titus frieze (fig. 1.14), an array of figural forms are carved in extremely high relief, nearly fully in the round, so that they appear (just as did the statuesque figure of Aristonautes) as if independent sculptures mounted in the fashion of three-dimensional pedimental figures. And it is not insignificant that in all the preceding

The Problem of the Neutral Ground

21

examples, as well as others, the manifest physicality of the sculpted forms is exaggerated and re-enforced by their figures’ isolation: on the grave reliefs by their surrounding naiskoi, on the metopes by the individuation of the panels in the Doric system, on the frieze by the widespread classicizing tendency to separate one figure from another – and in the case of both metopes and frieze, by their high placement and consequently low vantage point. All of these forms enhance the dramatic role of their figures’ silhouettes, which are further amplified by the shadows they cast on the blank ground.17 As sculptural modes of presentation, such forms  – and their consequences for figure-ground relationships – had a long history, and examples abound. On the Arch of Titus’ entablature the isolated figures appear as if physically standing on a shelf, much like pedimental sculptures enveloped in their architecturally-defined ambient, while on the Susa frieze the relief elements were conceived as if a form of collage, as if cut and pasted to the monument’s surface, thus rendering the graphic quality of their silhouettes the most prominent characteristic. In both examples, the forms seem as if to deny their integral relationship with their background, whether the figures and ground are actually three-dimensionally and spatially distinct (as on the Titus frieze; so too, the “Cat stele”) or hardly so (as at Susa; so too, on the Parthenon). In such works, the role of the contours of their individuated forms dominates their purely visual effect. For the silhouette is what appears most sharply depicted when viewed at a distance, from where this characteristic aspect collapses any visual distinction of the figures’ relative three-dimensionality, and with it, any rational foundation for the provision of an illusion of space within which they move. Nevertheless, in neither high nor low relief of Greek or Roman production is there any sense of a represented

Fig. 1.14 Arch of Titus entablature frieze, ca. 81 AD. Marble, 45 cm (H). Rome, in situ.

22

The Laws of Relief

setting for figures and their actions. This fact is re-enforced, significantly, by those sculptures placed high on their respective architectural monuments, which results in their beholders’ sharply angled view of the most prominent forms, a vantage point that militates against the inclusion of an imagined landscape’s recession. The elevated placement of such sculpted slabs, whether metope or frieze, dictated that their most prominent forms, whether dramatically corporeal in high relief or emphatically silhouetted in low, would take precedence over represented detail as they were only to be seen at a distance. On all of these monuments, despite their divergent date and their often dramatic differences in style, we are confronted by a unifying aesthetic, one of whose defining characteristics is that its figural forms are conceived independently of any sense of architectural or landscape elements that would signal a setting. This is evident in the early Greek material and in later periods would become a thoroughly classicizing matter of form. Thus the broad chronology or the ethnic origin of these examples matters little for this analysis; indeed, the survey might well have been broader (and shall become so in the discussion that follows). All of these examples, in their differing ways, exhibit a common visual quality, one in which mimetic forms are presented not as if inhabiting a coherently illusionistic extension of our world, but, in their various fashions, as if residing, somewhat ambiguously, in one that is fundamentally their own. Whatever spatial illusionism is to be found remains markedly limited. For all of these examples display not merely a dissociation of their figures from the ground, but what has been called the latter’s neutralization; that is, artists appear to have tried “to isolate, if possible, each figure, so that an empty space with a neutral background will be left open around them.”18 As a result, in each instance, the background plane does not play any representational role; it functions not only materially, as the rear-most limit of the representational space, but apparently, as a void amidst and behind the seemingly independent forms, despite the obvious fact of their physical unity with the blocks from which they are carved. The figures are silhouetted against a blank, unsculpted background whose empty expanse represents nothing at all.19 Even in those more complex compositions, with figures viewed from behind (as in fig. 1.15; see below, pp. 41–43), where the materiality of the background plane is seemingly denied by the imagery, that plane is not yet recast as an illusionistic space. In those few instances we have examined, the silhouette played a dominant role. In the case of low relief it enforces a distinction and independence from the ground plane; this is exaggerated in high relief, as actual space takes on a new vividness due to the figures’ manifest projection outward from the relief ground. In such examples, the only perceptible

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

23 Fig. 1.15 Statue base (“Hockey players”), ca. 510–500 BC. Marble, 28 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 3477.

space is that palpably real space that the relief shares with its beholders and in which the work objectively exists, as opposed to an intuition of a locale produced by either the depiction of a spatial setting or an illusion of recession in the plane.

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture As the foregoing examples make plain, the neutralization of the ground was a formal characteristic of works of art throughout the entirety of the Classical tradition. Further examples are easy to find, since such a neutral ground played a fundamental role in vase painting as well as relief sculpture. It may readily be seen in Black- and Red-figure (figs. 1.16 and 1.17), where an emphasis on the silhouette indicated a decisive separation from the blank expanse of the surrounding field.20 Beyond the stylistic choice to isolate their forms, representations in both painting and relief often markedly deprive those forms (whether two- or three-dimensional) of an illusionistic extension into depth. This is all the more striking in the case of vase painting, given its fully illusionistic mode of representation, in which the prominence of the silhouette against a blank ground is an acknowledgment of a primarily figural art. Indeed, any attempt at spatial illusionism required to provide those figures with a setting is compromised by the coincidence of a vase’s surface and its shape, which married the imagery’s background to its very objecthood. Correspondingly, in the case of relief, it is the recessed material slab itself that effectively denies any reality to the blank space that remains unfilled by figures, a characteristic that was paradoxically all the more emphatic in the case of the Classical architectural frieze, where the background was evidently often painted blue.21 Although such blue backgrounds would be endowed with a vividly

24

Fig. 1.16 Black-figure amphora by Exekias (Achilles and Ajax), ca. 530 BC. Terracotta, 61 cm (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. 16757. Fig. 1.17 Red-figure amphora by the Achilles Painter, ca. 440 BC. Terracotta, 62 cm (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, Museo ­Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. 16571.

The Laws of Relief

representational status as they so obviously figured the sky high above and behind the figures of the entablature frieze, those backgrounds’ material presence was nonetheless undermined by the amorphous character of the illusion – for it would seem to disappear when understood as the sky. The results of such practices, in both painting and relief, tend to preclude the representation of an ambience in which the represented forms might exist. And in the two media, perhaps the clearest signal of a cognizance of the background’s neutral, non-illusionistic character, was, as we have seen in several examples, the common practice of adding inscriptions, whose presence forcefully declares that the background plane was to be understood, not as ambient space, but as the material surface of the monument itself.22 In vase painting the silhouette’s significant role in establishing the neutrality of the background depends, in large measure, on its suppression of foreshortening by compositional means. The near elimination of such recession, together with the outward-swelling form of the vessel that contradicts any sense of an opening into depth, serves to undermine the illusion that the blank surface, seemingly “behind” these starkly drawn forms, was intended to be understood, despite its emptiness, as ambient space. Several examples shall suffice. An Attic Black-figure panel amphora in the manner of the Lysippides Painter (fig. 1.18) displays a frontal chariot anchored to the base of the reserved panel and set off against a blank ground. The individual horses are isolated, one alongside the other, their overlapping minimized, and even their turned heads are severely contorted to appear in full profile, contrasting forcefully with the isolated frontal presentation of their visually compressed forms. The image shares that quality of archaic figures in which the predominance of one facet was clearly regarded as sufficient, or, in the evocative phrase of Loewy, “in which the conception of such figures is exhausted.”23 The Black-figure

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

25 Fig. 1.18 Black-figure amphora in the manner of the ­Lysippides Painter, ca. 530–520 BC. ­Terracotta, 47 cm (H). Princeton, Princeton ­University Art Museum, inv. y166.

forms of the serried horses, as they divorce themselves from the reserved red ground, seem to be set before a background field that lacks any compelling representational value. There appears to be no sense of a space into which the chariot recedes or from which the horses protrude, and this renders the figure-ground relationship with striking ambiguity (something to which we shall return). Other obvious cases of such a neutralization of the ground, that is, of a denial of its representational value, betray similar visual qualities. So, for example, nearly a century later in Red-figure, on the name vase of the Achilles Painter (fig. 1.17), the hero is silhouetted against the black ground, standing on a meander line that floats amidst the undefined darkness. He, like the horses on the Lysippides amphora (fig. 1.18), displays a strikingly old-fashioned juxtaposition of frontal (torso) and profile (head) views: those aspects of comportment that lent themselves to the simplest design, one that conveyed the most direct expression of the iconography, and that most readily conformed to the plane.24 The abstract character of the depiction, and in the later fifth century, its rather stiff and outdated aspect, is only contradicted by Achilles’ radically foreshortened foot, a motif that

26

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.19 Marble funerary lekythos, ca. 375–350 BC. 1.02 m (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 12.159

betrays then-current spatial concerns (the female on the reverse is somewhat less archaizing).25 Continued recourse to such aspects of earlier style were widespread, and thus demonstrate that the employ of a neutral ground – an essentially archaic conception – was not strictly a matter of chronology. The typical characteristics found on these painted examples find their equivalents in relief. A correlation of sculpted relief with vase painting practices is readily demonstrated by the similar compositions employed on lekythoi, both painted and marble (fig.  1.19).26 The latter replicate,

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

27 Fig. 1.20 Agnostrate stele, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 1.31 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 1863.

28

The Laws of Relief

now in relief, the same conventions that marked the vase by the Achilles Painter: emphatic contours that effect a visible distinction from the background plane, no foreshortenings that suggest an extension in depth, and, above all, no representation of architectural or landscape forms that might serve to describe ambient space. The effect is all the more apparent on a work such as the Agnostrate stele (fig. 1.20),27 where the massive form of the protagonist is contrasted to her repetition, carved in relief, on the loutrophoros at her side. On all such examples one finds the same set of characteristics, and this may be said despite the recent proposal that such marble vessels were originally painted.28 The emphasis on the silhouette was to become a, perhaps the, dominant formal feature of early classicism in relief, and was long-allied, stylistically  – certainly in the late sixth- and early fifth-centuries  – to the suppression of foreshortening. Such effects mark numerous examples of late archaic relief, such as the Aristion stele (fig. 1.21).29 Here, despite an observable interest in chiaroscuro modeling within the forms, their hard profiles predominate and they merely approximate a natural three-dimensionality as the figure is resolved in a series of broad and shallow planes. Cast shadows are thus kept to an absolute minimum and a continuity of surface dominates – relieved only by the awkward emergence of the left arm from behind and the crossing of one foot in front of the other. As in the case of the typical free-standing kouros, there is no lateral extention, nor any concerted attempt at foreshortening,30 as attention to the natural spatial character of the human form is registered in the composition but not actualized by the physicality of relief. Indeed, in order to confine the figural forms below the level of the stele’s outer borders, the background, now no longer a flat plane, has been worked as a concave surface. This accentuates the three-dimensionality of the relief, despite its very limited projection. Brunn had regarded such a concave treatment – indeed, anything other than a flat and blank ground – as an exception in Greek relief; Conze, by contrast, claimed that “the unevenness of the background is not the exception in Greek reliefs, but the rule.”31 Equally notably, the expanse of the background plane on such early reliefs is remarkably diminished; indeed, on all such upright attic grave reliefs, the extent to which the figures fill the frame effectively eliminates the background. This formal solution was in dramatic contrast to the isolation of the figures on the vases, so often shown as if floating in broad metope-like fields.32 Similar effects are found on the “Athletes” base (fig. 1.15),33 where, albeit with a greater breadth of the ground plane, there is little foreshortening despite the energetic poses; the vibrant anatomical detail is rendered by hard divisions of form and modeling is kept to a minimum; and there is little attempt to transform the broad expanse of stark background so as to connote space.

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

29 Fig. 1.21 Aristion stele, ca. 510 BC. Marble, 2.02 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 29.

More complex compositions produced new effects, and certain other aesthetic solutions to the problem of how to neutralize the background plane, not antithetical to those we have examined, also presented themselves. One was a heightened crowding of figures so as to produce a densely packed field, one that effectively obliterated any view of the background at all. This took several distinct forms. Sculptors might fill the entire field with figures (fig. 1.22); they might cram the spaces between figures with accessories, such as the whirling draperies that lend the Bassai frieze one of its distinctions (fig. 1.23); or the number of figures might be multiplied

30

The Laws of Relief

and arrayed, side-by-side, so as to close off a view to the rear. As early as 1882, Conze believed that this was one of the great innovations of the Pergamene Gigantomachy frieze (fig. 1.24). He recognized how the propensity to crowd the figures together undermined the traditional integrity of their individual silhouettes, so that they thus lose their visual force and function. What mattered, from his point of view, was that, compacted together, the figures cease to define their individual forms against the blank background plane. The consequent effect is that the recessed surface of the block is no longer perceived since it is now filled with forms, and the background plane seemingly “disappears,” as scarcely any of it is visible. Thus, Conze remarked, somewhat awkwardly, that the “uneven” ground of Greek relief had certain positive spatial implications: Bleibt das Verfahren der Herausnahme des Grundes nicht bei dem Wegnehmen einer durchgehend gleichmässigen Schicht stehen, bei welchem wie in Aegypten Bild und Grund nur in zwei Flächen sich von einander abheben, vielmehr ist in der Relieftechnik bei den Griechen ein Streben wirksam, wie durch Erhabenmodellirung des Bildes, so und zwar nicht durch überall gleichmässig tiefes, sondern durch stellenweise stärkeres Hineingehen in den Grund grössere Fülle der Darstellung mit hintereinander befindlichen Figuren zu erreichen, ein Verschwindenlassen also der materiell gegebenen Bildfläche. The process of carving away the background is not limited to the removal of a consistently uniform layer, in which, as in Egyptian art, the image and ground only stand out from one another in two planes. Rather, in the relief technique of the Greeks, there was an effort to achieve a greater fulsomeness of the representation, with overlapping figures set one behind the other, so that the raised modeling of the image, not [carved] throughout to the same depth but in certain places penetrating more deeply into the ground, thus effecting the disappearance of the work’s material surface.34

There are several fundamental insights conjoined here, albeit somewhat cryptically presented. First, Conze recognized that in extremely crowded compositions, the material surface of the ground ceases to pose an optical – that is, illusionistic – dilemma because it is effectively hidden from view as the figural elements simply fill up the field. We have already seen this to be the case in crowded late archaic works like the Aristion stele (fig. 1.21); as an aspect of style it appears over the course of the following century (fig. 1.25),35 and not unrelatedly, is found on certain sections of the Parthenon frieze or that from Bassai (fig. 1.23). And a second insight was that the implicit “perspectival” effect of a field filled with figures staggered side-by-side as if to recede into depth, no matter how crudely “perspectival,” reduces the amount of the background plane that is left visible, and thus again eliminates that material surface’s tendency to present an optical problem. The effect is vividly presented in differing styles by the famous mid-sixth century “cattle raid” metope from the Sikyonian Treasury (fig. 1.4) and on the Parthenon (fig. 1.9). In the former, the rigid repetition of overlapping limbs, repeated stylized forms, and the un-naturalistically disposed heads of the cattle, as they all address themselves to the forward

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

31 Fig. 1.22 Metope (Aktaion) from Temple E (Hera?), ca. 470–450 BC. Limestone and Marble, 1.62 m (H). Palermo, Museo Archeologico Regionale, inv. 3921 C.

Fig. 1.23 Frieze from the Temple at Bassae, ca. 420–400 BC. Marble, 63 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1815,1020.3.

32

Fig. 1.24 Athena from the ­Gigantomachy frieze, Great Altar at Pergamon, ca. 180–150 BC. Marble, 2.28 m (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Pergamon Museum.

The Laws of Relief

plane, deny a significant role to any negative space, while in the latter, the varied stances, attitudes, and drapery forms display their cramped and limited spatial relations yet present themselves as if a curtain wall closing off the background. In both examples, bodies suggest the space they require for their poses and gestures, but nothing else. Yet Conze’s observation suggests that, at times, there was space. The corollary of his denial of a view to the background in such highly crowded scenes was that, in the case of those somewhat less densely populated, more of the blank ground remained to be seen (cf. fig. 1.9 with fig. 1.15). On the Pergamon reliefs, Conze thought that this suggested ambient space: Die Tendenz über das, was wir Reliefstil zu nennen pflegen, in dem die Silhouette vorherrscht, d.  h., wo ein hinreichend freier Grund zum Heraustretenlassen der einzelnen Gestalt bleibt, über dieses hinauszugehen, den Grund durch immer weiteres Hineinarbeiten verschwinden zu lassen, zugleich damit ein gesteigertes Hintereinander von Gestalten in das Bild einzuführen, und die Gestalten wie im freien Raum, nicht auf einer Fläche erscheinen zu lassen, ist von den Griechen bis zum Äussersten geführt. We reserve the term “relief style” for that tendency, followed by the Greeks to the extreme, in which the silhouette predominates: that is, where there remains a sufficiently empty background to allow individual forms to stand out; by always working [the figures] further into the background, to allow them to disappear; and, at the same time, to permit [not only] an increased succession of figures to be introduced into the image, [but] for their forms to appear as if in empty space, not on a surface.36

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

33

As a description of the Pergamon Altar, this is hardly apt. The only slabs that display such an “empty background” are now recognized as fragmentary, and it is likely that the style of the whole was largely uniform and densely packed with figures. Nonetheless, here we recognize Conze’s third, merely implicit, insight. In this passage Conze is surely referring to the visual effect of the foreground’s higher relief figures, and those seemingly behind and overlapped by them, who “recede into the ground,” that is, whose forms diminish in the height of their relief until they merge with the relief surface (der materiell gegebenen Bildfläche), and thus imply the continuation of their substantiality as a matter of illusionism. In this case the idea of the relief’s “material surface” disappearing is merely Conze’s way of suggesting that the figures’ diminution produced an effect not unrelated to that of aerial perspective, an association he made, repeatedly.37 For Conze believed that a consequence of the dramatically reduced substantiality of the receding figures is that we should conceive them as if they were vanishing and merging into an amorphous void. This, however, would seem to be the least compelling of his conclusions. An empty background required articulation to render its expanse as the space into which one might not only conceive, but perceive, the figures vanishing, since this was a question of representation, not one of intuition. Indeed, the effects of crowding the field described by Conze’s analysis posed problems, and these were noted. In 1899, Courbaud would not only remark the anti-naturalistic character of the visual strategy, but observed its formal implications:

Fig. 1.25 Votive relief, ca. 410 BC. Marble, 57 cm (H). National ­Archaeological Museum, Athens, inv. 2756.

34

The Laws of Relief

Pour rendre une foule et l’impression du nombre, pour traduire la multiplicité des objets de la vie réelle, deux plans ne sauraient suffire ; il y faut une perspective plus savante. Sinon, ou l’on ne reproduira pas tout ce qu’on voit et l’on fera un triage, ou, pour ne rien omettre, on sera conduit, en ramassant le tableau entier sur deux plans, à fausser le rapport véritable des choses. Dans les deux cas, on s’éloignera de la scrupuleuse vérité. Que la paroi qui borne le relief paraisse donc céder, s’entr’ouvrir, qu’elle montre des lointains, et que personnages et objets s’y enfonçent pour se disposer chacun à leur place. Mais s’engager dans cette voie, n’est-ce pas sortir du domaine de la sculpture, empiéter sur un autre terrain, celui de la peinture, tendre en un mot à la confusion des genres ? Et cette confusion ne risqué-t-elle pas d’avoir pour la sculpture les pires effets ? […] c’est-àdire en violant les conditions essentielles de la représentation plastique. To render a crowd and convey the impression of its mass, to translate the multiplicity of the objects of real life, two planes do not suffice; there must be a more scientific perspective. If not, one doesn’t replicate everything one sees, and thus one chooses; or, in order to omit nothing, one is led to compress the entire picture into two planes and thus to distort the true relation between things. In both cases, we deviate from what is strictly true. For the wall that closes off the relief thus appears to yield, as if to open, so that it might show distance, and so that characters and objects sink in so as to settle, each in its place. But to take this path, does one not leave the realm of sculpture and encroach on another field, that of painting, to give way, so to speak, to a confusion of genres? And doesn’t such a confusion run the risk of producing the worst effects in sculpture? […] that is to say, by violating the basic requirements of sculptural representation.38

Like most nineteenth-century critics, Courbaud clearly believed that the various artistic media had such “basic requirements” – or, as Brunn had emphasized, its “laws” – and that these essential conditions constituted a set of a priori principles. Yet he recognized that these had a cultural specificity, for he considered them to be markedly different for the Romans than for the Greeks: Le bas-relief romain, qui devait suivre la pente opposé du réalisme, ne pouvait donc manquer, dans ses différentes parties, de prendre le contre-pied du bas-relief hellénique. Le sculpteur romain s’attache à la nature d’une forte prise; il voudrait, comme la plaque sensible de nos appareils photographiques, réfléchir et fixer cette réalité mouvante et passagère; il s’efforce de la transporter telle quelle sur le marbre, n’y mettant rien de luimême, docile copiste dont tout l’effort consiste à augmenter en lui cette docilité même. Le sculpteur grec s’élève au-dessus d’une simple transcription des faits et d’un décalque des choses; il prétend à une vérité plus haute que la vérité d’un jour, à la vérité générale qui vaut pour tous les temps. The Roman bas-relief, whose propensity was the opposite of realism, could not fail, in its different parts, to present itself as the contrary of the Hellenistic bas-relief. The Roman sculptor attaches himself to nature strongly; he would like to reflect and fix this moving and transient reality just as do the sensitized plates of our cameras, so he endeavors to transport it, just as it is, to the marble, adding nothing himself, a docile copyist whose entire effort consists in affirming this very docility. The Greek sculptor rises above a simple transcription of facts and a tracing of things; he pretends to a truth higher than everyday truth, to the general truth which is valid for all times.39

The two approaches to Greek relief outlined by Courbaud in the first of these passages corresponded to what he held to be essential to sculp-

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

35 Fig. 1.26 Red-figure amphora attributed to the Berlin Painter, ca. 500–490 BC. Terracotta, 81.5 cm (H, with lid). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antiken­sammlung, inv. F 2160.

ture and to painting. He distinguished this, in the second passage, from Roman practice, contrasting the relative idealism and realism that he believed the two cultures’ sculptors brought to their endeavors. His interpretation of the crowded relief field together with its intimation of depth (produced largely by overlapping of forms), was, so he felt, compromised in the works of Greek sculptors by the abstraction that resulted when set between the conventional “two planes” (see Ch. 2, below). For Courbaud, the representation of space in relief formed part of an affirmation of those principles that distinguished Greek from Roman relief sculpture. Courbaud’s connection of the crowding of the relief field to the related strategy of the overlapping of elements that would create a simple illusion of depth had been similarly acknowledged by Conze. This was, however, not only a formal characteristic of relief’s more complex compositions; the vase painters similarly established a greater illusionistic contrast of “in front” and “behind” (fig. 1.26). In relief, this can be seen on most of the surviving Greek architectural friezes  – Delphi (ca.  525), Olympia (ca.  470–460), the Parthenon (ca.  440), and the Athena Nike temple (ca. 420: fig. 1.27) – where the staggered and partly superimposed figures

36

Fig. 1.27 Frieze from the Temple of Athena Nike at Athens, ca. 425 BC. Marble, 44.45 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1816,0610.161.

The Laws of Relief

dynamically interact with one another, forcefully suggesting, illusionistically, their relative positions, front to back. In all these instances the compositions give prominence to those figures that stand to the fore on the same uniform ground line, as if in contention for ever-greater dominance of the foremost plane.40 Thus, despite the spatial implications of their overlapping forms, when pressed forward to the frontal plane, they not only undermine a convincing evocation of their three-dimensional relations, but the leftover “space”  – that is, the empty ground between, and above the figures – remains a void, largely without definition. This is true for both painting and sculpture whose figural forms remain fundamentally anchored to the silhouette; hence Conze’s desire to see in such examples the equivalent of aerial perspective is hardly compelling, and this judgement is to be recognized in Courbaud’s objection to the introduction of “scientific perspective.” In a further variation, the use of numerous overlapping, near-identical forms, staggered in parallel planes, often resulted in their distinctive multiplication of a shared silhouette. The compositional practice implies a regular, discernable recession into depth now rendered by the spread of forms in the plane. This aesthetic strategy also served to undermine the tyrannical space-denying role of the blank ground implicit in Conze’s analysis. The effect is epitomized by the ubiquitous horses of the quadrigae, among a host of similarly repeated forms, and reinforced by a lack of diminution of scale or recession. Examples are found painted on vases (fig. 1.28) or carved in relief, as when the technique was employed for a herd of cattle on the metope from the Sikyonian Treasury (fig. 1.4), on the friezes from the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (fig. 1.29), and in its most refined and complex form on the frieze of the Parthenon. The resulting imagery presents its numerous figures and their sharply regularized forms in a manner reminiscent of that distinctively idealized Greek scheme for representing the phalanx (fig. 1.30), whose visualization wedded an implied extension into depth with its figures actually being spread out in the plane.41 Yet this was a solution that could hardly be realized effectively in high relief, and thus we encounter a fundamental paradox. For the recession

Setting, Place, and Space in Painting and Sculpture

37 Fig. 1.28 Quadriga with charioteer. Attic Black-figure amphora attributed to the Painter of Bologna 48, from Rhodes, ca. 510 BC. Terracotta, 40 cm (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 12716.

Fig. 1.29 Frieze from the Siphnian Treasury (detail: east), ca. 530 BC. Marble, 63 cm (H). Delphi, ­Archaeological Museum.

Fig. 1.30 “Chigi” olpe, ca. 650 BC. 50 cm (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. 22679.

38

The Laws of Relief

of sculptural forms in the relief field required sufficient actual depth in which those forms might be convincingly and naturalistically modelled. Thus the effective representation of that recession required an accelerated diminution of the figures’ tangible presence, as the figures had to be carved in progressively shallower relief. If the high-relief carving of foreground elements granted them a sense of immediacy and real presence, the reduced treatment of the receding forms behind rendered these not only progressively less tangible, but less rational, for the forms furthest to the rear were, primarily, although not entirely, illusionistic. Here we confront the central problem of representing space in relief: relief’s physical presence will not allow it to be conceived as the equivalent of perspectival illusion as it was employed in ancient painting.

The Characteristics of Figural Space Thus, in relief, one finds, as if a corollary of such ideas about fundamental principles, a whole series of characteristics: an emphasis on the silhouette and a reliance on profile views of heads; a limitation on compositions that display the crossing of axes so as to preserve the clarity and legibility of their outlined forms; and a flattening of those forms near the frontal plane that implies a resistance to their heightened modeling and the deliberate suppression of shadows that is the result. So often the Parthenon is held to exemplify such principles, even where, as Loewy pointed out, speaking of the horsemen on the North frieze, […] führt die stellenweise ganz ungewöhnliche Häufung von Figuren doch nicht zu einem der Wirklichkeit gemässen Abbau in die Tiefe. Besteht auch dort, wo hinter einander zu denkende Teile im Relief aneinandertreffen, eine leichte Verschiedenheit des Planes, so streben doch im weiteren Verlauf die Flächen wieder nach vorn, und die Gesamttiefe des Reliefs ist in diesen Teilen nicht grösser als dort, wo, wie im Westfries, die Figuren einzeln auseinanderfallen. A quite exceptional heaping up of figures does not lead to a reduction of depth corresponding to reality. There is, indeed, a slight difference of planes where parts supposed to be behind one another in reality come in contact in the relief. Yet the planes further [away] again [seemingly] press toward the front, and the entire depth of the relief in such places is not greater than where the figures are in juxtaposition, as in the West frieze.42

On the Parthenon, the low relief work offered little aid in the production of a sense of illusionistic space and the effect was re-enforced by an insistence of a common ground line and the relentlessly foregrounded figures. This is true especially in those instances where the complexity of its compositions seems to fly in the face of the shallow carving. The sculptors could rely on a distant view, given the high setting of the frieze, as well as the angle at which it had to be viewed, to disguise the obvious disparities. They

The Characteristics of Figural Space

39 Fig. 1.31 Parthenon frieze (West 9), 447–438 BC. Marble, 1.0 m (H). Athens, Acropolis Museum.

could depend on the beholder’s penchant to translate into a compelling visual experience the vagaries of relief carving’s refusal to correspond to the shape of reality. So, on the West frieze, the sculpted image of a nude figure standing before his horse (fig. 1.31) defies any spatial correspondence with the realities of its subjects’ actual materiality since everything is carved on the same plane and there is thus almost no real space to account for a distinction between the two figural forms’ physical presences.43 And as the studiously low relief carving limits the play of cast shadows, not only on the background but from one figure onto another, the forms deny a visualization of atmosphere and an illusion of their situation in space. The effect is repeatedly found, and as Carpenter declared, in such instances “space has lost its density and we fail to see [the figures] in the space we know they must occupy.”44 In painting, however, precisely such a sense of space had long been pursued. The ability to effect an impression of atmosphere and the depiction of ambience by the employment of landscape staffage had emerged, during the sixth and fifth centuries, in new and distinctive ways. This is evident in the Dionysiac imagery where the open, overall pattern effected by the god’s vines transforms the role of the vase forms’ ground. This occurs, for example, on an amphora in Boston (fig.  1.32), and another attributed to the Lysippides Painter in Munich, on both of which Dionysos’ heraldic vine springs forth, heavy with fruit, as if magically from his hand.45 The same is true of the cascading branches of trees, whose presence, albeit less substantial than the figures for whom they provide a more

40

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.32 Black-figure Amphora (in the manner of Exekias?), ca 540 BC. Terracotta, 51.4 cm (H). Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 63.952.

illusionistic sense of setting, suggests that the background be understood as ambient space. So, on a vase attributed to the Antimenes Painter, now in the British Museum (fig. 1.33), the entire ground of the vessel is uniformly painted to suggest a single coherent setting, within which a group of slaves are depicted harvesting olives from trees laden with fruit, which is shown falling from the branches as they are beaten with sticks.46 In such instances the vines and branches imply not only their diffusion across the surface of the vessel, but transform that surface into the image of an ambient space. Experience tells us that such expansive vegetal growth requires a sense of space sufficient for the convincing depiction of a figure nestled high amidst the tree’s branches, and here we glean a concerted attempt to register the ambient that such living forms demand. Actual depictions of forshortening made other aesthetic demands. And by the late fifth century, notably on white-ground Lekythoi, we find that Attic painters had perfected a compelling representation of a purely figural space produced by the employment of new oblique poses and the novel compositional forms they implicated (fig. 1.34). By contrast, the sculptors, whose pictorialism was always hampered by the brute physicality of their medium, would not venture to essay the correlative of such domi-

The Characteristics of Figural Space

41 Fig. 1.33 Black-figure amphora by the Antimenes Painter, ca. 515 BC. Terracotta, 40.64 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1837,0609.42.

nant foreshortenings until much later. And when they were to do so, the actual three-dimensionality of relief would require them to fundamentally rethink how the equivalent of the painters’ pictorialism might be effected.47 In relief, the introduction of a radical presentation of back views produced novel, if not equivalent, pictorial effects. This not only demonstrated a new recourse to the observation of nature but transformed the solid and undifferentiated background in unprecedented fashion, such as is found, famously, on the Athena Nike frieze (fig. 1.27; cf. 1.15).48 As Mach pointed out, in a somewhat naïve analysis, and despite a certain distaste (for this was, in his view, one of the “less judicious practices” the sculptors had introduced), the Nike frieze displayed a design which under ordinary conditions would compel one to think of [the figures] as actually pressed against the background. They are, nevertheless, shown in violent motion and with sufficient freedom of action to continue a vigorous fight. Other warriors again are coming slantingly out from the background. In both instances, therefore, one is expected to imagine the figures somewhat in front of the temple; there is space, air, between them and the wall.49

42 Fig. 1.34 White-ground lekythos, ca. 420–400 BC. ­Terracotta, 50.8 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv 1852,0302.1.

The Laws of Relief

The Characteristics of Figural Space

43

The back view thus broke with convention and made a new appeal to the imagination.50 One of its consequences, as Mach went on to point out, was that it effectively undermined the long conventional, tectonic character of the architectural frieze, as the introduction of such figures, seen from the rear, signaled that the frieze could no longer be conceived as “an integral part of the architectural structure.”51 The exaggerated torsion of figural forms was to provide yet another means to overcome the effect of the background plane’s blank expanse. This was a late Classical phenomenon, save for, perhaps, an early, tentative example on the Nike frieze, where something of the kind appears along with the back view (fig.  1.27). In the following century, the serpentine poses that would be famously associated with the statues of Skopas and Lysipppos had begun to appear in relief at the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (fig. 1.35). Despite the fact that its figures stand on a common ground line, that frieze’s figures’ dramatic, often contorted poses enhance the sense that they appear to move in space, rather than merely articulate a silhouette against the ground. And on works such as the Messene Lion Hunt relief (fig. 1.36), one finds an even greater violence in the poses, now veritable figurae serpentinatae, whose spatial implications challenge the traditional dominance of the background plane.52 As a last example, we may note that a conventionally-sensed “atmosphere” might also be shattered. We have already remarked the ambiguity presented by those painted vases whose designs are characterized by an isolated panel on each side that serves to frame the pair of scenes (fig. 1.18; cf. 1.16).53 This may be said despite the fact that on the Princeton vase the two soldiers’ helmets overlap the upper decorative border producing a visual conundrum: their implied position in space is contradicted by the chariot’s place, clearly behind the horses, who nevertheless stand at the very forefront of the depiction. Such spatial ambiguities are not unique. Yet on a host of vessels, the sense of space evoked by these painted boundaries is paradoxically intensified when the vase’s depiction seems as if to violate those panels’ function as a frame. As the figures overlap the border that isolates their background against a vase’s overall shape, the protagonists appear to “step out” of the ambient that these frames imply (fig. 1.37).54 Such apparent projections destroy any illusion of a defined space that would seem to recede within the frame, deny our recognition of the vase surface’s solidity, and at the same time effectively compromise the conventional intuition of a “picture plane” that closes off that ambient from a world outside.55 On such painted vases, all of these aspects of the representation to which we have directed attention remain illusionistic. Conversely, on the reliefs, the problem presented itself differently. There the problem of space, of atmosphere, of ambience, and of frame are no longer merely a matter of

44

The Laws of Relief

Fig. 1.35 Frieze from the ­Mausoleum of ­Halikarnassos, ca. 350 BC. Marble, 89 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1865,1211.5.

Fig. 1.36 Lion hunt base from ­Messene, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 59 cm (H). Paris, Louvre, inv. Ma 858.

painted decorations and their illusions, but of the physical character of the form, as well. Just as on the Princeton vase (fig. 1.37), figures in relief also might appear to outgrow, or in certain cases, seemingly “break out” of or recede behind their architectonic frames. The effect is perhaps most famously seen in three dimensions at the corner of the Parthenon’s east pediment, but the motif became a standard element on the composition of fourth-century funerary reliefs (fig. 1.38), whose naiskoi so often seem as if to fail to contain the figures that these forms were designed to frame (cf. fig  1.12).56 Such frame-denying motifs would be employed on even the most pictorially ambitious of what Conze termed Reliefgemälde, the monument at St.-Rémy (fig. 1.39 – which will be a focus of our attention in Ch. 5). For in such instances, while the pictorial effect of crowded (cf. above, p. 29–32) and overlapping forms (cf. above, p. 33–35) produced the illusion of the figures receding within their frame, this optical effect is married to the sculptural projection of the foreground figures, which appear as if to burst from their representational settings, so as to deny what had long determined relief’s spatial character: the implicit contain-

The Characteristics of Figural Space

Fig. 1.37 Black-figure lekythos in the manner of the Gorgon Painter, ca. 580 BC. Terracotta, 31.7 cm (H). Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum, inv. 2007–39.

45

Fig. 1.38 Attic grave relief of Lysarete from Piraeus, ca. 475-450 BC. Marble, 55.5 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 209.

Fig. 1.39 Amazonomachy from St. Rémy/Glanum cenotaph (east), early first century AD. Limestone, 2.18 m (H). Glanum (Saint-Rémy-deProvence), in situ.

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The Laws of Relief

ment by an ideal frontal plane. Such projection aggressively established its figures’ presence. And with its particular employ on the funerary monuments, their three-dimensional reality seemingly thematized an assertion of the dead’s physical presence that was so central to the commemorative purpose of their genre.

Relief ’s Two Contexts All discussion of the style of relief, especially Greek relief, and the repertory of its various spatial effects, must be seen in its twin contexts: that of the architectural settings in which such artistic forms were deployed, and that of the historical development such a repertory implies. Both questions had been addressed by Philippi, who, in 1872, adopted a fundamentally tectonic approach: Auf welchem Wege hat der Stil des griechischen Reliefs sich entwickelt? Das Relief ist von Haus aus Flächenbekleidung und in dieser Function schon um seiner grösseren Dauerhaftigkeit willen früh an die Stelle malerischer oder zeichnerischer Decoration gesetzt worden. Als Bekleidung aber, welche dem zu bekleidenden Raume durchaus untergeordnet ist, darf es nicht den Schein körperlicher Selbständigkeit beanspruchen. Die Darstellung soll den Reliefgrund als indifferent betrachten, sie hat nur in der Längenrichtung, nicht in die Tiefe sich auszudehnen. Das Relief muss also, weil es Wandbekleidung ist, auf die perspectivische Anordnung seiner Theile verzichten. Aber auch nur darum, nicht jedoch deswegen, weil es als Zweig der Sculptur seinen Gesetzen nach der Malerei entgegengesetz ist. Denn auch die rein ornamentale Malerei ist körper- und perspectivelos, wie uns das die mustergültigen gemalten und gewebten Ornamente aller Völker zeigen. How did the style of Greek relief develop? Relief was originally a surface embellishment, and serving in this function already early on, due to its greater durability, took the place of painted or graphic decoration. As a wall treatment, however, it is thoroughly subordinated to the space to be covered and it has no claim to the appearance of physical independence. Its representation should be considered indifferent with respect to the relief’s ground, since as a form it extends only in length, not in depth. Relief must be so because, as it is merely a wall covering, it gives up any claim to the perspectival arrangement of its parts. But this is not only because as a branch of sculpture, its laws are antithetical to those of painting. For purely ornamental painting is both immaterial and without perspective, as examples of painted and woven ornaments of all peoples show us.57

The sculptural phenomenon evoked by Philippi is manifest perhaps most famously and dramatically in the metopes of Greek architecture. Metopes were, fundamentally, an elaboration of a building’s architecture, and their repeated, unframed forms served as a unique aspect of its décor. They were thus conceived as individuated panels that provided fields for the depiction of single actions by a limited number of figures. They are to be distinguished from the frieze, whose placement on a building corresponds to the tectonic structure of its blocks and reaffirms that struc-

Relief ’s Two Contexts

47

ture’s architectural function. The difference was explained cogently by Hinks in 1936: Der Fries ist ein organischer Teil des Bauganzen, ein Auswuchs aus dem festen Block des Gebäudes; als räumlicher Gegenstand ist er nur ein Glied eines größeren Organismus, und seine Fläche ist von der Fläche des tragenden Baublocks bestimmt. Der Raum und die Fläche eines Frieses sind also Körperraum und Körperfläche, weil der Fries kein unabhängiges Gebilde ist, sondern nur Teil eines Baukörpers. Die Metope dagegen dient im Tempel keinem tektonischen Zweck, sondern ist reines Füllungsstück. The frieze is an organic part of an architectural whole [Bauganzen], an outgrowth of the solid block of the building; as a spatial object, it is just one member of a larger organism, and its surface is determined by the surface of the [tectonic] structural block. The space and the surface of a frieze are thus both corporeal parts of a whole because the frieze is not an independent entity, but only part of a built structure. The metope, on the other hand, serves no tectonic purpose on the temple, but is purely a piece of [decorative] filling.58

As the extended form of the frieze allows for the sequential display of multiple figures and actions, the flat empty portions of its background assert the solidity and structural function of its material architectural support. Rodenwaldt had already articulated the same principle in 1923, which established the frieze’s integral role in its architectural setting.59 That of the metope, by contrast, since its slabs are denied such an architectonic character, visually divorces its high-relief figural forms from the blocks from which they were carved. Thus, for Philippi, Rodenwaldt, and Hinks, the background plane of the metopes was no longer a positive tectonic presence, as in the case of the frieze, and it was now, from a representational point of view, neutral, or as Philippi had claimed, indifferent – virtually non-existent.60 The high relief figures of the metopes are isolated before the blank panels that had been, it has been presumed, a conventionally undecorated architectural element of the Doric system. Indeed, Koepp, who saw their imagery as little more than figures in the round set before a blank background, thought that originally the metopes on Doric temples were merely statues set within an open space within the architectural facade.61 All of this may be said despite the fact that, as was recognized in the nineteenth century and has been recently demonstrated beyond doubt, a figure/ground contrast in architectural sculpture was heightened by the painting of the empty expanse of the blank panels in solid colors.62 Yet their sculptural character, as works in relief, is emphatic, and divorces the figures from the background plane against which they are arrayed, despite that background’s originally painted surface. This would have especially been the case should their background have been painted (presumably a single color often thought to have been brown or red), producing a clearly non-mimetic effect.

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By contrast, at times, the backgrounds appear to have been blue, to suggest the sky, thus endowing the ground with a powerfully mimetic character. In such instances the background plane’s neutrality was transformed by such a pictorial and illusionistic addition, one that now rendered its material presence as if invisible. And, notwithstanding the heterogeneity of the divergent representational means – one sculptural, one pictorial – such a reconstruction suggests that on the metopes the highly tactile forms would have appeared as if isolated and suspended within an illusion of empty, purely optical space that surrounds them. Yet even with such a painted background, certain formal problems were inescapable. For while the silhouettes of the sculpted forms in high relief would have been enhanced, and their contrast with the background plane would have been heightened, they would nonetheless have continued to cast shadows upon it, thus destroying the illusion the painted ground was enlisted to produce. This is an interpretation forcefully argued by Wickhoff, to which we shall return.

Grund and Fläche An effective and convincing spatial illusionism made a relatively late entrance in the history of Greek art, although in painting, not in stone relief. This historical phenomenon is well-known. The profound changes are primarily attributed in our sources to the lost mid-fifth century works of Polygnotos, works whose characteristics are generally held to be recognized in vase paintings, notably those conventionally attributed to the Niobid painter.63 These changes effectively transformed what had always been an essentially figural art into an equally spatial one. As painters abandoned the customary practice of depicting their subjects standing on the lower margin of their framed compositions and distributed them throughout the pictorial field, the background against which their forms were silhouetted was reconceived as the representation of ambient, receding, space. For the first time, figural forms would exist in a particularized, represented, someplace: in such paintings, the ground was no longer neutral. A similarly successful illusionism in sculpture seems to have lagged behind, where both a more powerful sense of classicism apparently prevailed and the limitations of three-dimensionality in relief asserted themselves.64 A subtly receding ground plane on which the figures would appear to stand was to eventually become a sculptural convention, as the Telephos frieze and, eventually, the Column of Trajan would demonstrate. Yet this posed obvious problems as a more general aspect of relief. As we have seen, Conze recognized the implication of the differing depth of the

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figures that filled their fields and eliminated a view to the background. The “uneven surface” that resulted when staggered and overlapping figures were compacted together, as on the Parthenon frieze, evoked the space they would reasonably be expected to require if they were conceived in plan (cf. fig. 1.40). Conze suggested that such groupings should be imagined as if they stood on something roughly equivalent to the variegated ground lines of pictorially receding space devised by Polygnotus. The ambiguity in Conze’s employment of these two formal concepts (the ground’s unevenness and its emptiness) confirms that, at least implicitly, scholarly tradition had regarded the optical phenomena suggested by the reliefs – the transformation of the background into an image of receding space; a field filled with overlapping and implicitly receding forms; and the representation of multiple ground lines within depicted space so as to

Fig. 1.40 Parthenon frieze diagram (R. Nakamura).

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Fig. 1.41 “Apotheosis of Homer” relief signed by Archelaos of Priene, first century BC. Marble, 1.18 m (H). British Museum, London, inv. 1819,0812.1.

articulate its recession – as interconnected, as we have already suggested they are. Brunn had addressed the issue, yet it is not entirely clear that Conze’s response (quoted above, p.  30) fully grasped what the elder scholar’s views entailed. Brunn’s ideas had been expressed in a discussion of the famous Archelaos relief of the “Apotheosis of Homer” (fig. 1.41), in which he had contrasted this late Hellenistic work with the Classical style of relief, whose idealized planes he held to be essential to their style. The Classical reliefs, Brunn argued, were devised according to a notion of twin planes:

Grund and Fläche

51 Fig. 1.42 Grave stele of Eukleia, ca. fourth century BC. Marble, 1.25 m (H). Piraeus, Archaeological Museum, inv. 225.

Die Reliefs der guten griechischen Zeit halten es als Regel fest, dass die Figuren nicht nur auf eine ebene Grundfläche gleichmässig aufgesetzt werden, sondern dass mit dieser parallel eine obere Fläche gedacht werden muss, über welche auch bei der heftigsten Bewegung kein Theil einer dargestellten Figur herausragen darf. Selbst die fast rund ausgearbeiteten Figuren auf den Metopen der Tempel folgen diesem Gesetze. The reliefs of the Classical period demonstrate, as a rule, that the figures are not only placed uniformly on a flat background plane [Grundfläche], but that a frontal plane [eine obere Fläche] must be conceived in parallel to it, beyond which no part of

52

Fig. 1.43 Document relief, ca. 403/ 402 BC. Marble, 1.55 m (H). Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. 1333. Fig. 1.44 Votive altar of Titus Flavius Constans, ca. 160 AD. Limestone, 1.17 m (H). Köln, Römisch-Germani­ sches Museum, inv. 670.

The Laws of Relief

a represented figure may protrude, even in the case of the most violent movement. Even the metopes of the temples, worked almost fully in the round, follow this rule.65

Brunn’s principles are epitomized by those flat-surfaced stelae with “sunken reliefs” (fig.  1.42), those modest reliefs that literally set their mostly paratactically arrayed subjects within a recessed box. In such compacted space, their strict planar forms were aligned to both front and back, thus limiting the plastic elaboration of their figural elements.66 This “boxlike” conception of representational space, as if set between two planes, was to play a pivotal role in the analysis of relief. The “sunken” form, even when superseded as a matter of style on the funerary reliefs, continued to

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be employed on the so-called document reliefs (fig. 1.43), and, if it ever vanished as an aspect of style, re-emerged in imperial times (fig. 1.44).67 But its “box-like” effect, even when the sunken aspect was abandoned, has long played a role in discussions of the Classical style. Kähler, in his treatment of the Classical metopes, describes a similar sense of figures trapped between the twin planes that, according to Brunn, dominated the relief technique: both the (now virtual) front surface of the metope’s original block as well as the plane that marked the closing of the space at the rear.68 But it was Loewy who grasped that one of the formal characteristics of such a fundamentally Classical conception of represented space was its compressive force. The compaction of figures in such a planar space, as is seen in the Olympia metopes (fig. 2.7), was “in defiance of anatomical possibility, bent sideways instead of backwards or forwards […]. Not a detail is withdrawn from sight by being slanted away, foreshortened, or in shadow.”69 There were, however, Classical exceptions, examples that display an incipient interest in the evocation of both perspectival space and landscape setting despite the box-like effect of their framing borders. The Torlonia relief (fig. 1.45) provides perhaps the oldest attempt in Greek relief to echo the then-current developments in monumental painting, with its receding planes, rising background, and landscape setting.70 Yet the tentative nature of the composition’s effort to represent space is clearly at odds with the hierarchical scale employed, and the compression of the forms, parallel to the plane, remains the dominant feature. And Brunn himself, still employing his “two planes” conceit, had invoked the contemporary rider relief from the Villa Albani (fig. 1.46): dass die Grundfläche durchaus uneben gehalten ist, so zeigt sich gerade darin, welchen Werth man auf die Ruhe in der oberen Fläche legte, indem man es vorzog, diejenigen Theile, welche stärker hervortreten sollten, lieber durch Vertiefung als durch Erhöhung zu heben. the background plane (Grundfläche) is quite unevenly worked [and] thus shows precisely what value was placed on the uniformity of the frontal plane (der oberen Fläche), with respect to which one preferred to accentuate those parts which ought to be more sharply distinguished by means of recession rather than projection.71

The Albani relief’s highly unusual rocky background is neither uniformly flat (as Brunn believed to be the rule with Greek relief) nor concave (as Conze recognized was often the case), but is designed as if to respond to the objective surface of its subject, modeled so as to reflect its variegated natural forms as if receeding into depth. It thus exemplifies an attempt to transform such planar conceptions of limited, “box-like” settings into a manifestation of a subtly defined landscape and a truly receding atmospheric space by means of multiple ground lines, Polygnotus-like, to indicate the setting of their subjects. Yet Brunn’s response to the work is

54 Fig. 1.45 Hero relief, ca.  420–400 BC. Marble, 40 cm (H). Rome, Villa Torlonia.

Fig. 1.46 Horseman grave relief, ca. 410 BC. Marble, 1.80 m (H). Rome, Villa Albani, inv. 985.

The Laws of Relief

Grund and Fläche

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remarkable. Despite having recognized that the background on this relief was no longer a conventionally flat empty plane, he seemingly clung to its underlying function and transferred its effect of closing off the rear of the depicted space to a uniform ideal plane at the work’s front, an imagined surface that recalled that of the original block. This constitutes a re-assertion of what Brunn regarded as a fundamental principle of relief in strikingly new formal terms.72 While the effect of the Albani relief is subtler than Brunn allowed, in his description he had alluded to a commonly held view that this fundamentally pictorial effect, no longer anchored to the lower edge of the depicted space, was rooted in the multiplication of implicit ground lines that defined a setting as they receded. This, in turn, gave emphasis to those more three-dimensional forms in the foreground. The resulting illusionism was attributed to Polygnotus’ compositional method, which Brunn believed was described by Pausanias (at 10.25–31); Brunn says: Die Methode beruht einfach auf der Annahme, dass die Anordnung der Figuren in mehreren Abstufungen über einander nicht in streng von einander getrennten Reihen, gewissermassen Stockwerken, welche sich durch die ganze Breite des Bildes hinziehen, durchgeführt werden darf, sondern dass sich dieses Reihen durch Vermittelungsglieder in auf- und absteigenden Linien unter einander verbinden. Auf diesem Wege ergiebt es sich, ohne dass es nöthig wäre, dem Pausanias in der Erklärung irgend wie Gewalt anzuthun, dass nicht nur je die eine Hälfte eines und desselben Bildes in den Grundlinien der Composition der andern auf das Strengste entspricht, sondern auch, dass ganz dieselben Grundlinien in beiden Gemälden gleichmässig wiederkehren. The method was simply based on the assumption that the arrangement of the figures in several gradations one above the other should not be carried out in strictly separate rows, so to speak, in tiers, which extend through the whole width of the picture, but that these rows are connected by means of mediating elements in ascending and descending lines. In this way it is possible, without any necessity, to credit Pausanias with the explanation that not only are the ground lines of the composition in one half of the image in the strictest accord with those of the other, but also that quite the same ground lines in both paintings recur uniformly.73

Pausanias says nothing of the kind. Brunn’s interest in “uniformity” was an anachronism, no doubt rooted in an assumption about Polygnotus’ employment of some form of “perspectival” composition. But there is nothing about the juxtaposed vignettes described by Pausanias that suggests their pictorial organization, and their arrangement can only be inferred, loosely, from that author’s dependence on a variety of prepositions to effect continuity between his descriptions of the paintings’ figure groups.74 The problem that the ancient sculptors faced is that relief cannot convincingly or effectively produce actually three-dimensional and illusionistically receding forms at the same time. The greater plasticity of the protruding elements of the frontal plane cannot be rationally aligned with

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The Laws of Relief

the less palpable presence of those flattened ones that lie behind them. In addition, the abstract, unnaturalistic character of the shallower figures, literally and figuratively further from the frontal plane, is underscored by their contrast with the real physicality of those nearer to it. And lastly, it is clear that the defining twin planes of Grund and Fläche did not dissuade sculptors from experimenting with more extravagant spatial forms. All of these phenomena describe the shortcomings of Brunn’s “laws of relief ” and their characterization of the art of the Classical age. By the later Hellenistic period, it is clear that sculptors, in the pursuit of new aesthetic ideals, would come to abandon them.

Paradox The discovery of the two famous Pergamon friezes in the 1880s transformed the discussion of relief sculpture, and of the problem of the neutral ground in particular, as they revealed what were almost immediately regarded as ancient examples of relief’s fully illusionistic potential. This was, to be sure, an exaggeration, but these reliefs had a profound effect on scholarship. The Gigantomachy provided the most compelling instance of the potential of high relief to forcefully articulate the actual presence of its depicted subjects whose compacted forms fill, and seemingly conceal from view, the ground from which they dramatically protrude. By contrast, the Telephos frieze offered a heretofore unknown alternative in the relief medium: a convincing representation of ambient space in which its figures were set. Both friezes, in their different ways, called into question the dominance of Brunn’s ideas. Early on, scholars responded subjectively and polemically. In what was perhaps the first general treatment in a broad overview of Greek sculpture, Overbeck contrasted the two contemporaneous works; the style of the Great Frieze he regarded as essentially traditional (echt), the small frieze not at all so: […] wir in den grossen Reliefen von Pergamon den echten Reliefstil im Allgemeinen so streng gewahrt finden, um so merkwürdiger, da dies bei den kleineren, zu demselben Altarbau gehörenden Reliefen ganz und gar nicht der Fall ist, wie dargelegt werden soll. […] we find the [appearance of the] genuine relief style, so strictly enforced in the Great Frieze reliefs of Pergamon, all the more remarkable, as this is not at all the case for the smaller reliefs [= the Telephos frieze] belonging to the same Altar […].75

Overbeck’s study was largely devoted to a tracing of the Gigantomachy’s subject matter, its particular motifs, and their compositional forms to earlier expressions in Greek art.76 This traditionalism was, in his view, distinctive of the Great Frieze, and extended to its formal character, since,

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Dazu kommt, daß alle diese Dinge Ausnahmen bilden und in der Hauptsache, das muß mit Nachdruck wiederholt werden, der strenge und echte Reliefstil in den großen Reliefen in überraschender Weise gewahrt ist, was freilich bei der starken, fast statuarischer Rundung entsprechenden Erhebung leichter war, als es bei flacherem Relief gewesen sein würde, […]. […] on the whole, what must be stressed is that the strict and authentic relief style of the Great Frieze is maintained in surprising fashion, and certainly more readily in powerful, nearly statuary-like projection than it would have been in the case of a more planar relief […].77

Something akin to Brunn’s Gesetzen des Reliefs is reasserted here, paradoxically, to suit the discovery of such powerfully three-dimensional forms. But Brunn’s emphasis on planarity is rejected. For Overbeck, it was of the greatest significance that no landscape or architectural elements defined the Gigantomachy’s sense of space: this was, rather, a matter of its figural forms’ design, their real three-dimensional presence signaled by the projection of their relief forms, and their evocation of an ambient space that extended around and beyond them. He pointed, in particular, to several features: (1) the staggered forms of the horses of Helios’ quadriga (whose traditional role as a spatial motif we have recognized in the ­Treasury friezes at Delphi: see above pp. 35–36; fig. 1.29); only the foremost of the horses were given real sculptural form, while the three others diminish radically, the rearmost as a very shallow projection from the background; (2) the depth of the ground, set back from the protruding figural forms; and (3) the utter lack of landscape elements or background figures. About the last he was explicit: In dem grossen Relief finden wir so gut wie kein landschaftliches oder localbezeichnendes Beiwerk, man müsste denn die paar Steine unter dem Helioswagen so nennen wollen, wir finden nicht die Spur von landschaftlichen oder sonst realen Hintergründen der Figuren und eben so sind andere malerische Darstellungsmittel im Großen und Ganzen streng vermieden. In the Great Frieze we find virtually no scenic or localizing staffage, and even if one might want to call the stones under the Helios chariot such, we do not find a hint of landscape or any other real backgrounds for the figures, just as any other pictorial conventions are, on the whole, strictly avoided.78

Overbeck’s distaste for the employment of pictorial forms in sculpture was explicit. The following year, Conze responded pointedly, refuting Overbeck’s view that the Gigantomachy derived from earlier sculptural solutions, yet he did so on formal rather than iconographic grounds. Among the distinctive and innovative aspects of the Great Altar’s style was what he described as a work “made without a background” (ohne Hintergründe gehalten).79 For Conze, on the Gigantomachy frieze “the negating of the ground (die Aufhebung des Grundes) behind the figures,” was taken to extremes. With its high-relief figures set against their deeply-recessed

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The Laws of Relief

background, which was now reduced to a bare minimum by their filling of nearly the full height and breadth of the frieze, the Gigantomachy, in Conze’s view, approached the full realization of what he regarded as a painterly effect, one arrived at by “the recession of distinct levels of ground one behind another.”80 What is striking here is three-fold. First, what Conze described was not an effect predicated on an illusion of deeply receding – potentially “infinite” – space; the effect was, ultimately, tied to a denial of such recession’s very possibility. This denial was the predominant effect of the primary example of his essay, the St.-Rémy reliefs, as well as others (to which we will devote attention in Ch. 5). We might regard Conze’s sense of “painterly relief ” as a (here-to-fore unnoticed) anticipation of Erwin Panofsky’s famous question, articulated a generation later, about whether or not antiquity knew a method for rendering an “infinite perspective”: Conze’s vision of Reliefgemälde suggested that ancient relief had no such concern. Second, it is significant that Conze had little to say about the Telephos frieze, whose aesthetic character was so clearly dependent on the representation of setting and ambience, as its surviving panels indicate. And third, despite his attempt to articulate a conception of painterly relief, Conze’s notion of pictorialism – no doubt heavily influenced by his long work on the Attic grave reliefs – was ultimately impressionistic (in ways similar to Wickhoff’s), and not anchored in either the mathematics or optics of perspectival space, notwithstanding the currency of these issues (as we shall see in Ch. 2). The Great Altar’s high relief forms posed a problem to which Conze seems almost oblivious: the shadows cast by its protruding forms. In clear contradiction to the central focus of his analysis, shadows emphatically affirm the relative projection of the figural forms as well as the background’s material existence. It was Wickhoff who famously recognized the problem posed by such shadows, which marked, for him, the crucial aspect of the Great Frieze’s style. His assessment was that Die Komposition verdichtete sich, der Grund verschwand und die Schatten, welche die vortretenden Teile der zwar nur in einer Schicht aber mit beträchtlicher Tiefe gearbeiteten Figuren warfen, fielen auf ihren eigenen Körper oder auf den des Gegners und verstärkten die Perspektive; ja die Schatten wurden eine wesentliche Bedingung für die malerische Wirkung. The composition was condensed, the background disappeared, and the projecting parts of the figures, which – although worked only in one layer nevertheless have considerable depth – cast shadows that fell either on the figures themselves or on the ones facing them, thus emphasizing the perspective; in fact the shadows became an essential factor in the pictorial effect.81

Paradox

59

Thus we find in the writings of Conze and Wickhoff two different conceptions of “pictorialism.” Conze’s remained profoundly sculptural, concerned as he was to emphasize the plastic character of a relief’s forms and what he referred to as the “painterly” character of their radical use – that is, when compressed together, a view to the background plane was virtually eliminated. Wickhoff’s, by contrast, concerned truly pictorial effects, chiefly those of light and dark, and focused on how sculptural forms, and the shadows they cast, might produce them. Despite the polarization of such commentaries, the distinctions that lay at their core were seldom so conspicuous on the monuments. One striking feature of these discussions is how the established contemporaneity of the Gigantomachy and Telephos friezes colored the arguments. Although the highly innovative and more explicitly spatial character of the Telephos frieze’s depictions of a setting was regularly acknowledged, the two friezes are nevertheless continually paired as expressions of a common aesthetic.82 It would be Riegl, whose research focused directly on such problems, who would formulate the difference categorically, with force and clarity. He recognized that an unarticulated background plane held no explicit representational value, declaring that it was “merely a nothing, a void.” Thus, on the Gigantomachy frieze, the background plane, from which the figures appeared visibly detached, “had not yet become space,” while on the Telephos frieze, with its defined settings and evocation of landscape, “the ground of a two-dimensional work  – whether relief or painting – was grasped no longer as a necessary evil, a material that separated figures, but as a space that could unify them.”83 In Riegl’s view, the artistic tradition decreed that the neutral background had seen its day. It is hardly a surprise that not everyone was to see things the same way as Conze had. Writing in 1882, he had yet to fully acknowledge the Telephos frieze’s innovative manner of depicting space, and to take the measure of its strikingly different style from the Gigantomachy. But more significant is the fact that the background plane of the Gigantomachy, which he had regarded as having vanished behind a crowd of figures, never fully disappeared; what remained of its blank expanse, he disregarded. All of this is comprehensible, as the Pergamon Altar’s first reconstruction was not completed until 1904. A generation later, debate about the Pergamon friezes would be rekindled as the representation of space in relief would become a central issue the attempt to define the difference between the art of the Greeks and the Romans. The problem of the neutral ground and its aesthetic character, together with the limitations it posed to the development of naturalistic styles and the challenges it presented to sculptors, long remained a constant focus in scholarship on ancient relief. This has been true whether that blank expanse was regarded as a foil for deliberately figural art or comprehended

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as transformed so as to effect a vibrant illusion of space and a setting for more complex representations. Discussion led to more profound assessments of the problem, as we shall see.

2.  Between Two Planes

[Schönheit der] Form allseitig mit ihren Grenzflächen vom Raum sich abschliesst, während hier der Gedanke immer neue Gedanken aufrufen und sich so ins Endlose ausbreiten kann. Als Erscheinung im Raum ist die Form eine endliche Grösse, die vom Gedächtniss erschöpft und angeeignet werden kann; als geistige Erscheinung ist sie Werth ohne Grenzen […]. Beauty of form cuts itself off from space all around with its delimiting surfaces, whereas the very idea [of beauty] always calls up new thoughts in a process that can be extended indefinitely. As a phenomenon in space, form is a finite quantity that can be assimilated and exhausted by memory. As a mental phenomenon, it is a value without limit […]. Adolf Göller, 1887 1

Göller engages here with the several paradoxes that confronted the scholars of his age as they endeavored to situate ancient artistic practices within a variety of contemporary aesthetic concerns. His generation brought a new awareness to the notion of the autonomy of form, to images as mental phenomena, and to the relationship of artistic productions with the space they were intended to inhabit, whether real or notional. All of these concerns are scrutinized in the Chapter that follows, which revolves mainly around the writings of two figures of Göller’s generation – the sculptor Hildebrand and the physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz – who, like Göller and several others, were deeply implicated in the development of these issues. Hildebrand and Helmholtz approached these questions from two distinct vantage points, the artistic and the scientific, respectively. The ensuing influence of Hildebrand in archaeological circles, and in the study of relief in particular, is demonstrative (as shall become clear). That of Helmholtz was less so, yet his looming presence across a host of intellectual disciplines, and the applicability of his ideas – about optics, physiology, and the mental faculties – to a broad array of aesthetic phenomena, gave his scientific work a popular currency. Both men would revise Brunn’s and Conze’s visions of relief, its “laws,” and its potential to articulate space, but from what were at times, compatible, at times complementary, perspectives.

62

Fig. 2.1 Black-figure ­epinetron, ca. 500–480 BC. ­Terracotta, 11.70 cm (H), 31.10 cm (L). London, British Museum, inv. 1814,0704.1205.

Between Two Planes

Contained Space From early on, vase painters developed a way of activating the empty ground plane so that it would be recognized as an explicitly representational element – yet this found relatively limited application. For the solution was employed almost exclusively in the representation of interior scenes (fig. 2.1), where the painters depicted things as if hanging on a wall to the rear, effectively closing off the background and producing a limited stage-like setting for their subjects. On the painted vases, the motif transforms what were often traditional subjects by reconceiving them as if set within a naturalistically shallow space, and a newly illusionistic character is now conveyed by the implications of the iconography (fig. 2.2). As a consequence, the once-conventional blank ground is no longer neutral (or simply ignored), but now fully representational. As simple and effective as this solution appears, it was only truly applicable on vases or small panel pictures of limited expanse, where such interior scenes might have been typically employed; it cannot have been a dominant aspect of grand Polygnotan-style compositions that emerged in wall painting during the fifth century. And it was seldom transposed to relief, where it is used sparingly, and rarely with the defining effect found on the vases. The famous “Cat stele” from Salamis (fig. 1.1) and the funerary monument of Plangon (fig. 2.3) provide examples of the employment of this “wall hanging” motif on the reliefs.2 The relatively limited recourse to this visual solution is all the more peculiar, since, on many of the Attic grave stelai, the characters, their costumes, and their attributes so often make clear that the scene is set indoors, as on those numerous fifth and fourth century funerary monuments depicting women, seated

Contained Space

63

Fig. 2.2 Black-figure amphora by the Antimenes Painter, ca. 530–510 BC. Terracotta, ca. 44 cm (H). Leiden, Rijksmuseum van Oudheiden, inv. PC 63. Fig. 2.3 Plangon stele, ca.  320–310 BC. Marble, 73.8 cm (H). Munich, ­Glyptothek, inv. 199.

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at home, frequently accompanied by servants. This seeming disinterest in utilizing a means for a more fulsome and compelling illusionism in marble relief might be regarded as a recognition that the traditional problem of a neutral ground had already been obviated in such works of sculpture by the actual three-dimensionality and the manifest presence, in real space, of their figural forms. Indeed, such palpable figures no longer recede into the ground (as Conze had conceived of relief composition; cf. Ch. 1, pp. 32–34), but now stand, unambiguously, before it. Nevertheless, as we shall see in what follows, relief sculpture’s paradoxical relationship to illusionism was to be interpreted, equally paradoxically, in dramatically antithetical ways. As we have seen in Chapter 1, Brunn recognized the relevance of an ideal frontal plane (eine obere Fläche), an imagined boundary parallel to the background that closed off the depicted space at the rear. These twin planes created a seemingly “box-like” space, one that played a formative role in the evolution of relief and its critical discussion. It was essential to Conze’s analysis of the Attic tombstones – particularly evident in those of the “sunken relief ” type (Bildfeldstele) (fig. 1.12) – and was later developed by Rodenwaldt and Kähler, notably in relation to the metope form. For this shallow stage-like space was antithetical to the extended form of the frieze, having its proper role only in the independent panel forms (metopes and stelai). What was deemed crucial for the production of the basic spatial effect was that the reliefs should be visibly if not materially distinct from their architectural settings. A sculpturally-defined frame provided a solution, whether this would be integral (as in the case of the stelai) or an aspect of the surrounding architecture (as with the metopes of the Doric order). It was Hildebrand who most trenchantly articulated the frame’s significance, and his analysis of the containment of relief space was to prove formative for the interpretation of Classical art.3 The well-known sculptor was an active and influential participant in intellectual circles and artistic endeavors, and in his book, Das Problem der Form he claimed that the practice of relief sculpture could not achieve its full aesthetic potential unless it disavowed both its merely decorative role as a surface elaboration and its tectonic role as an element of architectural structure. Hildebrand recognized that relief’s fully illusionistic effect was dependent on its autonomy: Das Ganze müsste alsdann womöglich eine architektonische Einrahmung erhalten, damit das Relief als Vertiefung und nicht auf die Wand aufgesetzt erscheint. The whole [work] should, if possible, be supplied with an architectural frame so that the relief may appear as receding into depth and not as something applied to the surface of the wall.4

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As a practicing sculptor, Hildebrand had considered the effective development of such an illusionism and its “simple idea of volume […] of a surface that extends into depth” as a fundamental artistic challenge. He saw the task of the relief sculptor as one of fulfilling what he regarded as the primary formal demand of his medium: the claim for relief’s aesthetic autonomy. His intellectual response was, in part, a reworking of Brunn’s and Conze’s critical assessments of the relief form. Brunn’s emphasis on a pairing of a material rear plane and its ideal frontal counterpart was refined by Hildebrand, who would regard both as ideal constructs. These established a compelling set of coordinates within which the depicted figures would be seen to exist. And the value Conze had placed on contracting forms and their diminishing volumes as a means to make the background plane “disappear” would give way to an articulation of the figures’ proper, albeit relative, substantiality (cf. Ch. 1, above, at pp. 29–32). In Hildebrand’s view, the architectural frame signaled the foremost boundary of represented space parallel to the background plane; and adopting the imagery of the perspectivists, he described how: Um sich diese Vorstellungsweise recht deutlich zu machen, denke man sich zwei parallel stehende Glaswände und zwischen diesen eine Figur, deren Stellung den Glaswänden parallel so angeordnet ist, dass ihre äussersten Punkte sie berühren. Alsdann nimmt die Figur einen Raum von gleichem Tiefenmaasse in Anspruch und beschreibt denselben, indem ihre Glieder sich innerhalb desselben Tiefenmaasses anordnen. Auf diese Weise einigt sich die Figur, von vorn durch die Glaswand gesehen, einerseits in einer einheitlichen Flächenschicht als kenntliches Gegenstandsbild – andererseits wird ihr Volumen durch das einheitliche Tiefenmaass des allgemeinen Volumens, welches sie im Ganzen einhält, aufgefasst. Die Figur lebt so zu sagen in einer Flächenschicht von gleichem Tiefenmaasse und jede Form strebt, in der Fläche sich auszubreiten, d.  h. sich kenntlich zu machen. Ihre äussersten Punkte, die Glaswände berührend, stellen, auch wenn man sich die Glaswände wegdenkt, noch gemeinsame Flächen dar. One can illustrate this principle by imagining a figure placed between two parallel panes of glass, positioned in such a way that the figure’s outermost points touch the glass. The figure then occupies and describes a space of uniform depth, within which its component parts are arranged. Seen from the front through the glass, the figure is coherent, first as an identifiable object (Gegenstandsbild) within a uniform planar stratum, second as a volume defined by the uniform depth of the general volume. The figure lives, so to speak, in a planar stratum of uniform depth, and each form tends to spread out along the surface, that is, to make itself recognizable. Its outermost points, touching the glass panes, continue to describe a single plane, even if the panes are taken away.5

This is clearly a development of Brunn’s idea. Both men conceived of twin parallel planes, one marked by the background and the other by an implied frontal boundary of the relief’s representational space that recalled the original face of the marble block (see Ch. 1, pp. 49–54). The visual effect of these twin planes, and the compression of forms within them, was evident on numerous monuments, perhaps most notably on the Parthenon frieze

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(figs 1.31 and 1.40), where the space seemingly required for the figures was flattened, visually as well as materially. The idealizing character of Brunn’s concept was reasserted in Hildebrand’s articulation by means of a novel metaphor, now panes of glass, one that gave new emphasis to this essentially visual phenomenon. Loewy, explicitly under the influence of Das Problem der Form,6 was to echo Hildebrand’s formulation, and to expand on it, claiming that what he called “the experiment of the two planes” could be made not only with high relief works, but with a wide variety of statuary forms: Späterhin verfügt wol die Kunst in den einzelnen Teilen über grössere Rundung und ­Variation der Flächen, aber die Anlage der ganzen Figur, bei sitzenden u.  dgl. wenigstens die ihrer Hauptstücke, lässt sich noch lange durch zwei vorn und rückwärts anliegende parallele Platten bezeichnen, die auch der vorgeschrittene Archaismus nur äusserst selten mit mehr als dem Unterarm oder dem Unterschenkel nebst dem dazu gehörigen Stück des Oberschenkels zu durchbrechen wagt. Later [i.  e., after the archaic period], art indeed employs a more drastic three-dimensionality (Rundung), and a greater variation of planes for the individual parts, but the general scheme of the whole figure (of seated figures, at least that of their main components) is for a long while confined within two parallel planes, before and behind, through which even advanced archaic art hardly ever ventured to break with more than the fore-arm or lower leg and accompanying part of the thigh.7

Hildebrand’s conception had been, in part, a reworking and transposition to sculpture of Alberti’s famous Renaissance analogy of the pictorial structure, “just as though [a painting’s] surface … were so transparent and like glass,” as if it were a window onto the world at large.8 In Hildebrand’s formulation the transparent plane idea has been doubled, and employed metaphorically to define the planimetric volume that a relief’s represented figural compositions required. Yet Hildebrand no longer conceived of this as a single “stage-like” space, as had Brunn and Conze; now the figures, arrayed in multiple planes, “in clear strata” (in lauter Schichten), were to be envisioned as if contained by individuated spatial enclosures, set one behind the other, as they appear to recede in depth.9 Most importantly, for Hildebrand, this is not an infinitely receding space, as Alberti had understood it: the geometrical foundation of Hildebrand’s idea is no longer Alberti’s “visual pyramid,” which continues as if to infinity, but a sequence of superimposed boxes within which a representation was “spread out along the surface,” whose stages would end when the figures that they are imagined to be filled with have been exhausted.10 And with respect to a relief’s figural content, as Loewy was to emphasize, within these parallel stages, the represented protagonists’ movements were splayed out so that, to as great a degree as would be compelling, all movements were extended laterally rather than illusionistically into depth.11

“Real” Space

67 Fig. 2.4 Prokleides stele, ca.  330 BC. Marble, 2.24 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 737.

“Real” Space These ideas – of Hildebrand and of Loewy – are seemingly manifest, in a radical form, on the later Attic grave stele. There, the depicted figures, now in high relief and nearly fully in the round, were given real space, whether recessed within their naiskoi or emerging from them. Rodenwaldt would later describe the phenomenon aptly; on these monuments, Das Tempelchen […] wurde schnell als Raum empfunden, und die Figuren wurden nun zu diesem Raum in Beziehung gesetzt. Diese Vorstellung wirkte sofort formbildend und führte zu einer ganz neuen Gestalt des Grabreliefs. Die Figuren wachsen in den Raum hinein und entwickeln sich in dem tektonischen Rahmen zu plastischer Rundung. Die Szene, in der der gerüstete Prokleides seinem greisen Vater die Hand reicht […], ist ein Hochrelief, in dem die Gestalt des stehenden Mannes schon fast rund vor dem Grunde steht. Die Raumvorstellung ist so stark geworden, daß sie die ursprüngliche Einheit der Reliefstele gesprengt und stattdessen die Doppelheit eines Hochreliefs und eines aus besonderen Werkstücken, zwei Anten und einem Giebel, gebauten Tempelchens erzeugt hat. The little “temple” […] was quickly perceived as a space, and the figures were now set up in relation to this space. This idea had an immediate structural effect and led to a whole new form of the grave reliefs. The figures grow into the space and develop within the tectonic framework into a more fully-rounded plasticity. The scene, in which the armed Prokleides reaches for his aged father’s hand [fig. 2.4], is in high relief, in which the figure of the standing man is carved almost fully in the round in front of the background plane. The idea of space has become so strong that this figure ruptured the original unity of the reliefstele [as a form], and in its stead created the doubled form of a high relief and a naiskos, within which it is set, specifically evoked by the two antae and pediment.12

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Fig. 2.5 Decursio relief from base of Column of Antoninus Pius, ca. 160 AD. Marble, 2.47 m (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 5115.

Here real space took precedence; yet it was still conceived as enclosed space, and in some instances, even more radically so: the famous stele of Aristonautes (fig. 1.13), for example, was, as Rodenwaldt pointed out, “almost like a sculpture in the round within its ‘little temple’.” In such instances the high relief figural forms were treated as if the equivalents of pedimental figures, freestanding within their architectural enclosures and silhouetted at the rear by the back wall of the tympanum.13 Rodenwaldt demonstrated that, by means of these represented naiskoi, the sculptors eventually overcame the compacted character of the shallow stage of the stele form, and by so doing, granted the depicted figures an actual three-dimensional ambient in which to act. Now, seemingly freed (if only by means of illusion) from their background planes, the potential for representing an implicit movement outward or into depth was possible. Yet it is equally true that, while these figures stand in “real” space that envelops them, this space is similarly non-representational, and in its emptiness as well as its equally blank background we find yet another form of abstraction: for while there is so obviously space, there is, equally, no sense of place. And there is almost no evidence, as we have noted, for the activation of the rear wall of this enclosure, as often occurs in vase paintings, by the introduction of landscape or staffage. The rough landscape-like ground on which Aristonautes stands is so often remarked precisely because it is so unusual: most commonly the figures stand on a simple shallow ledge, hardly raked, and the representation is not to be understood as receding perspectivally. In the case of Aristonautes, the

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work’s overall articulation of space is less artificial as his figure is more three-dimensional, and the forms recede actually. But with respect to the background plane, where he stands is formally little different from the exaggerated turf segments seen on other monuments (figs 1.3 and 1.11) or most famously, on the Decursio relief from the base of the column of Antoninus Pius (fig. 2.5). The real space of the naiskoi reliefs is still an abstraction, and divorced, as an aspect of these visual representations, from the real world.14

Science, Sight, and Space Hildebrand’s analysis of space in relief developed within a specific intellectual and historical context. There had emerged in the previous generation a parallel interest in perspectival studies and the mechanist developments in the empirical physiology of vision, and this remained a fascination of Hildebrand’s era. He was on friendly terms with two of the most prominent figures of this older intellectual milieu, Helmholtz and Ernst Brücke, whose writings, both with regard to the new theories of vision as well as to their abiding interests in the visual arts, were well known to him. These men epitomized a broadly cultured class of scientists who attempted to wed the precision of mathematics and geometry not only to a novel account of optics and the workings of vision, but to the perception of works of art, as well.15 The correspondence between the numerous publications devoted to physiological optics and those on perspective was manifest, beyond their concern with vision, by their similar employment of accompanying diagrams that charted the operations of sight and, in particular, the perception of depth. Brücke’s diagrams,16 notably, are designed to chart the eye’s ability to calculate recession, but they are, by and large, not inhabited by the figural forms whose vision of the world they were intended to represent. They are not so much descriptions of representational space as graphs of its abstract mathematical and geometrical coordinates. Brücke’s conceptions were linked to a set of prescriptions, although these were accompanied by the repeated and paradoxical admission that artists clearly and regularly abandoned such rules in the pursuit of their aesthetic inventions – a fact not lost on Hildebrand. Responding in writing to Wölfflin’s review of Das Problem der Form, Hildebrand would remark that, Bei der Unkenntniß des künstlerischen Gesichtspunktes, den ja nur der productive Künstler von Haus aus kennt und fühlt, ist es dem Physiologen und Philosophen un­ mög­lich, ihre Erkenntnisse für die Kunst zu verwerthen und productiv zu machen. Die Untersuchungen von Brücke (über das Relief) zum Beispiel haben deshalb irre geführt, weil sie vom wissenschaftlichen Gesichtspunkt keine Brücke zu dem künstlerischen schlagen konnten.

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The ignorance of the artistic point of view, which only the productive artist knows and feels by nature, makes it impossible for physiologists and philosophers to utilize their findings for art and to make them productive. For example, the investigations of Brücke (about relief) have been misleading, because they could not bridge the gap between the scientific point of view and the artistic.17

Hildebrand’s interpretation of relief was more radical, and given the long reach of his ideas, directly or indirectly, these require a significant treatment in the context of the historiographic tradition of Graeco-Roman relief. He gave less emphasis to the mechanics and geometry of sight than to the effects of optical experience. Like Helmholtz, Brücke, and Guido Hauck – the three men of science who had made a concerted effort to analyze aesthetics – he recognized the significance of the play of light and shadow, and their relationship to the representation of space. But it was his interpretation of what the many diagrams produced by the perspectivists suggested about space that is distinctive to his thinking. These functioned implicitly, for Hildebrand, not so much as a mathematical explanation of depth perception, but as a literal transcription of how relief was conceived: as successive units of space to be invested with lateralized figural forms, stacked one behind another, each in its own “planar stratum.”18 Hildebrand’s account was conceived as if in response to a theory of the mechanistic, fundamentally non-mimetic character of vision that was said to reduce the complexity of perceived three-dimensional objects to coherent two-dimensional surface forms.19 What he sought to explain was how the perception of works of art, of relief sculpture in particular, might restore a full sense of objectivity to the things in the world that works of art represented. Such a view depended on a broadly conventional (if somewhat superficial) understanding of the relations between perceptions and mental images as they were conceived by the “sign theorists” – two generations of mostly German scientists working at the intersection of physiology and optics (notably Johann Friedrich Herbart, Rudolph Hermann Lotz, Wilhelm Wundt, and Helmholtz) – who sought to explain both spatial awareness and depth perception as they were derived from stimulation to the retina in the process of vision.20 The problem was how to account for optical sensation, the two-dimensional image on the retinal surface, and the three-dimensional sense of space and distance that the mind required for experience. Hildebrand was clearly aware of these developments, and his own formulation reflects this. In a letter to his friend, the aesthetician Fiedler, he asserted that a crucial question was “how perception is a memory image [Erinnerungsbild],” and remarked on the relationship: “The fact is that the perception is functionally adapted for the faculty of our eyes, so that we get a simple conformable image by means of our desire to see.”21 This “simple […] conformable image” (ein einfaches […] gemäßes Bild) was an Erinnerungsbild, long a staple of many nineteenth-century theories

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of optics and physiology, and it had its place amid the most recent theories.22 There was great debate about what these memory images actually were and precisely how they functioned. But the mechanics of the eye suggested to the scientists that these memory images were analogous to the two-dimensional presentations on the retina: those sense impressions of the three-dimensional world subsequently lodged in the mind by means of precise and intelligible two-dimensional retinal “images.” The products of sense experience were, in some unknown fashion, “imprinted” on the psyche as after-effects of sense impression, inductively, by means of what Helmholtz called “unconscious inference.”23 The simple, two-dimensional character of such memory images, and their transformation by the mind’s powers into a perceptual understanding of the three-dimensional world, was not only essential to Hildebrand’s ideas, but, as we shall see, to those of Loewy and others on whom his ideas had a formative effect. It was the consequence of such a theory of vision, and its distinction between views of objects near or far, that concerned Hildebrand. And it is clear that Helmholtz had provided a scientific basis for such a conception. In his popular lecture on optics and painting, Helmholtz had summarized the physiological phenomenon: The proof that visual perception is not produced directly in each retina, but only in the brain itself by means of the impressions transmitted to it from both eyes, lies in the fact that the visual impression of any solid object of three dimensions is only produced by the combination of the impressions derived from both eyes.

But, Helmholtz continued, elaborating the mechanistic character of the process: We […] see the world with two eyes, which occupy somewhat different positions in space, and which therefore show two different perspective views of objects before us. The difference of the images of the two eyes forms one of the most important means of estimating the distance of objects from our eye, and of estimating depth, and this is what is wanting to the painter, or even turns against him; since in binocular vision the [painted] picture distinctly forces itself on our perception as a plane surface.24

The distance view was essential to Hildebrand’s idea of relief – indeed, it was its foundation, but it was not sufficient. Writing to Fiedler in 1876, he thanked his friend for what was almost certainly a copy of Helmholtz’s lecture (which had appeared in the third installment of his “popular scientific lectures” published that year), but voiced his misgivings about Helmholtz’s views concerning the explanatory power of binocular vision: Für Helmholtz danke ich Dir sehr, er ist allerdings sehr anders, als ich gedacht. […] In der Form scheint er garkein Problem zu sehn. Das Sehn mit zwei Augen produciert sie noch lange nicht. Deshalb ist es sehr naiv, wenn er von der Wichtigkeit der Naturtreue spricht.

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Between Two Planes For the Helmholtz, I thank you very much. It is, however, very different from what I had thought. […] With regard to matters of Form, he seems to see no problem. It is still far from producing seeing with two eyes. Therefore, it is very naive when he speaks of the importance of fidelity to Nature.25

Helmholtz had conceded that binocular vision’s capacity to enable depth-perception could not be applied to our perception of flat paintings – for in that case both eyes saw the same thing, without the slightest difference in perspective regarding the objects depicted. Hildebrand regarded distance viewing in the same way: at a distance, the implied depth-perception of binocular vision was negated so as to produce a flattened, frontalized image.26 In contrast, when it comes to the world close to hand, a sense of depth is responsive to its testing by touch; but vision rendered the world at a distance – now understood as apprehended by sight alone – in merely two dimensions, distinguished by light and shadow; as Hildebrand would declare: Ist sein Standpunkt ein ferner, der Art, dass seine Augen nicht mehr im Winkel, sondern parallel schauen, so ist das empfangene Gesamtbild rein zweidimensional, weil die dritte Dimension, also alles Nähere oder Fernere des Erscheinungsobjektes, alle Modellierung nur durch Gegensätze in der erscheinenden Bildfläche wahrgenommen wird, als Flächenmerkmale, die ein Ferneres oder Näheres bedeuten. If the vantage point is distant, the eyes no longer converge at an angle but view the object in parallel lines. Thus the overall image appears as if two-dimensional, for the third dimension – [i.  e.] all those closer and more distant parts within the appearance of the modeled object – can be perceived only by surface contrasts, that is, as surface features indicating distance or nearness.27

A pragmatic assessment of Hildebrand’s claim for the relevance of parallax to an understanding of relief sculpture should probably view it as exaggerated. But the appreciation of the phenomenal effect of light and shadow on objects and the difficulties in translating these effects into art were both commonplace notions among the scientists, and it is this aspect of Hildebrand’s account that commands attention. As one sees in the writings of Helmholtz and Brücke, their concern was with the artists’ capacity to produce equivalent effects of light and shadow in painting.28 Even the latter’s discussion, despite the devotion of a specific section of his essay to relief, focused primarily on the physics that explained the properties of cast shadows.29 But it was in the work of the mathematician Hauck that the distinction between scientific explanation and artistic practice was most firmly grasped. As he pursued the relationship between vision and art, Hauck distinguished clearly the problems of relief from those of painting. He recognized not only the limitations of the abstract rules of perspective, but the difficulty of applying these theories, devised for the geometry of plane surfaces, to the variegated forms of three-dimensional relief:

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Man hat ein Gesetz aufgestellt, das den Verhältnissen bei ebenflächigen Objecten angepaßt war, und hat stillschweigend angenommen, dasselbe werde auch für krummflächige Ojecte stimmen, ohne zu bemerken, daß man damit einen Schluß von der Ausnahme auf die Regel machte. A [perspectival] rule was established that was adapted to the conditions of plane objects, and it was tacitly assumed that the same would be true for curved surfaces, without noticing that this was to draw a conclusion from the exception to the rule.30

It is hard not to regard this as an implicit critique of Brücke’s description of the phenomenon in 1871. Most significantly, Hauck believed that the reliefs’ manifest responsiveness to the lighting conditions under which they might be seen, unlike that of paintings, demanded to be understood as an optical phenomenon, not a mathematical one: Demgemäss muss das Problem der Reliefistik nicht sowohl von der – nur die abstracte Form berücksichtigenden – Theorie der linearen Verwandtschaften, sondern vielmehr von der Beleuchtungslehre aus angefasst werden. The problem of relief must be considered not only by the abstract form of the theories of linear relationships, but rather grasped by a theory of illumination.31

This last observation was not only the most telling of commentaries, but the most far-reaching. While Helmholtz and Brücke had both written extensively on the problem of illumination and the role of shadows, their focus had been on such visual effects of light as they were represented internally (i.  e., representationally) in painting, not as they were produced by external lighting in relief. But in the writings of Hauk one finds the germ of a profound re-orientation of aesthetic theory: from the objective character of representations themselves to an attempt to comprehend the reasons for their effects; from empiricism to a phenomenological aesthetics of response.32 Hildebrand would also focus on effects – and he would go further. First, he believed that the comprehension of objects distantly viewed in perception depended on the mind’s demand for clarity, visual coherence, and the resolution, in an intuition of depth, of those forms perceived, and then “flattened,” by the visual process. This was clearly not a matter of conscious endeavor, but an innate capacity, something along the lines of the mental function that Helmholtz had famously called an “unconscious inference.” For Helmholtz, this was not a physiological phenomenon, but an empirical and experimental mode of living, by means of which the repetition of learned and practiced actions would form the basis of an unconscious response to the world.33 Hildebrand sought a related explanation. This led him to exploit the scientific description of how the mind transformed the two-dimensional memory images imprinted on the retina into a cogent understanding of the space of lived experience. For according to optical theory, relief – like everything else – was, as it were, flattened (metaphor-

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ically) in the act of perception, as the objects of sight are imprinted retinally, and it was the mind’s disposition to reinvest our retinal images with a compelling intuition of depth and a sensual awareness of space that constituted our fully phenomenological experience of the world. Thus, for Hildebrand, the mechanics of vision itself were repeated in the perception of the structure of relief, whose three-dimensional character, compressed in depth and only partially present in this form of artistic expression, demanded to be made whole, and to be comprehended as fully spatial.34 Hildebrand reported to Fiedler that he considered this a process “performed consciously in art, and the operation constitutes the difference between an art form and a form of perception.”35 And in Das Problem der Form he would press the issue: Denn es handelt sich ja nicht nur darum, daß Tiefenvorstellungen in Flächeneindrücke umgewandelt werden und als ein Nebeneinander im einheitlichen Sehakt aufgefaßt werden können, sondern darum, daß der gesamte Flächeneindruck einen richtigen Gesamtausdruck für die Formvorstellung abgibt. What matters is not only that the ideas of depth are transformed into surface impressions and can be apprehended all together in a coherent visual act, but also that the overall surface impression provides a correct expression of the idea of form.36

The passage poses two fundamental questions. Why did Hildebrand believe that such “overall surface impressions,” which were captured in the act of vision, yielded an appropriate and accurate sense of form, in the fullness of its three-dimensions? Why did he think that this provided a compelling “expression” of actual, material depth – the very characteristic that objects were deprived of in the process of vision? For Hildebrand, the making of relief, its compression of space, and its attenuation of three-dimensionality, might consciously recapitulate, as if in reverse, both the flattening effects of retinal mechanics and the optical characteristics associated with a distant view. For Hildebrand this similarity was not merely metaphorical. Yet, at the same time, he believed that, with respect to sight itself, the mental operation that would restore to the two-dimensional retinal image a sense of spatial form could not be understood as a similar act of consciousness. This depended, according to Hildebrand, on an innate “desire to see” (Seh-Bedürfnis), and to see in three dimensions: Dieses Seh-Bedürfnis scheint mir hauptsächlich zu verlangen, daß ich das Object derart in mein Sehfeld rücke, daß es sich in Formen ausspricht, die meinen Augen Front machen und die nicht von der Flanke aus sich zeigen, denn nach der Tiefe hin haben wir ein sehr unsicheres Messen, während wir klar fassen, was vor den Augen aufgerollt ist. Man theilt sich also das Object in lauter Schichten ein, die hintereinander stehn und Alles was in einer Schicht auftritt und liegt, erkenne ich bequem mit einem Distanzgefühl.

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This Seh-Bedürfnis seems to me, in principle, to demand that I force the object into my field of vision in such a way that it is articulated in forms that are frontal to my eye, which do not appear from the side (for of depth we have a very uncertain measure), but they define clearly what is frontal to the eye. One separates objects in clear layers which lie one behind another, and everything that appears and lies at one stage, I easily recognize with a sense of distance.37

Thus, for Hildebrand, perspectival space was of little interest as an extended and diminishing ground on which figures and objects might be represented in foreshortening. In his conception, as vision isolated these forms and forced them to be addressed frontally, hence as if flattened, his interest was not in the continuity of space, but in discrete segments of it: not arranged vis-à-vis a vanishing point (since the relief form generally abjures the visual pyramid’s implied infinity), but arrayed as if one behind the other, and extending only so far as was required for the coherent presentation of the mostly foregrounded figures. By positing such a fundamental psychological role for the mind in vision, Hildebrand (and in this sense, much like Helmholtz),38 could understand depth perception not simply as an innate mental process, but as one that sight itself compels. The compressed space of relief, as it transformed its three dimensions into a series of “surface effects” of light and shadow, functioned no differently from the flattened distance view; reduced to the appearance of surfaces, both were impressed, indifferently, in the retinal image, and thus demanded to be clearly articulated, first in the two dimensions of vision’s mechanics and then in three by our mental faculties. One recognizes here how Hildebrand’s “need to see,” as it resolved relief’s unnaturally flattened and diminished spatial forms into a compelling image of the world, could be held to validate his primary aesthetic goals: clarity and unity.39 All of these ideas had, and would continue to have, currency in contemporary discussions of ancient art. Hildebrand’s interpretation was enthusiastically adopted by Loewy, who also accepted the idea of “memory images” and how works of relief might correspond to them. Yet Loewy attempted to historicize what he saw as the various stages of those ideas’ employ. The aesthetic characteristics that Hildebrand had regarded as essentially innate Loewy would associate, according to style, with the crude quality of demonstrably early works of Greek art which he viewed as the most primitive and direct expressions of those innate human capacities. Archaic art, and what immediately followed, was his natural subject. Following Hildebrand, Loewy attempted to demonstrate how relief’s fundamental character was effected by the compression of its figural forms. The insistent planarity of the Olympia metopes, even those with figures in the boldest of poses, such as Herakles (figs 2.6 and 2.7), exem-

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Fig. 2.6 Herakles cleans the Augean stables, metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, ca. 470 BC. Marble, 1.60 m (H). Olympia, Archaeological Museum, inv. L 97.

plified how their compacted groups were spread out, primarily, in breadth rather than depth. According to Loewy, Wie wenn sie solchergestalt eingezwängt wären […] aller anatomischen Structur zu Trotz, nach der Seite statt nach vorn oder rückwärts. Aber wenn auch anatomisch falsch, ist die Bewegung doch im Sinn der in uns lebenden Vorstellung wahr: nicht ein Detail entzieht sich durch Abwendung, Verkürzung, Beschattung dem Anblick, sie alle liegen so voll, ganz und klar vor dem physischen Auge, wie sie sich dem unbefangenen geistigen zeigen. [The figural forms are] twisted […] in defiance of all anatomical possibility, bent sideways instead of backwards or forwards. But the movement, if anatomically wrong, is yet true to the images in our minds. Not a detail is withdrawn from sight by being slanted away, foreshortened, or in shadow; each part lies before the physical eye, full, whole, and clear, just as it lay before the mind.40

The allusion to the memory image is clear, and the explicit reference to the planarity of the composition’s compressed forms, apt. And when Loewy refers to die beiden Platten (see below), he specifically invokes Hildebrand’s, and ultimately Brunn’s, two parallel planes idea, explaining the powerful forms of the Olympia reliefs as a consequence of their being seemingly constrained between two such idealized boundaries. Yet in certain respects, Loewy’s primary example, the Herakles and the Cretan bull (fig. 2.7), exceeds the scope of Hildebrand’s analysis of relief space. Its forms’ more violent movements, their far greater torsion (even though largely held parallel to the plane), and the diminished importance of their silhouettes all point to a rather different conception of their spatiality. This is particularly evident since these characteristics are augmented as the

Science, Sight, and Space

77 Fig. 2.7 Herakles and Cretan Bull, metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, ca. 470 BC. Marble, 1.60 m (H). Olympia, ­Archaeological Museum, inv. L 89.

canonical front (torso) and profile (head) views employed for Herakles are abandoned for the looming, now radically-turned and foreshortened head of the beast. This served not only to enhance the narrative, but seems as if, metaphorically, to mark the limit of Loewy’s sense of what might be tolerated as an exaggeration of anatomy within an aesthetic dominated by a sustained planarity. The novelty of the Olympia composition’s intrusive foreshortening and its dramatic effects is revealed by comparison with some of the monument’s other metopes, such as those displaying stationary poses as in the scene with Atlas (fig. 2.8), or the still planar and profile forms that, despite a new dynamism for the hero, mark the scene of the cleaning of the Augean stables (fig. 2.6). In both of these the prominence of a frontally standing columnar figure of Athena serves, visually – now as the hero’s assistant in his burdensome task, now as the statuesque and motionless foil to the hero’s violent display of brute force – as if to reaffirm the conventionally blocky, space-filling forms of early Classical style. And in each of these instances, the massive figures, whether static or in movement, align themselves to Loewy’s “test of the twin planes,” front and back, and in so doing, define the space implied by their compositions as they fill it, in all its dimensions.41 The Cretan Bull composition, as it subtly abandoned such canonical characteristics of early relief’s spatial conception, pointed the way toward a new style.42 Late fifth century developments carried this further. With the advent of multi-figure compositions in increasingly high relief, specifically on the funerary monuments, Loewy pointed out that,

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Fig. 2.8 Athena, Herakles, and Atlas, metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, ca. 470 BC. Marble, 1.60 m (H). Olympia, Archaeological Museum, inv. L 95.

es mussten die Pläne in Vorder- und Hintergrund unterschieden, der Rahmen der alten Stele auch nach der Tiefe zu gesprengt werden. Und damit […] war gefallen, was im Relief bis dahin der Natur den Eintritt wehrte: die Unterordnung der Erhebungen unter die gemeinsame ideale Vorderebene, also die mit der Tiefe den Raum ignorierende gedankenbildliche Nebeneinanderreihung. Ein neues, wirkliches Hochrelief war entstanden: nicht jenes Scheinrelief der Metope, sondern ein durch inneres Wachstum gewordenes, über Mehrheit der Pläne gebietendes, das sich der Freisculptur nähert, ohne ganz in ihr aufzugehen. a distinction between foreground and background [i.  e., with the interposition of a middle distance] […] thus […] increased […]. With this innovation […] fell the barrier which hitherto had checked the entrance of nature into relief  – the juxtaposition of the figures in a single line, and the ignoring of depth and space […]. A new real high relief had arisen, not that pseudo-relief of the Metope, but one that had come by an organic growth, having command over a plurality of planes, and approaching free sculpture without being quite merged with it.43

Loewy’s teleological view played no such role in Hildebrand’s theory that had formed its foundation. Moreover, the development he describes did not actually require high relief; high relief merely made such effects more readily attainable. For the abandonment of a forceful adherence to the plane and the consequent claiming of actual space did transform relief’s visual character. And its forms developed from being metaphorically statuesque to incipiently statuary, as they demanded adequate three-dimensional space in which to exist.44 Yet Loewy’s examples, the late Classical funerary reliefs, with their increasingly three-dimensional foreground figures spilling out from their aediculae into real space (figs 1.38, 3.41, 6.24 and text in Ch. 1, p. 44) are hardly good evidence for an implied middle ground. In their multiple

Imbricated Spaces

79 Fig. 2.9 Bluebeard group from the Hekatompedon pediment, ca. 560 BC. Limestone, 90 cm (H). Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. 35.

planes of staggered figures, those in the second and third rank do, as a rule, appear in discernably lower relief to mark their separation from the foreground. But they remain materially bound to those in front by whom their figures are overlapped. The accelerated diminution of their three-dimensionality, necessary to effect an illusion of spatial recession, robs these works’ forms of a coherent sense of their relative physicality, of a clear differentiation of planes before and behind, and as a result, of a compelling illusion of spatial independence and interdependence. Here we witness the breakdown of that conception, central to the formulations of both Hildebrand and Loewy, of discretely staggered segments of depicted space, each as if compressed “between twin planes.”

Imbricated Spaces The intuited “space boxes” evoked by Brunn’s formal analysis were seldom staggered and independent of one another in the way that either Hildebrand or Loewy suggest. The effect may well have been true of early architectural sculpture but was soon eclipsed by developments of style. As Greek relief rendered its depicted figures as overlapping forms, front to back, those compressed forms, together with their implicit spatial envelopes, were not independent and contiguous, but enmeshed.45 This is readily demonstrated by a sequence of examples. The so-called Bluebeard group (fig.  2.9), despite its poor preservation, suggests how the planar compositions of pedimental groupings might give way to more intricate figural compositions.46 Even in its fragmentary state, the sea monsters’ tripled forms are divided into two unevenly devised pairs: the heads and torsos of the left-most figure (“Okeanos”?) and the central

80 Fig. 2.10 Siphnian treasury, frieze, south, ca. 525 BC. Marble, 64 cm (H). Delphi, ­Archaeological Museum.

Fig. 2.11 Siphnian treasury frieze, east, ca. 530 BC. Marble, 63 cm (H). Delphi, ­Archaeological Museum.

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Imbricated Spaces

81

one (“Pontos”?) overlap one another in parallel, while that on the right (“Aither”?), despite being overlapped by “Pontos” is turned toward the frontal plane. The grouping’s spatial complexity appears to have been underscored by vestiges of the figure to their left, whose remains suggest a profile view in parallel to the planarity of the architectural setting. The contrast is even clearer less than a generation later on the friezes of the Siphnian Treasury (figs 2.10 [south] and 2.11 [east]).47 On the south and west, the forms are set in shallow overlapping and parallel planes, with little modeling and without foreshortening. On the east, the horses of the quadriga whirl about, foreshortened, while standing in place, while the serried forms of the warriors’ shields are juxtaposed by that of the downed Antilochos, dramatically foreshortened. And on the north, the prominence of their profile poses, and again the serried shields, are set off against the writhing figure of the rampant lion. Even more impressive complexity and greater subtlety emerged in the Classical age. The well-known Worcester stele (fig. 2.12) depicts a soldier carrying his shield and lance.48 His complex pose implies an incipient movement to the right, an impression re-enforced by the somewhat sloping ground on which he stands. Man and shield form a single compact mass and dictate the composition of the slab, with his figure offset to the left. He faces the beholder, although not in full frontality, and his head breaks the line of the stele’s pediment asserting a manifest presence in real space. A certain uneasy tension pervades the figure’s pose and spatial presentation. He turns into the plane just slightly, and the transition amongst the elements is awkwardly conveyed, from the chest to the heavily draped shoulder, to the protruding arm, and then to the convex shield that closes off the space to the rear.49 The drapery, gathered and bunched to the side, seemingly clings to the frontal plane, refusing to recede visually, as if held in tension by the figure’s nearly squared shoulders. This is re-enforced by the prominence of his right arm, undercut at the wrist, and oddly balanced by the undercutting of the lance held in his left, silhouetted against the reverse of his shield. One recognizes here little illusion of recession despite the figure’s assertive pose; certainly nothing that would evoke a compelling sense of its full three dimensionality. And the warrior’s subtly implied movement to the right is married to both a collapse of depth and a lateralized display of the forms, which now seem to succeed one another across the panel rather than into depth, in precisely the manner Hildebrand (“spread out along the surface”) and Loewy (“sideways instead of backwards or forwards”) had recognized as central to relief representations.50 The Worcester stele’s evident compression of space epitomizes the sense of its figure being contained between two planes, an idea that, as we have seen, was continually invoked by Brunn, Conze, Hildebrand, Loewy, and Carpenter. Originally, this stele’s formal character was accentuated

82

Fig. 2.12 Greek funerary stele of a warrior, ca. 420–400 BC. Marble, 1.838 m (H). Worcester Art Museum, inv. 1936.21. Fig. 2.13 Grave stele of Lykeas and Chairedemos, ca. 410–400 BC. Marble, 1.81 m (H). Piraeus, Museum, inv. 385.

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by both a painted background and the composition’s refusal to allow its subject to be visibly contained by the monument’s architecture, signaling that the work addresses itself to an imagined frontal plane not anchored to its frame. Thus, one recognizes that it is the stele’s figural composition, not its architectural surround, that visualizes succinctly the “planar stratum of uniform depth” described by Hildebrand, while it undermines the significance that he had attributed to the frame (cf. above, p. 64 at n. 4). The same may be said of the related stele of Chairedemos and Lykeas (fig.  2.13).51 Whether this monument was originally endowed with an architectural frame is debated, although dowel holes are visible at both sides.52 The composition virtually redoubles that on the Worcester slab. Chairedemos adopts the same pose in the foreground, albeit now nude, while subordinating the clothed Lykeas to the rear. The two figures are designed as antithetical counterparts: opposing legs are drawn back on toes; different hands grasp spears; one faces profile, the other obliquely; and their costumes suggest their differing military status.53

Imbricated Spaces

83 Fig. 2.14 Black-figure panathenaic amphora (“Wrestlers”), ca. 336 BC. Terracotta, 83.82 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1873,0820.371.

As is well-known, the statuesque form of Chairedemos powerfully recalls its model, Polykleitos’ Doryphoros. His head and legs (but not his torso) turn slightly away from the frontal plane. Unlike the figure on the Worcester stele, his head does not break the upper molding; and together with Lykeas, their figural forms nearly fill the panel, side to side, and thus the pair appear contained by the field. Yet Chairedemos’ striking nudity asserts an independence, partly physically, partly symbolically, and accentuates his contrast with the naturalistically draped figure of Lykeas, set toward the rear, signaling their distinction.54 This has its spatial correlative: while Chairedemos’s pose evokes a subtly commanding three-dimensional presence, that of Lykeas appears compressed between their two shields. One figure set before the other, each differently defines his own sense of space. This distinction is augmented by the disparity of their stances, with their implied contrast of nearly frontal and profile views, and it is re-enforced by a spatial conception governed by the massive circular forms of the twin shields, which serve, like giant dividers, to effect their serried ranks, displayed in tandem.55 But the sense of the two figures’ staggered display in space, a naturalistic assumption, does not survive sustained scrutiny. An initial impression that they are depicted as if in their own distinct “boxes” set between imaginary planes, is undermined, dramatically, by the fact that these men stand, as their prominently placed feet show, side-by-side on the same plane, and this confirms the awkward physical identification of their overlapping and imbricated forms in the relief’s shallow space. This characteristic of the design is recognized by comparison with related compositions, such as a pair of boxers on a Panathenaic amphora, now in the British Museum (fig. 2.14), of the following generation. There, despite being a composition

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similarly based on antithetical figures whose recession is underscored by their contrasting front and back views, they stand equally on the same ground line, and the position of their overlapping feet contradicts their relative positions as defined by their torsos. Set against the neutral ground, the diagonal implications of the boxers’ arrangement remained tied to their bodily forms joined by their locked arms, and do not resolve themselves in a compelling sense of depth.56 So too on the Chairedemos and Lykeas stele: while the panel’s iconography serves as a visual metaphor of their individualities, here thematized by their contrasting forms, poses, and costumes, the composition’s compacted forms assert the impossibility of division. Their parallel placement in the attenuated space of their relief denies the prospect, indeed, the very idea, of defined and individuated spaces staggered in sequence that either Hildebrand or Loewy had envisioned.

Unbounded Space A desire to ascertain when, and on which monuments, the ground plane of relief was no longer conceived of as neutral preoccupied scholars for generations. The conception of mutually dependent spaces defined by parallel planes and confined within them, as Hildebrand (and later, both Wickhoff and Loewy) had imagined, should be understood, at least in part, as but one more attempt to resolve the problem of the neutral ground by the enclosure of representational space. But the polar alternative to this solution of enclosed space – that is, when and where one encounters a compelling representation of infinite space – also posed serious problems. Yet these two ideas were to be worked out, by and large, in the study of Roman, not Greek, art. In 1925, Weickert published a lengthy analysis of a fragmentary late republican relief, now in Munich (fig. 2.15), setting it in its artistic context amidst a series of works with related subject matter and similar technical character. Amidst a long and complex disquisition, Weickert articulated a new focus of analysis, largely in response to the evidence provided by the Ara Pacis. He recognized, that “the penetration into an unbounded [unbegrenzte: i.  e., infinite] depth of space is common to all the reliefs of the Ara Pacis and distinguishes them from every Greek work.”57 But how was such “unbounded” space actually depicted? The choice of the relief on which Weickert’s arguments were focused was both serendipitous and tendentious. Being in Munich, the center of his career as both student and professor, it had long afforded him continual study, and its presumed date and origin allowed him to seize upon an opportunity to make a claim for its style’s romanitas. On the fragmen-

Unbounded Space

85 Fig. 2.15 Gladiator relief, first ­century BC. Marble, 1.19 m (H). Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 364.

tary slab, two armored gladiators appear, one standing, one seated on the ground, along with a pair of trumpeters who stand to the left, sounding their horns. After a long assessment of the iconography, Weickert turned his attention to matters of form: Rasch steigen auch hier die Gestalten zu mäßiger Erhebung aus dem Grunde auf, um dann in der Vorderfläche leichte Modellierung zu bekommen. Ihre Körperlichkeit erhalten sie durch ein eigentümliches Verhältnis zum Grunde, sie senken sich zum Grunde, in den Grund hinein, aus der idealen Vorderfläche entwickelt sich das Relief in die Tiefe. Die räumliche Vorstellung endet nicht am Reliefgrund, sie setzt sich in ihn fort. Um ein Schlagwort zu gebrauchen, der Reliefgrund ist nicht neutral. Even here, the figures rapidly rise to a moderate height from the ground in order to produce a subtle modeling on the front surface. They attain their physicality through a strange relationship with the ground: they recede to the ground, subside into the ground, as the relief develops from the ideal frontal plane into depth. This is brought about by means of the dominant parts of the figures actually realized in relief, which allow a vision of their spatial physicality as if to penetrate into depth. The spatial conception does not end at the relief ground, it continues into it. To use an old slogan, the relief ground is not neutral.58

For Weickert, such a renunciation of the neutral ground was not found in Greek tradition, where a neutral – unrepresentational – background was conceived as parallel to an ideal frontal plane (as we have seen that Brunn and Loewy had sought to demonstrate). He held that, while Greek high relief figures might protrude dramatically from their background, nowhere did they suggest that their forms continued, illusionistically, as if penetrating into deeper space.59 In his view, the insistent presence of the background plane of Greek relief was its dominant trait:

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Deutlicher noch spricht sich diese Art der Reliefgestaltung am großen Fries von Pergamon aus: vollrunde Gestalten erheben sich vor einem neutralen Grunde. Auch bei älteren griechischen Reliefs, natürlich gradweise verschieden, zurück bis zu archaischen, dieselbe Art der Absonderung des Figürlichen vom Grunde. Even more clearly, this type of relief design announces itself on the great frieze of Pergamon, where figures, fully in the round, rise against a neutral ground. Even older Greek reliefs, as far back as the archaic period, display the same kind of separation of the figural forms from the background, although of course to a different degree.60

Despite his rather different language, Weickert here announced a view fundamentally akin to that of Conze (ist das Gigantomachierelief ohne Hintergründe gehalten: see Ch. 1, above, p. 57 at n. 79, and in direct contrast to that of Wickhoff, in whose view these Hellenistic high relief forms’ cast shadows, when they fell on the blank background, gave emphasis to the ground’s materiality: Da wäre der Schlagschatten der herausgearbeiteten Figuren des Vordergrundes ein Hindernis für die perspektivische Wirkung gewesen; denn sobald die Figuren einen kräftigen Schlagschatten auf den landschaftlichen Grund werfen, wird es sogleich offenbar, daß dieser sich nicht vertieft, und die angestrebte malerische Wirkung wird nicht nur zerstört, sondern geradezu ins Gegenteil verkehrt. Shadows cast by figures in high relief in front would have been detrimental to the perspective effect; for a strong shadow falling on the landscape background betrays the fact that the background does not really recede, and this not only destroys the pictorial impression intended but conveys a contrary one.61

But for Weickert, Roman relief was different, and one distinctive quality of the Munich relief afforded him the evidence for asserting an idiosyncratic vision of the problem of space: Es ist nicht nur Zufall, daß der Bildhauer unseres Reliefs die Spuren des Zahneisens auf dem Grunde stehen ließ, – bei einem griechischen Werke würde das Unfertigkeit bedeuten – er kam damit seinem räumlichen Gefühl zu Hilfe, löste den Hintergrund auf, um ihn leichter zu überwinden. It’s not just a coincidence that the sculptor of our [Munich] relief allowed the traces of the tooth chisel to remain on the background – in a Greek work such a lack of completion would be significant – he happened upon [this technique] to enhance the sense of space in an effort to more easily overcome the [planar effect of] the background.62

The Munich Gladiator relief seems wholly unprepossessing as a test case for this claim for the fundamentally Italic character of the representation of space in relief.63 Why should Weickert have so ardently believed that its background, blank save for its chiseled surface, was to be considered unfinished and yet properly comprehended as spatial? It is as if this patterned carving was sufficient to signal its inclusion within the work’s other representational aspects, despite its wholly abstract character.64 Indeed, nothing about its composition suggests the radical difference from Greek

Unbounded Space

87 Fig. 2.16 Spoils relief, Arch of Titus, ca. 80 AD. Marble, 2.01 m (H). Rome, in situ.

Fig. 2.17 Eagle landing in wreath, Trajanic. Marble. Rome, SS. Apostoli.

relief that he attributed to it. The principle characteristics of the Munich relief that Weickert enumerates are its emphatic contours, reinforced by a chiseled (not drilled) line that surrounds the figures65; the uniformity of the parallel forms in relatively shallow relief that evoke an ideal frontal plane66; and, in contrast to how Greek sculptors dealt with similar problems, on the Munich relief, so Weickert claimed, the imagination is prompted to fulfill the implied completion of the forms in space.67 None of these characteristics are markedly different from those claimed for Greek relief by Conze. One recognizes that analyses in support of either view – whether space was an aspect of Greek or Roman art – were polemical, and hardly convincing; claims were often vague, the terms of analysis imprecise, and the evidence of the monuments tendentiously presented.68 Nearly a generation before Weickert, Wickhoff had recognized how relief could produce such an effect of “unbounded” space. Of the two powerful examples he presented, only one – the Spoils relief from the Arch of Titus (fig. 2.16) – was to become paradigmatic in the study of relief.69 The other (fig. 2.17), despite the clarity of its composition and the force of its

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visual invention, has been seldom invoked. This is a relief, of modest aesthetic quality, depicting an eagle, alighting within an oak wreath, now in the portico of SS. Apostoli in Rome. This example, as Wickhoff astutely recognized, presented a compelling alternative to traditional solutions, and undermined two generations of attempts to establish what Brunn had called die Gesetze des Reliefs: […] der Adler in dem Kranze sitzt, ist er hier eben hineingetreten, hat die Schwingen noch ausgespannt, wie er angeflogen, und streckt den Kopf vor. […] Die Gesetze des Reliefstiles finden hier keine Anwendung mehr; denn es ist ja eigentlich eine Gruppe, die, an die Wand gelehnt, sich vor ihr frei entfaltet. Here the eagle has just entered the wreath, with pinions still spread as if in flight, and head outstretched. […] The laws of relief are no longer applied here, for the idea is that of a group which, though supported against the wall, is boldly displayed in front of it.70

Wickhoff went on to surmise that the relief had originally been painted, and that the background had quite probably been blue (as it had been on so many Greek architectural reliefs), and the effect was […] so daß der Rahmen gleichsam ein offenes Fenster umschloß, an dem der Kranz oben befestigt und auf das der Adler durch die helle Luft zugeschwebt war. […] that the frame might seem to surround an open window from the top of which the wreath was suspended, and towards which the eagle was in the act of flying through the bright sky.71

According to Wickhoff, here the “two planes” idea, long considered a “law of relief,” was effectively eradicated. Represented space was released from the constraints of its framing elements, and, in this example, the imagery was illusionistically freed from its supporting architecture by means of its subject matter: for the eagle, just alighting from flight (a motif that had so effectively been employed on Paionios’ Victory as well as that of Samothrace), is understood to be entering the wreath from behind, on the verge of folding its wings. This was Wickhoff’s most vivid example of his famed “illusionism,” that profound ability of Roman artists to grasp in representations what was “organic and essential” as opposed to a merely “lifelike impression of an appearance at a given moment.” He believed that with the eagle relief, the effects of light, shadow, color, and what Blanckenhagen would call “the supplementing experience of the spectator,” not only signaled a new formal solution for the representation of space, but collectively endowed the sculpture with a vitality that surpassed not only naturalism, but representation itself.72

3.  Insistent Planarity

So sträubt die Kunst sich hier allenthalben gegen die Körperlichkeit. Und eine Erklärung dieses Verhaltens drängt sich nach dem Gesagten von selbst auf: entstanden aus der auf der Fläche des Steines entworfenen Zeichnung, will sich das Relief möglichst wenig von derselben entfernen, bleibt auch seine weitere Entwicklung in zeichnerischer Auffassung befangen. Thus [relief] art struggles here and everywhere against its full embodiment. And after what has been said, an explanation of its character suggests itself: originating from a drawing sketched on the surface of the stone, relief wants to diverge as little as possible from that design, since its further development remains caught up in this graphic conception. Emanuel Loewy, 1900 1

In a famous passage, Giorgio Vasari described Michelangelo’s method for enlarging his wax or clay models and to effect their precise replication at their intended scale. The great sculptor is said to have devised an unusual procedure for the transfer of his designs to marble, one that would eliminate the risk of mistakes and their potential to spoil the stone block: Che se e’si pigliassi una figura di cera o d’altra materia dura, e si mettessi a diacere in una conca d’acqua, la quale acqua, essendo per sua natura nella sua sommità piana e pari, alzando la detta figura a poco a poco del pari, così vengono a scoprirsi prima le parti più rilevate, ed a nascondersi i fondi, cioè le parti più basse della figura, tanto che nel fine ella così viene scoperta tutta. Nel medesimo modo si debbono cavare con lo scarpello le figure de’marmi; prima scoprendo le parti più rilevate, e di mano in mano le più basse: il quale modo si vede osservato da Michelagnolo ne’sopradetti prigioni, i quali Sua Eccellenza vuole che servino per esemplo de’suoi Accademici. One takes a figure of wax or other firm material and immerses it in a vessel of water, whose surface is, by its nature, flat and even. The figure is then evenly raised, little by little, so as to display first the uppermost parts, those in lower relief being hidden, and as it rises the whole image is thus revealed. This is the way one ought to carve figures in marble: first revealing the parts in highest relief, and then, gradually, those in the lowest. This method was observed by Michelangelo in the case of his prisoners, which his Excellency [Cosimo de’ Medici] wishes should serve as a model for his academicians.2

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Vasari’s account suggests that Michelangelo carved his marbles frontto-back: that is, despite the fact they were conceived as sculptures in the round, with their models worked in wax or clay as plastic forms in three dimensions, their final form in marble was produced, or, one might say, reproduced, by carving in from the frontal plane, as if they were works in relief. This is abundandly clear from the unfinished state of the Florence St Matthew. And while we might imagine Michelangelo repeating the process, with differing facets of the model pointing upwards, so that he might repeatedly revise and perfect the replication of his three-dimensional model in all its detail, one face of the block at a time, the manner in which he is said to have worked suggests the paradoxical nature of his practice. For front-to-back carving, treating the sculptural block as a sequence of seemingly independent facets, was, at its core, seemingly inimical to the fully three-dimensional character of sculpture in the round: the process attributed to Michelangelo describes a method customarily employed for the making of relief. As we shall see, Michelangelo’s carving method, with its paradigmatic tension between two dimensional design and its three dimensional realization, had its counterparts, both in the art of antiquity, and in the modern historiographic tradition. This account of his working procedure had a long-reaching influence, sometimes explicitly, sometimes not, as we shall see. Its emphasis on planarity, together with its correlative, frontality, was to be central to the investigations of both Lange and, particularly, Loewy, and their insights had a profound, albeit often unacknowledged impact on the contributions of many others (Gardner, Riegl, and later Carpenter, to name merely a few). Moreover, Loewy’s interest in recent developments of the neuro-physiologists, mediated, perhaps, by his reading of Hildebrand, and his concern with the increasing psychological presence of an artwork’s represented subjects during the Classical era and later, lent to his formalism a distinct and unique character. This was especially true with respect to relief sculpture and its inherent flatness. Indeed, relief’s conventional form of narration, which so often denied to its subjects a sense of direct rapport with its beholders, was to become a fundamental aspect of the Classical style.

Ancient and Modern Authorities Michelangelo’s method was apparently unique in his time. This is suggested by the tone of Vasari’s account, and his report of the technique is confirmed amidst the contemporary documentation concerning Michelangelo’s sculptural practice. And while the copying method it describes is

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almost never mentioned in the modern history of sculptural replication, this report has nevertheless had a significant effect on subsequent critical imagination.3 Two centuries later, Winckelmann would invoke it for his own purposes; paraphrasing and expanding on it, he pointed out how the method would describe form: Die Fläche des Wassers hatte ihm eine Linie beschrieben, von welcher die äußersten Punkte der Erhobenheiten Teile sind. Diese Linie war mit dem Falle des Wassers in seinem Gefäße gleichfalls waagerecht fortgerückt, und der Künstler war dieser Bewegung mit seinem Eisen gefolgt, bis dahin, wo ihm das Wasser den niedrigsten Abhang der erhobenen Teile, der mit den Flächen zusammenfließt, bloß zeigte. Er war also mit jedem verjüngten Grade in dem Kasten seines Modells einen gleichgesetzten größeren Grad auf seiner Figur fortgegangen, und auf diese Art hatte ihn die Linie des Wassers bis über den äußersten Kontur in seiner Arbeit geführet, so daß das Modell nunmehr vom Wasser entblößt lag. The surface of the water described for him a line, which coincided with the most prominent points of the relief. This line descended at an even level according to the diminution of the water in its container, and this guided the work of the artist’s chisel until the water revealed the lowest declivities among the parts raised in relief, which then merged into a flat surface. Proceeding thus, to match at every degree the receding levels [marked by the water line] in the container to a correspondingly higher level on his figure, in this way the line of the water guided him to [realize] the outermost contour of his work, until [the container was empty and] the model lay fully exposed.4

According to Winckelmann, Michelangelo repeated the process, more than once, at each stage refining the marble version: Bey der Wiederholung seiner Arbeit suchte er den Druck und die Bewegung der Muskeln und Sehnen, den Schwung der übrigen kleinen Theile, und das Feinste der Kunst, in seinem Modelle, auch in seiner Figur auszuführen. Das Wasser, welches sich auch an die unmercklichsten Theile legte, zog den Schwung derselben aufs schärfste nach, und beschrieb ihm mit der richtigsten Linie den Contour derselben. Dieser Weg verhindert nicht, dem Modell alle mögliche Lagen zu geben. Ins Profil gelegt, wird es dem Künstler vollends entdecken, was er übersehen hat. Es wird ihm auch den äusseren Contour seiner erhabenen und seiner inneren Theile und den ganzen Durchschnitt zeigen. By repeating his task, he sought to express in his work the motion and reaction of tendons and muscles, the soft undulations of the smaller parts, and every artistic nuance of his model. The water, which settles into even the most imperceptible parts, traces and describes the undulating contours [of the model] with its movement in a sharp and exceedingly faithful line. This method does not prevent the model being placed on each of its sides. Set in profile, it will completely disclose to the artist what he has overlooked. It will also show him the outer contour of its high and lower relief parts and the entire cross-section.5

For Winckelmann, the reiteration of the process proliferated a continuing series of emphasized contours, displayed in three dimensions, which corresponded to the repeated revelation of progressive layers of depth. Winckelmann, like Michelangelo himself, was interested in the three-di-

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Fig. 3.1 Sardonyx, ca. early third century BC, 1.63 cm (H). Vienna, Kunst­historisches Museum, Antiken­ sammlung, inv. IXb 1341.

mensional form that this constantly repeatable method produced, as it captured “every nuance of the model.” Winckelmann’s interest in Michelangelo’s method for reproducing his models was motivated by both an assumption that the style of sculptures from the early period depended on their drawn contours and a recognition that such a silhouette drawn on a stone block continually disappeared in the carving process. This is no doubt the reason he believed that ancient sculptors had also used clay models which they then reproduced in stone or bronze. From Pliny’s account of Zenodorus’ clay model for the famous Colossus, his remark à propos of Boutades’ influence that “no figure or statue was made without a clay model,” or his reference to Arkesilaus’ highly-valued proplasmata, Winckelmann presumed that “it is certain that [ancient artists] made models for their work.”6 In support of the idea that such models were re-scaled as larger finished works, he would adduce a gem from the Stosch collection (fig. 3.1), representing, as he described, “Prometheus who measures the proportions of his figure with a plumbline attached to a string.”7 And as if in confirmation of Wincklemann’s belief that the water bath so central to Michelangelo’s reputed working method was employed by the ancients, in the engraving that figured in the 1755 and 1756 editions of his works (fig. 3.2), such a vessel appears alongside the sculptor Socrates: immersed in it is visible the small model for the Three Graces that he is shown carving. Given that the anecdote about Socrates’ sculpture of the Three Graces – but not the waterbath – derives from Diogenes Laertius, it is hard not to imagine that the subject was chosen by Winckelmann himself.8 There is abundant material evidence (as we shall see) to suggest that ancient marble sculptors had indeed, at times, worked their blocks from

“One-Sidedness”

93 Fig. 3.2 Pierre Hutin. The sculptor “Sophocles” enlarging a clay model with a water bath. Engraving.

front-to-back in the creation of statues; indeed, the method is derived from the archaic practice of carving a block from each of its four sides.9 And although it is unlikely that this evidence was known to Winckelmann (since much of what we know comes from the Greek east), an acute sensitivity to certain aspects of ancient marble forms was surely what motivated his appreciation of Vasari’s account. Together, these two aspects – the surviving Classical marbles and Vasari’s description of Michelangelo’s working method – provide the foundations for a history of interpretation that, following Winckelmann, recognized the essentially relief-like quality, technically and conceptually, of much free-standing sculpture, both Greek and Roman.

“One-Sidedness” At the heart of both Vasari’s Michelangelo story and Winckelmann’s adaptation of it is the abstracting, disembodying, and fundamentally stratigraphic character of the process attributed to the great Renaissance sculptor. Contours gradually develop in depth as they are excavated from the marble, both parallel with and at right angles to the face of the block; thus they progress, one-sidedly and centrifugally from the point of the forms’ greatest projections, only gradually approximating a full silhouette in the course of the working procedure. And eventually these carved contours (in the usual sense of a silhouette) would begin to disappear behind an already sculpted and protruding mass, as they make their way

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around those newly-defined elements, which thus finally appear to free themselves from the confines of the block. It is a process in which figures not only take shape gradually, but one in which their complete three-dimensional contours are virtually the last aspect that is fully clarified. The Michelangelo story suggests how relief, in particular, might be understood to evoke a sense of this process as a formal quality, one perceptible by all of the work’s beholders. This is to be gleaned from the remarks by Hildebrand, which are only comprehensible as a reflection of Michelangelo’s method (and perhaps Winckelmann’s commentary on it): Bei diesen ersten Stadien der Arbeit wird es natürlich von der Erfahrung und der Meisterschaft des Künstlers abhängen, ob er in vielen Etappen vorrückt, um das Tiefenmaass der materiellen Form zu erreichen oder in wenigen. […] Was aber für den Vorgang wichtig ist und nicht aus dem Auge gelassen werden darf, ist, dass ich immer das zugleich vorstellen und aus dem Steine heraushauen muss, was dem Auge zugleich in einer Fläche erscheint. Erst wenn die erste Vorstellungsschicht herausgearbeitet ist, kann ich weiter rücken zu der nächtsfolgenden; denn es liegt in der Natur der technischen Bedingungen, dass ich von vorn das Bild vom Steine gleichmässig befreien muss, bevor ich in die Tiefe gehen kann, da ich sonst lauter Löcher erhalten würde, die das Meisseln verhindern und zu keiner Deutlichkeit des Bildes führen. In these first stages of the work, the artist’s experience and skill will determine whether he will proceed in many or in a few stages to achieve the dimensions of depth of the material form. […] What is important in this process and what we must not lose sight of is that I must imagine and carve simultaneously all that appears to the eye on a single plane. Only after I work out the first representational layer can I proceed to the next layer. For it is in the nature of the technical conditions that I must free the image uniformly from the front before I can go in deeper. Otherwise I would have nothing but holes in the stone, which would hinder the chiseling and produce no clear image.10

The contrast that Hildebrand invokes here is with a crucial element of the so-called pointing process, which entailed drilling into the block so as to establish the depth to which it might be roughly carved (fig. 3.3). In contrast to this time-honored procedure (the details of which are much-debated),11 Hildebrand goes on to describe the virtue of his own method and the way in which it allowed the sculptor to establish in the block a realization of his mental conception in an act of creativity: Es ergibt sich also für das Auge eine durch die Art der Vorstellung gebundene Form, deren Wesen darin liegt, daß die Einzelformen je als Teile derselben Flächenschichten gedacht sind. Die Einzelformen erhalten dadurch eine bloß für das Auge existierende Zusammengehörigkeit oder Einheit, die ihnen aus organischen Gründen nicht zukommt. What results for the eye is a form defined by the notion in the artist’s mind, such that the individual forms are conceived in terms of the surface layers that they share. The individual forms thereby acquire a relationship or unity that exists only for the eye and has no organic basis.12

“One-Sidedness”

95 Fig. 3.3 Unfinished statue of a youth from Rheneia with pointing holes, ca. first century BC. Marble, 1.75 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 365.

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Fig. 3.4 Unfinished kouros from Naxos, ca. 540 BC. Marble, 1.02 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 14.

For Hildebrand, Michelangelo’s working method, revealing a sculpture’s forms layer by layer, in parallel planes, is no longer merely a means for the precise replication of models, but has become an example of how the process of marble carving reveals the fundamental character of artistic creation. According to Hildebrand, all sculpture should be carved like relief, from front-to-back, since its forms gradually take shape as the sculpture reveals how the artist imposes his mind’s conception on his material with the result that its visible and representative forms come into being. Such front-to-back carving in the case of statues demonstrates how their subject matter was exhumed gradually, in what might be called a Michelangelesque manner, as their sculptors worked methodically, from a design sketched on its surface, all the way through the block. The flat forms of certain early stone statues betray the working method (fig 3.4), and a vivid

“One-Sidedness”

97 Fig. 3.5 Unfinished Diskophoros from Aphrodisias, second century AD. Marble, 1.83 m (H). Aphrodisias, Museum, inv. 79/10/210.

sense of the process that resulted in these particular characteristics may be gleaned from unfinished, albeit later, statues (fig 3.5), whose state of preparation had reached the point when the silhouette had been carved free from all sides of the block. One imagines the process uniformly half-complete when the blank plane had receded so as to produce the effect of high relief, and then pressed to completion until the figure was freed in its entirety from the stone, leaving the silhouetted form, once its back side was completed, realized in three dimensions. And worked from a quadrate slab, the limitations of the block dictated those of the composition: there is very little extension outward of the limbs; nor do the gestures regularly cross the body, but remain within its planar arrangement; the poses are roughly frontal; and these figures are conceived, even in the case of two that are conjoined, much like single figure compositions on vase paintings – as if independent of and isolated from any rapport with an imagined context.13 Completed statues, worked as if in relief, exhibit a set of characteristics isolated, long ago, more or less simultaneously, in separate, highly influential studies by Lange (1899) and Loewy (1900).14 Both scholars sought to identify the hallmarks of “primitive” artistic conceptions, which they felt were manifest by much of Archaic art, and, in certain instances, still recog-

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nizable in works of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. For Lange and Loewy intuited that the most primitive and rudimentary form of carving in stone was that which started from an outlined form and worked from four sides, with the primary emphasis on the most informative view. This resulted in a predilection for what Lange called Frontalität, which was marked by a consequent symmetry and stereometry, and which conceived of figures not as coherent organic forms, but simply as masses and spatial volumes.15 Lange and Loewy believed that the principles of the Archaic style were exemplified by an absence of foreshortening, a quadratic composition, and an emphatically frontal conception of the human figure (fig. 3.6), which both men held to be, generally, the most revealing representation of the form’s fundamentally erect and symmetrical structure. All of these aspects contributed to the style’s lack of compelling naturalism.16 The Archaic style was marked in this sense by a rejection of observation; Lange noted: Si donc l’œil voyait réellement en raccourci un objet, c’était le devoir de l’art de changer le point de vue de manière à donner l’idée la plus objective de la figure et des proportions de ses différentes dimensions. Tel était le cas, non seulement pour la reproduction de la figure en tant qu’ensemble, mais également pour la reproduction de ses différentes parties. On ne dessine ni un bras, ni une jambe, ni un pied en raccourci comme étendus vers l’œil qui les regarde. If, therefore, the eye really saw an object in foreshortening, it was the duty of art to change the point of view so as to give the most objective idea of the figure and the proportions of its various dimensions. This was the case, not only for the reproduction of the figure as a whole, but also for the reproduction of its various parts. One doesn’t draw an arm, a leg, or a foreshortened foot as if extended towards the eye that is looking at them.17

By this neither Lange nor Loewy meant that every part of the figure was to be presented frontally, for each element had its most recognizable aspect, which would convey the most in its representation.18 So, for example, a profile head and legs conjoined to a frontal torso (a conventional formula omnipresent in relief) was not intended to display the body’s capacity for torsion in movement, but simply to offer to sight each part in its most identifiable and informative guise. In this both Lange and Loewy were anticipated, if not explicitly motivated, by Winckelmann: denn in der Härte von jenem offenbaret sich der genau bezeichnete Umriß, und die Gewißheit der Kenntniß, wo alles aufgedeckt vor Augen liegt. for there is disclosed in the hardness [of that former Archaic style] the well-defined outline and the certainty of knowledge, in which everything lies revealed before the eye.19

Furthermore, Lange believed that “frontality” endowed statuary with autonomy, as the form divorced such independent figures not only from a relationship with others but from any contingent setting. Such “self-suf-

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ficiency” granted these works an atemporal character, as their isolation relinquished any appearance of narration. And while such characteristics enhanced a statue’s hieratic quality and its expression of the dignity of human form, it did so at the expense of gesture, action, and any sense of what Lange termed “a life properly its own.”20 These two modern scholars recognized that, in an era before convincing attempts at the representation of movement had been achieved in the history of art, such frontal views also served, paradoxically, as the most effective means for a static image to function as a powerful symbol, independently of a display of human action. The imagery of Archaic stone sculpture, almost wholly divorced by its summary forms from the actions that define human experience in the world, substituted presence for movement. Glyptic statues’ dominant frontality was held to have been conceived sculpturally as a response to the face of the original block and experientially as an address to the work’s beholders. This was, however, not without certain aesthetic sacrifice. Such an idea of a statue’s formal character might endow the sculpted human figure with a formidable visual power, yet, when employed over an extended period of time as a dominant characteristic, it effectively constrained the development of almost any compelling attempts to represent the narration of events. Frontality, as a mode of sculptural expression, was largely limited to the rehearsal of established symbolic conventions rather than to an unmediated representation of nature. In the Archaic period, studied and sustained observation of nature still lay on the horizon of artistic practice. Hildebrand’s, Loewy’s, and Lange’s interpretations were only possible with the great archaeological advances of the nineteenth century. The one hundred-fifty years since the time of Winckelmann had seen the true discovery of the Archaic style which both Lange and Loewy had ­endeavored to explain. Winckelmann had only vaguely understood it. Most of his commentary on the topic of early Greek art is evocative and metaphorical, as he had but few monuments, scarce descriptive sources with sufficient detail, and no archaeological evidence at all, that would have rendered the Archaic style’s character apparent to him. In fact, the origin of those works of art that he regarded as being of truly great antiquity he unfailingly mis-identified, believing their archaizing forms to be of Etruscan design.21 He did, however, recognize the consistent qualities of their aesthetic character, and noted, in particular, their “forceful expression of action” and “vigorous actions and poses.” The ancient style was defined by its drawing, “emphatic but hard, powerful but without grace, [whose] forceful expression diminished its beauty.”22 This was an aesthetic judgement of the Archaic style manifestly at odds with the later assessments of Lange and Loewy, but clearly well-suited to the champion of the Apollo Belvedere.

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Fig. 3.6 Female statue (Nikandre dedication), ca. 650 BC. Marble, 1.80 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 1. Fig. 3.7 Tenea Apollo, ca.  575–550 BC. Marble, 1.53 m (H). Munich, ­Glyptothek, inv. 168.

“Many-Sidedness” Two early Greek marbles have long been central to discussions of three-dimensional works possessed of Frontalität and Einansichtigkeit: the “Artemis” dedicated on Delos by Nikandre (fig. 3.6) and the Apollo from Tenea (fig. 3.7). The interpretation of both statues oscillated between an emphasis on their truly archaic character and a perceived awakening of artistic interest in the vividness of natural forms. Brunn and Lange felt

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that such works invoked memories of older wooden statues,23 yet saw in the Apollo (and other related scuptures) the beginnings of a movement away from the “one-sided” tectonic character of older works towards a more articulated anatomy and an individualized expression of the human form.24 Nevertheless, both statues would come to exemplify an emphatically frontal presentation of the human form, a commanding silhouette, and a plinth-like conception of the body, from which there is neither a physical extension of the limbs nor the suggestion of the psychological projection of their subjects into a presumed surrounding world.25 All of these characteristics, so palpable in both of these early statues, have also been recognized in a host of surviving original works of the Archaic and Classical periods produced in both stone and bronze. In the former, one easily imagines how all of these features would have been implicated from the start, with the initial sketching out of the forms on the frontal surface of the stones from which they were to be carved – just as if in relief, as unfinished, later works reveal (fig. 3.5). Gardner had articulated the working method to be intuited when each aspect of a figure appears flat: The result may best be realized, if one imagines the statue cut through horizontally at almost any height; the section resulting will be contained by lines parallel to the back and front of the statue, and others at right angles to them, parallel to the sides […]. First [the sculptor] draws the outline of the statue in full face and in profile on the front and the side of the block. Then he carries these outlines straight through, working from the front parallel to the sides, and from the side parallel to the original front plane. When this process is completed, the statue, from front or side, has the required outline; but in horizontal section it is at any point perfectly rectangular. When the arms and legs have then been similarly outlined, and cut in to the required depth, and the face a little shaped, the result is a statue in precisely the condition in which we see the Naxian statue […] [here, fig. 3.4].26

The analysis of such fundamentally quadratic Archaic stone kourai was to become commonplace, as the vestiges of the working method revealed by this unfinished example might be recognized in completed statues. But this was also held to be the case for numerous three-dimensional works of the later fifth and fourth centuries, for presumed bronze originals as well as their later marble replicas. Loewy, explicitly following Gardner,27 extended his observations with a perspicacious assessment of the Dresden Athena (fig. 3.8) and the Eirene of Kephisodotos (fig. 3.9), in an analysis that grasped their origin as “four-sided” compositions: […] Vorder- und Seitenansichten des Gewandes bilden bloss durch das Spielbein unterbrochene Ebenen, die in rechtem Winkel, wenn auch mit zumeist abgeschrägten Kanten, aufeinanderstossen. The front and side views of the drapery form even planes, unbroken save by the bent knee, and meeting one another at right angles, with generally only the corners chamfered.28

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Fig. 3.8 Dresden Athena Lemnia, attributed to Pheidias, mid-fifth century BC. ­Furtwängler reconstruction: plaster cast amalgamating marble Roman copies. Fig. 3.9 Eirene of Kephisodotos, ca. 380–360 BC. Roman marble copy after bronze original, 2.06 m (H). Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 219.

Insistent Planarity

This was, for Loewy, the consequence of the primacy of the frontal view and of a working method that proceeded from such primacy: “that the back exists at all is but the material consequence of the cutting out of the contour of the front view.” And, as a result, “where a statue has a view that is intended to be seen exclusively or at least principally […] that view remains remarkably flat.”29 Loewy saw the same phenomenon still at work in the Classical period, in the case of Polykleitos’ Doryphoros (fig. 3.10), for “even there each of the four views of the trunk and thighs seems to resist that blending with the contiguous sides by which they would lose their reciprocal independence.” He would thus later claim in his Die griechische Plastik that:

“Many-Sidedness”

103 Fig. 3.10 Doryphoros by Polykleitos, ca. 450–440 BC. Roman marble copy after bronze original, 1.96 m (H). ­Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, inv. 86.6.

Indessen, wie befriedigend die Lösung der Aufgabe durch Polyklet erscheinen mag, abschließend ist auch sie nicht. Es ist noch nicht das Höchste an Bewegung, über welche der Rumpf verfügt. Alle bisher betrachteten Bewegungen sind von einer Art: sie vollführen sich innerhalb derselben Ebene. Denken wir uns eine dieser Gestalten zwischen zwei parallele, senkrechte Platten gestellt: sie könnten alle die angeführten Bewegungen des Rumpfes vollbringen, ohne an diese Platten anzustoßen. Aber der menschliche Rumpf ist noch ganz anderer Bewegung fähig. Er kann sich nach vorn, nach rückwärts, schräg nach der Seite biegen, sich krümmen und drehen. Diese Bewegungen sind es, welche Lysipp in die statuarische Kunst einführt. However satisfying as the solution of the task by Polykleitos may appear, it too is not conclusive. This is not the greatest degree of movement which the torso commands. All movements considered so far are of one kind: they are all carried out in the same plane. Let us think of [Polykleitos’] figures placed between two parallel, vertical plates – they would be able to accomplish all these movements of the torso without touching either of them. But the human trunk is capable of quite a different movement. It can bend forwards, backwards, obliquely to the side, swivel and twist. These movements are the kind of thing that Lysippos introduces into statuary art.30

Here Brunn’s “two planes” idea is elaborated, once again (see Chs 1 and 2, above). The Doryphoros is conceived as if the character of its three-dimensional form was produced by compression between the parallel planes

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of an original block, despite the fact that Polykleitos had fashioned the sculpture not in stone, but in clay or wax in preparation for its casting in bronze. Loewy’s observations depend, of course, on the commentary of Varro that is reported by Pliny in his Historia Naturalis: Hic consummasse hanc scientiam iudicatur et toreuticen sic erudisse, ut Phidias aperuisse. Proprium eius est, uno crure ut insisterent signa, excogitasse; quadrata tamen esse ea ait Varro et paene ad exemplum. Polykleitos is thought to have brought this skill [in proportions?] to perfection and developed the art of making sculpture for which Phidias had opened the way. The idea that a statue could rest on one leg is entirely his own, although Varro says that they are ‘square-like’ (quadratus).31

Lange’s comment is apposite: Von den ihm zunächst voraufgegangenen Generationen peloponnesischer Künstler hatte Polyklet die Vorliebe für den breiten, vierschrötigen Körperbau (statura quadrata […]) geerbt, der sich offenbar als Reaktion gegen das archaische Ideal entwickelt hatte. Zu Gunsten der Naturtreue nahm man Abstand von jenem leichten, eingeengten Körperbau; aber man scheint dadurch in eine gewisse Fahrt nach der entgegengesetzten Seite gekommen zu sein, so dass das Resultat, zu dem Polyklet schliesslich gelangte, in unseren Augen zu schwer gebaut erscheint. From the generations of Peloponnesian artists that had preceded him, Polykleitos had inherited the preference for the broad, square-bodied physique (statura quadrata, […]), which evidently had developed as a reaction against the archaic ideal. In favor of the truth to nature one distanced oneself from that light, constricted physique; but it appears it took a long detour to the opposite side, so that in our eyes the result to which Polykleitos finally arrived seems too heavy.32

The ancient sources strongly suggest that such statuae quadratae were recognizable and commonplace among older statues, notably kouroi, and, as we have seen, could be recognized in other surviving works: not only marble copies, but bronze originals such as the Delphi Charioteer (fig.  3.11) or the Piombino Apollo.33 What we do not know is whether Varro used the term quadratus to suggest (1) that the wax form from which the original bronze Doryphoros was cast was fashioned as if it were carved from a block, in the glyptic manner, with each of its sides fashioned, at least at the outset, seemingly independent of the others, working inward as if from each face;34 or (2) that it was the marble copies of Polykleitos’ statue known to him (which displayed such a blocky form) since these were worked from stone in such a manner. In either case, quadratus would be a way to describe a characteristic consequence of these two works (original and copy) produced in distinctly different sculptural materials. But, in both instances, we must ask why bronze and marble statues, despite their divergent means of manufacture, should produce such a similar effect. Given the broad use of the Latin term (quadratus) and its Greek equivalent (tetragōnos)35 to describe works of sculpture produced over a long span of time and, in other respects, in markedly differing styles, might

“Many-Sidedness”

105 Fig. 3.11 Delphi Charioteer, ca. 478–474 BC. Bronze, 1.80 m (H). Delphi, Archaeological Museum, inv. 3484.

the quadratus attributed to Polykleitos’ statues, and applicable to so many other images of his age, be the sign of some more profound and innate quality that governed antiquity’s approach to the problem of image-making? At the close of the nineteenth century, and on into the twentieth, several prominent critics thought this to be the case. Hildebrand believed in the force of a universal artistic law of nature (ein natürlicher künstlerischer Trieb) that should find its manifestation in artistic practice: Die subjektive Willkür, das sogenannte Geistreichthun, die persönliche Caprice, sind immer nur ein Zeichen, dass das künstlerische Schaffen seinen natürlichen gesunden Inhalt verloren hat. Arbitrary subjectivity, a pretension to ingenuity, and personal caprice are invariably no more than the signs that artistic creation has lost its natural and sound content.36

Perhaps the most famous argument for an innate and underlying structure of works of art was Riegl’s Kunstwollen, his attempt to discern an imma-

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nent meaning of works of art derived from a priori categories and concepts, an attempt “oriented toward the pure apprehension of the isolated individual form through the immediately evident material phenomena.”37 Loewy would elaborate: he argued that the quadrate character of statues was a glyptic response conditioned by the flatness of retinal images as they were preserved in memory.38 By invoking a physiological foundation for the sculptor’s technique, Loewy implicitly challenged the lingering influence of the nineteenth-century’s emphasis on materiality: […] schliesst es nicht einen Widerspruch in sich, dass die Kunst die ihr durch das erstgewählte Material dictierten Formen nun dem neuen Material selbst gegen dessen andere Bedingungen abgetrotzt haben soll? Und wie steht es mit dem Gegebensein der Werkform? Is it not illogical to suppose that the artist should have worried out of the new material the forms dictated by the material first chosen despite the different conditions of the new? And how far, in point of fact, is the shape of the working material a fixed one?

And again, more forcefully: Welcher tektonische Zwang bestand für das frei, per via di porre, geformte Modell der gegossenen Erzstatue? Zumal bei einem Typus, der, wenn nicht in dieser Technik erfunden, doch in ihr wesentlich umgestaltet, der Holz- oder Steintradition entrückt war, wie die Frauengestalt im Peplos? Und doch ist von den ältesten Beispielen zu den beiden Athenen des Phidias und hinab zur Eirene des Kephisodot die Anlage dieser Figuren naturwidrig vierseitig […] What tectonic constraints existed for the freely-formed model (via di porre) for a cast bronze statue? Especially in the case of a type that, if it was not invented using this technology, was thus significantly transformed by it, as it was taken over from the wood or stone tradition – such as the female figure in the Peplos? And yet, from the oldest examples of the type, to the two Athenas of Phidias [fig. 3.8], and down to the Eirene of Kephisodotos [fig. 3.9], the layout of these [originally bronze] figures is, contrary to nature, four-sided […]39

The quadrate appearance of sculpture had a long life, and the faceting and frontal disposition of three-dimensional forms survived the transition to the Classical style. Loewy took up the question we have asked about Varro’s use of the term quadratus and sought to explain why models worked in wax or clay for casting in bronze displayed forms that looked as if hewn independently from a block’s different faces (cf. Brunn and Lange, pp. 100–101, above). And he asked how and why the same qualities might be found, not only in Roman marble replicas whose glyptic character reflected their carving process and its consequences, but in surviving original bronzes (cf. fig. 3.11) whose manufacture did not depend on such a technique. For Loewy, the flattened, often quadrate forms produced by carving front-to-back (or, correlatively, inward from each face of a block) were not only the results of a subtractive technique and a realization of Lange’s “law of frontality” (as well as Brunn’s “laws of relief ”). They were, in his view,

The Decline of the Archaic Style

107 Fig. 3.12 Grave stele, ca. 550– 540 BC. Marble, 1.16 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 7901.

the visible signs of a mode of conceptualization – along the lines, albeit less theoretically articulated, of Riegl’s Kunstwollen. Whether these characteristics were, or were not, a recapitulation of retinal images (as Loewy, and also Hildebrand had believed), they were nonetheless the signs of a fundamental approach to style and the foundation of a distinctive series of aesthetic forms, both in the round and in relief. From this vantage point, a question that continued to plague scholarship was how style might engender techniques that would allow works of art to overcome the perceived limitations of their materials, and in so doing, offer a unified vision of an age’s artistic productions.

The Decline of the Archaic Style The character of both late-Archaic free-standing statuary and relief may be seen to exemplify two contrasting conceptions. These are epitomized, in the art of the mid-sixth century, by the conventional presentation of the kouroi, universally understood to be frontal, and their kindred form in relief, the full-length profile view figures of the grave stele (fig. 3.12; cf. fig. 1.21). Both artistic forms, frontal and profile, are largely generic,

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Fig. 3.13 Red-figure neck Amphora by the Trophy Painter, ca. 450–440 BC. ­Terracotta, 34.29 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1873,0820.365.

static, and repetitive, and thus their depicted figures are isolated by a lack of individuating physiognomy, a want of human action, and most notably, a predilection for stable and highly conventionalized poses.40 Yet the two formal solutions present a distinct contrast. On the one hand, in the case of frontalized statues, their figures’ hieratic presence and seeming autonomy derive from the fact that they stand, as if timelessly, in the space of the real world, despite their apparent detachment; and on the other, in that of relief, the narrative and temporal implications of their figures, as if refusing to acknowledge the works’ beholders, are contained within the frame of a represented world. Thus these two presentational formats, frontal and profile, served as emblems for the relationship of images to the realms of reality and representation. The frontal view, as it echoes the display of cult statues, lends itself to an emphatic assertion of mutually-re­ enforcing presences: that of an actual beholder before the manifestation of the divine. In contrast, the profile, as it ignores its beholder’s attendance on its imagery, suggests his or her fundamental exclusion from the world of its representations.41 Vase painting (fig. 3.13) allowed for the dramatic juxtaposition of both forms; the same phenomenon is occasionally found in relief, at an early

The Decline of the Archaic Style

109 Fig. 3.14 Metope, Selinunte (“Europa”), ca. 450 BC. Limestone, 83.5 cm (H). Palermo, Museo Archeologico Regional “A. Salinas.”, inv. 3915.

date, on the metopes at Selinunte (fig. 3.14) and the Sikyonian treasury at Delphi (fig. 1.4), and was given powerful form in the Hellenistic period (fig. 3.15). In all such instances, style and meaning are thoroughly intertwined in a strategy that serves to distinguish the antithetical realms these contrasting forms address, and the use of frontally disposed heads constitutes a direct and confrontational appeal to the beholder. Such outward stares of one or more protagonists explicitly acknowledges a presence before the narrated events and divorces these frontal figures from their represented context as they seemingly engage with the real world; this undermines the fiction that the represented events were to be understood as transpiring in a distant time and place or in the remote world of myth. Such a simultaneous employ of these contrasting forms, frontal and profile, establishes a tension between a sense of a represented “there and then” and a real “here and now,” and thus one recognizes a dialectical relationship between the distinct realms to which those forms address themselves. Yet an overtly theatrical appeal to a spectator’s presence before the represented scene denies to such works – in relief, just as it does in the case of statues – any full sense of their aesthetic self-sufficiency, as this acknowledges a dependence on a beholder’s presence to fulfill its purpose: that it is made to be seen.42 If we return once more to the columnar Athena and the pillar-like Herakles on the metope at Olympia (fig. 2.8), we may recognize that both figures’ monumentality is dependent on their architectonic, quadrate

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Fig. 3.15 Illisos stele, ca. 340 BC. Marble, 1.68 m (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 869.

figural formulae, anchored in place, and conceived forcefully in relation to the plane. Yet the pose of Atlas is different and provides a subtly forceful sign of the emergence of a revolution in Greek artistic practice. While his head and what remains of his legs are similarly shown in profile, his shoulders are turned and his torso rotated toward the plane, revealing his chest and staggering his outstretched arms so as to expose both his hands and the Hesperides’ golden apples he proffers. The result is a vivid contrast with the figure of Herakles whom he confronts, whose austere profile view (save for his divided legs that register the position of his feet, kouroslike, one before the other) evokes the fixity of his temporarily-imposed burden; Atlas’ stance and subtle torsion, by comparison, suggest both a confident assurance and a sense of freedom of movement, both soon to be vanquished by the hero’s cunning that will reverse their respective roles. This Olympia metope reveals the striking effect that results when the characteristic rigidity of frontal and profile forms are abandoned  – in relief. Lange, in his account of the central distinction between the later sixth-century metopes from Selinus and those of the mid-fifth-century temple, described the similar transformation of their forms:

The Decline of the Archaic Style

111 Fig. 3.16 Tetradrachm showing the river god Selinus, minted in Selinunte, ca. 440 BC. Fig. 3.17 Tetradrachm showing the river god Selinus, minted in Selinunte, ca. 440 BC.

Wir sehen, wie die Formen mehr und mehr rundlich, also statuarisch behandelt werden, während sich die Figuren als Gesamtheit doch noch immer mehr auf der Hintergrundfläche entfalten, als man dies an einer Statue oder einem lebenden Menschen in derselben Thätigkeit wahrnehmen würde; ausserdem werden alle Vorsprünge des Reliefs gleichsam von einem vor denselben gedachten Plan – einer Richtungsfläche könnte man sagen – in Zucht gehalten. Im Lauf der Entwicklung lernen sie es, sich frei innerhalb dieser Fläche zu bewegen, ohne sie aber zu sprengen. Wie man bei der Ausführung der Figuren im Hochrelief einige Formen runder, voluminöser, andere verhältnismässig flacher behandelte, um Gleichheit zu erreichen, darüber können keine allgemeingültige Regeln aufgestellt werden. We see how [on the later metopes] the forms are treated more and more as if in the round, that is, in the fashion of statues, while the figures as a group still unfold themselves upon the background surface more than one would observe in the case of a statue or of a living person engaged in the same action. Moreover, all the projecting elements of the relief are held in check, as it were, by an [imagined] plane conceived in front of them  – an orientational plane, one might say. In the course of their development, these [forms] learn to move freely within this defined plane without breaking its confines. No general rules can be established as to how, in the realization of the figures, some were presented in higher relief, more in the round and more voluminous, while others relatively flatter, in order to achieve a likeness.43

That the change in relief style resulted from a striving for naturalistic effects was recognized by Lange, who understood it to be visible even on a small scale. In a discussion of the imagery on some fifth century coins from Selinunte (figs 3.16 and 3.17), he noted, perceptively, that these effects seemed as if produced by what he again described as a “folding out toward the plane.”44 That is, Lange employed these coins in an attempt to trace the way in which figures in relief might seemingly free themselves from the confines of the conventionally flattened profiles and perpendicular frontal views so as to introduce an approximation of the multi-facetedness that had begun to transform free-standing sculpture. The emergence of figures that might be conceived more cohesively in representational space, given the advent of even subtly oblique forms that

112

Fig. 3.18 Grave stele of an Athlete with strigil, ca.  500–450 BC. Marble, 132 cm (H). Delphi, ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 2161 = 220 = 4365 Fig. 3.19 Sounion relief, ca. 460 BC. Marble, 48 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 3344.

Insistent Planarity

break from a parallel relation to the plane, suggests what may be regarded as a sign of the decline of the Archaic style. One consequence of the implicit rotation of figures in space and, with their resultant foreshortening, the representation of greater depth, was that sculptors working in relief were thus confronted by the essential problem of their medium: that there was not enough space to engage convincingly with the new demands such spatial forms made upon their images. There can be little doubt that the observation of Nature produced the new desire to situate figural compositions in space, and to connect them, if only implicitly, to their presumed surroundings. But a naturalistic rendering of forms, now set within that very impression of depth of space such new compositional developments seem designed to effect, was, at times, sacrificed. For the shallowness of a relief’s actual depth required a foreshortening accelerated in its diminution that clashed with the continued address of other forms to the plane, as on a grave stele from Delphi (fig. 3.18). The effect is epitomized by the famous Sounion relief (fig. 3.19) where head and gesturing arm appear starkly in profile, while the body is torqued from waist to shoulders so as to break from the plane (similarly to Atlas on the Olympia metope (fig. 2.8), of roughly the same date). We

“Complete in Itself ”

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witness a clash of aesthetic conceptions as the arms, held apart from the body and depicted in parallel to the plane, are conjoined to a subtly twisting torso that is echoed by the turn of the raised hand. The visual effect of all these conjoined figural forms, implying spatial extension despite their physical compression, exemplifies an awkward, still somewhat incoherent emergence of a deliberate striving for the compelling representation of Nature.

“Complete in Itself ” This effect of the new and awkward striving toward naturalism is most apparent in the new forms of statuary, and was nowhere more in evidence than in the case of Myron’s Discobolus (fig. 3.20). While the vast majority of ancient as well as modern commentary on the statue is devoted to the conjoined problems of its contorted pose, its implication of movement, and the question of its temporal moment, the relationship between this statue and its predecessors has been, at times, raised explicitly. Gardner, after a thorough review of these three dominant concerns, acknowledged one aspect of the Discobolus’ formal character that anchored its conception in the artistic world of the late Archaic. In language that rhymes with the categories of Lange, in 1896 Gardner recognized that the statue is self-centered and self-sufficient, and its meaning does not depend on any exterior object, nor, as often in [works of] the next century and later, on its relation to the spectator.45

And several years later, Gardner’s formalism would become even more explicit: [Myron] appears to have been the first to realize the principle […] that a statue or a sculptural group must be complete in itself, must possess a certain unity and concentration, so as to attract and contain the interest of the spectator with the work itself, and not to direct it to other extraneous objects, nor even to allow it to wander away […]. In the Discobolus, the self-contained completeness in the action finds its expression and counterpart in the lines of the composition itself.46

These characteristics are among the chief consequences of Lange’s “frontality,” and distinguish Myron’s accomplishments within the context of his contemporaries, mainly Polykleitos. Lange himself was to regard the Discobolus as if it was a relief: […] als etwas, das noch in gleich nahem Zusammenhang mit wie in starkem Gegensatz zu dem Alten stand, – ersieht man nicht nur aus der mangelhaften Modellierung des Unterkörpers während der Wendung, sondern auch daran, dass die Statue trotz ihrer vielseitigen Bewegung sich doch ziemlich auf einer Fläche entfaltet wie eine Relieffigur:

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das erinnert an die Zeiten, wo die Wendung der Figur allein auf die Flächenbilder be­schränkt war. […] as something that was in close relation with, as well as in stark contrast to, the old [tradition], something that one sees not only from the deficient modeling of the lower body as it turns, but also from the fact that the statue, despite its many-sided movement, unfolds quite like a relief figure on a surface: this is reminiscent of the times when the turn of the figure was solely limited to an image’s planarity.47

Loewy’s account of the statue, while noting both Lange’s analysis and presenting an illustration of the statue’s side view, went even further in linking Myron’s statue with the conventions of a relief aesthetic. And to do so, he once again invoked Brunn’s “two planes”: Auch dieser bleibt, wenn auch wol als ihr äusserstes Wagstück, noch in der primären Auffassung befangen. Er ist, in dem oben erwähnten weiteren Sinne, einansichtig, fügt sich, trotz partieller Drehungen im Oberkörper, in der Gesamtanlage zwischen zwei parallele Platten und jeder seiner Teile sucht sich dem Beschauer in vollem, erschöpfendem Anblick zu bieten. Even this [Myron’s Discobolus] is still bound by the primary conception [i.  e., the frontal view], though it may certainly be considered its most daring venture. It is, in the broader sense […] a one-sided composition; in spite of the partial contortion of the upper parts of the body, the general scheme is compressed between the two parallel planes, and each part of it [viz., the Discobolus] seeks to exhibit itself to the spectator in a full and exhaustive aspect.48

The appeal to Brunn’s “parallel planes,” which, as we have seen (Ch. 1), was also central to the analyses of Conze and Hildebrand (Ch. 2), confirms a long-standing and widespread conception of the organization of relief space. But in this instance Loewy summons the idea to declare that the Discobolos, despite its free-standing form, was conceived in the manner of a relief. It is no doubt pertinent that both he and Lange were almost certainly speaking of the Lancelotti replica (fig.  3.20), whose flattened forms correspond (so both men held) to the formal principles employed for the representation of figural space in relief. This view was to be given its most exhaustive description by Carpenter, who wrote movingly, and without irony, as if his illustrious predecessors’ analyses did not exist: In every detail of the pose except the turn of the head it presents a linear rendering in vivid contour, a silhouette of physical activity crowded into a pregnant moment. In addition […] it closely resembles a relief detached from its background, as becomes apparent the moment that it is viewed from any point of view other than that from which its silhouette was traced […]. The statue thus betrays itself, in conception even if not literally in the course of its original creation, as a figure in high relief deployed along a single plane – the plane of the draftsman’s panel on which its silhouette was traced.49

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While Myron’s Discobolos has been the object of a great deal of scholarly attention in recent decades,50 the interpretations we have noted, of Brunn, Conze, Lange, Loewy and Carpenter, are seldom matters of discussion; their observations are simply articulated as though commonplace observations and asserted without attribution.51 But the history of these ideas do have a bearing on the current re-evaluation of Kopienkritik, which has loomed large in contemporary debate. For how are the criteria for any potential reconstruction, or the denial of its possibility, to be gauged? As we are compelled to base such deductions on marble copies of a bronze original, characterizations of surface treatment and related aspects of facteur provide no firm stylistic basis for adjudicating a copy’s fidelity.52 Compositional differences, however, are another matter. The pose, as has long been recognized, is attested by the ancient sources. While an abstract quality was ascribed to it by Quintilian (“distorted and elaborate”), its form seems to agree with the description of the statue preserved in Lucian (“turned toward the hand that holds the discus”). This was echoed in Philostratus’ account of Hyacinthus (“he must turn his head to the right and bend himself up and over so far that he can look down at his side”), as well as by the much-corroded solid cast bronze statuette now in Athens, and the small bronze statuette now in Munich, despite its bearing what appears to be a portrait.53 Yet the significant stylistic disparity between the presentations of the torsos on the Lancellotti (fig.  3.20) and Porziano (fig.  3.21) examples, long-presumed to be the best of the replicas, poses problems. Their differences complicate reflection on the style of a work whose original dates to the mid-fifth century, and these disparities frustrate any attempt to determine which one provides an arguably more faithful reflection of the character of what is assumed to have been their common model.54 Indeed, the early reconstructions were veritable pastiches, with Furtwangler employing the Vatican torso, Giulio Emmanuele Rizzo and Marie Dihl the Porziano, all with the Lancellotti head; all assumed an intended primacy of the composition’s profile and accorded it prominence, as the early photographs reveal.55 And further complicating analysis is the realization that, in photographs, the works are often rotated so as to produce a consistent silhouette, modeled on that of the Lancellotti replica, the most intact of the extant examples. Yet the surviving plinths for the Porziano and Townley replicas strongly suggest the original statue’s primary face and the originally preferred view. This might seem to be confirmed by the findspot of the Castel Porziano copy, which was discovered set before a wall, presumably to give prominence to one dominant side.56 In fact, the priority afforded the silhouette is patent in reconstructions and photographic documentation. When photographs of the Townley and

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Fig. 3.20 Myron, Discobolus ­Lancelotti, ca. mid-fifth century BC. Roman marble copy of bronze original, 1.55 m (H, without plinth). Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. 126371. Fig. 3.21 Myron, Discobolus ­Porziano, ca. mid-fifth century BC. Roman marble copy of bronze original, 1.48 m (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. 56039.

Insistent Planarity

Lancellotti examples are contrasted,57 we find the viewpoint of the latter adjusted, swiveled to its left, in order for the two profiles to conform, thus acknowledging the primacy given in establishing the point of view to the curved back of the figure and to the long side of the Townley statue’s original rectilinear plinth. The same is true when the Lancellotti work is compared to the Porziano replica (cf. figs 3.20 and 3.21),58 in which case it is the latter that is rotated, now to its right, so as to conform to the Lancellotti’s silhouette.59 The difference between the various replicas’ presentation of the torso compels the question of just how emphatic, and how dominant, the profile view was intended to be. That is, was the Discobolus intended as an exemplar of what Loewy, and later Krahmer, would celebrate as a “one-sided composition” (Einansichtigkeit)  – something suggested by the reputed findspot of the Porziano example  – or was it meant to be viewed fully in the round?60 There are partisans of both opinions.61 The question is whether the more sharply angled pose and thus flattened torso of the Lacellotti replica, a more appropriate solution for an intentionally onesided design, is to be preferred to the more fluid curve, arched back, and angled chest of the Porziano version, which opens the composition to a

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much greater degree. If the former is held to be the case, are we confronted in the Discobolus less by an aspect of Myron’s unique style, but by a markedly conservative artistic convention of his era?

Fronts and Sides The fundamental equivocation of Myron’s design, as it was realized in three dimensions, is revealed by comparison with the much later so-called Jason (Hermes?: fig. 3.22). This is another statue type known in multiple copies worked fully in the round that nevertheless also displayed its forms, and its defining silhouette, spread out as if in a single plane.62 Similar to the Discobolus, the Jason’s several surviving copies exhibit a subtly varied degree of torsion, and yet, as in the case of Myron’s work, despite their differences, the dominant role of their composition’s silhouette was in all instances emphatic. Nevertheless, the Jason’s conspicuous contour was markedly transformed on several of the Roman re-workings of the type that served as portrait statues. On the example found in Ostia (fig. 3.23), the pose was not only mirror-reversed but, more significantly, its silhouette was re-defined, and its relationship to the base reveals that the forceful

Fig. 3.22 Jason (Hermes?), ca. late fourth century BC. Roman marble copy of original bronze, 1.78 m (H). Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, inv. 2798. Fig. 3.23 Statue of C. Cartilius Poplicola, ca. 40–30 BC. Marble, 1.95 m (H). Ostia Antica, Museo ­Archeologico Ostiense, inv. 121.

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Fig. 3.24 Ugento Zeus, ca. 510 BC. Bronze, 71.8 cm (H). Taranto, Museo Archeologico, inv. 121327. Fig. 3.25 Dodona Zeus, ca. 470– 460 BC. Bronze, 11.5 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 16546.

Insistent Planarity

profile view has been abandoned for a more frontal presentation and its direct address to its beholders. Both statue types, the Discobolus and the Jason, suggest a tension between their three-dimensional autonomy and a propensity to resolve themselves, visually, as one-sided compositions. This observable development, beginning in the early fifth century, shows how certain new compositions and their modes of display suggest a change in their aesthetic implications. By the Hellenistic period, an ever-broadening development of “many-sided” statuary forms would liberate a wide array of compositions from the heritage of quadratic conventions. The torsion and extension that marked such works’ divorce from their columnar predecessors adumbrated a fully three-dimensional articulation in space. In works of the Hellenistic age, in statues marked by a more compelling naturalism, the old quadratic compositions, with their contrast of frontal and profile forms, consequently gave way not only to an extensive repertory of poses but to a more subtle range of expressions. A foreshadowing of this phenomenon may be gleaned in earlier works. The novel compositional forms and newly represented actions found employed for many late archaic statues, particularly their striding forms in martial poses, whether represented in marble or in bronze, broke the quadratic pattern established (so Loewy and Lange had presumed) by

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119 Fig. 3.26 Hegelochos base , fifth century BC. Marble, 1.29 m (W). Athens, ­Acropolis Museum, inv. 13206. Fig. 3.27 Kouros base, ca.  550–525 BC. Marble, 50.5 cm (W). Athens, Acropolis Museum, inv. 596.

archaic stone statuary. In examples dated to the very beginning of the fifth century, with the arms extended outward, the new contrapposto stance abjures a traditional symmetry of design, and the resulting forms emphasize the fully three-dimensional nature of these works’ conception. Numerous surviving statues and statuettes demonstrate that such a more active imagery was one hallmark of what has become known as the Severe Style,63 and the surviving examples, among them the Ugento (fig. 3.24) and the Dodona (fig. 3.25) representations of Zeus, epitomize this new kind of figure and its compositional forms. These sculptures, along with a host of surviving inscribed bases, demonstrate that the actual “front” of many such compositions was aligned with the short ends of their longer rectangular bases. Despite the awkward and at times extreme foreshortening that would result, these figures seem likely to have appeared striding forward, looming over the inscriptions carved below. This has been established by recent analyses of the much-discussed Hegelochos base (fig. 3.26), and other examples confirm the setting and display of statues it suggests.64 The frontal address that was so basic to such monuments was clearly inherited from earlier works of the archaic period, notably the kouroi and kourai who typically stood upright and parallel to the inscribed fronts of their bases (fig. 3.27), facing their beholders. This was a fundamental aspect of their formal character and one that outlasted the type.65 Yet the inscriptions on some bases make plain that the profile was also considered a prominent, if not the prominent, view. The Tübingen hoplitodromos (fig. 3.28) stood in profile, facing left. The same was true of the monument of Epicharinos and the small equestrian statue of Xenophantes.66 All of these statues and bases demonstrate that their subjects were conceived according to two distinct modes of address. One, the directly frontal display of the figure, was clearly a legacy of past sculptural forms; the other, rotated ninety degrees to profile so as to effect a new sculptural language that described active imagery, was seemingly ambivalent about that legacy, and associates these compositions with works familiar in the

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multi-figured narratives represented in relief and in painting. The newly-adopted profile view was underscored by the novel placement of the inscription on the bases’ long sides. A contrast between these two modes of address had long been conventional in the realm of architectural sculpture, where an archaic emphasis on the apposition of frontal and profile views echoed the tectonic character of their setting. Such a juxtaposition predominated not only works in relief, as in at Selinunte (fig.  3.14) or in the elaborate decoration at Prinias (fig.  3.29), but fully three dimensional pedimental forms such as at Aegina (fig. 3.30) and elsewhere. In many such compositions the figures, arrayed laterally across their tympana, similarly emphasize the framing of their individual “one-sided” views, despite their being sculpted in the round.67 And near the end of the century, by which date one finds many other transformations in style, the insistence on such a silhouette would still dominate relief, as in the case of the Nike Balustrade’s “Sandalbinder” (fig. 3.31). Here a new complexity of pose, surely developed for the composition of three-dimensional forms (exemplified by the later Jason), was married to a demand for a dominant point of view that is central to relief practice.68 Once this motif, with the goddess bent over to tie (or untie?) her sandal, was conceived in relief and thus deprived of a potential multiplicity of views, the composition was transformed as the Balustrade goddess’ lavish and highly artificial drapery spreads her figure out in parallel to an imagined frontal plane. This forcefully renovated a conventional background motif, vividly employed on the Parthenon and at Bassae, and articulated the Nike’s complex pose in a design of unprecedented planarity.69 As the Nike demonstrates, by 400 bc more complex and fundamentally three-dimensional statuary conceptions were still accommodated to the single point of view that was a formal requirement of relief. In the Nike’s “flattened” and silhouetted forms, its isolation from any narrative engagement, and above all, in its forms’ unnatural rotation towards its spectators, one detects, despite the vibrancy of its aesthetic solution, both an underlying quadratic conception and a lingering archaism. This was rooted in the tension between the two modes of address: frontal and profile. While relief had always embodied this inherent tension, it was equally present in three-dimensional statuary, and is exemplified, on a monumental scale, by two renowned works that also display a similar lingering sense of archaic conceptions. Both the Tyrannicides (fig. 3.32), and the Artemesion Zeus (fig. 3.33) were conceived as if charging aggressively towards their intended audience: this was arguably both works’ front view, marked by the dedicatory inscription, a conception these statues share with the smaller forms of the Ugento and Dordona statuettes (figs 3.24 and 3.25).70 The new compositions – such as the Tübingen hoplitodromos, the Athena

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121 Fig. 3.28 Tübingen “Runner.” Bronze, ca. 500 BC, 16.4 cm (H). Tübingen, Museum der Universität Tübingen, Antiken­ sammlung, inv. 1. Fig. 3.29 Prinias façade, Seventh century. Reconstruction drawing (Beyer).

Fig. 3.30 Aegina west pediment , ca. 490-480 BC. Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 79.

Fig. 3.31 Nike Balustrade relief (“Sandalbinder”), ca. 410–400 BC. Marble, 1.60 m (H). Athens, ­Acropolis Museum.

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Fig. 3.32 Tyrannicides (front view). Copy of bronze by Kritios and Nesiotes, 477/6 BC. Marble, 1.95 m (H). Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale, inv. 6009 and 6010. Fig. 3.33 Artemesion Zeus (3/4 view). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. X 15161.

Insistent Planarity

Promachos, the Artemesion Zeus, the Tyrannicides, or, for that matter, the Jason – all want to be viewed in profile. Indeed, all of these examples are consistently reproduced by photographs showing them silhouetted (figs 3.34 and 3.35), clearly from the side, not the front, and they have often been interpreted in just this way.71 This interpretation is seemingly confirmed by the ancient representations of these or similar statuary forms in vase painting, such as the colossal statue depicted on the Berlin Foundry Cup (fig. 3.36), and most notably the painted image of Kritios and Nesiotes’ Tyrannicides (fig. 3.37).72 In the renditions of these statues found on the vases, the figures’ three-dimensional forms are consistently rotated laterally and are spread out in a single plane, as the profile view was the one in which the dramatic actions depicted were readily identifiable and in which the poses that allowed them were clearly articulated. This spreading out of forms in the plane was not only in response to the formal demands of the graphic medium, but as Loewy claimed, was in conformity with a fundamental quality of certain original three-dimensional works: Die zur Betrachtung ausschliesslich oder hauptsächlich bestimmte Ansicht (Letzteres bei mehransichtigen Figuren die die allereste Conception enthaltende) bleibt merkwürdig flach.

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Where a statue has a view that is intended to be seen exclusively or at least princi- Fig. 3.34 pally (in plurifacial states this answers to the [artist’s] primary conception), that view Artemesion Zeus (side view) ca. 460 BC. Bronze, remains remarkably flat.73

These compositions’ planarity was not just to be seen in their two-dimensional renderings on the vases. Statues such as the Tyrannicides and Artemesion Zeus did not abandon a conventional and surely old-fashioned frontal address, but enfolded it within a new and complex spatial articulation of the human form. Loewy comprehended the sense in which even these figures in the new style clung to an archaic conception: Und sogar mit allseitiger Modellierung bei correcter Tiefe ist Einansichtigkeit nicht principiell unvereinbar. Figuren wie der bekannte blitzschleudernde Zeus und bis zu einem hohen Grade auch noch die Tyrannenmörder wollen nur von einer Seite gesehen werden, in der sich alle wesentlichen Teile vereinigt finden; in jeder anderen Ansicht sind entweder einzelne der Letzteren unsichtbar oder es wird die Silhouette durch Zusammenschrumpfen für den Anblick ungeeignet. Jene anderen Flächen sind also, obgleich durchgeführt, doch conceptionell belanglos, und so vertreten auch diese Werke noch, in gewissem Sinne, die morphologisch primitivste Form plastischer Bildung. Unifaciality is not necessarily incompatible even with all-round modelling and correct depth. Figures like the well-known Zeus throwing the thunderbolt (from Olympia), and even to a high degree the Tyrannicides, require to be seen in only one aspect wherein all essential features will be found united; in any other view, either

2.09 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. X 15161.

Fig. 3.35 Tyrannicides (side view). Cast, Museo dei Gessi, Rome.

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Fig. 3.36 Foundry Cup. Attic redfigure, ca. 490–480 BC. Terracotta, 12 cm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antiken­ sammlung, inv. F 2294. Fig. 3.37 Tyrannicides. Attic red-figure oinochoe, ca. 400 BC. Terracotta, 16 × 14 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Henry Lillie Pierce Fund, inv. 98.936.

Insistent Planarity

some of the essential features are out of sight, or the silhouette contracts and thereby loses its clarity. The other sides, then, although they were completed, have no part in the original conception. Thus these works, morphologically, still represent, in a certain sense, the most primitive type of plastic expression.74

Loewy’s analysis still persuades – the evidence of some of the inscribed bases notwithstanding. Yet his broad emphasis on the side view is not merely a mistaken sense of how these works were originally (and are sometimes still) displayed; rather, it is a persuasive acknowledgment that this is so often the view of statues that is the most informative iconographically and the most rewarding aesthetically. The paradox to be observed is that a persistence of an elementary quadratic design, together with the flatness it implied, could be manifest by statues that nevertheless articulate, in dramatic fashion, the fully three-dimensional potential of the new aesthetic. The Artemesion Zeus, whose highly foreshortened frontal view is counterposed to a more informative profile, exemplifies the unification of the two phenomena. The Tyrannicides, in their overall compositions and in their dramatic conceptions of their subjects, marked by a conspicuous if subtle rotation in space, emphasize a new multiplicity of points of view that their setting established for the passers-by, views that continually oscillate from one to another. The tyrant-slayers’ composition sets the heads and bodies in a series of contrasting positions (figs 3.32, 3.35, 3.38), in all of which some aspect appears frontally. From the front, they appear full face, yet their torsos – in the back-to-back scheme as the replicas are installed in Naples – appear obliquely in three-quarter views; by contrast, from either angle, each torso is revealed “frontally” so that the figures’ acts are given in profile, while the heads are shown in three-quarter pose. Two vantage points, keyed to a

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125 Fig. 3.38 Tyrannicides (3/4 view). Cast. Moscow, Pushkin Museum.

frontal view of each face and torso, were clearly conceived as fundamental, all the more so as from either angle the other figure, set behind, is relegated to what can only be regarded as a secondary role.75 Despite the Tyrannicide group’s encouragement that its spectators engage with a multiplicity of views, these consistently produce a visible “flattening” that is omnipresent. The phenomenon was recognized and explained by Loewy, who remarked how: Auch wo Kopf und Extremitäten ihr eckiges Schema und selbst der Rumpf, wie bei der entwickeltsten Schöpfung des Praxiteles, die letzte Reminiscenz an den bloss vierseitigen Querschnitt aufgegeben haben, bleibt wenigstens der Vorderfläche des Letzteren ein gewisses Selbständigkeitsstreben, ein gewisser Widerstand gegen die Rundung zurück. Even when we no longer find angular shapes in the head and extremities, and when even the trunk (as in the most developed work of Praxiteles) has lost the last relic of the merely four-sided horizontal section, at least the front plane of the trunk still makes a certain effort to maintain its independence, still shows a certain resistance to roundness.76

The Artemesion Zeus exhibits the same traits. In fact, when viewed from the front it not only displays the outstretched (and unnaturally elon-

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Fig. 3.39 Lykios’ statue on ­Acropolis. Reconstruction drawing (J. B. Ochmann).

gated) arm in dramatic foreshortening, but its hand obscures the face77; from the side (fig. 3.34) the head appears in profile, while fully frontal in three-quarter view (fig. 3.33); from any of these vantage points the role of the torso as an index of the statue’s address to the spectator is distinctly diminished. Another noteworthy example of the tension between frontal and profile views is the horse and groom monument that once stood on the Acropolis, signed on its base by Lykios, the son of Myron (fig. 3.39).78 The two phases of the statue’s existence are documented by its inscription, which was set on the base’s long side, facing those ascending the temple’s stairs, and the cuttings demonstrate that the profile view was the statue’s front. For as one turned from the great steps before the propylaea and approached the small staircase leading to the Nike temple, the profile display of Lykios’ statue gradually gave way to a three-quarter, then a full-face view, as one began to ascend the steps. A deliberate concatenation of multiple vantage points was an aspect of the work’s design as a response to its setting.79 The Lykios monument’s design, and what might be deemed the activation of its three-quarter view, was demonstrably not new. At times archaic sculptors, ca. 600 bc, had distinguished between the fundamental frontality of a kouros’ pose and its manner of display, as in those instances where the statues were set on a diagonal.80 The effect was even less ambiguous regarding the Rampin Rider (ca. 550), as was pointed out by Payne, who (while acknowledging that the inscription on the short side of the statue’s

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base marked its frontal view), grasped the essence of its aesthetic conception. His comments deserve to be quoted in full: The turn of the head is probably the result of an attempt to harmonize the two principal views of the statue. It is likely that the statue was set up facing the point from which the spectator was first expected to look at it; this was sometimes, at least, the case, for there are inscriptions on the bases of equestrian figures, written on one of the narrow sides of the stone; the base of an early equestrian figure from the Acropolis, which may actually belong to this statue, has an inscription in this position. But though, for this practical purpose, the frontal view of a man on horseback was chosen as the principal view, it cannot ever have been felt to be the most important; for in this view the greater part of both figures is invisible. Knowing this, the sculptor adopted the simple device of turning the man’s head slightly to one side, and thus brought the figure into a closer, if still indirect, relation with the spectator on that side. A complete turn of the head, which makes the figure look the spectator full in the face, is a feature of some archaic horsemen on reliefs: here the intention is evidently to bring the figure into direct relation with the spectator. In round sculpture this complete turn of the head was impossible, except at the expense of all the other views, and a compromise was therefore adopted.81

It is clear that the siting of the Lykios monument, and the compositions invented for the Tyrant-slayers and the Artemesion Zeus, as well as others, developed and refined this archaic practice. In fact, the motif of the threequarter-turned head, as an alternative to those shown frontally or in profile, was similarly employed in the second half of the fifth century in relief (fig. 2.11) for the representation of horses in quadrigae. In both media this enhanced an impression of three-dimensionality, whether illusionistically or materially, and in all such cases, the resulting aesthetic effect manifests, to an increasingly greater degree, the implicitly monumental character of their artistic inventions. And as a statue in the round, the Tyrannicides’ composition marks a clear engagement with that aesthetic, despite its retention of a powerfully frontal address so central to what is believed to have been their mode of display. By contrast, despite Myron’s abandonment of archaic frontality in the design of his Discobolus, such a full development in three dimensions was something his artistic vision did not yet endeavor to embrace. The persistence of frontal display despite the three-dimensional character of the new compositions that marked the transition to a Classical style was, perhaps paradoxically, among that artistic moment’s defining aspects. And in this regard the case of the Tyrannicides has long posed a problem. For it is hardly credible that their frontal disposition, and the assumed confrontation with their beholders that the statues’ poses evince, was calculated to suggest the obviously awkward fiction so often claimed for the statues’ display: that the very citizens who championed Aristogeiton and Harmodius’ memory were cast as their foes, that is, in the imaginary role of Hipparchus, the city’s infamous tyrant.82 Rather, on their monument, the two heroes acting in concert were offered, despite their

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historicity, as a political symbol, not as a narrative scene.83 And their form of presentation, admittedly designed to solicit multiple views, nevertheless granted a priority to a frontal address, whose direct and aggressive posture participated in an established modality of long standing. That frontality, conditioned by entrenched conventions of display, had been equally employed in the Greek monumental repertory for the kouroi of the graves and the gods of cult, and such directness was the means by which a statue’s appearance for its beholders was defined and the continuing sense of their presentness effected. In this sense, the Tyrannicides, like the small bronzes we have noted, belong to an established, essentially late archaic, morphological tradition of free-standing statuary, the vestiges of whose fundamental frontality they preserve. The Tyrannicides re-vivified that frontality, as they married its formal effects to a new psychological presence motivated by a specific historical, indeed political, purpose. But it was a continuing recourse to that legacy of archaic form and display – not a reference to an implied narrative – that explains the aggressive pose of the Tyrannicides of Kritios and Nesiotes, just as it marks other early fifth century statuary.84 In all three forms we have surveyed – architectural sculpture (figs 3.29 and 3.30), relief (figs 3.14 and 3.31), and free-standing statuary (figs 3.20, 3.22, 3.33) – one intuits the residual effect of an aesthetic approach derived from early stone-carving technique, bound to a quadrate block, presumably worked inward from its face (or from multiple faces). As Loewy and Lange argued, the long life of such a carving process was owed to its force as an aesthetic mode of presentation. This was obviously true of relief, but as the statues demonstrate, it was not a matter of materials and techniques but the recognition of the primacy of a particular artistic conception, one that conformed to what those two scholars regarded as the primordial manner in which we confront and retain a mental image of the things of this world.85 This conception survived stylistic change. Despite the development of new and dramatically active statuary figures in later eras such frontal display is best understood as a continuation of one aspect of late archaic style that was extremely slow to be abandoned. And in narrative relief, the profile view was a conception that gave prominence to a composition’s lateralized forms, not only so as to convey their subject matter and actions, but to reveal their most significant iconographic traits, and – above all – to shape their dominant visual effect. If we return, once again, to Myron’s Discobolus, we must recognize that there is no way to know which of the replicas faithfully reproduces Myron’s work. But more importantly, we should acknowledge that this is among the least helpful avenues by means of which to approach the rise of

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the Classical style in the fifth century. The style was not born all at once, but was slow to emerge, and even those works long held to be revolutionary were, as we have seen (and as others have pointed out), similarly slow to shake off their archaic legacy. The profound innovation exemplified by the Tyrannicides was not adopted by Myron, and the continued dominance of the profile view at the expense of a more fully three-dimensional conception, demonstrable in the case of the Discobolus, is echoed and displayed by the same artist’s Athena and Marsyas group.86 The contrasting implications of the Discobolus’ and the Tyrannicide’s poses are clear. The dual nature of the Tyrant-slayers’ composition and display – a direct address to its beholders and a more informative profile view  – had its counterpart in relief on the metopes at Selinunte (fig. 3.14) and at Delphi (fig. 1.4), where the late archaic contrast between frontal and profile views was dramatically exploited. And it was to have its parallel, again in relief, a century later, on the Attic grave stele. As Rodenwaldt would point out, on these monuments, where forms at times approach a full statuary presence, an increasing depth of relief signaled a new variant on an older aesthetic phenomenon: Auch wo die Rundung nicht ganz so stark ist, führt doch die größere Höhe wie bei allen Gattungen des Reliefs zu einem Herausdrehen der Gestalten aus der alten Seitenansicht nach vorne. So wenden sich auf dem Relief der Demetria und Pamphile, das eines der spätesten ist, beide Figuren dem Beschauer zu. Die seelische Verbindung zwischen ihnen ist aufgehoben, teilnahmslos stehen sie nebeneinander mit repräsentativer Rücksicht auf die Blicke der Vorüberschreitenden. Eine unaufhaltsame Entwicklung hat den ursprünglichen Charakter der Darstellung ganz in sein Gegenteil verkehrt. even where the impression of fully in-the-round figures is not quite as strong, their greater relief height leads, as with all genres of relief, to a rotation of the forms from the conventional profile view forward. Thus, on the stele of Demtria and Pamphile [fig. 3.40], one of the latest in the series, both figures turn toward the beholder. The psychological connection between the depicted figures is suspended, and they stand impassive, side by side, with the customary regard for the gazes of the passersby. An unstoppable development has completely reversed the original character of the depiction.87

A psychological attentiveness to the world around was accompanied, indeed underscored, by a reorientation of bodily forms that provided that attention with its physical correlative. The developmental argument aside, Rodenwaldt saw at work a playing-out of the inherent tension between lateral and frontal forms, between an adherence to the plane in which compositions were set out and a necessary address to an implied spectator by whom works of art are intended to be seen. As Rodenwaldt understood, in implicitly dialectical terms, such forms demonstrated how a psychological connection was established with a work’s beholders, as subjects and their viewers were bound together by reciprocal attention (cf. figs 3.40 and 3.41),88 thus overcoming the limitations of relief’s fundamental planarity.

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Fig. 3.40 Demetria and Pamphile grave relief, ca. 325– 310 BC. Marble, 2.15 cm (H). Athens, Kerameikos Museum, inv. P 687. Fig. 3.41 Philodemos stele, ca. fourth century BC. Marble, 1.06 m (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 893.

Insistent Planarity

While Loewy had recognized in the insistant planarity of the early Classical style a subtle “resistance to roundness” that was characteristic of the late archaic, Rodenwaldt, by contrast, grasped how the late Classical would fulfill the potential of three-dimensionality, and in relief would evince what we might call a “resistance to flatness.” On these atypical grave stele, what in the case of the Tyrannicides had constituted a lingering archaism, was, in relief, fully transformed into a new idiom, one rooted in both a compelling evocation of their depicted figures’ psychological presence and a palpable recognition of those figures’ beholders.

4.  Manifold Forms and Styles

Das Wesen des künstlerischen Raums [ist], das wegen seiner zeitlichen Bedingtheit die größte Mannigfaltigkeit in sich schließt. The essential character of artistic space […] [is that it] comprises the greatest possible diversity in its temporal contingency. Friedrich Matz, 19321

The long life and critical dominance of a contrast between actual, framed, “enclosed” space and the possibility of implied, “unbounded and infinite” space has obscured another formal characteristic of relief sculpture. In the early twentieth-century, a tension emerged between an adherence to the old “twin planes” conception of relief (Brunn, Conze, Loewy, et al. [discussed in Chs 1 and 2, above]) with its materially delimited field, and the opening up of an illusion of potential space with both the advent of foreshortening and the introduction of something akin to perspective in relief.2 An idiosyncratic aspect of Weickert’s 1925 essay (discussed in Ch. 2, above) responded to this state of affairs, albeit indirectly and merely implicitly. For it may be observed that his detailed analysis of the Munich Gladiator relief (fig. 2.15) had provided the means to refocus these conventional distinctions about the depiction of space, and to implicitly reorient the discussion. A potential avenue for analysis emerged from Weickert’s realization that the “twin planes” idea was neither an accurate description of the evidence, nor an effective analysis of form. This was in part a response to the late-nineteenth century influence of “impressionism” in art historical criticism, broadly; but it was more. Weickert’s crucial recognition – although not his primary concern – was that the space of representation might not merely extend beyond or “through” the material solidity of the background plane by means of illusion, but that it might expand into the beholder’s space by projecting forward, through the implicit “frontal plane” so often invoked by historians of Greek art from Brunn onwards. Thus, what was traditionally regarded as “enclosed” space might be contrasted with not only an illusion of infinitely recessive space

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but with reliefs whose projective forms broke down the implied barrier between representations and reality, so as to visually assert those forms’ manifest presentness. One of the Munich Gladiator relief’s characteristics that was remarked but went unanalyzed by Weickert is its prominent upper border. Both the trumpets and the hand of the sword-wielding gladiator extend out over this frame, and in so doing, rob it of what would otherwise have been its role in defining the relief’s frontal plane and thus of “closing off ” and containing the represented space. Despite Weickert’s claims, it is unmistakable that the figures exist ambiguously, both within and without the depicted space (at bottom and top, respectively) conventionally framed and defined by a sculpted border in much the same manner that we have seen on the Greek stele now in Worcester (fig. 2.12) that antedates it by nearly four hundred years. Similar effects had long been noted in both vase painting and relief sculpture.3 But in the context of the debate over the representation of space in relief, and the explicit introduction of the question of perspective, these effects took on new significance. On the Munich Gladiator relief, the figures were no longer confined either within that classically articulated space between the “two planes” that close off the front and the back, nor did they extend “indefinitely” into depth, conceived as if an idealized extension of our world made possible by perspectival means. Here the figures pressed forward from the confines of their material space and encroached upon the spectator’s world. What is beyond dispute is that the trumpeters’ projecting forms, enhanced physicality, and consequent immediacy, shatters their role in the Munich relief’s purported illusionism, and with this, undermines any compelling sense of the background – despite Weickert’s claims about its tell-tale chisel marks – as a rendering of ambient space. That Weickert regarded this conception as a Roman innovation that transcended Greek limitation can be readily dismissed as a thoroughly tendentious argument in the ongoing debate concerning the differences between Greek and Roman art.4 The long-standing question of represented space was to be reconceived and reoriented by novel features in the continuing development of Graeco-Roman art. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, vague terminology and diffuse descriptions were the hallmarks of an ongoing concern with the depiction of space. A different approach was wanting. This would wait, so it has been thought, until Brendel’s broader argument, in 1953, for a pluralistic approach to Roman art. His essay had one notable, yet flawed, precedent. In 1932 Matz published a lecture on the relationship between the frieze of the Great Altar of Pergamon and Hellenistic painting,5 in which the noted German scholar attempted to offer a typology of different kinds of represented space predicated on formal grounds. This was given

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the barest notice by Brendel (“the need for differentiations within the general concept of space was soon felt and, at least once, expressly formulated”) and Matz’s contribution has played virtually no role in subsequent discussions, save for one.6 Yet its provocative suggestions, while somewhat muddled, are worthy of some scrutiny. They constitute an early and prescient formulation of what would become an entirely new approach to the question. This chapter attempts to elaborate Matz’s insights and endeavors to demonstrate both the acuity of his perceptions and the wide range of the practice he recognized. What follows sets his sense of the manifold nature of style within both a broad tradition of imagery and the critical engagement which that imagery has elicited.

Multiple Kinds of Space The heuristic value of Matz’s categories, despite certain limitations of their descriptive purchase, took its place in what was, by then, a dispute many decades old. Yet none of the protagonists are mentioned by name; their theories are implicit in Matz’s choice of his examples of relief (Great Altar frieze, Ara Pacis, Arch of Titus), and there can be little doubt that his effort was a response to the claims not only of Conze (1882), but of Wickhoff (1899), Sieveking (1925), Weickert (1925), and Koepp (1927), the last three of which had recently appeared. Matz’s focus changed the character and emphasis of that debate. He began with an assessment of the Great Altar’s frieze (fig.  1.24), whose position as a touchstone of scholarly contention had solidified over the course of the previous half century. Matz noted two distinct compositional forms: Die meisten Figuren bewegen sich parallel zur Reliefebene, also am Hintergrunde entlang von r. nach l. oder umgekehrt. Ihre Horizontalachsen fügen sich dieser Richtung, sofern sie nicht mehr oder weniger rechtwinkelig zu ihr stehen. Profilbilder oder Kombinationen von seitlich gesehenen Beinen mit frontal gegebenen Schulterpartien sind die Regel. Der andere Kompositionstypus wird gebildet von Gestalten oder Gruppen, die schräg von hinten nach vorn oder umgekehrt bewegt sind, deren Horizontalachsen also schiefwinkelig zum Grund laufen. Most figures move parallel to the relief surface, i.  e., against the background, moving r(ight) to l(eft) or vice versa. Their horizontal axes are accommodated to either direction, unless they are more or less at right angles to it [i.  e., that they are standing essentially frontally]. Profile views, or combinations of legs seen from the side with frontally-depicted shoulders, are the rule. [Yet] another type of composition is formed by figures or groups that are inclined from back to front, or vice versa, with the horizontal axis running at an oblique angle to the ground.7

For Matz, the contrast had obvious consequences for the representation of space:

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Die Ablösung der Figuren vom Grunde, die Gegensätzlichkeit beider Elemente und damit die Konstituierung des Reliefgrundes zu einer Hintergrundwand ist beiden Formen gemeinsam. Die Raumvorstellung ist beide Male die des hellenistischen Flachbühnenraumes. Der Unterscheid liegt darin, daß es bei der ersten Form darauf ankommt, die Flachbühne durch die Körper nach vorne zu schließen, während es im anderen Falle auf ihre Öffnung abgesehen ist. The detachment of the figures from the ground, the contrast of both elements, and thus the constitution of the reliefs’ relation to a background plane is common to both forms [painting and relief]. The idea of space in both cases is that of the shallow Hellenistic stage. The difference is that what matters in the first instance [“figures parallel to the relief surface”] is the intention to close the flat stage by means of the body’s address to the front, while in the other case [“figures at an oblique angle to the ground”], to suggest its opening [to the rear].8

Matz was not the first to make such an observation and, as we have seen (Ch. 2, above, pp. 66 and 76), both Hildebrand and Loewy had grasped the distinctive tendency for relief to spread its forms out across the plane. Yet Matz recognized that variously conceived two-dimensional designs and their three-dimensional implications had potentially radically different consequences. He was to further pursue such analyses, and twenty years on would offer an extended treatment of certain compositional forms, in particular, antithetically posed figures set in diagonal recession, that evoked three-dimensional space.9 But in 1952, these were set out as a discussion of artistic formulae, in contrast to the theoretically driven observations that underlay Matz’s earlier essay that had been anchored by a realization that there was no single sense of space – implicitly, the deep space of perspective theory – but rather a variety of artistic renderings: Es ist daher falsch, Raum und Tiefenraum gleichzusetzen und als andere Möglichkeit nur die Raumlosigkeit gelten zu lassen. Das Wesen des künstlerischen Raums, das wegen seiner zeitlichen Bedingtheit die größte Mannigfaltigkeit in sich schließt, ist damit verkannt. It is thus wrong to equate space and deep space, and to conceive of spacelessness as the only other possibility. The essential character of artistic space, which on account of its temporal contingency comprises the greatest possible diversity [in any particular temporal moment], is thus overlooked.10

Three things stand out here. First, Matz recognized that there were multiple kinds of artistic space, and in this he set himself apart from virtually all other commentators, whose views were dominated by a conventionally-perceived relationship between representations and reality. As he pointed out explicitly, he was not concerned with the representation of space as a motif (Innenraum, Architektur, Landschaft, usw.). His analysis, in contrast, proceeded to outline a series of basic representational types in which a sense of space was manifest visually, in both relief and in painting: – In the first of these types, compositions were set as if within a shallow stage space, which was “closed-off ” by both their background plane

Multiple Kinds of Space

135 Fig. 4.1 Helios in his chariot relief, ca. 300–280 BC. Marble, 85.8 cm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung, inv. Sch 9582; L 21.1.

Fig. 4.2 Cybele relief, ca. 200 BC. Marble, 58 cm (H). Venice, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale, inv. 118.

and frame that established the limits of represented space. This was, obviously, an inheritance of Brunn’s “twin planes” conception (see Chs 1 and 2, above). Matz regarded this artistic form as one in which space was determined by the figures that filled it.11 He held this to be the case if they were spread out in a shallow arrangement of one or more layers in both relief (figs 4.1 and 4.2) and in painting (fig. 4.3),12 or if the figures and staffage were packed densely together so as to block off any sense of an extended recession into space (fig. 4.4; cf. fig. 5.8). The latter of these schemes, as we shall see, was continually employed and refined, as its figures filled the frame in order to occlude any view “into space.” This eliminated a requirement for space to be afforded a distinct representational value, and the strategy, as Matz recognized, was employed on the processional friezes of the Ara Pacis (fig. 4.5).13 – In the second type, the overlapping of figures established a series of interrelationships and suggested a sense of depth expanding, on an implicit if not explicit diagonal, toward the rear, as if the foreground stage “opened” into depth. This Matz understood to be a late Hellenistic compositional

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Fig. 4.3 Death of Pentheus from the house of the Vettii (VI.15.1), ca. 62–75 AD. Fresco, 1.04 m (H). ­Pompeii, in situ.

type, and considered it typified on the frieze from the Temple of Hekate at Lagina (fig. 4.6: ca. 100 bc) and fully developed in the Tellus relief of the Ara Pacis (fig. 4.7), whose figures, set out so as to simultaneously suggest spatial recession despite being “spread out across the surface,” are seemingly enveloped by an ambient that recedes behind them. – The third of Matz’s types was a centrally-organized space, found for the most part in works of the Imperial period, which implied a convex ground plan, whose symmetrical wings opened into the space behind. This was exemplified by the Spoils relief on the Arch of Titus (fig. 2.16), and Matz saw its equivalent in the Pompeian fresco of Herakles, Deijanira, and Nessus (fig. 4.8). The type depends on compositions that bring the main protagonists to the central foreground, where they dominate not only in scale but in space, as this compositional strategy organizes the overlapping figures in centrifigually developing recession. This was almost certainly derived from Hildebrand’s discussion of Titan’s Sacred and Profane Love, whose structure he had described succinctly:

Multiple Kinds of Space

137 Fig. 4.4 Family votive, ca. 200 BC. Marble, 62 cm (H). Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 206.

Fig. 4.5 Procession relief from Ara Pacis Augustae (south side), 13–9 BC. Marble, 1.55 m (H). Rome, Museo dell’Ara Pacis.

Bringen wir z.  B. in der Mitte eines Bildes etwas an, was das Nahe veranschaulicht und rechts und links am Rande etwas, was die Ferne vergegenwärtigt, so ist die unwillkür­ liche Folge davon, dass die Tiefenbewegung von der Mitte als dem Nahen ausgehend sich nach hinten nach den beiden Seiten verbreitert. If we place something in the center of the picture that suggests closeness, for instance, and right and left of it place things that suggest distance, then inevitably the movement into depth will start from the center, as the closest point, and recede to either side.14

One imagines that Matz demonstrated his distinctions at his 1932 lecture by means of projected images that served as prima facie evidence of the general types, for it is notable that after the discussion of the Great Altar frieze his examples are merely recited, in the published version of his

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Fig. 4.6 South freize of Hekate temple at Lagina (detail), ca. 110–90 BC. Marble, ca. 93 cm (H). Istanbul, Archaeological Museum, inv. 1914,3.

Fig. 4.7 Tellus relief from Ara Pacis Augustae (east side), ca. 13–9 BC. Marble, 1.55 m (H). Rome, Museo dell’Ara Pacis.

presentation, without either illustration or detailed analysis. Beyond his typologies, another striking feature of Matz’s study is that his is the one account amidst the early twentieth-century phase of this scholarly debate not formulated in direct reference to modern notions of perspective construction; indeed, Matz seems as if determined in his choice of descriptive language not to invoke such a pictorial structure specifically. And yet another aspect of Matz’s discussion, perhaps the most profound, was that he realized that the spatial formulae he articulated, while they each had their historical moment, were nevertheless accumulated by artistic

Multiple Kinds of Space

139 Fig. 4.8 Wall painting from the tablinium of Casa del ­Centauro (VI 9.5) in ­Pompeii depicting ­Herakles, Nessus and Deijaneira, first century AD Fresco. Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 11474.

practice over time, and that artistic practice “comprises the greatest diversity possible in any particular temporal moment.” Thus, once introduced, all these varied approaches were available at any given moment in the history of art when their forms were deemed appropriate; this – its manifold nature – was the truly artistic character of space. One sees how the dominant conception of a “Classical” stage-like space gave way in Matz’s analysis to an acute sensitivity to other distinctive aesthetic practices in which space, as such, could be envisioned as a “general artistic form” (als allgemeine künstlerische Form). Moreover, he recognized that if the sculptors of the Pergamon frieze could employ earlier formal solutions, the same would be true for later generations of artists. Matz’s

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views were not wholly unprecedented. Koepp, following Pinder’s claim for the Ungleichzeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen, had recognized this; speaking of the style of an artwork’s various forms, he noted that: Die Feststellung der Gleichzeitigkeit oder des zeitlichen Verhältnisses allein – auch diese ja selten genug einwandfrei möglich! – genügt nicht, einen Vergleich und Schlüsse aus ihm zu rechtfertigen. Dann aber kann sich auch bei Denkmälern gleicher Art ein Unterscheid des Stils daraus ergeben, daß für den Stoff der Darstellung sich im einen Fall ältere Vorbilder bieten, im anderen versagen. By itself, the determination of simultaneity or temporal relationship – even this is rarely possible, properly speaking! – is not enough to justify a comparison and the conclusions drawn from it. But then, even in monuments of the same kind, a distinction in style can result from the fact that for the subject matter of a representation, one example might depend on older models, another might reject them.15

This fundamental observation, that “period” styles continue to avail themselves, constituted a dramatic claim for artistic pluralism, an early and prescient argument for an accumulative repertory of simultaneously available “period” styles, and, moreover, established a firm foundation for the repudiation of the contrast between Greek and Roman practice.16 Despite his reticence about the ideas of Matz (or of Koepp or Pinder), one recognizes one of the models, perhaps the most explicit, for Brendel’s argument for artistic pluralism – a model rooted in the analysis of the representation of space.

Pictorial and Sculptural Matz recognized that the manifold forms employed to signal various kinds of representations of space, although developed in different historical eras as characteristics of period styles, continued to be employed in later eras, simultaneously, as artistic solutions. What his discussion did not recognize is that, on occasion, these differing forms might be employed, side by side, on a single monument.17 A particular instance offers a striking example of the phenomenon. At some point in the early first century, an unusual funerary monument (fig. 4.9), now in the Vatican Museums, belonged to a grave on the outskirts of Ostia.18 A former slave, probably of Greek origin, Publius Nonius Zethus, the freedman of one Publius Nonius and his wife, commissioned it as a repository for cinerary urns bearing not only his own remains, but those of his friends and familia; these urns were intended to rest in the small round cavities carved into the monument’s upper face. There are six attested Nonii, yet our monument claims only four, whose ash urns thus filled only half of its eight receptacles. Given that the original inscription took up merely half the space within the modeled border of

Pictorial and Sculptural

141 Fig. 4.9 P. Nonius Zethus ­monument, mid-first century AD. Marble, 46 cm (H). Vatican, Musei ­Vaticani, inv. 1343.

the central plaque, it is highly likely that Publius Nonius’ munificence had originally been intended to provide the final resting place not only for all six, but for still other friends, if not relations, or perhaps his own freedmen, whose names go unrecorded. Zethus had clearly attained sufficient financial means thanks to his freedom that he might generously provide a last resting place for so many others.19 But this was not merely an inscribed memorial. On the panels at each end of the monument’s front face, bounded by pilasters, appear two modest reliefs. One shows a mule harnessed to a mill-stone (fig. 4.10), and the other a series of implements for the preparation and measurement of grain (sieves, grain measures [modii], and leveling rods) that suggest the interior of a miller’s shop (fig. 4.11). The imagery is not uncommon, and it seems clear that Publius Nonius Zethus was a miller by trade, a trade in which he was obviously successful enough that he could afford not only this relatively modest tomb monument for himself and his familia – with a plot thirty Roman feet wide and twenty-five deep, as another of the inscriptions (CIL 14.394) informs us – but that he proudly wished to be remembered for his social role. What is unusual, and seemingly forgotten over the past 125 years, is that the form of the monument itself extended this reference to Zethus’ profession, for it follows the recognizable design of a mensa ponderaria (fig. 4.12), a marble console that was a permanent public fixture in many towns. The receptacles atop these mensae established standards of measure, a staple of communities’ proper exercise of their local commerce, examples of which are known from cities throughout Italy. Thus, Zethus’ monument not only proclaimed his social rank (augustalis) by its inscription, and his profession by means of its sculpted imagery, but declared his honesty when dealing with his fellow citizens by its distinctive form. In the practice of his profession Zethus gave what has come to be known in modern greenmarkets as “good weight.”20 The contrast between the monument’s two somewhat crudely sculpted scenes is striking. In the right end scene (fig. 4.11), intended as an interior, surely that of the miller’s shop, one finds displayed an assortment of implements relevant to the trade.21 Some hang suspended from nails, and

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Fig. 4.10 P. Nonius Zethus monument (detail: mill). Fig. 4.11 P. Nonius Zethus monument (detail: shop).

Manifold Forms and Styles

others sit on projecting shelves, while a small bucket stands on the lower border (just as does the mule on the left relief). In contrast to the relief at the left, here the nature of these objects’ display unambiguously transforms the blank background in front of which they are silhouetted into the representation of a wall. The solidity of the relief ground is reaffirmed, both materially, as these implements project before it, and illusionistically, as they seemingly hang on the shop’s wall and emerge to share the living realm of the beholder. The left panel (fig. 4.10), by contrast, displays a mule turning a flour mill to which he is yoked. The animal stands behind the tripartite stone device and rotates the upper cone over the stationary lower one to grind grain which is then collected in the basin below; the large wooden armature that joins the beast to the device protrudes above. It is clear that the sculptor’s dominant interest was for the scene to reveal as much information as possible. He has striven to suggest the spatial relations between the mule and the machine, something underscored by the artificially raised vantage point that allows us simultaneously to see the interior of both the upper cone, into which the grain would be poured, and the basin in which the lower cone sits. Yet the attempt can hardly be deemed a triumph. The position of the animal’s legs, depicted so as to appear to stand firmly on the ground, oddly straddle the entire device, and seem to align themselves not with the mule’s body that is behind the mill, but with the device’s front side. The artist’s effort to sketch the spatial relations between mule and mill acknowledges the reality of their ancient usage, something attested by the

Pictorial and Sculptural

143 Fig. 4.12 Mensa ponderaria from the forum at Pompeii, ca. 10 BC. Travertine, 222 cm (L). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 3828.

remains of numerous mills, displayed in courtyards with sufficient space for the animals that worked them. A central aspect of the sculptor’s desire to render that reality depended on the representational role of the relief’s blank background, and how it is to be comprehended: as ambient space, whose emptiness silhouettes the paired mule and mill, and which (we are to infer) recedes behind them. The sculptor has tried, albeit with limited success, to render more depth than the materiality of his relief could possibly accommodate. This was an explicit appeal to illusionism and, as a result, it forced the work’s beholders to imagine that the scene’s neutral background plays a representational, but no material role in his image. All this may be said despite the bizarre intrusion of a flagellum, or whip, which seems either to float in mid-air, or, perhaps more likely, to hang from the rear plane, as if suspended on a wall, with handle and thongs hanging down, attached by a peg, just like the implements in the scene at the relief’s right end. The whip undermines the panel’s fundamental illusionism, as if the sculptor, in a moment of confusion, had lost track of the distinction between the two end panels and the differing role that the background plane assumed in each. Yet, notwithstanding the image’s clumsiness, the implication of the mule and mill set within receding space is fundamental to the scene’s design and its unsophisticated attempt at illusionism. This may be said despite the fact that the blank ground appears incoherent, and the striking contradiction introduced by the whip, unacknowledged. Not only do the visual structures of the two relief panels differ, but they characterize the nature of relief employed in each in antithetical fashion. On the left end panel, illusionism asserts itself, not only adumbrating elements of the image in successive planes, but implicitly locating the figural elements in a setting that must be understood to recede behind them. This is a representational conception that marries the three-dimensionality of

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its sculpted elements to an implicit sense of atmosphere in which these things are deemed to exist. This reveals itself optically rather than materially, and as a consequence, that sense of atmosphere extends, potentially infinitely, in a representational mode that is properly deemed pictorial. In contrast, on the right end panel, materiality insists: the projecting elements of the image are essentially tactile, and their representation declares their fundamental physicality as things. As a result, the “interior” scene offers a literal sense of its constituent elements’ spatial interrelations, in a mode that, in contrast to the milling scene, may be considered fundamentally sculptural. While the juxtaposition of these contrasting manners of representation is unusual to find simultaneously on the same monument, it is not unique – as we shall see. But on the Zethus monument such a juxtaposition suggests, in its very simplicity and in the modesty of its aesthetic ambition, a fundamental distinction to be found amid the relief sculpture of antiquity, a distinction rooted in two antithetical ways things might be rendered, and how these contrasting approaches either imply, or seem as if to deny, the representation of space. The aesthetic foundations of the two panels’ compositions exemplify Matz’s claim for distinct kinds of space.

Kinds of Space – Mixed, Combined, and Misunderstood In Graeco-Roman tradition, a presumed polarization of the two fundamental modalities of rendering space, closed and delimited or open and potentially infinite, might appear less forcefully than on the Zethus monument. Its paired panels, jointly conceived yet spatially independent, provide an explicit example of this peculiarity of the relief tradition and its various modes of representing space. Other instances are much more subtle, and with extended use of such amalgams of compositional forms the alliance of clashing spatial implications would consequently be both rationalized and conventionalized. All such examples demonstrate Matz’s perspicacity and the interpretive force of his conception of manifold styles appearing simultaneously. Yet, already by the late sixth century bc, Greek art displays contrasting styles which employ similarly divergent compositional and spatial formulae. An early and well-known example is provided by the Siphnian Treasury frieze, on which the different sides of the monument, attributed to two different master sculptors, suggest both (on the south and west) a neutral ground underscored by an emphasis on repeated silhouettes together with a lack of modeling (figs 2.10, 7.8) and, conversely, (on the east and north) an attempt to set the various figures into relationships to one another in a quasi-perspectival space (figs 1.5, 2.11, 7.9). Juxtaposed spatial forms were

Kinds of Space – Mixed, Combined, and Misunderstood

145 Fig. 4.13 Trysa Heroon, fourth century BC. Limestone, ca. 60 cm (H). Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Fig. 4.14 Archandros votive relief from Asklepieion, Athens, ca. 410 BC. Marble, 66 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 1329.

more explicitly set out, more than a century later, on the Trysa Heroön (fig. 4.13), on which an opposition is iconographically determined. On the double-tiered frieze its scenes are set within individuated frames, with the clearly interior vignettes, above, depicting Odysseus and the suitors, set against a blank wall, while below, for the scene of the Kalydonian Boar Hunt, the empty ground behind the recognizably exterior scenes is perceived, by force of contrast, as ambient space.22 Combined and contrasting spatial modes are more common on smaller-scaled panels. For example, a late fifth century bc votive relief found at the Asklepieion in Athens (fig. 4.14) transformed the traditional solidity of Greek relief’s background plane in the service of its iconography.23 The

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Fig. 4.15 Votive relief with ­Herkales, fourth ­century BC. Marble, 47 cm (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 2723. Fig. 4.16 Grave stele of Lollia Sabina (from Istanbul), ca. second century AD. Marble, 79 cm (H). Istanbul, ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 5557.

Manifold Forms and Styles

dedicator, one Archandros, shown in diminutive form, appears in the foreground with an assembly of nymphs, while behind, the background plane opens to reveal a cave, from which the god Pan surveys the event. There can be little doubt that here the blank ground was originally painted so as to fully effect the illusion of the mountainous setting, and to render comprehensible the pictorial invention that simultaneously closed off the foreground space and opened a view beyond it to the rear.24 Another, perhaps more radical example, is found on a relief dating from soon after the turn of the fourth century (fig.  4.15), on which an encounter is set before a simple aedicule supported at its corners by columns, diminutive in scale in comparison to the figures of Herakles and two others, at differing scales, posed before it. The architectural forms are not merely abbreviated, but as the foreshortened side recedes into the distance, the rear elements seem to merge into the ambiguous and undefined surface of the background plane, thus simultaneously denying that background’s materiality and asserting its non-representational neutrality.25 By the second century bc, certain representational schemes appear to have been thoroughly conventionalized for certain iconographies, and their original forms seemingly rationalized in continued usage, despite the clash of their visual logics. Two such image-types are distinctive for their combinations of open and closed backgrounds, which appear as if interchangeable among a sizeable body of examples. The first is an aspect of interior settings employed widely on the later grave stele from the eastern

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Greek world, on which the ambiguous representational status of the background is plainly manifest. On some of these reliefs a shelf or ledge appears protruding from the background plane, signaling its identity within these representations as a rear wall (fig.  4.16); here one finds the same solution that was to be employed for the Nonius Zethus monument’s “miller’s shop” (fig. 4.11). Yet on others, the horizontal form of a shelf is transformed to appear as a ledge, above which opens a view to a space beyond the now low back wall. In some instances this space becomes a landscape, where a tree might be seen to rise (fig. 4.17), or an undefined space from which a child might be seen leaning over the parapet that divides foreground and background (fig. 4.18).26 In the dissemination of these monumental designs, this simple and basic visual distinction was seemingly compromised in its multiplication on a wide array of examples. In fact, on yet other variants confusion between these two formulae (closed wall/open half wall) is readily apparent. Some of the grave reliefs (fig. 4.19) seem to suggest a misunderstand-

Fig. 4.17 Grave stele (from Ephesos), ca. later second century AD. Marble, 83 cm (H). Vienna, Kunst­historisches Museum, inv. I 873. Fig. 4.18 Grave stele, ca. 150 AD. Marble, 1.14 m (H). Izmir, Kültürpark, inv. 519.

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Fig. 4.19 Grave stele (from Samos), ca. early second ­century AD. Marble, 42 cm (H). Vathy, Museum, inv. 212. Fig. 4.20 Grave stele (from Smyrna), ca. 150 AD. Marble, 88 cm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, ­Pergamon Museum, inv. Sk 809.

Fig. 4.21 Grave stele (from Smyrna), ca. later second ­century AD. Marble, 45.5 cm (H). Leiden, Rijksmuseum, inv. Pb 158.

ing of their precedents. They simultaneously depict structures as well as figural forms in the background landscape, objects set on the parapet that divides foreground and background, along with other things that appear as if attached to a back wall (as on the relief of the “miller’s shop”), despite the fact that this blank ground is rendered by the preceding list of elements as an image of ambient space. The co-existence of such a varied group of forms within the same image undermines any rational sense of visualized space, and it is indeed hard to imagine that logic lay at the heart of such designs.

Kinds of Space – Mixed, Combined, and Misunderstood

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Fig. 4.22 Grave stele (from Samos), ca. early second century AD. Marble, 58 cm (H). Vathy, Museum, inv. 208. Fig. 4.23 Votive relief, ca. 320 BC. Marble, 33.5 cm (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 3873.

One particular element consistently suggests the ambiguous character of these images. Many of the banqueting type reliefs (figs 4.19, 4.21, 4.22, 4.23) display a horse-head protome at one of the upper corners of the visual field. This would seem to be intended to recall the representation of the deceased as a “heroic rider” (fig. 4.20).27 On the banquet reliefs, in some instances the horse-head protome appears (a) as if a painted (?) horse head framed on wall (fig. 4.21); at times (b) as if three-dimensionally,

Fig. 4.24 Grave relief (from Kyzikos), ca. early second century AD. Marble, 1.05 m (H). Paris, Louvre, inv. MA 2854.

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depicting a sculpted horse (fig. 4.22); at others (c) as though a real horse seen through a window (fig. 4.23); or (d) in a reversal of all the preceding variants, with the horse depicted, paradoxically, as if standing within the interior setting itself (fig. 4.24).28 Again, one wonders about the apparent confusion in the employ of the established repertory of motives. Had that repertory become so conventionalized that its elements were used, at times, without strict attention to their varied significance? And more pointedly, was a distinction between these motives’ different spatial characters no longer a concern when aspects of the old repertory were reused with different implications? It seems that a web of interrelated motifs had become a simple matter of iconography at the expense of their complexities of form. It is hard not to conclude that the compositional formulae were employed without any serious concern for their overall cohesion, and that, in some instances, manifold spatiality might well have been accidental, not deliberate.

Manifold Spatiality as a Stylistic Mode A more positive assessment of the simultaneous employment of multiple stylistic elements is possible. As we have noted, the variations outlined by Matz, and the representational system in which they functioned, had a long life, one that extended throughout Graeco-Roman tradition and that was to be capitalized upon in Late Roman art. The broad front panel of an early third century ad sarcophagus now in Pisa (fig. 4.25) displays yet another divergence of aesthetic and spatial conceptions.29 On the left, a shepherd herds his flock amid a bucolic landscape, and all of them – man and beasts – direct their attention toward the portrait of the deceased woman that fills the central medallion; on the right, eight of the Muses similarly acknowledge the deceased, here obviously to be understood as the ninth of their number. Despite the difference of these subjects and their compositions from those on the Zethus monument, this pair of vignettes repeats the same structural contrast and the same two basic approaches to relief. While the shepherd stands on the raised edge of the frame at the front of the represented space, his figure extending the full height of the panel, the staggered figures of his flock rising within the depiction suggest a steeply receding ground and a perspectival view. The crude and often-employed solution of multiple independent ground lines for each of the figural elements to “stand” on has been eliminated by their being sufficiently crowded together that their feet, and thus their precise relations to that ground, are hidden. In spite of this attempt to represent depth, the space is not deep, and only the slightest diminution of scale distinguishes those

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sheep that are closest from those that stand further back. Other aspects of the composition also play a space-defining role, notably the trees, arbitrarily cut off by the upper frame, that suggest a window-like view, one that implies that the depicted scene may be assumed to continue beyond the relief’s raised border. The greatest part of the panel is filled with figural elements, spread across its surface, and by implication, into its depicted space. Yet what remains of the blank ground seems hardly transformed by the attempt at depth, and cannot be persuasively understood, despite the “perspectival” arrangement of the flock, as ambient space that recedes indefinitely as an aspect of the scene. The background remains neutral and suggests the limits of this fundamentally figural composition’s spatial claims. One finds here the equivalent in relief of what Blanckenhagen provocatively deemed, à propos of the Boscotrecase paintings, “the substitution of suggestion for the representation of depth.”30 By contrast, the group of the Muses on the right stands on the lower frame, as if at the very front of the depicted space. Their figures fill the full height of the panel, as does the shepherd on the left, and they overlap one another, as do the sheep, yet to very different effect. Their forms fill the surface from side to side and the sense of depth remains very shallow, as the figures stand crowded together in two rows. This is the antithesis of the shepherd and flock on the left, which fill that field rising from bottom to top while suggesting their recession in depth. With the Muses there is no impression that the ground on which they stand slopes radically upward toward the rear, and thus no requirement of the staggered heights that were, in the case of the flock of sheep, its inevitable consequence. Indeed, there is not only no implication of a receding ground, but no sense of setting at all; there is, one might say, not only nothing depicted behind the crowded double file of figures, but that there is in fact no sense of “behind” that plays a role in the representation. The imposing array of figures stands

Fig. 4.25 Muses sarcophagus, ca. 200 AD. Marble, 72 cm (H). Pisa, Camposanto, A3 est.

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Fig. 4.26 Funerary relief with fuller, first century AD (?). Limestone, 1.45 m (H). Sens, Musée Municipal inv. 128.

as if a solid screen, to the rear of which nothing exists.31 One recognizes how the blank spaces between the figures is treated with a certain ambivalence: these are merely the parts of the relief’s surface where no sculpted elements appear. Thus, like the role of the corresponding blank spaces amidst the shepherd and flock scene, the ground that emerges between the Muses’ heads seems wholly deprived of representational status. As on the Zethus monument, the paired images on the Pisa sarcophagus simul-

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taneously suggest, again, two fundamentally divergent aspects of style. But in this instance the contrast does not depend on the background’s role in delimiting an “open” or “closed” space, but on the spatial requirements implied by the figural groupings themselves. Another example is found on a funerary relief from Sens (fig. 4.26). In two scenes, one above the other, fullers are shown at work, one cutting a hanging cloth with shears and another stamping it in a vat with his feet.32 The spatial ambiguity of the upper scene results from the diminished representational role of the background plane, before which the armature on which the cloth hangs appears free-standing, mounted on twin posts to the left and right. The sole figure and the cloth he is in the act of cutting are set parallel to, and seemingly compressed between, both front and back planes of the relief and, as a consequence, a representation of extended depth seems to have been the least of the sculptor’s concerns. By contrast, in the lower vignette, the background plane assumes a more prominent role as an aspect of the setting. The bar on which the cloth hangs seems to be suspended from an implied ceiling, so that the heavy frame for the scene appears to define a cubic interior. Most strikingly, the tub in which the fuller works is seen on an angle, with one side receding in a conventional, albeit simple, quasi-perspectival formula, so as to define the implied space in which the fuller stands, in a clear contrast with the relief’s upper scene, where the design’s planar composition made a less forcefully illusionistic claim. The lower scene, despite its rather clumsy execution, seems the result of an ambitious, fundamentally pictorial design, which the sculptor could only awkwardly resolve in relief. The overall effect of the two conjoined scenes is notable. The distinction between their dimensions, the variant scale of their protagonists, the divergent level of detail (especially with regard to the treatment of the drapery) are all discernable, yet they do not bespeak a clear difference in style in the most conventional sense that we employ the term. Where such a stylistic distinction is manifest is in the two scene’s spatial c­ onceptions – for this diversity is the panel’s defining formal characteristic. All of these examples – the Zethus monument, the Pisa Muses sarcophagus, the Greek grave stelai, and the fuller’s relief in Sens  – all come from the private sphere, belong to the commemorative genre, and in most respects employ a style broadly conventional for their respective eras. They exemplify those works of ancient art whose style Rodenwaldt had termed popular, Bianchi Bandinelli, plebian, Petersen that of the freedmen, and which Hölscher has more recently labeled the präsentativer Stil.33 Within the long tradition of Graeco-Roman sculpture, one might also acknowledge these works’ relatively “lesser” aesthetic quality, marked as they are by their often clumsy conjunction of differ-

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ing aspects of style and form. Yet as each instance shows a multiplicity of formal solutions for the representation of space employed side-by-side in their compositions, this links them, collectively, as expressions of what can only be regarded as a common stylistic mode. At the heart of their style is the simultaneous presence of the two most fundamental aspects of relief: a contained and restricted emphatically planar organization of the field as well as a suggestive recession into depth by means of illusionism.

Materiality, Technique, and Style Matz’s discussion of style, limited to the appearance of spatiality as it was evoked by the relationship of figure to ground, paid scarce attention to the character of relief’s three-dimensional materiality. This distinguished Matz’s view from the analysis of Weickert with which this chapter began. And here much more remained, and remains, to be said. For as Weickert had intuited, differences in technique, as well as the styles they effected, served differing conceptions of space. With respect to technique, four fundamental distinctions amidst the broad repertory of ancient relief work are of great significance in the medium’s history, and these have formed the basis of various treatments of our problem. Many examples have emerged in the preceding chapters, and these may be reiterated and exemplified by a series of paradigmatic instances. First, the contrasting effects of the simultaneous employment of high and low relief were at times juxtaposed to effect varying degrees of illusion and of recession in space. This was the most conventional use of differing levels of relief, as will have become clear from the preceding chapters with respect to Greek works, although the format of the Roman sarcophagi was particularly well-suited to making the most of the distinction. For the use of the two different techniques within the same visual field was a means of subordination among the varied elements of what were often complex representations. Moreover, front panels on the sarcophagi were often differentiated from the ends, the back, and the lid, with subsidiary scenes produced in lower relief. In this way some imagery was rendered smaller, with less clarity of form, confirming an obviously reduced significance, but, equally importantly, demanding less labor to carve. In assessing these distinctions, the possibility that, on occasion, aesthetic decisions gave way to pragmatic ones, should not be ignored. Second, we may discern the various ways in which figural forms related to the tectonic character of their support. Hinks had recognized this discrepancy in a contrast of the techniques employed on the two monumental columns. Developing a distinction he had established between an image’s pictorial surface (Bildfläche) and the physical surface of the block to which

Materiality, Technique, and Style

155 Fig. 4.27 Sarcophagus with kline scene, second or third century AD. Marble, 61 cm (H). Ostia, Museo Ostiense, inv. 1333.

Fig. 4.28 Marriage sarcophagus with the Dioscuri, ca. 220 AD. Marble, 1.17 m (H). Florence, Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo.

it is actually bound (Körperfläche), in the case of the Aurelian Column, he deduced that: Die Figuren wirken vielmehr, als ob sie ein Auswuchs aus dem Baukörper wären, während an der Trajanssäule sie aussehen wie ein angeklebter nachträglicher Zubehör. Dieser Gegensatz von Angeklebtsein und Herauswachsen stimmt mit dem schon eben beschriebenen Gegensatz von Bildfläche und Körperfläche vollkommen überein. Der Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden Formauffassungen ist aber verhältnismäßig gering, wenn man gerade die Flächigkeit der beiden für maßgebend hält. The figures seem rather as if they were an outgrowth from the architectural form, while on Trajan’s Column, they look like subsequently glued-on accessories. This contrast of adhesion [Trajan’s Column] and protrusion [Marcus’ Column] agrees perfectly with the already described contrast of the pictorial surface to the physical surface. However, the difference between these two formal conceptions is relatively small when one considers just the flatness of the two as decisive.34

In Hinks’ terms, adhesion (Angeklebtsein) was a characteristic of a Bildfläche, its forms distinct from the tectonic support to which they were applied as decoration, while protrusion (Herauswachsen) revealed an image integrated with that support, as its forms seemed as if to grow out from the physical Körperfläche. The distinction is subtle and not always easy to apply to other examples. But at times what Hinks considered an image’s conception as a Bildfläche may be discerned (perhaps one might say, intuited) on other reliefs (figs 4.22 and 4.27), along with its opposite,

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Fig. 4.29 Koeppel’s diagram of “conventional” and “hollow relief ” types.

the Körperfläche (figs 4.18 and 4.28). The dating of these examples, as well as others, reveals that the distinction between Bildfläche and Körperfläche, and the style each effected, is clearly not chronologically determined. Nevertheless, as Hinks pointed out, by the end of the second century (for him, as for Rodenwalt, the moment when a “late Roman” style began to emerge), the notable concomitant to the use of different forms of relief was, above all, an “indifference to spatial consistency.”35 Third, amid the long history of relief’s interpretation it has been recognized how carving technique might assert the dominance of an imagined frontal plane and condition its articulation of spatial illusion. This, as we have seen (Chs 1 and 2) is an inheritance of the “twin planes” idea of Brunn. But its structure and effects were radically reconceived by Wickhoff in his analysis of how the Titus reliefs’ frames contain their representations and establish the illusion that their imagery recedes behind the fields’ raised borders. This was elaborated in a penetrating analysis by Koeppel,36 who demonstrated that, on the Titus Arch, the entirety of the relief fields was recessed within the block of the Arch’s piers, forming what he termed a “hollow” relief (fig. 2.16; cf. the diagram in fig. 4.29). The Titus reliefs’ conceptual front surfaces are to be comprehended as analogous to a painting’s “picture plane” behind which its two-dimensional forms were to be imagined as existing in their illusion of space, and thus a parallel illusionism should be understood as taking effect in relief.37 The illusion of a transparent frontal plane favored optical effects, and reduced the significance of a contrast between high and low relief forms. And that illusionism was

Materiality, Technique, and Style

157 Fig. 4.30 Acilia Sarcophagus, ca. 280 AD. Marble, 1.49 m (H). Rome, Museo ­Nazionale Romano, Museo delle Terme, inv. 126372.

accompanied and heightened by another sort, purely architectural, as the arch’s passageway walls were visually relieved of their tectonic role, when one’s sense that the weight of the monument’s massive archway was transferred by the prominent entablature above to the sides of the panels where it would be sustained by two immense capitals and the pillars that support them. And in the imagery of the reliefs themselves, materiality was, as Wickhoff had argued, subordinated to illusionism, to the optical effects of light and shadow, and to the concomitant transformation of the visual role of a background plane now rendered as a representation of ambient space. The “hollow” form of relief had a relatively short life, and seems to have waned in the early second century. Yet the “conventional” form that Koeppel considered its antithesis – what might be called the “projective” mode – was pressed to serve new effects. This entailed the exaggeration of an apparent three-dimensionality, as prominent high-relief figures project from their material background into real space beyond their architectonic frame, much like the metopes of Classical Greek tradition or many of the grave stele of the fourth century. In the late second- and early-third century ad, when sarcophagi were transformed by a new taste for much taller caskets, larger figures fill the framed field, top to bottom, and are often crowded together, dispensing with a contrast to that low relief imagery so often engraved on the background plane, where a diminution of those forms’ plasticity accelerated an illusion of depth. These characteristics not only effectively eliminated a view to the background plane, but produced the illusion of the figures’ detachment from the ground as it disappeared behind them and was effectively denied a role in the image (fig. 4.30). The forms’ greater plasticity and actual physi-

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Fig. 4.31 Badminton sarcophagus (Dionysos and Seasons), ca. 260–270 AD. Marble, 86.4 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 55.11.5. Fig. 4.32 Early Christian ­sarcophagus, ca. 300– 310 AD. Marble, 65 cm (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 128.

Manifold Forms and Styles

cal presence grants to such works a new sense of immediacy, one that encourages their beholders to respond all the more forcefully to their proximity. A fourth distinction reveals a paradoxical development, and sarcophagi, our most extensive corpus of Roman works in relief, once again present examples.38 On some (fig.  4.31), prominent high relief forms seem to well-up out of the background and stand out not only in front of the relief background from which they are carved (and to which they obviously remain attached), but, more significantly, they project in front of their framing border. And in contrast to these, other works were produced, within the same generation (fig. 4.32), with recessive imagery that is manifestly carved into the surface of the block, behind the plane established by the frame, so that, as a result, their low relief forms were often flattened in appearance. Yet by the third century ad, this contrast became less apparent. For an exaggeration of three-dimensionality brought in its

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train an accentuation of the shadows that would distinguish one figure from another. While the preference for massive figures had increased a relief’s physical presence and a resulting recognition of its tactile character, especially close to hand, it also reduced the work to a series of optical effects of light and dark contrasts, notably when seen from afar. The paradox is readily apparent on the sarcophagi (figs 4.30 and 4.31).39 Indeed, whether the plastic effect of high relief or the optical effect of light and shadow dominated a particular work was clearly a matter of choice. Nevertheless, the new style’s emphasis on three-dimensionality, despite its prevalence in the third century, did not supplant other techniques; relatively shallow and planar relief work persisted (figs. 4.32 and 4.33). Our evidence suggests that by the turn of the fourth century, as Riegl was able to demonstrate, a new style and its related carving techniques emerged that favored the optical. Reliefs appeared that accentuated the role of shadows without a dependence on massive high-relief figures that had formerly cast them. Riegl’s views constitute a radical rethinking of Wickhoff’s intuitions, now reconceived to account for the major stylistic change of a century or more later than the early imperial era that had provided most of Wickhoff’s examples. A new ­predominance of shadows, as if dark graphic forms etched into the surface, not only suggested a visual division between figures, but seemingly encouraged the flattening of forms and their containment within their frames (figs 4.33 and 4.34). The resulting images were accommo-

Fig. 4.33 Adonis sarcophagus, ca. 300–310 AD. Marble, 1.20 m (H). Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano, inv. 9559.

160 Fig. 4.34 Pilaster, ca. 225 AD. Marble, 1.92 m (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 10094.

Fig. 4.35 Statue base, ca. 15 AD. Marble, 73 cm (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Museo delle Terme, inv. 417.

Manifold Forms and Styles

Materiality, Technique, and Style

161 Fig. 4.36 Sarcophagus of Helena, early fourth century AD. ­Porphyry, 2.42 m (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. Inv. 238.

Fig. 4.37 Sarcophagus of Constantia, early fourth ­century AD. Porphyry, 1.28 m (H). Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 237.

dated to what Riegl (and before him Hildebrand) had deemed, a “distant view”: Erstens ein Abrücken des Beschauers in eine Entfernung, aus welcher die taktische Stofflichkeit der Dinge gegenüber der farbigen Erscheinung zurücktritt, die Erfahrungen des Tastsinnes sich nicht mehr unmittelbar dem Beschauer aufdrängen, und hiedurch dem

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Fig. 4.38 Christian sarcophagus, early fourth century AD. Marble, 61 cm (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. MV.31509.0.0.

Manifold Forms and Styles

Auge die Möglichkeit geboten wird, sich vorwiegend mit dem farbigen Eindrucke zu beschäftigen. First, the beholder distances himself so that the tactile materiality of the objects becomes less important than its coloristic appearance, so that an experience of the sense of touch no longer imposes itself directly on the viewer and the eye is given the opportunity to primarily contend with these colored impressions.40

Despite Riegl’s claims for such a visual effect as a foundational characteristic of Late Roman art, his contrast between what he termed the haptic (palpably material and thus projective) and the optic (specifically visual and thus flattened, if not actually recessive) were never merely indications of chronology.41 An emphasis on the haptic (fig. 4.35) might be contemporaneous with its antithesis (fig. 4.5), and so too an accentuation of the optic (fig. 4.33) with its opposite (fig. 4.36). And these stylistic alternatives, and the carving techniques on which they depended, might function as simultaneously available aesthetic choices, whether their imagery was classical (fig. 4.37) or Christian (fig. 4.38). None of these techniques, in and of itself, played a definitive role in the ongoing aesthetic dilemma that revolved around the representation of space. But the examples we have surveyed demonstrate how the manifold nature of style extended to the carving techniques that brought those stylistic distinctions into being. Some, as we have seen, were apparently well-suited for the visualization of specifically pictorial and illusionistic concerns, and these were exploited, particularly in novel, independent relief panels that rivaled works in painting. A focus on these autonomous forms was to inaugurate, in the late nineteenth century, a new critical dis-

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course and its recognition of what were termed Reliefgemälde – in which the problem of spatial representation was central, and to which we shall turn our attention in the next chapter.

5.  The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

Wenn wir aber gefunden haben, dass das Relief bei den Griechen sich in einer namentlich auch technisch eingeschränkten Richtung auf das Malerische hin entwickelte und am Ende der Entwicklung dieses Ziel erreichte […]. [und] dass nämlich das Relief bei den Griechen namentlich der Malerei […] gleichartiger, als man zuzugeben geneigt war, es kann sogar richtiger als eine besondere Art der Malerei, denn als ein Zweig der Plastik angesehen werden, und jedesfalls, so gut man vom Reliefcharakter der antiken Malerei gesprochen hat, kann man vom malerischen Charakter des griechischen Reliefs sprechen. We have found that among the Greeks, relief, despite its technical restrictions, developed towards the painterly and reached this goal at the end of that development […]. [and] that, for the Greeks, relief […] had more in common with painting than was usually admitted, indeed, that it can be considered a particular kind of painting, one that is seen as a branch of sculpture: just as one speaks of the relief-like character of ancient painting, one can speak of the painterly character of Greek relief. Alexander Conze, 1882.1

In his discussion of the famous panels on the base of the cenotaph at the Roman town of Glanum, modern St.-Rémy de Provence (fig. 5.1), Conze christened their style “relief-paintings” (Reliefgemälde). He emphasized the attempt of their artist not only to replicate what are presumed to have been compositions devised for Greek painting but to reconceive these in a different medium, one in which the visual character of paintings was difficult to replicate.2 He singled out the panel of the Boar Hunt (fig. 5.2), […] bewegen sich die dicht gedrängten Gestalten wie im freien Raume; die Pferde springen verkürzt in das Bild hinein und aus dem Bilde heraus; auf die vordersten Figuren, die in Hochrelief heraustreten, jetzt meist abgebrochen diese erhabenen Theile, folgen eine, zwei, drei Reihen hinter einander in abnehmender Relieferhebung, die letzten nur im Contur in den Grund eingetieft, damit förmlich an die Wirkung der Luftperspektive streifend. where the crowded figures move freely as if in open space, and the foreshortened horses spring in and out of the image; in the case of the foremost figures, which stand out in high relief, these prominent elements, now mostly damaged, follow one behind the other, in one, two, or even three ranks, in decreasing heights of relief, the last of which is merely inscribed on the background in contour, thus formally verging on the effect of aerial perspective.3

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Fig. 5.1 St. Rémy / Glanum ­cenotaph, view, early first century AD. Limestone, 17.15 m (H). St.-Rémy-deProvence, in situ.

Conze regarded all of these characteristics as belonging to a fundamentally Greek painting tradition that had been taken up by the artists of the Glanum monument, and, as it were, translated into stone. In his view, their significant accomplishment was an elaboration of the techniques notably employed on the recently unearthed Telephos frieze. As at Pergamon, the Glanum panels’ most essential effects were the direct result of a compelling denial of the tectonic and material nature of the support con-

The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

167 Fig. 5.2 Boar Hunt from St. Rémy / Glanum cenotaph, (south), early first century AD. Limestone, 2.18 m (H). St.-Rémy-de-Provence, in situ.

ventionally manifest by the solid, blank, background plane. A concerted representation of spatial depth, and a concomitant illusion of the figural forms being thus freed from the surface of the block, suggested to him the sculptural equivalent of “aerial perspective” found in painting. Conze marshalled arguments for this as a Greek phenomenon; yet the Romans had followed suit, and the Glanum reliefs, all four of them, provided, as Conze thought, perhaps the best examples of this artistic phenomenon, on the most monumental scale.4 Ever since the type was singled out for scrutiny, analytically by Conze and subsequently and comprehensively by Schreiber, these reliefs have been a continued object of study. They constitute a unique development in the late Hellenistic tradition, one that became a staple of Roman décor, largely in the private sphere, where they formed a counterpart to the imagery of wall painting, once it had abandoned the purely architectural character of the Masonry Style. The following chapter elucidates this particular sculptural type, and analyzes its translation of pic­tor­ial forms into the materiality of relief.

The Debate about Pictorial Relief Not everyone agreed that this was a Greek aesthetic phenomenon. Less than a decade after Conze’s publication, Schreiber, in a work dedicated to his older colleague, was equally acute in his assessment of these works’ formal character: Diese Bestimmung, als freier, in sich abgeschlossener und nicht architektonisch gebundener Wandschmuck zu dienen, giebt dem Reliefbild seinen eigenen Votiv – und unterscheidet es von dem Metopenrelief, von dem Tempelfries, dem Anathem, dem Grabre-

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lief, die zunächst die traditionellen Formen und Stoffe beibehalten und erst allmählich unter dem Einfluß der neuen Kunstgattung die Einfachheit rein figürlicher Darstellung mit einer mehr malerischen Auffassung vertauschen. This determination to have the relief image serve as a free, self-contained and non-architecturally bound wall decoration gives it its own character and distinguishes it from the metope, the temple frieze, as well as the votive- and grave reliefs. Thus, [the transformed relief, now a “pictorial relief ” (das malerisch veränderte Relief, das “Reliefbild”)] at first retains and preserves the traditional forms and materials, and only gradually, under the influence of the new artistic genre, substitutes for the simplicity of purely figurative representation a more painterly conception.5

Yet Schreiber came to the exact opposite conclusion about their style. Unlike Conze, he emphasized the distinctiveness of the Glanum reliefs’ visual character, which he regarded as a particularly Roman development, asserting that Kann doch der Gegensatz dieser in malerischer Wirkung das Äußerste erstrebenden Steingemälde zu dem, was wir als das eigentliche griechische Relief kennen, gar nicht größer gedacht werden. The antithesis of this stone painting, which strives for the utmost in painterly effect, to what we know as the authentically Greek style of relief, could not be greater.6

Wickhoff would similarly regard the same features as evidence for how Greek tradition was transformed to become a distinctively Roman art in which the representation of space took on specifically new forms in the service of profoundly new aesthetic values: Es gibt noch eine andere Art, eine geschlossene Raumwirkung zu erzeugen als die durch die malerische Durchführung des Hintergrundes, das ist, wenn man die Figuren des Bildes oder Reliefs so nahe aneinander rückt, daß keinerlei Zwischenraum oder Hintergrund mehr bleibt, kein idealer und kein natürlich gedachter. Ein Relief, in dieser Weise behandelt, ist der Gigantenfries in Pergamon, ein Gemälde dieser Art das Mosaik mit der Alexanderschlacht aus Pompei und, fügen wir es nochmals hinzu, die Vorbilder für die Reliefs am Grabmal der Julier in Saint-Remy. Die in scurzo gezeichneten Pferde, Reiter und Soldaten sind zu kompakten Massen aneinandergerückt; das Gefühl der Raumvertiefung soll durch den kahlen Baum erreicht werden, der hinter der Kämpfermasse aus der Ebene aufragt, und durch die vorgestreckten Lanzen rechts hinten, während ihre Träger von den vorderen Figuren verdeckt werden. There is another way of obtaining an effect of cohesive space in a picture besides pictorial elaboration of the background, that is by packing the figures of the picture or relief so close together that there is no interval or background between them, either ideal or actual. The frieze of the Giants from Pergamon is a relief of this kind, and the mosaic with the “Battle of Alexander” answers to this description of a picture, along with, let us add once again, the prototypes of the reliefs on the tomb of the Julii at Saint Rémy. On the Alexander mosaic the foreshortened horses and riders and soldiers are pressed closely together in compact masses; the idea of depth is intended to be conveyed by the bare tree, which rises out of the plain beyond the warriors and by the projecting lances carried by invisible soldiers behind.7

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The introduction of the Glanum friezes to this small yet familiar catalogue of monuments implies that Wickhoff was responding to Conze’s wellknown essay on the Reliefgemälde. As we have seen (Ch. 4, above), Wickhoff’s claim about the “packing of figures” would be reprised by Matz, who regarded the compositional strategy, Classical in origin, as an aspect of both Greek and Roman style.8 There were other interpretations, as well. Weickert would attack Conze’s arguments (again implicitly: he too never refers to him directly) amidst a broad critique that sought to reconceive the Glanum monument’s relief style as an Italic creation, not a Greek one, with its roots in the art of the Etruscans. Details aside, the crux of the problem, for Weickert, was the description of the particular relief style at work, and the relationship of its forms to the ground: Aber ein Vergleich zwischen Relief und Malerei kann niemals das uns hier beschäftigende Problem berühren. In St. Remy ist keine einzige Gestalt in der Fläche ausgebreitet, kein Motiv mit voller körperlicher Klarheit dem Auge vorgeführt, überall, man nehme Gestalt für Gestalt vor, verliert sich die Form im Grunde. Mehr als die Hälfte der räumlichen Vorstellung hat die Phantasie jenseit des Reliefkörpers durchzuführen. Die Behauptung, der Bildhauer habe Gemälde nachgebildet, trifft daneben. Comparison between relief and painting can never affect the problem we are dealing with here. In St.-Rémy, not a single figure is spread across the surface, no motif is brought before the eyes with fully corporeal clarity; everywhere, if one takes the work form by form, each one basically loses itself in the whole. More than half of the spatial idea [implied by each figural form] has to be brought into being by the imagination, beyond what is physically present in the relief. The claim that the sculptor had copied paintings misses the point.9

Weickert’s point was that the Glanum reliefs were yet another example of Italic/Roman relief that sought to produce an illusion of receding spatial depth, no longer being “spread across the surface,” according to a formal solution that harkened back to archaic relief.10 On the monument at St.Rémy, the compacted mass of figures required the imaginative fulfillment of their foreshortened forms, few of which emerged fully in the round and nearly all of which were only partially present to their beholders; Weickert would suggest: Man versuche sich die ruhig stehenden Gestalten räumlich vorzustellen, ohne in den Grund einzudringen, ein Ding der Unmöglichkeit. Die Art, den Kontur der Gestalten mit einer eingegrabenen Linie zu umreißen, die sich auch sonst in Gallien und Germanien findet, mutet an wie ein unvollkommener Versuch des Künstlers, sich gegen seinen eigenen Stil zu wehren und die Figuren von dem allmächtigen, raumgewaltigen Grunde abzusetzen, sie „griechischer” zu machen. Try to imagine these calm figures spatially, without their penetrating the background plane – an impossible thing. The way the contours of the figures are outlined with a chiseled line, a practice also found in Gaul and Germania, seems like an imperfect attempt by the artist to prevent himself from [working in] his own style, by setting off the figures from the powerful spatial intensity of the ground, as if to make it “more Greek” [i.  e., neutral].11

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Here Weickert invoked that distinctive characteristic of the Glanum reliefs, the one that Conze had likened to the Greek funerary stele that were his main preoccupation; Weickert declared, in contrast, that they had affinities with works from the northern Roman provinces, particularly their deeply incised contour lines and the silhouette they emphasized. For Conze, these two “Greek” features emphatically divorced the figures from the background in a strikingly unnatural fashion and served to unify the vibrant mass of characters as a group that takes precedence over their individuation; for Weickert this was a sign of the monument’s “Roman” innovative and illusionistic technique, whose origins clearly lay in Italy: St. Remy ist in seiner Architektur italischer als vieles in Italien Erhaltene. Es ist reinster zweiter Stil, nächstverwandt der ‚tomba delle guirlande‘ in Pompei und den besten Wänden von Boscoreale, die ihr architektonisches Vorbild nicht irgendwo in der Welt, sondern in Italien haben, siehe die Wände des Fortunatempels in Praeneste. Die durch ihre Reliefs sich in die Tiefe entwickelnden Wandflächen des Sockels von St. Remy zeigen dieselbe Tendenz wie die Entwicklung gemalter Wände 2. Stils in Pompei, die zum 4. Stil führt. Gewiß ist in diesem Zug nach unbegrenzter Raumtiefe eine Seite wenigstens italischer Eigenart zu erkennen. St.-Rémy is more Italian in its architecture than many comparable works in Italy. It is the purest Second Style, near to that of the tomba delle guirlande in Pompei and the best walls of Boscoreale, which have their architectural models nowhere in the world other than Italy: see [e.  g.] the walls of the Temple of Fortuna in Praeneste. The wall surfaces on the pedestal of St.-Rémy show, in their development in depth, the same tendency as do the painted walls of the Second Style in Pompei, [a tendency] which leads to the Fourth Style. Certainly, in this trend towards unbounded depth of space, there can be recognized at least one aspect of a peculiarly Italic character.12

The result of “this trend towards unbounded depth of space,” in relief as in wall painting, was the transformation of the blank ground into an amorphous yet encompassing ambience. The debate exemplified by these passages did not wane. Bianchi Bandinelli would claim that the Glanum friezes were conceived as if paintings (abbia concepito le scene quali pitture),13 and subsequently sketch the inter-connectedness of their formal features: Il linguaggio formale delle sculture di St. Remy può essere caratterizzato col dire che la sua qualità principale è la rapidità della linea di contorno, vibrante, espressiva, che lega le figure e i gruppi, i quali a loro volta non lasciano tra di loro nessuno spazio libero, ma si assiepano, si addensano, trasbordano dalla cornice architettonica, in un impeto che è ben lontano da quello sovranamente contenuto di Pergamo e di Magnesia, ma è un abbandono a una immediatezza di espressione che costituisce il fatto veramente nuovo […]. The formal language of the St.-Rémy sculptures could be characterized by saying that its principal quality is the rapidity of its vibrant and expressive contour line, which unites the figures and groups, which in turn leave no free space amidst them, but crowds them, densely, and at the same time frees them from the confines of their architectonic frame in an impetuousness that is not only far removed from the

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supremely restrained works of Pergamon and Magnesia, but is an abandonment to an immediacy of expression that constitutes a completely novel aspect […].14

For Bianchi Bandinelli – like Schreiber, Wickhoff, and Weickert – those formal properties that Conze had traced to Greek monumental painting were all now re-conceived as innovative Roman sculptural qualities. These, above all, were what marked the Glanum reliefs: il sopravvento della linea sulla volume, del disegno sul modellato, messo particolarmente in evidenza dal solco di contorno che distacca le figure e i gruppi dal fondo. the superiority of line over volume, of design over modeling, something particularly evident in the furrow-like contour that detaches the figures and the groups from the ground.15

To these aspects one might add an often radical foreshortening of forms as well as a compression of all the depicted elements into the lower half of the framed field. This last strategy brought these scenes close to the spectator, implied a low horizon line now obscured behind the massed figures and, as a consequence, virtually eradicated the requirement of a depicted setting and its staffage. For Bianchi Bandinelli, the indebtedness of all these aspects to the formal character of Greek painting was obvious – but just as obvious was the fact that that character had been remade in a Roman sculptural medium. Two decades later, in yet another attempt to resolve the continuing discussion about the pictorialism of relief, Kaschnitz would cite these very features, and draw the same basic conclusion: In Wahrheit hängt diese Konturierung wohl mit der Tatsache der Übertragung ganzer Kompositionen aus der Malerei zusammen. Infolge der starken Verkürzungen, Überschneidungen und Tiefendimensionen, für deren Darstellung dem Maler unendlich mehr Mittel zu Gebote standen als dem Reliefplastiker, war der letztere gezwungen, wenigstens durch diese eingegrabenen Linien etwas dem malerischen Charakter seiner Vorlage zu folgen und vor allem auch darauf hinzuarbeiten, die durch die zahlreichen Verkürzungen und Überschneidungen entstehenden Unklarheiten vermittels einer klaren Linienführung besonders in den Konturen der Gestalten zu überwinden. In truth, this outlining (Konturierung) is probably connected with the fact that entire compositions were derived from painting. Hence the stark foreshortenings, overlappings and emphatic three-dimensionality, for whose representation the painter had infinitely more means at his disposal than the relief sculptor, who was ultimately constrained to follow at least by these deeply incised lines something of the painterly character of its model and, above all, to struggle to overcome the ambiguities caused by the numerous foreshortenings and overlappings by means of clearly defined linearity, especially in the contours of the figures.16

The implications of such a commentary had long been recognized, but a full synthesis had been slow to take substantive form. The critical tradition reveals how positions were adopted or rebutted, reiterated or elabo-

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rated. But if we look back to one of the earliest acute assessments of the problem, that of Philippi, published in 1872, it can be recognized that, almost a century later, certain aspects of the polemic had come full circle. Philippi’s view was that changing compositional forms distinguished a Roman “painterly” form of relief from the practice of the Greeks: Dieses Relief hat die Beziehung zu der Wand, seinen flächenartigen Charakter aufgegeben; es ist selbständig geworden. Damit hat sich auch seine Function geändert. Zwar der Wand kann es nicht entbehren, aber höchst selten tritt es als fortlaufender Fries auf. Beschränkt auf bestimmt abgegränzte Felder von verhältnismässig geringer Grösse, wirkt die einzelne Darstellung für sich, als Bild. Der Zusammenhang mit der bedeckten Fläche kann nur noch durch ornamentales Beiwerk angedeutet, nicht mehr für das Auge überzeugend dargestellt werden. Das ist das malerische Relief der modernen Kunst. Seine Anfänge liegen in Rom. Durch das Medium der römischen Welt hat die moderne Welt das Erbtheil der griechischen Cultur überkommen. This [new, Roman] relief has abandoned its relationship to the wall and its characteristic flat surface; it has become self-sufficient. With this its function has also changed. While it cannot do without the wall, it very rarely occurs as a continuous frieze. Limited to defined fields of relatively small size, each discrete representation functions, in itself, as an image. The connection with the covered surface can thus be indicated only by its ornamental aspects, whose forms no longer appear persuasively. This is the painterly relief of modern art. Its origin lies in Rome. Through the medium of the Roman world, the modern world has overcome the inheritance of Greek culture.17

In the mid-nineteenth century, this very modern formalist claim for relief’s aesthetic “self-sufficiency” lay at the heart of the critical appraisal of the entire genre of independent relief panels.18 This was true whether these were regarded as derived from Greek or Etruscan precedents, or were a Roman invention: the association of their “pictorial” character and their aesthetic autonomy was implicit in the analyses of all the commentators. This general matter of form would be particularized as distinctive iconographies developed their own individuated characteristics – to which we may now turn.

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects Despite their history of contrasting interpretations, the Glanum reliefs are still generally conceded to be among the most conspicuous surviving examples of the “painterly” relief style.19 The four large panels, mounted on the faces of the monument’s quadrangular socle, function independently of the architectural structure they embellish. All represent military battles or their mythological equivalents: a cavalry skirmish (fig. 5.3), an infantry clash (fig. 5.4), an Amazonomachy (fig. 1.39) and a depiction of a boar hunt (fig.  5.2), whose precise subject remains ambiguous as it hovers between a representation of myth and a mythologizing depiction of the man celebrated by the cenotaph’s construction.20

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

173 Fig. 5.3 Cavalry battle from St. Rémy / Glanum ­cenotaph (north), early first century AD. ­Limestone, 2.18 m (H). St.-Rémy-de-Provence, in situ.

Fig. 5.4 Infantry battle from St. Rémy / Glanum cenotaph (west), early first century AD. Limestone, 2.18 m (H). St.-Rémy-de-Provence, in situ.

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The two battle reliefs belong to a distinct visual tradition, Greek (fig. 5.5) as well as Roman (fig. 5.6). On the (main) north face (fig. 5.3), equestrians display a single, almost isocephalic group of nearly individuated figures,21 with little overlapping of the riders’ diverse poses, that showcases their foreshortened horses variously arrayed in depth. The central figure’s mount, as it turns violently into the plane, echoes that of the famed rider-less horse from the monument of Aemilius Paullus (fig. 5.7),22 and it reinforces a denial of the background surface as it fortifies the illusion of a continuous recession of space. In contrast, the infantry scene on the monument’s west face (fig. 5.4) is more crowded, and its less individuated forms overlap one another distinctly, the staggered elements of the composition suggesting the depth of the scene. Here, the immediate foreground is littered with fallen warriors, extending the compacted mass so that, in contrast to the cavalry panel, any opening to the background plane virtually disappears from view.23 And the more complex “mythological” panels (south and east: figs 5.2 and 1.39) are marked by an intricate display of foreshortened horses, men on foot now in more dramatic poses, along with a foreground again filled with figures variously seated and prone. The distinctive features that characterize the Glanum reliefs’ style are readily discerned and, as we have already seen, have often been noted: – a host of dramatic foreshortenings and related motifs serve to heighten an illusion of spatial depth;24 – the compacted throng of figures are knit together in a densely-packed mass that limits the view to the background plane;25 – their staggered heights allow them to fill more of the field while their overlapping forms extend behind one another in space;26 – the repetitious forms, set in parallel ranks, unify their disparate arrangement despite the tendency (notable in the Amazonomachy) to vary their scale;27 – figures are outlined and set-off from the background plane by deeplycarved contour lines;28 – their high-relief forms project beyond the framing border, as if entering real space beyond the confines of the image;29 – the unusual compression of the compositions into the lower two-thirds of the field, save for the projecting lances (and on the south panel, the leafless trees), transforms that barren upper expanse of the background into an illusion of ambient space;30 – and, lastly, this illusion of ambient space is facilitated by the scenes’ low vantage point, which emphasizes the compacted effect (as above) in contrast to the opening into the distance produced, customarily, by an elevated point of view.

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

175 Fig. 5.5 Mausoleum of Halikarnassus (battle scene), ca. 350 BC. Marble, 1.8 m (L). London, British Museum, inv. 1847,0424.11.

Fig. 5.6 Battle relief, ca. mid-first century AD. Marble, 84 cm (H). Mantua, Palazzo Ducale, inv. 186.

Fig. 5.7 Aemilius Paullus frieze (detail of the riderless horse), ca. 168 BC. Marble, 31 cm (H). Delphi, ­Archaeological Museum.

176

Fig. 5.8 Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, ca. 100 BC (?). Mosaic, 2.72 m (H). Naples, Museo Archeologico ­Nazionale, inv. 10020.

The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

All of these stylistic features, together with the reliefs’ subjects, are today broadly acknowledged as aspects of a Greek monumental painting tradition, and were here translated into stone, just as Conze had claimed. This tradition is represented by a small group of surviving images, most notably, since its discovery at Pompeii in the nineteenth century, the Alexander Mosaic (fig. 5.8). With its clash of Macedonians and Persians, led by their respective kings, Alexander and Darius, the mosaic proclaims the historical character of its subject. The accuracy with which it renders contemporary costume and the paraphernalia of battle, as well as its “fourcolor palette,” have been convincingly interpreted as evidence of its being modelled on an original painting dating to the age of Alexander or shortly thereafter and long associated with the work of Philoxenus of Eretria.31 Together with a similar mosaic from Palermo32 (fig. 5.9) and a few more recent finds of original Hellenistic paintings, the Vergina hunt being the most significant (figs 5.10 a and b),33 these works have long been affirmed as, if not originals, then copies that certainly evoke late Greek painting (ca.  300 bc). All are believed to provide compelling reflections of an almost entirely lost genre of the art of antiquity, one whose original works were marked by those same formal characteristics and the same heroic subjects that distinguish the Glanum friezes. There is, however, little doubt that, as some have argued, several of these formal characteristics, long-championed as aspects of the “painterly” relief

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

177 Fig. 5.9 Palermo hunt mosaic (reconstruction: W. Wooten), Roman copy of fourth century BC ­original. Mosaic, 205 cm (H). Palermo.

style, may well be traceable back, beyond the Hellenistic era to pictorial forms of the Classical, despite the total absence of monumental painting of that earlier period. Surviving vase paintings display what are conventionally regarded as some of those same features and testify to a well-established repertory: by the mid-fifth century the use of foreshortening as a means to articulate space was widespread (fig. 5.11); already in the late sixth century one finds the crowding of figures so as to obscure the background plane (fig. 5.12); the sharp outlining of figural forms was already a dominant characteristic of figure-ground relations of black-figure painting (fig. 5.13); a low view point was a compositional commonplace on the vases (fig. 5.14) before the late fifth century innovations of Polygnotos and his imitators (fig. 5.15); and perhaps most importantly, an evocation of the implicit presence of unrepresented forms obscured by their crowded overlapping. This was a central aspect of certain much-represented motifs – since it is a fundamentally pictorial conception that when figural elements are obscured in such fashion they are intended to be completed by the beholder’s imagination (fig. 5.16).34 More significant for present purposes is the fact that each of these “pictorial” characteristics is also to be found on earlier examples of Greek relief. One finds the emergence of foreshortening, ca. 525 bc, albeit subtly and tentatively due to the limitations of archaic low relief, on the east frieze of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (fig. 2.11).35 There is also a conspicuous

178

Fig. 5.10a–b a: Vergina hunt frieze, late fourth century BC. Fresco, 1.12 m (H). Vergina, Great tumulus (Tomb of Philip II), in situ. b: colored redrawing and reconstruction of the wall painting of the hunt frieze from the Great tumulus of Vergina.

The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

massing of figures, filling the field from bottom to top, which blocked off most of the background and thus a view into depth. This was a convention of the Greek battle frieze, as a long-standing tradition demonstrates (fig. 5.17), where the priority and focus on human actions was conceived as paramount, and was affirmed, visually, by the scale of the figures, standing at nearly the full height of their respective friezes. The height of the figures was, of course, necessary, given their high placement in their architectural settings (to be discussed in Ch. 6, below, at pp. 215–216), their appearance at the front of the depicted space served equally to offset the raking view their physical setting produced. That deeply carved outlining of the figures, so evident at Glanum, already appears on the Athens “Ballplayer base” (fig. 5.18).36 The projection of figural forms, overlapping their architectonic frame and extending beyond the imaginary frontal plane such framing represents, is found already by the beginning of the fourth century on the Lycian lion hunt sark from Sidon (fig. 5.19). But in stark contrast with such continuities, it is the compression within the lower portion of the representational field of their densely-packed scenes that distinguishes the Glanum compositions from earlier friezes on large-scale public monuments representing similar heroic subjects, whether these subjects were drawn from the distant past or from the

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

179 Fig. 5.11 Calyx-krater attributed to the Painter of the Berlin Hydria, ca. 460–450 BC. Terracotta, 55.8 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 07.286.86.

Fig. 5.12 Black-figure amphora attributed to the Priam Painter, ca. 520–500 BC. Terracotta, 63.2 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1843,1103.37.

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Fig. 5.14 Black-figure stamnos attributed to the Painter of London B343, ca. 530 BC. Terracotta, 33.9 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 2011.233.

Fig. 5.13 Black-figure panathenaic amphora attributed to the Euphelitos Painter, ca. 530 BC. Terracotta, 62.2 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 14.130.12.

Fig. 5.15 Red-figure volute krater attributed to the Niobid Painter, ca. 460 BC. Terracotta, 54 cm (H). Paris, Louvre, inv. G 343.

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

181 Fig. 5.16 Figure in doorway (detail), François vase, 570–560 BC. Terracotta, 66 cm (H). Florence, Museo ­Archeologico, inv. 4209.

Fig. 5.17 Bassae frieze (battle scene), ca. 420–400 BC. Marble, 137.16 cm (L). London, British Museum, inv. 1815,1020.22.

realm of myth. The reliefs on all the older monuments that represent this heroic tradition display numerous pictorial characteristics of design – but not this one. And it is this trait that, when employed together with the others we have noted, constitutes the most striking feature of the Glanum reliefs. For, with their figures set at eye level, in the lower two-thirds of their frames, these compositions obscure any sense of a horizon, an effect that finds its parallel on the Alexander mosaic.37 And if one compares the Glanum friezes’ compositions with that employed on the Vergina fresco

182

Fig. 5.18 “Ballplayer” base, ca. 500 BC. Marble, 28 cm (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 3477. Fig. 5.19 Lion hunt sarcophagus from Sidon, ca. 400 BC. Marble, 53.5 cm (H). Istanbul, Archaeological Museum, inv. 369.

The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

or the Palermo mosaic, both of which are marked by their receding backgrounds filled with staffage, one recognizes how the pictorial formula was adapted to the demands of relief, dispensing with the depiction of a landscape and replacing it with a blank expanse in the upper part of the field that evoked the ambient space that suffused their scenes, much like what is found on certain panels of the Telephos frieze (fig. 5.20). This representational strategy was recognized by Wickhoff, who understood that it was the designer’s intention that the background plane should seem to disappear, as if transformed to render a sense of atmosphere. This would play a fundamental role in his analysis of the Arch of Titus reliefs (fig. 2.16) as well as of the Alexander mosaic (fig. 5.8).38 In his discussions of both, as we have noted, Wickhoff intuited the visual effect of the lances, “carried by invisible soldiers behind,” projecting into

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

183 Fig. 5.20 Telephos frieze (panel 10), ca. 180–160 BC. Marble, 1.48 m (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung.

the air, and thus visible above the fray. And on the arch’s Spoils scene, he comprehended fully how the blank expanse that extended over the crowd of figures was to be regarded as the air above them, interrupted by the procession’s paraphernalia held aloft: “Air, light and shade are all pressed into service and must help to conjure up reality.” The analysis gave rise to Wickhoff’s well-known metaphor for this naturalistic aesthetic effect as one of “respiration”: the illusion that representations needed to include a vivid sense of the ambient in which their figures might, as it were, live and breathe. There was, however, one notable failure of the wanted illusion. In contrast to the role of the soldiers’ spears in the Alexander mosaic, the material projection of the menorah and other implements being carried in the Spoils scene (fig. 2.16), along with the lances in the Triumph panel (fig. 5.21), cast their shadows on the blank background and thus dissolved its representational role as an encompassing ambience. As Wickhoff would say, their shadows would seem as if to fall “on the air, and thus appear to disturb the intended effect of a receding background.”39

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Fig. 5.21 Triumph relief from the Arch of Titus, ca. 81 AD. Marble, 2 m (H). Rome, in situ.

On the panels at Glanum, despite the same compression of the scene in the lower part of the relief field, this effect is curiously undermined by the addition of garlands carried by putti that decorate the upper reaches of the field, below the frames’ cornices. These small figures are not contained by an independent frieze, surrounded by its own moldings (as was conventional for the motif),40 but intrude on the reliefs below them. This unusual employment echoes the role of the prominent garlands in many Second Style paintings (fig. 5.22), where they affirm the frontal plane of the painted illusion, disguise its coincidence with the actual wall surface, and serve to underscore the effect of the wall opening behind their forms, seemingly hanging freely in space.41 But at Glanum, the scale of these elements encroaches on the heroic tableaux beneath them in highly unusual fashion, as if they have been employed specifically to fill the blank expanse of their upper fields that would seem, given the comparanda we have examined, to have been essential to their design; indeed, no truly similar usage of the motif survives.42 This aspect of the Glanum monument’s decorative repertory – the garlands – suggests how the generic associations of certain elements could clash with the overall system of illusionistic decoration in which they were set. As a conventional aspect of wall painting, such garlands served in the production of an illusionistic denial of the mural surface; by contrast, as an architectural surface elaboration, so fundamental to Roman funerary décor (in which the Glanum cenotaph takes a rather idiosyncratic place), such carved stone swags proved ambiguous, as they simultaneously both materially affirmed and optically denied the surface of which they formed an integral part. This was an ambiguity that the garlands rehearsed on the Glanum Reliefgemälde, despite their compositions’ greater mimetic ambitions. And to complicate the matter further, the artists of the Glanum

Reliefgemälde: Heroic Subjects

185 Fig. 5.22 Second Style wall painting with garlands from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, ca. 50–40 BC. Fresco, 195.6 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 03.14.4.

monument have excerpted the garland-bearing putti from their role in the celebratory decoration of architecture, sarcophagi, and painting, where, transforming the transitory display of real garlands (particularly those employed at the tomb), they conferred upon monuments a permanent presence of their imagery.43 In this sense, the commemorative purpose of the Glanum cenotaph surely warranted the motif’s employment. Yet it is combined with a set of independent relief panels to which it has no traditional relationship, and suggests that the artists of the Glanum monument, as they gave prominence to this widespread funerary motif, subordinated the formal role and purpose of the “empty” upper zone of the relief scenes, and undermined its profound aesthetic effect. The heroic images, both in painting and on the Reliefgemälde, regularly adopted a low viewpoint with a concomitant emphasis on the foreground it produced. This effected an illusion of proximity to the depicted scene as their quasi-perspectival constructions suggested that the beholder stood on the same plane as, and as if present at, the represented action. This strategy casts its imagery as a naturalistic extension of our world, an effect all the more compelling with representations of historical subjects and events, as if they are brought to life before the eyes.44 And often relegated to the lower portion of the visual field, such compositions, with the empty expanse of their backgrounds now transformed by implication to representations of the sky (on reliefs, perhaps once painted), endowed these scenes with a sense of atmosphere that not only pervaded their imagery,

186

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but, that, as Wickhoff had recognized, enveloped them, and their spectators, in a compelling illusion.

Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes Reliefs with heroic imagery had their parallels with different themes, and scholars identified as Reliefgemälde representations whose subject matter derived from other genres. These images exhibit their own formal repertor­ ies.45 Pastoral scenes, the focus of Schreiber’s great compendium of examples, figure in abundance among the surviving monuments. These, which he regarded as a Hellenistic development,46 depicted, to a great extent, bucolic subjects, and also displayed a vivid pictorialism. Already in 1888, in his monograph devoted to the famous Grimani panels in Vienna (figs 5.23 and 5.24), the third of which is now in Praeneste (fig. 5.25), Schreiber had deployed what was to become a familiar formal analysis, with which he would argue for the independent sculptural invention of the relief style: Aber dass die Bildhauerei jetzt geradezu von der Malerei abhängig geworden wäre, dass sie ihre Motive einer fremden Kunst entlehnt habe, was einer künstlerischen Verirrung gleichgekommen wäre, ist weder erwiesen, noch an sich wahrscheinlich, und am wenigsten berechtigt sind wir die einfache oder irgend wie modifizirte Nachahmung eines Gemäldes durch ein Reliefbild vorauszusetzen. Vielmehr geben die wiener Beispiele einen besonders schlagenden Beweis dafür, dass die hellenistische Plastik gerade bei der kühnsten Erweiterung ihres Darstellungsgebietes, bei der ausgesprochenen Absicht im Relief mit der Wirkung eines Gemäldes zu rivalisiren, auf eine völlig freie, ihren natürlichen Mitteln entsprechende Erfindung nicht verzichtet hat. That sculpture had now become almost dependent on painting, that it borrowed its motives from another aesthetic form – which would amount to an artistic aberration – is a fact neither proven nor probable, and least of all, are we entitled to assume the simple, or somehow modified, imitation of a painting by means of a work in relief. Rather, the Vienna reliefs give a particularly striking proof that Hellenistic sculpture, especially in this most daring expansion of its field of representation, by the expressed intention to rival in relief the effect of a painting, has not renounced a completely free invention which corresponds to its natural [artistic] means.47

Beyond these reliefs’ common iconography, Schreiber’s appeal to the genre’s “natural means” is yet another reference, similar to those we have already seen (Ch. 2), to what were long regarded as the fundamental “laws” of the various artistic media. And despite such a claim, he nonetheless acknowledged the demonstrable relationship between these reliefs’ pictor­ ial effects and those of paintings. Schreiber’s work established the common iconography that has defined these reliefs as a coherent genre. Their consistency is evident whether their imagery is to be understood as symbolic of pax and felicitas, a bucolic utopia, an allegory of individual happiness, or any of the strands that constituted the broad literary canon of the pastoral.48 This was an imagery

Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes

Fig. 5.23 Grimani relief (sheep), Augustan. Marble, 95 cm (H). Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. I 604.

Fig. 5.25 Grimani relief (boar), Augustan. Marble, 94.5 cm (H). ­Praeneste, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 78.

187

Fig. 5.24 Grimani relief (lioness), Augustan. Marble, 94 cm (H). Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. I 605.

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appropriate for the private, if not domestic, sphere, and was employed at a decidedly smaller scale than what was required for large public monuments like the relief panels on the Glanum cenotaph or what would later appear on sarcophagi. These images were, by and large, set in contexts devoid of an overarching explanatory imperative, such as that which predominated in the funerary sphere.49 As Schreiber’s essay on the Grimani panels (figs 5.23, 5.24 and 5.25) was to elaborate, these Hellenistic reliefs displayed a consistent set of characteristics, yet these were, to a great extent, distinct from those we have discerned on the Glanum monument and related works. The pastoral reliefs were, above all, self-contained, not subordinated to the forms of architecture, but an independent embellishment.50 Of those characteristics of the “heroic” panels we have elaborated, the “pastoral” examples similarly employ only foreshortening, although this now plays an ambiguous, and often incoherent, role. In contrast to the heroic images, we find in this genre no such massing of compacted figures that block a view into space; no heavily channeled contour lines; no projection of elements beyond the frame; no similar compression of their compositions into the lower portion of the field; and, no employ of the low vantage point that defined the scenes at Glanum (and elsewhere). In the absence of such characteristics, the discussion of these pastoral reliefs has largely focused on iconographic issues, not matters of form. Despite Schreiber’s polemical claims, the pictorial models of the pastoral reliefs are hardly in doubt, and their obvious correspondences to paintings are readily observed. The pictorial character of those examples that translated the forms of the vase-painting tradition into marble is something we have already seen was true of certain examples of early Greek relief. The figural compositions on works such as the Medici (fig. 5.26) or Salpion kraters51 employ a blank neutral ground against which the pastoral settings of their dionysiac imagery is set. In this they echo the form employed on carved marble lekythoi (fig. 1.19), which had already adapted the pictor­ial character of painted models. The Grimani reliefs, and other works like them, should be understood as more ambitious examples of the same process of adaptation, one in which the advances in illusionistic spatial representation developed in vase painting were emulated in marble relief. The size of these panels, the scale of their imagery, and consequently, their consistently lower level of relief, are the defining aspects of their form. As a result, they abjure the physicality and mass of forms projecting forward beyond the frame and its implied picture plane, thus granting to their novel sense of “self-sufficiency” a profound formal equivalent. Other reliefs, such as a panel in Liverpool (fig. 5.27), display an even greater complexity.52 Here figures appear as if in the clouds, hovering above the scene below. Cut off at the waist, their partial, bust-length forms seem-

Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes

189 Fig. 5.26 Medici krater, mid-first century BC. Marble, 1.52 cm (H). Florence, ­Galleria degli Uffizi, inv. 307.

Fig. 5.27 Orpheus among the Satyrs relief, mid-first century BC (?). Marble, 33 cm (H). Liverpool, World Museum, inv. 59.148.290.

ingly adapt a compositional device of Polygnotan painting employed for the representation of distance in an undulating terrain (cf. fig. 5.15), now individuated by means of cloud forms that rationalize the gods’ appearance, as if watching over the scene below them. Set against the blank ground, their relationship with the rest of the scene is, as a consequence, rendered spatially ambiguous, and an evocation of ambient space is seemingly compromised by the desire to grant to the divine an evident role.

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Fig. 5.28 Munich Polyphemus relief, first century AD. Marble, 34 cm (H). Munich, ­Glyptothek, inv. 251.

More ambitious imagery produced even more impressive compositional and pictorial forms, evoking a greater sense of represented space. These characteristics emerge with equal force on a relief in Munich depicting Polyphemus with a herd of cattle (fig. 5.28),53 where the crowded scene is marked by a rocky ledge that divides the setting as it rises above the foreground filled by a herd of cattle, whose overlapping forms establish a clear sense of recession. The vantage point of the two registers is hardly varied, and yet there is a slight diminution in scale between them so that the upper more readily reads as further away. Both registers’ imagery is, however, set against a blank ground, an effect that limits the recession of space to the juxtaposition of the cattle and the stair-like rocky forms that, while they suggest a connection between foreground and background, do not visibly recede in space.54 As a result, the setting is vague and equally disconnected from both the spectator’s world and any sense of a landscape of which the depicted vignette might be imagined a part. A similar effect is conveyed by a small relief in Turin (fig. 5.29),55 whose cluttered foreground scene displays greater depth, yet as it fills most of the frame, this virtually eliminates any opening to the background. And still more spatially ambitious, the Munich Peasant relief (fig. 5.30)56 confines the bulk of its imagery in the lower two-thirds of the field (yet without the compression of forms that marked the Glanum reliefs). A gnarled old tree winds its way out of the sanctuary into the fore-

Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes

191 Fig. 5.29 Turin pastoral relief (“Polyphemus and Galatea”), ca. early first century AD. Marble, 34 cm (H). Turin, Museo ­Archeologico.

Fig. 5.30 Munich Peasant relief, Julio-Claudian. Marble, 29 cm (H). Munich, ­Glyptothek, inv. 455.

192

The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

Fig. 5.31 Third style wall painting from Boscotrecase (detail), ca. 10 BC. Fresco, 30.5 cm (H). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 20.192.10.

ground, and a small shrine stands above and to the rear, silhouetted against the blank ground, consequently understood as a representation of the sky. The familiar rocky ground awkwardly connects front and rear, and serves to disguise the perspectival ambiguities and spatial relations between all of the scene’s elements as it eclipses any coherent sense of a middle ground. If, as has long been suggested,57 one imagines panels such as these set in walls, an obvious parallel emerges with yet another painted model, one whose analogous subject matter was similarly employed at roughly the same scale in a related manner: the small pastoral vignettes found at the center of Third Style painted rooms (fig. 5.31), the dream-like character of whose imagery, as if floating in an undefined, hence seemingly limitless space, equally conveys a sense of bucolic calm and simplicity.58 The Grimani panels (figs 5.23, 5.24 and 5.25), while similar in subject matter, offer a distinctive compositional variant at a decidedly larger size, whose fields are dominated by their main figural elements: a sheep, a lioness, and a wild boar.59 Unlike the diminutive figures that populated the smaller panels we have examined (and similar to the Spada reliefs, which are, however, twice the Grimani reliefs’ size), the dimensions of the prominent animals suggest an affinity with yet another form of painted model, that which focused on large-scale figures that filled their pictorial fields (megalographia). Yet on these larger reliefs, the conspicuous enhancement of the size of their primary figures was accompanied by a concomitant increase in depth of carving. The varied relief height of these elements, some carved virtually in the round, others merely etched upon the surface, display an impressive attempt to render a conspicuous illusion of real forms in their spatial setting. As they project outward, beyond the surface of their

Reliefgemälde: Pastoral Scenes

193 Fig. 5.32 Diana relief, first century AD. Marble, 39 cm (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, inv. 39113.

Fig. 5.33 Diana and Actaeon: Sacro-Idyllic landscape painting from the House of the Orchard (Pompeii I.9.5, tricl. 11), ca. 40–50 AD. Fresco, 1.18 m (H). Pompeii.

carved frames, those aspects of a nearly three-dimensional character are given greater emphasis, and thus their pictorialism is no longer tied to an opening, “window-like,” into an implied depth of space. In such images, neither the Albertian idea of a “window” nor Brunn’s “ideal” frontal plane imagined as if a transparent pane closing off the depicted space (discussed above in Ch. 2), provided the fundamental reference for the spatiality of forms and their perspectival array.

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A last example of pastoral relief corresponds to yet another painted model. A small (39 × 46 cm) marble relief in Rome depicts a woodland shrine with a cult statue and altar dedicated to Diana (fig. 5.32), together with Pan and his flocks of cattle, sheep, and goats.60 This panel’s affinity, in its subject and its composition, with painted sacro-idyllic landscapes is readily apparent (fig. 5.33).61 The “bird’s-eye” view combines a high prospect with the tiered hillside envisioned from a lower vantage point (as in the Munich Polyphemus: fig. 5.28), and on the hilltop the tree and aedicule are silhouetted against the blank ground so as to suggest the sky. Those dream-like visions of a pastoral world that constituted this second type of Reliefgemälde generally employed a less consistent form for the representation of space. Their ambiguous use of perspective, especially when adopting multiple points of view, was an essential aspect of their frequently discordant imagery, and which, as a result, lent their often mythic scenes a sense of an imaginary world. Any implication of receding space was usually undermined by the disconnected character of figures and settings; nevertheless, space, when it is visualized, plays a limited role due to the absence in such images of a coherent descriptive account of the imagined world to which they seem to belong, and into which their depicted scenes might be imagined to recede. These panels’ small scale and their refined carving suggest a striking sense of intimacy, yet their familiar, often mythic topoi appear as if estranged from the beholder’s sphere.

Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life Scenes of everyday life became a staple of the representational repertory on monuments set up, especially by the non-aristocratic echelons of Roman society, during the first two centuries of the empire. These quotidian images constitute a third group of overtly pictorial marble reliefs and betray a distinctly Roman style. They display very different generic associations and strikingly dissimilar subject matter, neither heroic nor mythic, and these reliefs, of predominantly urbane subjects, are found mostly in works from the funerary sphere. Their character has never been envisioned as central to the discussion of the Greek or Roman debate, and they have scarcely played a role in the early modern historiography of relief sculpture. While a few particular aspects of this iconography had precedent in early Greek tradition – notably the representation of interior scenes (cf. above, Ch. 2, p. 62) – their subject matter, following the emphasis on social life that emerged in the

Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life

195 Fig. 5.34 Fragment of a funerary monument from TilChâtel, first century AD. Limestone, 87 cm (H). Dijon, Musée Archéologique, inv. 128.

wake of the interpretations of Bianchi Bandinelli, has been the main focus of scholarship, and these reliefs’ formal character has attracted less attention. Their often radical approach to representational space was virtually unprecedented in relief and these scenes, as they adapted an established pictorial approach to the imagery of everyday life, constitute a third type of Reliefgemälde.62 The type is exemplified by a tomb relief from Til-Châtel, now in Dijon (fig. 5.34), probably dating to the second century ad, which depicts a wine merchant in his market stall.63 The composition is dramatically different from so many scenes of everyday life from the period. On the one hand, we might compare reliefs that employ the typical “straight-on” view, with its low vantage point (fig. 5.35), on which the lower border serves as a groundline, and with little or no suggestion of a receding floor plane.64 On the other hand, the Til-Châtel relief displays nothing like the multiple, clashing points of view, often employed simultaneously (fig. 5.36); by contrast, on this relief the entire composition is presented in staggered receding planes and the depiction of space is emphasized by the quasi-foreshortened recession of the shop-stall’s angled sides. The representation is unified less by the pseudo-mathematical perspective construction than by the raised vantage point from which the scene is observed, slightly above the level of the shopkeeper on his raised platform. The large scale of the figures, and their placement in the foreground, demonstrate that this is

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The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

Fig. 5.35 Banquet relief from ­Amiternum, mid-first century AD. Marble, 49 cm (H). Pizzoli, Casa Parrocchiale / Chiesa di S. Stefano.

not an example of a conventional “bird’s-eye view” and the image’s subtle ambiguities are both distinctive and unusual. This market scene is not presented as a compelling witness to social life as it is experienced in the real world, but staged for the beholder as if he or she stands unusually elevated, above, indeed outside, the sphere of normal existence, seemingly divorced from the realities of experience the work depicts. Its representational effect is that we witness a familiar scene of “everyday life” close to hand, yet as if seemingly disengaged from it. This description and analysis of this essentially pictorial strategy in relief is confirmed by a comparison with a well-known painting of related subject and design (fig. 5.37), a scene from Pompeii of a man distributing loaves of bread. Whether this is a merchant (unlikely, given his attire) or a rather minor magistrate (given the house in which the painting was found), this is another scene of everyday life, one also offered in an equally elevated view, from a vantage point hardly compatible with quotidian experience.65 The static composition focusses on the interaction between magistrate and clients, and the scene is enhanced by the role of depicted light and the consequent shadows that produce a naturalistic effect, one augmented by the abundant detail of the costumes, the bread loaves and baskets, and the wooden stand on which the protagonist sits. The painting is marked, above all, by the conspicuous attempt at a form of quasi-perspectival space, which is, however, confined to the foreground, without recession beyond the space filled by the great wooden platform. The close proximity to the depicted event and the absence of any larger sense of setting present the scene as an isolated vignette. Set against a blank ground, it appears as an excerpt from Roman daily life, like so many other related scenes, and very much like the tomb relief from Til-Châtel. Both images are resolutely mimetic in their description of their subject matter, yet awkwardly un-natural in their manner of its presentation. In both cases, their conspicuous effects were produced by the unusual vantage point, hardly

Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life

197 Fig. 5.36 Banquet relief, first ­century AD. Marble, 86 cm (H). Este, Museo Nazionale, inv. IG 1510 (old inv. 1547).

Fig. 5.37 Bread distribution scene from Pompeii (House of the Baker: VII. 3. 30), mid first century AD. Fresco, 53 cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale, inv. 9071.

commonplace, a silhouetting of the scenes against a blank ground, and the particular representation of space that these features render. Two reliefs from the amphitheater at Capua, probably dating to the early empire, offer counterparts to the quotidian scenes from Til-Châtel and Pompeii. On one relief (fig. 5.38), is depicted the corner of a Corinthian portico surrounding what was perhaps intended as a public open-air sanctuary and garden with a large (colossal?) statue in military garb that towers over the space. The vantage point and the architectural backdrop imply the beholder’s presence in the depicted space, whose sense of scale is conveyed by the contrast of the statue with the portico, the garden’s shrubs, and the customary low fence familiar from many garden paintings

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The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

Fig. 5.38 Portico and garden relief from the Capua ­amphitheater, early first century AD (?). Marble, 65 cm (H). Naples, Museo Archeologico.

Fig. 5.39 Procession of magistrates from the Capua amphitheater, early first century AD (?). Marble, 81 cm (H).

that borders the space. Here a rudimentary sense of perspective evokes a spatial enclosure and the interrelationship of the elements depicted within it. On the other relief (fig. 5.39), a procession of togate magistrates and their lictors are seen arriving at the amphitheater. Their large-scale figures stand in the foreground and fill the frame, silhouetted against a blank ground. Yet at the middle of the scene, a staircase appears, as if crudely opening up and towards the rear, and the central figure mounts the steps as if climbing to enter the arena. In contrast to the portico scene, here, in

Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life

199 Fig. 5.40 Ince-Blundel vineyard relief, ca. 160–170 AD. Marble, 59 cm (H). Liverpool, World Museum.

the absence of any effective perspectival extension of space or diminution of scale, the imagery implies, by the most meager of means, a sense of space that the composition all but refuses to acknowledge.66 Most frequently, the private relief monuments of the commemorative genre present their subjects “straight-on,” as in the two public reliefs from Capua. At times, however, they display multiple points of view, which, like that we saw on the Este banquet relief (fig. 5.36), were frequently employed to increase the extent and vary the character of their visual content, often at the expense of mimetic coherence. Among the most notable examples in this genre is an early second century vineyard scene from the Ince Blundell collection, now in Liverpool (fig. 5.40).67 The relief is clearly broken and its left side missing. Assuming that the large and prominent couple, almost certainly husband and wife, stood in the middle, the panel must have been substantially larger; as Rodenwaldt pointed out, the fragment’s composition roughly corresponds to that on a sarcophagus, now in the Vatican.68 The most distinctive features of the Ince relief are fundamentally pictorial: its use of manifold scales to suggest depth of space and multiple points-of-view to increase the display of its content. Its large foreground figures are presented “straight-on,” while those in the background appear at a markedly smaller scale, with the result that the represented space recedes noticeably and rapidly – but not perspectivally. For the wine vats (dolia) that fill much of the scene, as they rise in the pictorial field to suggest their recession into the distance, get larger rather than smaller; the figures’ sizes and spatial positions do not correspond to a naturalistic sense of receding space; and the vines that weave amidst and into the scene, contrary to expectation, don’t diminish, as if they were conceived merely as a motif articulated across the relief’s surface (such as one finds, e.  g., on a vindemia sarcophagus at the Getty or an early Christian example in the

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The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief

Fig. 5.41 Circus relief, ca. 110 AD. Marble, 58 cm (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 9556.

Vatican).69 Most dramatically, in the rear upper right corner, the vineyard narrative is presented at a raking angle in a “bird’s-eye view.” Neither the contrast of scales nor of viewpoints is unique; indeed, comparison with a host of other examples demonstrates that both were formulaic, as was their combined appearance. This can be found on the famous Vatican circus relief (fig. 5.41), as well as on a variety of circus mosaics, coins depicting the Colosseum, and even terracotta oil lamps, where such awkward, naïve attempts to expand the representational field were similarly facilitated.70 All of these examples display a common conception of space, notwithstanding their profound lack of a consistent and overall naturalistic treatment: discontinuous despite the unifying materiality of relief, and illusionistic despite their lack of a normative scale and spatial coherence. All are marked by an ambivalence about the naturalistic representation of the world. The forgoing account of the three major genres of Reliefgemälde suggests striking variations on how a distinctive sculptural form and its various artistic strategies might be conceived and deployed. Particular kinds of subject matter (heroic, pastoral, everyday) employed distinguishable compositional variants, in combinations designed to produce differing aesthetic effects appropriate to the diversity of their subjects and their genres. In all, despite the variety of their forms, a concern with the representation of space played a vital role. The Reliefgemälde, as we have seen, were not merely “pictorial” in form, but explicitly evoked paintings, of an array of kinds and in a variety of ways. At times, these reliefs imitated the way paintings were displayed: as vignettes, whether as discrete panels comparable to those reserved on the sides of the major vase types, or set out as elements of large-scale decorative schemes such as those that decorated the walls of Pompeian houses.

Reliefgemälde: The Curiously “Perspectival” ­Presentation of Everyday Life

201 Fig. 5.42 Knucklebone players (Phoebe pacifying Leto and Niobe?) from Herculaneum, late first century BC. Painting on marble, 42 cm (H). Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 9562.

Fig. 5.43 Garden room from the House of the Golden Bracelet, Pompeii (VI.17 [ins. occ.]. 42, room 32), late first century BC / first century AD. Fresco, 2 m (H). Pompeii, Ufficio Scavi, 40690.

The relations between paintings and reliefs was still more varied, and still more complex, as Weickert had suggested (cf. above, p. 169). For paintings also “imitated” relief, as carved marble plaques served as a model for paintings on marble (fig. 5.42), or their depiction in fresco (fig. 5.43). Their subject matter (the heroic, the pastoral, or the quotidian) was at home in both painting and relief, and despite the difference of medium, a certain reciprocity of pictorial characteristics and compositions suggests the freedom of artistic invention and aesthetic license. Yet, with respect to their representation of space, certain characteristics – an emphatic vantage point, the suggested distance between beholder and depicted scene, or an image’s ambiguous relationship to depth and receding space – were typical, indeed formative, of each of the three main corpora of marble Reliefgemälde we have examined. The employment of these characteristics entailed distinct formal strategies, consistently (if not universally) embraced according to a perceived appropriateness to each of these genres. These strategies were neither innate nor essential

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to the genres, but should be understood broadly as conventions of form that responded to their subject matter, and that reveal attitudes about how those subjects were to be represented in an appropriate manner. Lastly, the reliefs representing quotidian events generally isolated their limited array of protagonists, focusing on their particularized subjects and their implied themes. Unlike most of the heroic and pastoral scenes, at times they depicted their main figures, fewer in number, at a larger scale relative to the marble panel, with the result that they appear closer to their beholders. But, as we have seen, the apparent proximity of these common, everyday events was often undermined by an elevated vantage point, or at times, the employ of multiple points of view, and as a result, many such scenes offer the beholder a striking fiction of immediacy without the slightest illusion of participation in the depicted scene. Unlike the window onto a mythic and imaginary world that formed the basis of the pastoral, or the heroic reliefs’ illusion of presence at famous events of the past, here an artificial and often contrived remoteness from these quotidian scenes transformed what would otherwise be a familiar vision of the real world into a definitively aesthetic experience.71 It was by means of these particular manners for depicting space, along with a wide array of other artistic conventions, that the Reliefgemälde represented their imagined subjects. This occurred whether these subjects were recalled from the historical past to be endowed with visible form, from an imagined kosmos of the gods and myth now naturalized anthropomorphically, or from an immediate knowledge of lived realities that were concretized in particular visual – that is, artistic – forms. In each instance, works of art transformed a conception (of the past, of the imagination, or of the everyday) and granted it a distinctive representational status.

6.  The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space

Wann finden wir Zeichnungen oder Reliefs, an denen, wenn wir die Figuren herausnähmen und hinter ihnen die Züge der Landschaft oder die Architekturteile ergänzten, noch ein Bild mit geschlossener Raumwirkung übrigbliebe, sei es eine Landschaft oder ein Innenraum? When do we find drawings and reliefs in which, if we were to take the figures out and supply the missing parts of the landscape or architecture behind them, there would remain a unified and self-contained spatial ambience in a landscape or an interior? Franz Wickhoff, 1895 1

What mattered for Wickhoff was an image of cohesive, continuous space and how it might be persuasively evoked by visual means. Most notably, he asked how space, as such, might be signaled, rather than merely appear as the implicit consequence of those bodies’ poses, gestures, and movements that formed the basis of nearly all Greek and Roman representational forms.2 He conceived of an image of enclosed space (das ganze Bild einen in sich geschlossenen Raum) – whether landscape or architectural – that might produce a unified representation of light and shadow so as to offer a cogent sense of atmosphere in which its figures might move.3 For Wickhoff, such a visualization of space might be established when no such space (in the case of drawing or painting), or a mere fragment of it (as in relief) was actually present. This fundamental representational problem was not merely a question of illusionism. Wickhoff regarded it as neither a matter of the addition of a compelling backdrop, nor a question of the emergence of landscape or architectural views as an independent genre,4 but, rather, the advent of a programmatic and successful attempt to render a convincing ambient for bodies that enacted the traditionally anthropomorphic subject matter of Graeco-Roman visual art. For Wickhoff, the task was to make what was ineffable palpable, and to give form to what was, by its nature, formless.

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Fig. 6.1 Probianus diptych, ca. 400 AD. Ivory, 31.8 cm (H). Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kultur­besitz Ms. Theol. lat. fol. 323.

The problem has seldom been directly and fully addressed. Hinks grasped the dilemma, and described its Late Roman appearance in his account of the Probianus diptych’s (fig. 6.1) representation of space: Hier ist die Raumdarstellung äußerst einfach: die Bühne ist schmal und flach, und mit Hilfe des hohen Suggestus wird das Schwierige der Tiefenausdehnung umgangen. Die Beziehungen der Figuren zueinander im Raum ergeben sich aus ihren Gebärden und Blickrichtungen, nicht aus ihrer logischen Anordnung durch perspektivische Mittel. Der Künstler hat doch versucht, eine einheitliche Handlung in einem einheitlichen Raum darzustellen: der Vicarius thront in einer rechteckigen oder vielleicht trapezförmigen Nische, deren Seitenwände ausnahmsweise eine bestimmte künstlerische Bedeutung haben. Hier ist der Raum perspektivisch dargestellt, nicht tatsächlich vorhanden: wir sehen durch die wirkliche Oberfläche der Elfenbeinplatte hindurch in einen ausdrück-

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lich betonten Bildraum. Diese perspektivische Konsequenz ist freilich nur selten gezogen; überhaupt war die logische Zusammenfügung eines geschlossenen Innenraumes keine Aufgabe, die für den antiken Künstler, zumal für den spätantiken, einen besonderen Reiz gehabt hätte. Er hatte seine Pflicht erfüllt, wenn er das Handeln der menschlichen Figuren erzählt hatte, alles andere war nebensächlich. Here, the spatial representation is extremely simple: the stage is narrow and flat, and with the help of the high platform [suggestus] the difficulties posed by expansion into depth are avoided. The relationships of the figures to each other in space are determined by their gestures and directions of their gazes, not by their logical arrangement in accordance with perspectival means. The artist has, nevertheless, tried to represent a unified action in a unified space: the Vicarius is enthroned in a rectangular or perhaps trapezoidal niche, the side walls of which have, rather exceptionally, a specific artistic meaning. Here space is represented perspectivally, yet not actually present: we look through the real surface of the ivory panel into an expressively and emphatically pictorial space […]. [Here] the consequences of perspective are, of course, only rarely brought to their full conclusion; in general, the logical unification of a closed interior was not a task that would have had a special appeal for the ancient artist, especially for one of late antiquity. He had fulfilled his obligation when he had related the actions of the human figures; everything else was incidental.5

For Hinks, even an image as architectonically structured as the Probianus diptych was merely the vehicle for the celebration of this admittedly lesser magistrate of the city of Rome. The representation of space was not only secondary, but unnecessary. The possibility of representing a coherent and continuous space was, of course, in dramatic tension with another of Wickhoff’s most urgent concerns – the Roman invention of “continuous narrative” – which would undermine the intelligibility of such space and rob it of coherence in order to produce this new modality’s uniquely temporal character.6 This seemingly contradictory nature of two of the central elements of Wickhoff’s analysis did not go unnoticed, and ultimately stands as yet another aspect of Roman art’s pluralistic quality. As both Riegl and Hinks were to point out, that the Romans themselves, by and large, gave preference to the temporal is a significant factor, one that has done much to explain the diminished discussion of the representation of space in ancient art.7 Nevertheless, as the monuments demonstrate, the challenge space posed was a continuing concern for the ancients themselves. This chapter focusses on the precursors to Wickhoff’s query, the heritage of his evaluation of the problem, some later developments in the critical assessment of the visual tradition, and, ultimately, the realization that such representations were scarcely to be obtained, in any medium. As we shall see, painting and the related graphic forms were at the forefront of the discussion; the representation of space in relief, however, posed a host of problems, the solution of which could not be resolved by the emulation of the comprehensive illusionism of painted models.

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Wickhoff ’s Exempla In response to his own question – “when do we find […] a unified and self-contained image of a landscape or an interior?” – Wickhoff offered three suggestive examples: the Ficoroni Cista (fig. 6.2), the South Italian painted vases of Asteas (fig.  6.3), and Pergamon’s Telephos frieze (fig. 6.4).8 None of these, however, can be accepted as satisfying the challenge his query posed about the representation of a fully coherent sense of space. The Ficoroni Cista is hailed as “the earliest unified landscape” (die älteste geschlossene Landschaft), but it is hard to see the significance of Wickhoff’s claim. The cista, which famously depicts events from the saga of the Argonauts (fig.  6.5), presents its subject matter as an entirely foregrounded scene, with a rising screen of rocky scarp behind, interrupted solely by the rather unnaturally intruding form of their ship, the Argo. The landscape in question is a fragment, whose only sense of spatial recession is limited to several figures perched on the rising rocks behind (a motif that the cista shares with the Telephos frieze). Other than this, the “landscape” is cut off just behind the screen of figures and extends only so far as their poses and gestures require – none of which display an exaggerated foreshortening. Only the barest hint of the background plane, unfilled by figuration, is revealed along the top border of the design and hardly suffices to suggest a view into the distance. While the scene is clearly geschlossen, without its figures it would be, at best, a paltry example of a landscape. In parallel with the Ficoroni Cista, Wickhoff regarded the Asteas vases as the earliest representations of interiors (die ältesten Innenräume: fig. 6.3).9 The imagery that he noted in this instance is actually ubiquitous on midfourth century Apulian wares, many of which feature a backdrop of a perspectival tempietto or a scaenae frons, within which, or in front of which, the depicted scenes are set. Figures move behind and in front of the columnar architecture, at times entering or exiting through doors at the rear, while on some examples coffered ceilings chart the recession of space above them. It is conventionally assumed that these scenes represent the flat painted backdrops employed in the theater (if one is to believe Vitruvius at 5.6.8–9), paintings that had an illusionistic spatial character, and whose depicted spaces no actor could ever inhabit. On even the most compelling of such works, whether on an actual stage or represented on the vases, actors could seem, at best, to merely enter and exit through the depicted doorways, as on the well-known Wurzburg fragment (fig. 6.6).10 Yet, despite Wickhoff’s claims, the open nature of these vase paintings’ scenes of stage architecture, hardly in keeping with actual painted scaenae, is at odds with the very notion of interior space. For when dramatic per-

Wickhoff ’s Exempla

207

Fig. 6.3 Asteas Vase, ca. 350–320 BC. Terracotta, 55 cm (H). Madrid, Archaeological Museum, inv. 11094.

Fig. 6.2 Ficoroni Cista, from Palestrina, ca. 350 BC. Bronze, 53 cm (H: frieze). Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. 24787.

Fig. 6.5 Ficoroni Cista: drawing of the frieze.

Fig. 6.4 Carpenters build raft in which Telephos will be set adrift, from the Telephos frieze, Great Altar, Pergamon (panels 5–6), ca. 180–160 BC. Marble, 1.48 m (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung.

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formance was represented on these vases, the problem of rendering interiors might be resolved by the depiction of open loggias (fig. 6.7), which, despite the obvious clash of scale between figures and setting and the insufficient sense of enclosure such architecture entails, do give their protagonists some limited, often claustrophobic sense of space in which to act. But should one imagine away the figures, the architecture that remains, much like Vitruvius’ descriptions of the differing genres of painted scaenae (Book 5.9), is far from a compelling representation of space itself. Lastly, Wickhoff cited the Telephos frieze, his oldest example of a relief with a spatially coherent albeit “closed” background (die älteste Relief mit geschlossenem Hintergrunde). What Wickhoff seems to have had in mind were those scenes in which figural forms filled the entire field, bottom to top, so as to obscure, indeed, to obviate, any sense of a receding background (fig. 6.4).11 But this was clearly not the case with the entirety of the Telephos frieze, as even its fragmentary state demonstrates that its space was articulated variously, in at least three different guises, each exploiting distinctive effects, some geschlossen, yet others, clearly open:12 (1)  That a space beyond the foreground was implied is confirmed by the employ of staggered compositions, where figures higher in the visual field are understood as being further away, as on the famous Raft scene (fig. 6.4 = slabs 5–6; cf. slabs 8, 39–40). Yet the compacted forms were equally designed so as to prevent a distant background from emerging into view. (2)  Rather differently, on certain slabs a view, with or without landscape or architectural elements, opens to the rear, behind the foreground scenes (fig. 6.8), and the materiality of the background plane seemingly dissolves in an illusionistic effort to situate the foreground figures in space (slabs 3, 4, 11, 20, 39–40, 44–46); thus Wickhoff: An den bei der gelösten Komposition frei bleibenden Stücken des Grundes wurde daher wie auf einem modernen Gemälde der Hintergrund mit Landschaft und Baulichkeiten gefüllt und man ging soweit, an zart behandelten Stellen im Relief die Effekte der Luftperspektive anzustreben. Those parts of the background left free when the composition was resolved were filled up as in a modern painting with landscape and buildings, and an attempt was even made in certain delicately treated parts to give in relief the effects of aerial perspective.13

(3)  Lastly, both of these formal devices are corroborated by things silhouetted against the sky (as in the case of the famous bird on slab 49 (fig. 6.9), so as to transform the blank background into an image of ambient space (cf. the empty space on slabs 10 and 43, the torches on 44, or the spears on 36–38).14 Coherent spatial representation, in any of these manners, is hardly the case for the frieze as a whole. Even on those relatively few surviving

Wickhoff ’s Exempla

209 Fig. 6.6 Fragment of an Apulian krater: stage with doorways, ca. 360–350 BC. Terracotta, 22.5 cm (H). Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum, inv. H 4696/H4701.

Fig. 6.7 Apulian red-figure volute krater attributed to the White Sakkos painter, ca. 320 BC. Terracotta, 85 cm (H). Kiel, Antikensammlung, inv. B 585.

210 Fig. 6.8 Herakles at the court of King Aleos, from the ­Telephos frieze, Great Altar, Pergamon (panels 2–3), ca. 180–160 BC. Marble, 1.58 cm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlung.

Fig. 6.9 Foundation of the cult, from the Telephos frieze, Great Altar, Pergamon (panel 49), ca. 180–160 BC. Marble, ca. 78 cm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antiken­ sammlung.

The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space

Painted Landscapes, Sculptural Friezes, and their ­Paradoxical Contexts

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panels on which one of these strategies is clearly evoked, it can hardly be said to be fully elaborated. More accurate was Wickhoff’s somewhat more modest claim that the Telephos frieze served “as important evidence for the transition to a spatially articulated background.”15 Indeed, all three of Wickhoff’s examples fail to provide representations of that coherent and continuous space he had sought; it remains to be seen if these might be found elsewhere.

Painted Landscapes, Sculptural Friezes, and their ­Paradoxical Contexts The interrelated spatial forms of the Telephos frieze, while not systematic in their employ, are nonetheless novel and compellingly naturalistic; yet perspectival – in any technical sense – they are not. This distinction has generated protracted scholarly debate. Long ago, Panofsky famously concluded that antiquity did not know such a systematic perspective construction, and he argued that, Von dieser Struktur des psychophysiologischen Raumes abstrahiert die exaktperspektivische Konstruktion grundsätzlich: es ist nicht nur ihr Ergebnis, sondern geradezu ihre Bestimmung, jene Homogenität und Unendlichkeit, von der das unmittelbare Erlebnis des Raumes nichts weiß, in der Darstellung desselben zu verwirklichen – den psychophysiologischen Raum gleichsam in den mathematischen umzuwandeln. Exact perspectival construction is a systematic abstraction from the structure of psychophysiological space. For it is not only the effect of perspectival construction, but indeed its intended purpose, to realize in the representation of space precisely that homogeneity and boundlessness foreign to the direct experience of that space. In a sense, perspective transforms psychophysiological space into mathematical space.16

It is now generally agreed that the realization of convincingly naturalistic spatial imagery in visual forms did not depend on the exacting employment of geometrical perspective. And, while Panofsky’s “limitlessness” (Unendlichkeit) might depend on geometrical abstraction, some sense of “homogeneity” was surely perceived since, at times, it was a manifest goal of ancient representations, despite the lack of a precise perspective construction.17 For the surviving corpus of ancient monuments demonstrates that artists sought a variety of means other than geometrical perspective to evoke in their representations some semblance of precisely that consistent uniformity of space that Panofsky denied to lived experience; why should they have done so if not to confirm such an aspect of experience? The evidence of their attempts, and of the critical tradition’s efforts to describe and to explain them, suggests that this great scholar’s claim was, at best, polemical, if not hyperbolic.18

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Fig. 6.10 Odyssey landscape, ­mid-first century BC. Fresco, 116 cm (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 41016.

The realization of convincingly naturalistic spatial imagery would not only register a cogent depiction of its subject matter within persuasive representations of a rational setting, but would imply that such an ambient was congruent with our lived spatial experience. Thus, such imagery was to be conceived, at least potentially, as an extension of the world in which a work of art’s beholders lived. Such a mode of representation, one that would truly integrate figures with their spatial ambient, was clearly a goal of ambitious painting during the late Hellenistic period, and is manifest, unambiguously, by the Romans’ exploitation, if not invention, of the “birds’-eye view.” A most powerful example was to be found in the famous Odyssey Landscapes from Rome’s Esquiline hill (fig. 6.10). And the language of Blanckenhagen’s penetrating analysis, as if responding to Wickhoff, implied as much: If we were to remove the landscape, only a scattered and almost meaningless multitude of small figures would remain; if, on the other hand, we would remove the figures there would still be a self-contained vista of bays, rocks, cliffs, trees, ponds and the open sea.19

The Odyssey landscapes were subordinated to both their actual architectural setting and the implications of their painted architectural frame. Their original height on the wall is unknown although, given the affinity of the composition to other works of the so-called Second Pompeian Style, they are generally assumed to have been placed high (precisely how high has long been debated).20 This setting delivered the imagery of the frieze to its beholders in what can only be regarded as an inconsistent fashion.

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On the one hand, its compositions’ representations confirm our optical experience of space since, by convention, higher in the pictorial field signifies farther away, just as things seen at a distance appear elevated in our visual domain; but on the other hand, the scenes’ implied vantage point (a “bird’s-eye view”) is contradicted by a high placement in the architectural setting, where their landscapes are incommensurately viewed, dramatically, from below. The tension between representation and reality is palpable; so, again, Blanckenhagen, on the Odyssey frieze: the architectural decoration of the wall [i.  e., the pillars and architraves] takes into account the place where the actual observer stood in reality […]. It is evident that the perspective of the frieze itself imagines an observer who does not look up but on the contrary rather looks down at the landscape. That famous “realism” or even “illusionism” which modern scholars looking at photographs of the frieze have always noticed and admired, was in fact very seriously damaged if not actually counteracted by the place chosen for the frieze [high on the wall]. For the actual Roman spectator it was all but destroyed.21

These ambitious compositions, which Blanckenhagen believed to be Hellenistic creations that were replicated at Rome, cannot have been originally conceived so as to be viewed from below. If they were not replicas or emulations transposed, without thorough adaptation, to their new contexts (as Blanckenhagen held), one must conclude that they were clearly designed with almost total disregard for a correspondence between the painted compositions and their intended settings – something truly hard to fathom. A comparison with another ambitious painted frieze, this one of late Hellenistic date, may serve to explain this phenomenon. For the painted hunt scene from the “Tomb of Philip” at Vergina (figs 5.10 a and b) provides a compelling contrast.22 High on the tomb’s façade, the scene is displayed as a long expanse with multiple protagonists, all ten of which are arrayed in a series of five (or six) subtly paratactic groups,23 whose movements are arranged diagonally, as if passing in and out of their setting. Virtually all of the human forms are close to the foreground, a fact reinforced by the isocephalic arrangement of all but one, with the figures meticulously set out so that, while they overlap with various animals (the horses, dogs, and the antelope, boar, and lion that are the hunt’s prey and that fill out the scene) they never overlap with one another. Thus the question of their relative temporality – do the various hunts take place simultaneously or successively? – is posed by their careful distinction from each other.24 The compositional principle of these individual vignettes is fundamentally Classical, as one gleans from a comparison with the depiction of a Meleager hunt on a small terracotta relief from Melos (now in Berlin: fig. 6.11).25 On this small plaque, probably of the fifth century bc, the pictorial field, while reduced to a closely-cropped foreground group in two

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Fig. 6.11 Meleager relief, ca. 450 BC. Terracotta, 19.7 mm (H). Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antiken­sammlung, inv. TC 5783.

files, is packed with figures whose overlapping of one another is similarly kept to a minimum. There was not only no attempt to provide a setting, but there was no room for it – physically or conceptually. The Meleager relief’s basic composition has been multiplied on the Vergina frieze, spread out so as to display the same figural forms from different viewpoints,26 amplified by the increased depth of the foreground “stage” on which this enlarged cast of figures act (something required by their diagonal compositions), and aggrandized spatially as that stage is set before a landscape extending into the distance.27 The Vergina frieze’s landscape does attempt to offer, at least hypothetically, something of an answer to Wickhoff’s query; that is, one might well imagine away its figural forms, as he had suggested, and a coherent landscape would remain. Yet the painted frieze is a little more than five meters (roughly 17 feet) from the ground, and it, like the Odyssey frieze, also presented its imagery to its beholders in an inconsistent manner, as its high physical placement and the angle of view that placement dictated similarly contradicted its depicted setting. Its imperfect pictorial solution for the representation of landscape is evident in the marked juxtaposition of the figures and the receding setting. The foregrounded composition, seen from a low viewpoint, is divorced from the scene’s lower border, and set on a visibly receding ground, an apparently barren plain that extends to the mountains in the distance, but only glimpsed between the several trees that emerge at the near side of what might be thought the middle ground. In fact, this intervening space is unrepresented, as the ground seems as if to drop, and vanish from view, just beyond the foreground scene, rather than being shown as rising in the visual field as in the Odyssey landscapes. This, in concert with the implied horizon above which the distant mountains loom, serves to effectively abrogate any continuous sense of receding space. One recognizes here a clash of visual formulae: on the one hand, that of a classicizing composition that groups the figures in the immediate foreground, and, on the other, a naturalistic rendition of the landscape

Painted Landscapes, Sculptural Friezes, and their ­Paradoxical Contexts

215 Fig. 6.12 Stucco ceiling fragment from the Villa under the Farnesina, Rome, late first century BC. Rome, Museo ­Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.

that attempts to capture our lived experience of spatial recession as distant objects of sight rise within the visual field. This abrogation of the middle ground was a deliberate visual strategy, one dramatically enhanced by, yet not dependent on, the high placement of such images. A similar effect is produced by the exaggerated low viewpoint on the Alexander mosaic (fig. 5.8), where the foreground elements blocked the beholder’s view of any implied background. The effect was dramatized when viewed even more radically from below, as one finds on the stuccoed ceiling of Rome’s Villa Farnesina (fig. 6.12), where the architectural forms, looming overhead, are, in addition to their actual placement, pictorially conceived as if from low vantage point. The resulting imagery was silhouetted against a blank ground registering the sky and thus effectively eliminated a sense of anything lying beyond what was actually depicted.28 These examples make plain the varying formal problems attendant on an exaggerated viewing angle and the consequent formal demands that emerged when images were intended to be seen from below. Yet discussion of both the Odyssey landscapes and the Vergina frieze has, by and large, ignored the long history of highly positioned relief works designed without any accommodation to the angle of view: sculpted architectural friezes. A tolerance for the incongruity of their imagery and its setting had been long-established, and it is from such architectural sculpture that the compositional formula of the painted Vergina frieze, in particular, and the Odyssey frescoes, probably, would seem to derive. For such high mounting corresponded to the Classical frieze’s traditional placement in its architectural setting, notwithstanding the awkwardness of the resulting effect,

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Fig. 6.13 Parthenon frieze viewed from below. Athens, Acropolis, in situ.

and indeed the very limited visibility of a frieze’s imagery. The Parthenon frieze has always provided the exemplary case. The dramatically raking angle at which the frieze was viewed (fig. 6.13) called for its composition’s implicitly low viewpoint as well as its figures being gathered in the immediate foreground and anchored to the lower border. The architectural setting formally precluded a receding landscape and naturalistic effect.29 By contrast, despite the evidence of the Vergina and Odyssey friezes, it may have been customary for monumental paintings to have been set lower on the walls of their supporting architecture, above a conventional dado or socle. This has long been presumed, at least implicitly, for Polygnotos’ frescoes in the Lesche of the Cnidians on Delphi or those at the Stoa Poikile in Athens. In the case of the Delphi paintings, an independence from their architectonic setting is signaled in all of the attempted reconstructions by a rejection of the long-standing practice for a sculpted frieze’s mounting above a colonnade. A similar independence is equally common in vase painting of the period, whereby the lower frame serves as the groundline for the foremost figures (fig. 6.14; contrast fig. 5.15).30 In turn, these paintings provided a model for a similarly lower wall position of some sculpted friezes: notably in the Greek east on the Telephos frieze at Pergamon, and in Rome’s western provinces on those of the Monument at St.-Rémy (figs 5.2, 5.3, 5.4: discussed in Ch. 5, above). On these examples, placement, composition, and the spectator’s implicit point of view are harmonized so as to produce both a more naturalistic effect and a viewing experience free from contradiction. And on a host of other Roman monumental friezes, such as the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, the Vicomagistri relief, or the Anaglypha Hadriani, each appears to have been originally mounted (based on what survives of their original architectural moldings) at a significantly lower height than the traditional Greek architectural frieze. Thus the angle of view allowed not only for a more convincing illusion of space, but for a more palpable fiction of a perceived

Landscape without Verisimilitude

217 Fig. 6.14 Panathenaic amphora, ca. 340–330 BC. Terracotta, 83.8 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1873,0820.371.

continuity between the beholder’s world and that of these representations. All of these examples demonstrate how sculptural conventions long-employed for the embellishment of Greek temple architecture gradually gave way in the developing repertory of other monumental buildings to novel compositions devised for new settings. Not only was relief the vehicle of a changing figural style, but as its forms and formats themselves newly allowed for display at a lower height, this provided the means for more profound effects of both a new immediacy and an aggrandized sense of receding space. In this sense relief sculpture, as an evolving and expanding genre, may be seen to play a significant if little-discussed role in the rise of naturalism.31

Landscape without Verisimilitude The rise of the independent relief panel, divorced from its role as an embellishment of the traditional architectural orders, allowed artists new possibilities for innovation. Smaller works, mounted in new contexts (i.  e.,

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the smaller Reliefgemälde: see Ch. 5, above), in greater proximity to their beholders, played a significant role in the new solutions. And in many of these new relief works, the problem of representing space, and of landscape, in particular, was tackled in increasingly new ways. Riegl, following Wickhoff’s diagnosis of the artistic problem of depicting “natural” space, similarly attributed the crucial moment in its solution to the Hellenistic period: Der Grund des Flächenwerks (Halbform oder Riß) wird hinfort nicht mehr bloß als ein notwendiges materielles Übel zur Trennung der Figuren, sondern als Raum zur Verbindung der Figuren aufgefaßt. Indem der Raum mit Beiwerk ausgefüllt wird, das zur deutlicheren Versinnlichung des Vorstellungszwecks dienen soll, aber gegen die Hauptsache – die agierenden menschlichen Figuren – naturgemäß zurücktreten muß, entsteht das Kunstmotiv des Hintergrundes. From this point on, the ground of a two-dimensional work – whether relief or painting – was grasped no longer as a necessary evil, a material that separated figures, but as a space that could unify them. As this space was subsequently filled with accessories that served to make the conceptual purpose more intelligible – though always, of course, playing a secondary role to the principal subject, the active human figure – the artistic device of a background was born.32

The nature of this Kunstmotiv was clear. Artists, according to Riegl, “had to reject the [material solidity of the] background surface completely and replace it with something that gave the impression of empty space (einen leeren Raum).”33 The emergence and widespread production of votive reliefs in the Hellenistic period offers powerful evidence of new artistic solutions. On a series of reliefs representing Nymphs at the rural shrine of Pan, new landscape associations essential to this theme were exploited in unprecedented fashion. These reliefs are marked by the closing-off of the background as it is transformed into the rugged image of a rising hillside. An early example, probably of the late fifth century bc (?), is provided by a votive relief to the Nymphs from the Acropolis (fig. 4.14).34 Despite its damaged state, it is clear that the small figure of Archandros, the panel’s dedicator, stands before the much larger nymphs, three in number, whose figures fill the frame, top to bottom. The rural setting is signaled by a pile of rocks in the foreground, and to the rear, Pan himself peers out, ostensibly from his cave, as the blank background plane, which may well have been painted to render its image as a hillside more fully, has been carved away to suggest the god’s grotto.35 In its compositional structure, the Archandros relief corresponds to that of the well-known Munich family votive (fig. 4.4); both curtail recession in a related fashion. The Munich relief’s curtained-off background corresponds to what, on the Archandros relief, has become a rising “hillside” of the topographical setting, and on both works, the compositional strategy has similarly opened one corner of the scene toward the rear. Like

Landscape without Verisimilitude

219 Fig. 6.15 Votive relief to Zeus Parthenios, fifth century BC. Marble, 53 cm (H). Athens, National ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 1879.

the Munich relief’s curtain, the Archandros panel’s vertical topography has, for the majority of the relief’s surface, closed-off an imagined extension into depth. While the aesthetic convention stipulating that higher in the pictorial field symbolizes further away in space nevertheless remains operative, here it has been radicalized with its rudimentary perspectival effect focused on the juxtaposition of foreground scene and background cave. The smaller stature of the rustic god, which would serve such an effect is, however, awkwardly undermined by the use of hierarchical scale in the foreground where the size of the dedicant is consequently diminished compared to the divine nymphs to whom he addresses himself.36 Rodenwaldt recognized that such subjects and their compositions effectively evoked an appropriate landscape setting, yet often did so at the cost of its spatial verisimilitude. Describing a related votive relief in Athens (fig. 6.15), he declared that Auf einem späten Stück ist jeder Rahmen geschwunden und nur ein Fels übriggeblieben, allerdings steil geformt und in seinen Umrissen noch die alte Stelengestalt enthaltend; in seinen Höhlungen und kleinen Absätzen sind der Nymphenreigen und die anderen

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Gottheiten der Nymphengrotten untergebracht. Auch hier hat die Entwicklung von ihrem Ausgangspunkt, dem Figurenrelief, dem einzelne landschaftliche Elemente beigefügt sind, fast zu dem Gegenteil, einer nachgeahmten Landschaft mit darin verteilten Figuren, geführt. On a later work the frame has disappeared leaving a mere rock face, steeply described, yet still retaining in its shape the stele’s original form; in its cavities and on its narrow ledges are housed the Nymphs and the other deities of the Nymphs’ Grotto. Here, too, the development from its starting point, the figural relief, to which individual landscape elements are attached, has led almost to the opposite [kind of composition], to an imitation landscape with figures distributed within it.37

The hillside “backdrop” provided a cogent formal and iconographic solution for these landscape scenes, as it closed-off the background and retained the compositional type that set the figures in the immediate foreground. This had a history as a convention, having been employed on the Ficoroni Cista (figs 6.2 and 6.5) and would continue to be so in works of the Roman era.38 The employ of a rocky rear ground is seen, perhaps most famously, on the Archelaos relief representing the Apotheosis of Homer (fig. 1.41).39 At the bottom, a scene of worship is rendered as if on a stage, closedoff by a curtain behind, while above, the mountain sanctuary (Olympus? Helicon? Parnassus?40) on which the Muses and various divinities are disported, rises in multiple tiers. There is virtually no recession into depth, and the figures are arranged in the foreground, isolated against a backdrop that appears as a rocky terrain. It is a landscape, to be sure, but one that employs very unconventional rules, as it is conceived without formal distinction from the interior scene of the procession and sacrifice before the divine Homer, curtained-off in the foreground on the lowest tier. The landscape above is parceled-out in segments, stacked one upon the other, as if a substitute for any sense of recession in depth. And the rejection of illusionistic space actually extends to the choice of individual poses, which Brunn, in 1857, had described suggestively: Die einzelnen Figuren sind mit einer deutlichen Absichtlichkeit so angeordnet, dass keiner ihrer Theile über die im Allgemeinen angenommene Höhe herauszutreten überhaupt nöthig hat. Meist hat sie der Künstler mit der ganzen Breite der Brust nach aussen gewendet, um nur das sonst nothwendige Zusammendrängen und Verkürzen derselben zu vermeiden. The individual figures are arranged with a clear intention and in such a way that none of their parts need to rise above the generally assumed height of their relief. In most cases, the artist, has turned them facing outward, frontally, in order to avoid the necessity of crowding them together and foreshortening them.41

And Sieveking would be categorical about the transformation of the traditionally non-representational background into a vivid element of the scene:

Landscape without Verisimilitude

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[…] ist die Behandlung im Archelaosrelief etwas ganz neues und singuläres. Der neutrale Hintergrund ist bis auf ein kleines Stück zu beiden Seiten der Bergspitze verschwunden, alle Figuren werden vor eine als Fels oder als Vorhang charakterisierte Wand gestellt […]. Die Aufgabe des neutralen Hintergrundes ist in der Tat ein Bruch mit dem guten griechischen Reliefstil, ebenso wie es die schematische Einteilung der Felswand in verschiedene Streifen und die unorganische Anstückung einer Innenraumdarstellung unten an die Felslandschaft ist. […] the treatment in the Archelaos relief is something completely new and singular. The neutral background has disappeared except for a small portion on both sides of the mountain top, all figures are placed in front of a wall characterized as a rock or curtain […]. The abandonment of the neutral background is in fact a break with the old Greek relief style, just as is the schematic division of the rock face into various strata and the inorganic joining of an interior representation below the rocky landscape.42

This Sieveking would say about the work’s structure and conception, notwithstanding his complaint about the pitiful treatment of the mountain landscape (“die kümmerliche Behandlung der Felslandschaft”) and his ultimate refusal to regard the relief as a work of art in the fullest sense or to grant its depicted setting a significant role in the development of landscape.43 A second example of the “hillside” background is perhaps more daring in its treatment of landscape space. The Death of the Niobids roundel (fig. 6.16) presents a more radical, and more abstract, version of the same topographical motif employed so as to activate the relief ground. Sieveking recognized the affinity between the Niobids roundel and the Archelaos relief, as well as the more dramatic character of the former, despite the fact that he also regarded it as an inferior work of art (Machwerk): Hier haben wir ebenfalls einen völligen Verzicht auf den neutralen Hintergrund, die gleiche Streifeneinteilung, eine ähnlich primitive Charakterisierung der Felslandschaft und endlich auch die Benutzung entlehnter Elemente, und zwar von Relieffiguren und freiplastischen Werken durcheinander. Here we also have a complete renunciation of the neutral background, the same division into tiers, a similarly primitive characterization of the rocky landscape and finally, the use of borrowed elements derived from both relief figures and statuary works, all jumbled together.44

On the Niobids relief the individual figures are set atop the “rocky” topography, which transforms the background plane. Each is nestled within its own hollow, each with its own raised groundline. Here foreshortenings, contorted poses, and back views share the surface with frontal forms depicted in elevation, yet all within the shallow confines of the relief, whose spatial aspect seems as if to dissolve, without recession, into an amorphous mass of the undulating, underlying, promontory.45 These two reliefs do not so much represent landscapes as symbolize them. The dispersion of their figures across the surface, from top to

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Fig. 6.16 Niobids roundel, ca. first century BC. Marble, 95 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1877,0727.1.

bottom, serves as a surrogate for a compelling illusion of their distribution in space that a fully naturalistic representation of landscape requires. On the Apotheosis of Homer (fig. 1.41), the figures are depicted “straight-on,” in elevation, as though an imaginary horizon marries the depicted space with the beholders’, and walled-off at the rear so as to deny any sense of recession. Spatial cohesion is limited to the immediate foreground, and the figures’ apparent proximity eliminates any significant divergence of viewing angle from top to bottom, with the result that no element is seen decisively from above or below. The Niobids relief, by contrast, vividly juxtaposes divergent views. Most of its figures are similarly shown in elevation, “straight-on,” and set on those individuated outcroppings of ground that offer a conventional if unnatural means of support, while others, particularly those lying prone in the terrain, are depicted with a “bird’s-eye” view. These two simultaneously employed viewpoints not only undermine

“Work-arounds”

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any sense of the landscape’s naturalism, but they deny a sense of spatial unity and result in an elimination of any perception of recession or illusion of cohesion, as the depicted landscape is rendered as an amorphous, undulating, and undifferentiated mass, simultaneously behind and below the figures.46 All of these “landscape” reliefs exhibit an iconographic specificity – yet they do so with little sense of verisimilitude. They display merely one or another among a number of late Greek artistic solutions to contend with a clearly perceived demand for a cogent sense of contained space. What was still wanting, however, was a sense of coherent and cohesive atmosphere – and, as Graeco-Roman tradition demonstrates, other solutions would emerge.

“Work-arounds” The study of Greek relief before the 1880s is marked by a distinct ambivalence regarding the very idea of such radical spatial representations. Indeed, before the discovery of the Telephos frieze, Wickhoff’s query about the representation of a cohesive, self-contained sense of space was largely unimaginable for scholars of sculpture for whom Brunn’s “two planes” and the “neutral ground” proved tyrannical. And as we have already seen (Ch. 1) even after the discovery of the Pergamene friezes, not all scholars were inclined to recognize their radical innovations, particularly those of the Telephos panels. The evidence of our surviving reliefs suggests the scarcity of effective responses to the problem of spatial representation despite continuing endeavors to provide figures with an appropriate and convincing setting. And while a truly persuasive receding landscape may well have never been even attempted in stone – the problems it posed were ultimately intractable – a series of formal solutions, what Koepp was to term Umgehen, or “work-arounds,” seem to have emerged that suggest other resolutions to this dilemma.47 If an imagery of self-contained and cohesive space remained seemingly unattainable, a coherent if discontinuous form was to emerge as one efficient substitute. A variety of compositions were devised in which the foreground elements effectively blocked the beholders’ view of the middle-ground. Thus juxtaposed, foreground and background might be rendered independently, without establishing their continuity by depicting the space between them, as if near and far were separate compositional motives – a scheme we have seen at work, in differing fashions, on the Vergina hunt frieze (figs 5.10 a and b) as well as on the Archandros relief (fig. 4.14). Other reliefs employed and exploited such juxtapositions and

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the disjointed spatial compositions they produced. For example, on the Munich Family votive relief (fig. 4.4), we have witnessed a related strategy. There, an outdoor scene is articulated by figures at differing scales and the implicitly perspectival forms of its architectonic staffage are employed to effect a persuasively coherent spatial character. Yet this is solely a foreground scene, with the background “closed-off ” by the highly artificial device of a curtain (not unlike that employed on “The Apotheosis of Homer” relief: fig. 1.41). This suggests, somewhat ambiguously, that the image’s space extends behind it: witness the blank ground that peeks out above as well as where the curtain is drawn aside. Thus the background, while no longer neutral, is equally not part of the representation. Now completely divorced from the foreground scene, it is merely to be imagined. Other examples suggest the variety of solutions. Speaking of spatial landscapes in general, and referring to both the Munich Family votive (fig. 4.4) and the Munich Peasant relief (fig. 5.30) in particular, Koepp described the constituent elements of what he regarded as a not uncommon visual phenomenon: Sollte der Hintergrund eine freie Landschaft sein, dann war der Vorhang freilich nicht zu brauchen; aber die Mauer ersparte oder erleichterte auch dann in erwünschtester Weise die schwierige Aufgabe der Überleitung der Vordergrundlandschaft in die Ferne. Man verband wohl Hintergrund und Vordergrund, indem man Bäume, die hinter der Mauer standen, mit ihren Ästen diese durchbrechen und in den Vordergrund dringen ließ – dies wurde ja zu einem ständigen Motiv –; bei dem aber, was man sonst über und neben der Mauer vom Hintergrund darzustellen für gut fand, dachte man wohl kaum je an das Bedürfnis des Beschauers, sich die Landschaft grundrißmäßig vorzustellen, was z.  B. bei dem berühmten Bauernrelief in München recht schwer wäre. If the background was an open landscape, then the curtain was of course unnecessary; but, in the most desirable way the wall also facilitated, or spared one, the difficult task of leading the foreground landscape into the distance. The background and the foreground were united by setting trees behind walls, whose branches would extend over them, breaking into the foreground, and this became a constantly employed motive. But whatever one thought appropriate to represent of the background above and behind the wall, one hardly ever thought of the spectator’s need to imagine the landscape as if a ground plan, which, for example, would be rather difficult in the case of the famous Munich Peasant relief.48

According to Koepp, on the Munich Peasant relief (fig. 5.30), the tree that emerged into the foreground was not a truly effective means of establishing continuity with the rear ground, and hardly reliable as a gauge of the scene’s depth. Nor was it the only compositional device at work. For the fragmentary nature of the tree, as it disappears through the gate and behind the wall, exemplified how spatial discontinuity itself might prove a compelling alternative solution for the representation of space.49 In other instances pictorial discontinuity would be rendered in somewhat different fashion. Already on works of the late fifth century bc, such

“Work-arounds”

225 Fig. 6.17 Pythodorus relief from Eleusis, ca. 420 BC. Marble, 75 cm (H). Eleusis, Archaeological Museum, inv. 5101.

as the Pythodorus relief from Eleusis (fig. 6.17),50 the use of a multiple tiered composition implies but does not actually represent the fragmented spatial relations between the figures. On the Torlonia relief (fig. 1.45),51 the staggered receding spaces, their forms flattened in conformity with the plane, follow one another without any hint of something suggestive of a perspectival effect. And as late as the Hadrianic period, in a scene depicting Romulus and Remus on an Ostian altar, now in Rome (fig. 6.18), a landscape is set out as a series of spaces, divorced from one another, and staggered vertically against a neutral ground, without any compelling sense of depth.52 Koepp also pointed out that imagery conceived to signal spatial forms need not be employed consistently throughout a composition. Speaking of the space implied by images of landscape and architecture, he remarked that it was fundamentally illusionistic; such images […] „Raumbildend“ sind sie ja freilich an sich nicht eigentlich; aber sie stehen doch auch nicht der Raumbildung im Wege und sollen das nicht. Vielmehr sollen sie, wo sie nicht etwa sachlich motiviert sind, dem Künstler die Raumdarstellung bequemer machen, indem sie einen Teil der Tiefe verdecken. […] are, of course, not actually “space-forming”; but this does not stand in the way of the representation of space, nor should it. On the contrary, where such images are not objectively motivated, they should make the space more convenient for the artist by concealing a part of the depth.53

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Fig. 6.18 Romulus and Remus altar from Ostia, ca. 110–120 AD. Marble, 110 cm (H). Rome, Museo ­Nazionale Romano, Museo delle Terme, inv. 324.

And it is the idea that the discontinuous mode of landscape composition was an effective solution for the space problem that he would underscore, noting that: also schätzte man noch die Bequemlichkeit, sich die Darstellung des unteren Teils der Hintergrundsarchitekturen zu ersparen. One appreciates the convenience of avoiding the representation of the lower part of the background architecture.54

This was an essential aspect of the spatial solution on the Munich Peasant relief, and even more so in the well-known series of replicas of the Ikarios relief representing the “Homecoming of Dionysos” (fig.  6.19). In each case, a series of spaces is implicated, one behind the other, in one setting suburban, in the other, urban. They differ, yet both offer what might be regarded as a transposition of a particular aspect exploited in Second Style painting to the medium of relief: the spare landscape surrounding the shrine of the Munich relief (fig. 5.30) evokes many similar scenes, often painted in monochrome, while the crowded cityscape of the “Homecoming” reiterates in relief motives familiar from contemporary Second Style architectural scenes. These highly elaborate compositions had their antecedents, employing the same strategy with differing motives, visible in works from the Hel-

“Work-arounds”

227 Fig. 6.19 Homecoming of Dionysos (Ikarios relief), ca. first century BC. Marble, 91 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1805,0703.123.

lenistic period on. Before the middle of the fourth century bc, figures are shown entering gates of city walls on the Trysa Heroon reliefs, so as to suggest a continuity of the depicted foreground scene with an unrepresented interior.55 At a similar date, as we have seen (fig. 6.6), the effect is echoed on vase paintings, where, actors move in and out of a painted stage backdrop so as to effect the convention of off-stage events in Classical drama;56 and on a host of votive reliefs (cf. figs 4.14, 4.17, 4.19), where an opening to the background appears. All these works depended on their beholders’ willingness to assume the implicit presence of space evoked by compositional means despite the evident fact that such space was not actually depicted. Certain peculiar and rather paradoxical aspects of these complex forms were effectively described by Dawson in his analysis of the Munich Family votive (fig. 4.4): The difficulty lies in the inconsistency of introducing figures supposedly at some distance in a two-plane relief. For, while the untouched relief ground above may represent, as it did in earlier reliefs, ideal unlimited depth, the relief consists of two planes only – pictorial background and foreground with freely spaced figures – like the Telephos frieze. There is no breaking-through of the background to reveal the distant vista: that is all deliberately withdrawn from our sight by the curtain, either because of conscious inability to represent the distance adequately or because of the still persisting belief that great spatial depth was alien to the nature of relief. Whatever the reason, the very exclusion of distant vista implies consciousness of that which is excluded; the outside world is now acknowledged as having existence independent of man – even though it be not represented.57

We have examined a number of ways in which relief might signal such a consciousness of what is excluded: this is, in fact, the most powerful example of what Koepp meant by a “work-around.” The visual effect was not new. It

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Fig. 6.20 Aeneas scene, Ara Pacis Augustae (west side), 13–9 BC. Marble, 1.55 m (H). Rome, Museo dell’Ara Pacis.

was a staple of the representations of Kaineus already in the fifth century bc, and enshrined in the fourth in the tale of Zeuxis tricked by the curtain of Parrhasius.58 Many works that include a view to the distance did so at the expense of a middle ground (cf. above, p. 214), and this most distinctive design depended on illusionistic formulae for representing landscapes that disguised the fact that they were manifestly depicted partially. And as the Archandros votive (fig. 4.14) demonstrates, a germ of this solution can be recognized on Greek reliefs of the fifth century. The Munich Family votive (fig.  4.4) and the “Homecoming of Dionysos” (fig. 6.19) suggest that such compositions had become commonplace by the early Roman period, and developed certain signal motifs. Chief among these is the display of what Ann Kuttner fittingly termed the “temple on a crag” convention, vividly employed on the Munich Peasant relief (fig. 5.30), the Grimani reliefs (figs 5.23, 5.24, 5.25), and one of the Boscoreale cups. The pictorial solution exemplifies a common means of producing a discontinuous landscape, as the forefront suppresses any representation of a middle ground as it screens it from view. And while the formula is familiar from these works of the Roman period, one of the so-called Homeric bowls demonstrates that it was known and exploited in the middle Hellenistic era.59 There was a logic to the discontinuity that marks all of these examples, and they demonstrate how it was sufficient that certain aspects of a compositions’ spatiality might be, if not represented, merely implicit. The most famous example of the “temple on a crag” motif and its fundamentally discontinuous composition is that employed on the Aeneas relief from the Ara Pacis Augustae (fig. 6.20).60 With its contrast of the small shrine in the distance juxtaposed with the foreground scene of sacrifice, the Aeneas

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landscape is hardly an example of a continuous and cogent spatial setting. What is striking, as the Ara Pacis so readily demonstrates, is that these discontinuous compositions were not employed independently of more traditional ones; at times, they appeared alongside other, radically different pictorial solutions to the space problem.

The Elaboration of the Implicit61 Nowhere was this clash of styles better exemplified than by the contrast on the Ara Pacis between the enclosure’s Processional frieze (fig. 4.5) and Aeneas landscape (fig. 6.20). Indeed, early on this became a critical commonplace in the study of Roman art. The crucial question was the explication of those two styles’ relationship, and the critical assessment of their roles in the relief tradition. Philippi’s analysis of that relationship was influential, and it underlies, directly or indirectly, much of the discussion of the problem since it was published in 1872. His account, set out in his discussion of the reliefs from the Arch of Titus, depended on three distinct factors. First, Philippi thought that on the arch’s reliefs, the compositions depended on the figures being packed closely together, filling up the surface of the relief ground by means of additional figures set in the background, so that the role of particular silhouettes was reduced and that, as a result, individual figures were actually represented only partially rather than in their entirety.62 Second, both of the Titus Arch’s passageway reliefs, to different degrees, display what Philippi called a “perspectival shifting of the surfaces”: that is, the orientation of the figures within the depicted groups were varied across the breadth of the image, now laterally, in profile, in conjunction with the narrative sequence, now frontally, as if directly addressing the relief’s spectators. This brought to fruition his first factor, Denn hier wird die Illusion, sofern sie von der Anordnung abhängt, vollkommener, einmal durch die vollständigere Ausfüllung des Reliefgrundes mittels weiterer, in den Hintergrund gestellter Figuren, sodann dadurch, dass sämtliche Figuren des ersten Gliedes auf den Beschauer orientiert sind. For here the illusion, insofar as it depends on the arrangement, is perfected, firstly through the more complete filling of the relief ground by means of further figures set in the background, and then by the fact that all the figures in the first file are oriented [frontally] towards the beholder.63

Both of these characteristics Philippi recognized as having been employed on Greek as well as Roman works. Yet his third factor, present on both the Titus reliefs, was different:

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Dagegen begegnen wir in beiden Reliefen einem dritten Mittel der Anordnung, welches dem griechischen Relief fremd ist, und dieses bedingt wesentlich den Charakter des römischen Reliefs. Es ist die Anwendung verschiedener Reliefschichten, wodurch die Bildfläche nicht bloss perspectivisch, sondern wirklich vertieft wird. Die erste Schicht tritt als völliges Hochrelief aus der Fläche, die zweite ist schon mehr abgeflacht, eine dritte, ganz flache erscheint nur noch wie gezeichnet auf dem Hintergrunde. On the other hand, in both reliefs we encounter a third means of arrangement, alien to Greek relief, and this essentially determines the character of Roman relief. It is the application of different relief layers, whereby the surface of the image is not only conceived perspectivally, but actually carved more deeply. The first layer emerges as a complete high relief from the surface, the second is already more flattened, a third, completely flat, appears only as drawn on the background.64

Of Philippi’s various observations, it was his analysis of the filling of the pictorial field that had the greatest influence, and that took hold in the work of subsequent critics, as we shall see; the other aspects of his assessment were often neglected and forgotten. For example, his evaluation of the effects of a contrast between profile and frontal views, would emerge, two generations later (if only implicitly) in discussions of the first stages of late antique style.65 But virtually unheralded was Philippi’s astute acknowledgement that one of the main consequences of the massing of figures so as to fill the relief field was that they would often be represented in part rather than in whole (quotation in n. 62). A century and a half later, this still remains to be adequately scrutinized (and will be discussed, below). There is little doubt that, while all three aspects of Philippi’s account of the Titus reliefs formed the basis of Wickhoff’s famed “illusionism,” they did not do so equally.66 Wickhoff recognized amidst the corpus of Graeco-Roman reliefs an alternative to the pictorial solution for representing space, or the limiting of its visible role, by means of a depicted background setting. Yet elaborating a central tenet of Philippi’s analysis (without referring to it), he acknowledged that, Es gibt noch eine andere Art, eine geschlossene Raumwirkung zu erzeugen als die durch die malerische Durchführung des Hintergrundes, das ist, wenn man die Figuren des Bildes oder Reliefs so nahe aneinander rückt, daß keinerlei Zwischenraum oder Hintergrund mehr bleibt, kein idealer und kein natürlich gedachter. There is another way of obtaining an effect of self-contained space besides the pictorial elaboration of the background, that is, by packing the figures of the picture or relief so close together that there is no interval or background between them, either ideal or actual.67

Wickhoff’s examples of the phenomenon were not surprising: the Great Altar frieze, the Alexander mosaic, and the Glanum reliefs, all of which he regarded as possessing “spatially-cohesive backgrounds.”68 But whereas Philippi had stressed the interrelationship between the compacted figural forms that characterized such compositions, their varied orientation within them, the tendency to represent them merely partially, and the

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visual effect of the varying degrees of the material presence of the figures – from nearly in the round to the subtlest relief – Wickhoff’s interests were different, and two-fold. First, Wickhoff regarded the Ara Pacis friezes as the forerunners of those on the Titus Arch. And he considered the material arrangement of the figures, in both cases, as secondary to their purely visual aspect, conveyed by the interplay of light and shadow, which was, for him, the relief medium’s primary feature. In a justly famous passage, he declared the processional frieze’s exploitation of shadow effects to be the central “pictorial” characteristic of its spatial illusionism. Speaking of the Ara Pacis’ processions and their designer, er ließ die herausgearbeiteten Figuren der vorderen Reihe ihren Schatten auf eine hintere Reihe werfen, die so flach gearbeitet war, daß sie keinen Schatten mehr auf den Grund werfen konnte, sondern silhouettenartig vor der Luft stand. [he] allowed the figures in high relief of the front row to cast their shadows on a back row of figures which were worked so flat on the ground that they could no longer cast any shadows against the background but stood like silhouettes against the sky.69

Second, Wickhoff’s famous interest in “illusionism,” which brought new force to the concept of the Reliefgemälde (discussed in Ch.  5, above), depended on all of the elements of a composition, including the background plane, playing a representational role – just as in painting. In order to produce the wanted effect, sculptors either had to eliminate the background as much as possible (as on the Ara Pacis processions) or treat it as an integral part of the representation, what Wickhoff would designate as a depiction of “atmosphere:” Da es jedoch die wirkliche Luft ist und keine gemalte, die sich zwischen den Gestalten ausbreitet, so mußte alle Kunst des Meisters darauf gerichtet sein, trotz der Gedrängtheit durch geschickte Gruppierung der Figuren der Luft Wege zu öffnen, so daß sie sich zwischen den Gestalten durchbewegen, sie umgeben, über ihnen schweben und so mithelfen kann, die Modellierung zu vollenden, ebenso wie das Licht der Sonne, das, wenn es einbricht, erst diese Gestalten zu zauberhaftem Leben erweckt. Dieses Mitwirkenlassen der natürlichen Beleuchtung zur Vollendung des künstlerischen Effektes war eine der kühnsten Neuerungen. Since it is the real and not painted air that filters in between the figures, it follows that all the master’s art should be aimed, despite the compressed groupings of the figures, at opening ways for the air to seem as if to move between, above, and around their forms, thus helping to supplement the modelling, as does the sunlight, which, when it breaks in, awakens these figures as if to magical life. To allow natural illumination to contribute to the perfecting of the artistic effect was one of the boldest innovations.70

But this description of the Arch of Titus spoils panel, Wickhoff’s notorious example of the illusionist effect in relief, has often been misunderstood. For he explicitly regarded the spoils relief’s effect as “incomplete” in his illusionist sense:

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An einer Stelle ist die Täuschung nicht vollständig. Die getragenen Geräte selbst werfen Schatten auf die Luft und scheinen somit das gewünschte Zurückweichen des Grundes zu stören. In one place the illusion is not complete. The vessels which are being carried along throw shadows on the air, and thus appear to disturb the desired effect of a receding background.71

Thus his perceptive “logical conclusion” of his analysis, that the sacred vessels carried aloft must have been gilded, so that Das Licht der Sonne, so beschäftigte ihr Glanz das Auge so sehr, daß daneben die Beschattung des Grundes, wenn sie auch nicht verschwand, doch der Beobachtung ent­ zogen wurde. The glare of the sun light […] would so strongly attract the eye by its brilliance that the shadows thrown on the background might, if they did not disappear, at least pass unobserved.72

That the sacred vessels were indeed painted yellow, so as to appear as if golden, has now been scientifically confirmed,73 corroborating Wickhoff’s intuition and this particular aspect of his formal analysis of the relief. But his suggestion of an interrelationship between the physical character of these reliefs, their intended pictorial effects, and their illusion of space have long had a mixed reception.74 Nearly a generation later, Sieveking, in one of the earliest and most thorough attempts to assess the character and development of Roman relief, took up only some of these issues. His emphasis on the Augustan period’s innovations, on the Ara Pacis in particular, seized on Wickhoff’s precedent, and his analysis validated Wickhoff’s emphasis on the processional frieze’s “packed” scene and how it eliminated a view to any possible background. Without any direct reference to Philippi’s essay in which the idea had originally been elaborated, Sieveking emphasized the spatial implications of a composition designed as if without a background, and how this was effected without reliance on a modern sense of perspective; on the Ara Pacis procession, Hierbei, also lediglich durch die Art, wie die Figuren untereinander verbunden sind, hervorgerufen, entsteht für den Beschauer die Illusion eines Raumgebildes. Daß der leere Hintergrund auf ein möglichst geringes Maß beschränkt ist, nicht etwa über den Köpfen hin als ein breiter Streifen verläuft, verstärkt diesen Eindruck noch, und das gleiche wird dadurch bewirkt, daß beide Langseiten nur zwei Ausschnitte, natürlich mit den wichtigsten Personen, geben, also weder Anfang noch Ende des Zuges enthalten, ein fein überlegtes Hilfsmittel, das wie schon erwähnt sehr mit Unrecht als unkünstlerisch getadelt wurde. Jede Figur wird durch die Stellungnahme der Nachbargestalten zu ihr räumlich hervorgehoben, darin allein liegt die Tiefenwirkung dieses Reliefs begründet, die es von allen seinen Vorgängern unterscheidet und die auch zu dem Parthenonfries im schärfsten Gegensatz steht.

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Here, an illusion of a spatial structure is created for the viewer, caused only by the way the figures are interconnected. The fact that the blank background is limited to the narrowest possible extent, rather than running over their heads as a broad strip, reinforced this impression, and the same thing is effected by the fact that both long sides present only two segments [of the entire event], naturally with the most important people, so that neither the beginning nor the end of the procession is included: a fine, deliberate compositional technique, which, as has already been mentioned, was very unjustly blamed as inartistic. Each figure is spatially emphasized by the placement of the figures alongside it; in this alone lies the depth effect of this relief, which distinguishes it from all its predecessors and which is also in the sharpest contrast to the Parthenon frieze.75

The elimination of the background, according to Sieveking, allowed the crowded figural forms to assert their own sense of space.76 The formulation is essentially graphic, and seemingly reasserts the emphasis on compositions that set out their figures alongside one another, as if “spread out in the plane,” which, as we have seen, was a conception central to the analyses of relief in the work of Hildebrand, Loewy, Weickert, Matz, and Riegl.77 For Sieveking it was the stillness of the processional scene, in contrast to the drama and movement of Wickhoff’s examples, which allowed a subtle display of the depicted figures’ interrelationships to one another and their situation within the represented space of the scene: Nur dieses durchgehend festgehaltene Motiv der momentanen Ruhe bot dem Künstler Gelegenheit, die einzelnen Figuren in ihren Stellungen so unter sich zu verbinden, daß sich dem ganzen Relief gegenüber der beobachtete Eindruck der Räumlichkeit einstellt. Von einem Versuch, räumliche Tiefe durch perspektivische Verkürzung zu erzielen, ist keine Spur vorhanden, bei der Anordnumg in zwei Reihen genügte ja auch das alte Rezept, die hintere in flachem Relief zu bilden, wobei nur geradezu als raffiniert die Art und Weise zu bezeichnen ist, wie hier die Köpfe in ihrer Stellung zum Hintergrund abwechseln. Only this motif of the momentary silence, captured throughout the scene, offered the artist the opportunity to connect the individual figures among themselves in their placement, so that the whole relief is in contrast with the observed impression of spatiality. There is no trace of an attempt to achieve spatial depth through perspectival foreshortening; the old recipe, the arrangement in two rows, which rendered the rear figures in flat relief, was sufficient, while the way in which the poses of the heads alternate in the background here can only be described as quite sophisticated.78

The shallow space of such scenes, crowded with their double row of figures arrayed paratactically, was their dominant characteristic. Sieveking regarded this space as enclosed, but also recognized that it was manifestly limited. In these processions the figures are designed to forgo an extended display of cohesive space. Indeed, behind the crowded screen of figures in the foreground there is no representation of space; not only is there is nothing visible behind them, but there is no implication of a behind at all – and in this the Ara Pacis procession (fig. 4.5) is the antithesis of

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the pictorial solution employed on the Munich Family votive (fig. 4.4). The implication of Sieveking’s analysis was that the processional solution to the spatial problem was not of space’s representation, but its elimination. The formal character of the processional friezes, and their evident spatial limitations, emerged when they were compared to the Ara Pacis’ mythological panels. For the contrasting spatial formula employed on the Aeneas panel (fig. 6.20) and the pictorial effect of its discontinuous composition was not always comprehended; indeed, it was apparently lost on Sieveking, whose usually astute analytic powers, in this instance, failed him. Although he was surely correct in regarding the entire scene “as a segment cut from a larger whole,” it is hardly true to say that “the impression of spatiality is gained by the finely graduated positioning of the figures relative to each other, to the staffage and to the background.”79 Here Sieveking attempts to adapt his description of the processions’ compositional logic to a wholly different kind of image, whose spatial relationships are expanded and distinguished one from the other, but in no sense graduated. For the Aeneas scene’s middle ground is invisible, yet implicit. As Sieveking seems to have realized, but failed to fully articulate, a consciousness of its absence is essential to the panel’s full spatial effect. It was Blanckenhagen who would eventually discern and elaborate the full significance of the Ara Pacis’ two basic compositional formulae. In analyzing the processional frieze and the altar’s mythological reliefs, he recognized their differing stylistic character and their contrasting treatment of space in language that betrays the profound influence of Philippi’s insights, Wickhoff’s interpretations, Sieveking’s elaborations, and Weickert’s intuitions. According to Blanckenhagen, Die mythologischen Reliefs der Ara Pacis stehen in ihrer inneren Haltung und formalen Ausführung dem großen Fries sehr nahe. Aber in zwei wesentlichen Stilmerkmalen unterscheiden sie sich doch, in Raumdarstellung und Perspektive. Der Fries kennt einen sinnlich unmittelbar spürbaren Luftraum nicht, die in Vorderansicht gegebenen Köpfe der hinteren Personenreihe entmaterialisieren zwar den Reliefgrund als solchen, aber nur in gleichsam gedanklich faßbarer Weise, nicht so, daß dadurch der Eindruck lufthaltiger Tiefe entstünde. Man kann zwar den Grund nicht einfach ablösen, denn die Figuren sind ihm nicht von außen her aufgesetzt, aber den Grund ist vergleichsweise noch indifferent, nicht gleichberechtigter Bestandteil der ganzen Komposition. Eindrucksmäßig ist nicht mehr Raum vorhanden, als das Volumen der Körper ausfüllt. In den Reliefbildern ist das Gegenteil der Fall. Hier ist die Einbeziehung eines tiefenhaltigen Raumes beabsichtigt und erreicht. Und zwar ist er nicht meßbar an den Reliefschichten und am Volumen der dargestellten Gegenstände, er ist vielmehr unendlich. Der Reliefgrund ist also gar nicht mehr „Reliefgrund“, sondern gleichsam tätiges Glied des Ganzen, nicht anders als auch in den Ornamentplatten, deren Ranken nicht aufgetragene künstliche Gebilde sind, sondern vom eigenen Organismus her geordnete Naturformen in freiem Raum. Die tatsächliche Höhen- oder Tiefenausdehnung des Reliefs spielt dabei gar keine Rolle, die vorgestellte jedoch ist desto wichtiger.

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The mythological reliefs of the Ara Pacis are, in their internal composition and formal design, very close to those of the large frieze. But in two main stylistic features they differ: in the representation of space and the use of perspective. The [processional] frieze is not to be understood as an immediately noticeable sensual “atmospheric” ambient, since the heads shown frontally in the rear row clearly dematerialize the relief ground as such, but only in a manner that is, so to speak, intellectual, not as if it would create the impression of an “atmospheric” depth. Indeed, one cannot easily divorce the figures from the ground, because the figures are not added to it from without, but the ground is still comparatively indifferent, not an equal part of the whole composition. The main impression is no longer one of available space filled by the volumes of the bodies. In the [mythological] relief images, the opposite is the case. Here, the inclusion of a sense of deep space is intended and achieved. And it cannot be measured in the number of relief layers and the volume of the objects represented, rather, it is infinite. The relief ground is therefore no longer the relief ground, but almost as if an active participant in the whole, not unlike in the [Ara Pacis’] ornamental plates [the acanthus frieze], whose tendrils are not artificially applied forms, but ordered, organically, in open space, according to their own natural forms. The actual height or the extent of the relief’s depth thus plays no role, but what is represented is all the more important.80

The various debts to the scholarly discussion about relief over the previous two generations are manifest if subtle, and Blanckenhagen’s account culminates in a clear echo of Weickert’s.81 Here Weickert’s claims for “unbounded” space (unbegrenzte Raumtiefe) and the capacity to produce pictorial illusion in relief were given their due in trenchant and extended description. And perhaps more significantly, in Blanckenhagen’s acknowledgment of the co-existence of two distinct styles on the Ara Pacis, Matz’s realization of the manifold nature of space in relief (discussed in Ch. 4, above) found a more articulate formulation and a new and most significant example. Yet amid all of these discussions, one significant aspect that had been noted by Philippi, almost in passing, has been largely overlooked. This was his recognition that partial representations were a significant and obvious consequence of the compacting and massing of figures.82 Pressed together, parts of bodies were the visible substitute for wholes, and these “incomplete” forms often played a significant role in enacting an image’s subject-matter. The crowd of figures that makes up the Ara Pacis processions, in so many instances merely individuated by the heads, could produce the wanted illusion of the throng gathered together for the ceremony. This was so despite the accelerated, and wholly unnatural, diminution of the physicality that distinguishes them, arrayed side by side, from very high to very low relief, so as to effect an illusion of recession. Philippi seems to have grasped a subtle paradox: that a more naturalistic form of illusionistic depiction, such as employed for the processional friezes, might rely for its effects on a less naturalistic replication of its physical reality. This is the intellectual and analytical setting in which Wickhoff’s illusionism took hold. For at its core, that illusionism depended not only on

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the representational role of all of an image’s aspects (such as the blank background), and on all of these elements’ depiction within a common spatial continuum, but on the implicit presence of what these compositions inevitably left unrepresented. The salient counterpart to the tenet that everything must be representational was that not everything need be fully represented for illusionism to be effected. This may be grasped from the widely-shared sense of a trajectory from the Augustan period to the Flavian era: the limited space of the processional friezes, the unbounded but neither continuous nor measurable space of the Aeneas panel, with its absent middle ground, and the Arch of Titus panels that granted a newly significant representational role to the “empty” background plane. The implicit presence of figural forms not fully represented would anchor new stylistic solutions that were yet to evolve. The full force of Philippi’s intuition about the illusionistic effects of what were only “a small part of their entire bodily forms” (einem kleinen Theile ihres Körpers) was to play a major role in the later history of Roman relief style, as we shall see (Ch. 7, below). This continuing course of changing responses to the problem of space in Roman relief demonstrates the variety of possible artistic solutions.

“That Most Elementary Effect of Nature” The problem, so fundamental to the interpretation and history of relief sculpture, of how to transform graphic figure-ground relationships into full and convincing spatial representations was, ultimately, less a question of finding subjects and devising compositions appropriate to the task than of conceiving how representations might prove adequate to the very idea. How might one represent the volumetric character of individuated forms so as to appear as integral parts of the spatial continuum that envelops them? Despite their prominence in the historiography of the question, neither of the Ara Pacis examples displays such a continuum. By the Roman period, the effect was convincingly achieved in painted representations; the question was, could it be accomplished in relief?83 Wickhoff would frame the question and set the critical agenda, but the most acute response had already been offered by Hildebrand. As a sculptor, he had considered the intuition of spatial volume as a fundamentally intellectual problem, and the representation of such cohesive space, a profound artistic undertaking: Stellen wir uns nun diese Aufgabe vor, durch die Erscheinung dieses allgemeine Naturvolumen zur Anschauung zu bringen, so müssen wir vorerst dieses Naturvolumen uns plastisch vorstellen als einen Hohlraum, welcher zum Teil durch die Einzelvolumina der Gegenstände, zum Teil durch den Luftkörper erfüllt ist. Er existiert nicht als ein von aussen begrenzter, sondern als ein von innen belebter.

“That Most Elementary Effect of Nature”

237 Fig. 6.21 Greek grave stele (man with hare and fruit), ca. mid-fifth century BC. Marble, 2.46 m (H). Athens, Archaeological Museum, inv. 741.

If we now set for ourselves the task of making visible the appearance of this natural space as a whole, then we first have to imagine it three-dimensionally as a void filled in part by the individual volumes of objects and in part by the air. The void exists not as something externally limited but rather as something internally animated.84

In theory at least, the representational demand was clear. As Riegl would formulate it, artists “had to reject the ground surface completely and replace it with something that gave the impression of empty space.”85 This could not be accomplished by the greater animation of Brunn’s idea of the two planes of relief (discussed above in Ch. 1 , pp. 50–51; Ch. 2, passim), and by granting the figures embraced by the two planes more three dimensionality. The delimitation of relief forms, contained within the frames of their panels, had a long history in the sculptural repertory (fig. 6.21).86 The addition of a deeper aedicule, and a more three-dimensional presentation of its framed figures in real space (figs 6.22 and 6.23; cf. fig. 1.13),87 was clearly not an adequate solution for the representation of space as the problem was posed by Hildebrand, Wickhoff, and Riegl. As comparison

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Fig. 6.22 Asklepios votive, ca.  350 BC. Marble, 65 cm (H). Athens, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 10451.

Fig. 6.23 Palazzo Sachetti relief, ca. 203 AD. Marble, 1.48 m (H). Rome, Palazzo Sacchetti.

of the same motif in painting and sculpture suggests (figs 6.24 and 6.25; cf. figs 6.26 and 6.27),88 that what was wanted was the visualization, in relief, of a sense of what Wickhoff had called “atmosphere,” within which all of the represented forms might be seen to exist. Such a spatial form is not a quality found in many ancient works of art – but is vividly employed in early modern paintings, and it is highly likely that familiarity with these influenced the views of scholars.89 The phe-

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“That Most Elementary Effect of Nature”

Fig. 6.24 Funerary stele (hunter with dog), ca. 360 BC. Marble, 1.19 m (H). Munich, Glyptothek, inv. 272 b.

Fig. 6.25 Apulian red-figure volute krater, mid fourth century BC. Terracotta, 59.8 cm (H). Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum of ­Archaeology, inv. KM 1982.2.1.

Fig. 6.27 Sosos’ Doves mosaic from Hadrian’s villa, Tivoli, ca. 125 AD. Mosaic, 85 cm (H). Rome, Museo Capitolini, inv. MC0402. Fig. 6.26 Altar of Numerius Lucius Hermeros (with doves drinking), late Augustan, after 5 AD. Marble, 63 cm (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale delle Terme, inv. 205824.

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Fig. 6.28 Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1601. Oil and tempera on canvas, 141 cm (H). London, National Gallery of Art, inv. NG172.

nomenon appears perhaps nowhere so vividly as in Caravaggio’s London Supper at Emmaus, painted in 1601 (fig. 6.28). Here, a conception such as Hildebrand’s is exploited compositionally, as the figures’ positions, poses, and outstretched arms, set as if on a cramped and shallow stage, mark the full extent of the nearly claustrophobically-enclosed picture space. The affective force of the spatial illusion is not only enclosed, as Wickhoff had called for, but the figural forms serve as a means for an intuited measuring of its extent, and to define and to unify the volumetric space that contains them.90 And the role of light in the painting answered Riegl’s call for the depiction of empty space. The dilemma was how to achieve  – indeed, whether one could achieve – the same effect in sculpture. Hildebrand regarded our fundamental mobility as perceiving beings, the intermingling of sense experiences, and the resulting consciousness that we live surrounded by nature in a spatial world as essential to lived experience: Da wir der Natur nicht nur als Augengeschöpfe und festgebannt an einen Standpunkt gegenüber stehen, sondern mit allen unseren Sinnen zugleich in ewigem Wechsel und in Bewegung, so leben und weben wir in dem Raumbewusstsein einer uns umgebenden Natur, auch wenn die Erscheinung an sich noch so wenig Anhaltspunkte zur Raumvorstellung bietet. Wir fragen nicht, wie kommt das Bewusstsein zustande, auf welcherlei Eindrücken, Wahrnehmungen beruht es. Wir machen nicht den Anspruch, dass die Erscheinung uns immer neu den Raum exemplifiziere, wir haben ja das Bewusstsein, dass er ist, auch bei geschlossenen Augen. Since we view nature not only as visual beings tied to a single vantage point but, rather, with all our senses at once, in perpetual change and motion, we live and weave a spatial consciousness of the nature that surrounds us, even where the appearance

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before us offers scarcely any point of reference for the idea of space. We do not ask how this awareness comes into being or on what impressions and perceptions it is based. Nor do we demand that space constantly be exemplified in the appearances before us: we remain aware of it even when we close our eyes.91

How, precisely, was the object of such a consciousness to be represented? Hildebrand offered no specific examples; the sources and the monuments, however, present some suggestive cases, all of which revolve around the representation not of the surrounding air, but of light. For light, as opposed to the air, could be depicted, not merely evoked, as Caravaggio would vividly demonstrate in the seventeenth century. This the ancients had recognized, and four passages from Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturalis record examples. These were all seemingly inauspicious representations of a boy blowing on the coals of a fire. Two claim to attest statues of the mid-to-late fifth century bc: one attributed to Styppax of Cyprus, who “is known for a single statue, his ‘Man Cooking Tripe’ [splanchnopte], which represented a domestic slave of the Olympian Pericles roasting innards and puffing out his cheeks as he kindles the fire with his breath [ignemque oris pleni spiritu accendens]”92; the other is attributed to Lycius, “a pupil of Myron [who] did a ‘Boy blowing a Dying Fire’ that is worthy of his instructor.”93 The mid-fifth century date ascribed to both these works is suspicious, since the subject seems wholly alien to the age to which both are assigned. Nothing quite like this scene survives, certainly not in sculpture, until considerably later, and it is hard to imagine such a subject gaining fame in an artistic world dominated by the heroic ideals exemplified by the Parthenon sculptures or by Polykleitos. Nevertheless, the connection to Myron (and to the fifth century generally) gives one pause: it reminds us, on the one hand of his famous Cow (a work similarly celebrated for its naturalistic character) and, on the other, of his Athena and Marsyas (not so much for this group’s forms, but for the Olympian disdain of the deforming effect of the satyr’s pipes that the myth so famously relates). But in the case of Myron’s work we see nothing of the “puffed out cheeks” which Pliny attributes to the work of Styppax, and the Roman replicas of Myron’s Marsyas are spared the ugly and distorted features that were associated in the story with the flutes. Such exaggerated physiognomic imagery was to become commonplace in sculpture by the end of the fourth century, as a host of flute-playing satyrs attest – but it seems anachronistic amid the high Classicism of the latter decades of the fifth. Pliny’s two other references are more compelling, as they record paintings of the same subject.94 One is ascribed to Philiscus, who is said to have produced an image of “a painter’s Studio with a boy blowing the fire;” about Philiscus, nothing more than this is known.95 But a second work, is attributed to Antiphilus, a painter of the late fourth century, “who is

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Fig. 6.29 Fresco from the house of the Vettii showing the cupids frieze (detail: Cupid at forge), first century AD. Pompeii, in situ.

praised for his [painting of a] ‘Boy Blowing a Fire,’ and for the apartment, beautiful in itself, lit by the reflection from the fire and the light thrown on the boy’s face96.” Here we have a description whose pictorial effects are patent. Yet the motif of blowing on coals is rare, even in painting.97 Perhaps the only thing of the kind is the scene from Pompei’s House of the Vettii, where (fig. 6.29) a putto uses a blowpipe to fan the flames of the forge.98 There we find the puffed out cheeks and the face lit by reflection, although these light effects are hardly reserved in this frieze for this vignette alone; rather, they, together with the black background, form a prominent aspect of the entire frieze’s style and thus serve as a unifying element of the room’s decorative scheme. The coal-blowing motif’s role in sculpture is, by contrast, rather paradoxically well-attested. And when the boy blowing coals motif is coupled with a cauldron roasting over the fire, one recognizes a reference to a central element of the work specifically attributed by Pliny to Styppax. Even if the actuality of such a work is unlikely at the reputed date, there can be little doubt that the ancient historiographic and iconographic traditions presumed there was one. These traditions are exemplified most strikingly by a sculptural group of Roman date, now in Naples (fig. 6.30),99 where a boy bends over to blow on the coals … and, of course, nothing happens: this is a sculpture, a form to which those pictorial qualities conveyed by internal light – for which the motif had long been celebrated – cannot possibly belong. It is unlikely that a date in the Classical period for any of the three works Pliny records is appropriate or convincing. Such seemingly genre subject matter is scarcely present in that era. The unsuitability at that early a date of physiognomic distortion has already been touched upon, and that of a

“That Most Elementary Effect of Nature”

243 Fig. 6.30 Boar boiling scene with coal blowing, early first century AD. Marble, 80 cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 6218.

depicted space lit by reflection is equally puzzling. This same motif does appear in a series of later genre-scenes in a variety of media as well as in relief, amidst which it formed what was clearly a commonplace vignette, whose similar renderings in a host of examples suggest a common derivation. The image of the fanning of flames was easily transposed to other mythological contexts,100 employed as a clever motif for lamps,101 or reconceived as the blowing out of candles.102 But why should a sculpted rendition of such a seemingly inconsequential genre motif, either fully in three dimensions or in relief, and devoid of what we may presume to have been the striking pictorial qualities of its model, become so widespread? No fully persuasive answer suggests itself, but it would seem that by the Roman period the “boy blowing on coals” may well have taken on a life of its own as a genre subject, and was no longer tied to a remembered and already ancient model attested by early art writing.103 But in the art of the emerging Hellenistic age such pictorial effects of light were clearly celebrated. Wickhoff had adduced a very similar instance, dating the phenomenon to the middle Hellenistic period, when he invoked a related scene recounted in a passage in Athenaeus, who cites Polemon of Illium’s (fl. early second c. bc) description of a painting of the marriage of Peirithoüs by Hippeus: In the Marriage of Perithoüs, at Athens, Hippeus represents the wine-pitcher (­oinochoe) and the goblet as bejeweled, with the rims covered over with gilt; the

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couches are fir-boughs laid on the ground, decorated with rugs in many designs, the drinking-cups are kantheroi of pottery, as is likewise the lamp which is suspended from the ceiling, with wide-spreading jets of flame.104

For Wickhoff, Polemon’s account is distinguished by several unusual characteristics: it utterly ignored its ostensibly narrative subject – not a single figure was mentioned; the artist apparently individuated the scene’s furnishing with naturalistic colors; it reported how the full expanse of the room was depicted: the couches were clearly “on the floor,” and “the lamp […] is suspended from the ceiling;” and, central for Wickhoff’s concerns, the represented space was unified by the light of the hanging lamp’s “wide-spreading jets of flame.” This is much the same as Pliny had said about Antiphilus’ painting. Wickhoff understood that here an entire room was reputed to have been depicted – as if a box – with walls, floor and ceiling, and internally illuminated by the lamp.105 As a result, the ambient space of the marriage-chamber has itself become a vivid aspect of the work, as the medium through which light is carried to the objects that reflect its glow. Here we find the fulfillment of Wickhoff’s desire for an entire image set within an enclosed space (das ganze Bild einen in sich geschlossenen Raum), an effect, as we have seen, that is seemingly not recognizable as an aspect of the relief tradition.106 The limitations of the representation of space in relief are evident on even our most compelling examples. The small fragmentary panel from Capua depicting a garden and its surrounding portico (fig. 5.38; discussed above in Ch. 5 , pp. 198–199), suggests the difficulty of representing space as such. What this work does manage to successfully convey, however, despite its awkward juxtapositions and its rather crude carving, is a relatively coherent depiction of both a bounded space and its articulated interior. Yet, as evocative as it is, the very formlessness of that ambiance, entirely negative in character and absent of materiality, still fails to meet the challenge Wickhoff’s analysis posed. As “art generally resists being reduced to the merely physical,” early stone relief had long opposed modeling in true conformity to Nature. Here Loewy was sanguine about the fundamental limitations of relief sculpture, and much more circumspect about this problem than Hildebrand and Wickhoff had been.107 In Wickhoff’s view, what was wanting in relief was obvious, and the impossibility of its representation within the formal constraints of the medium, perhaps as much so. Yet, in contrast to nearly all of his predecessors and his successors, Hildebrand regarded the attempt to represent coherent and continuous space as an essential aspect of the relief sculptor’s project, not only in the present, but by implication, in

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the ancient past. His approach to the problem’s resolution was decidedly theoretical. For space, whether real or illusionistic, was not simply what was left after the figural forms were set within a frame, but demanded its own representation. But how to do so? And if not in relief, in what artistic medium, other than painting, was this possible? In fact, save for the description given by Polemon, even in painting one is hard-pressed to find a striking ancient example of such an effect amid the surviving corpus. The motif of light-filled space is rare, and perhaps the only thing of the kind is found amid the already-mentioned cupids’ frieze from Pompeii’s House of the Vettii. There, such effects form a prominent aspect and unifying element of the room’s decorative scheme (fig. 6.29) – notably in the case of the putto, cheeks puffed out and face lit by reflection, who fans the flames. Yet in this instance the effect is localized, dependent on the depiction of the light source and its immediate effects. This is not a visualization of a cohesive ambiance suffused by light that gives volumetric form to space itself. By contrast, what Hildebrand had in mind was a representation of space as a defined form. And in explanation, he conjured a sense of Nature as such a spatial continuum by means of a metaphor: Unter einem Raumganzen verstehen wir den Raum als dreidimensionale Ausdehnung, als Bewegungsfähigkeit oder Bewegungsthätigkeit unserer Vorstellung nach den drei Dimensionen, sein Wesentliches ist die Kontinuität. Stellen wir uns deshalb das Raumganze vor wie eine Wassermasse, in die wir Gefässe senken und dadurch Einzelvolumina abgrenzen als die bestimmten geformten Einzelkörper, ohne die Vorstellung der kontinuierlichen Wassermasse zu verlieren. Dieses Raumganze der Natur soll durch die Darstellung zum Ausdrucke kommen, wenn wir die elementarste Wirkung der Natur, die sich uns aufdrängt, festhalten wollen. By a spatial continuum [Raumganzen] we mean space in its three-dimensional extension, within which we have an ability to move or for our imagination to act, as if in three dimensions, its essence being continuity. Let us therefore imagine the spatial continuum as a body of water in which we can submerge containers and thus define individual volumes as specifically formed individual bodies without losing the conception of the whole as one continuous body of water. This spatial continuity of nature will be expressed in the artistic representation if we can only capture the most elementary effect that nature imposes on us.108

One suspects that Hildebrand’s metaphor derived, in at least some small part, from the story of Michelangelo’s replication bath and his method of submerging his clay models (fig. 3.2; see Ch. 3, above). But the image of three-dimensional figural forms suspended in a body of water now serves as a means to describe our perception of the surrounding space itself as a volume, as possessing its own shape, and as presenting to our sense experience something akin to that “homogeneity” that would later be denied by Panofsky (see above, p.  211). Indeed, this continuity of positive and negative forms was the “most elementary effect of Nature”; the question,

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Fig. 6.31 Still-life with fruit from Pompeii (II,2,3), ca. first century AD. Fresco, 40 cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 8645. .

actually unanswered by Hildebrand, was how the lived experience of this effect might be represented. There were a few possibilities, yet these were not produced in relief; paintings and mosaics provide rare examples. For something of the desired effect is perceived in certain Pompeian “still-life” compositions (fig. 6.31) of representations of transparent glass vessels. 109 More daring examples are found in several Roman mosaic emblemata representing fish and other marine creatures. The imagery of some of these was conceived, as if they were conventional panel paintings (fig. 6.32), to be seen in a “straight-on” view, complete with an implied horizon line, rather than fully determined by their setting on the floor, where they would be seen from above. However, the most ambitious examples of these “fish” mosaics were conceived as if one observed these marine creatures in an aquarium, seen within the volume of water that comprised their necessary habitat, as though underwater (fig. 6.33), in “a kind of vertical section of the sea,” in what has been wittily termed a “fish’s-eye view.”110 On several such aquatic mosaics, we encounter something approaching a visualization of Hildebrand’s descriptive image: works that offer a sense of that cohesive spatial continuity that he had attempted to evoke by means of metaphor. For the spatial continuity of nature that he sought, and which was so effortlessly expressed intellectually by means of language, was so much less readily manifest to our perceptual experience – if at all, if Panofsky is to be believed. And, despite Hildebrand’s ambitions, it seems clear that such a coherent image of space was impossible to represent in relief. Indeed, a thorough review of the ancient monuments suggests, more generally, that as an artistic form, neither Wickhoff’s “self-contained spatial ambience” nor Hildebrand’s “most elementary effect of Nature” was actually known to antiquity – and only rarely to the entire artistic tradition.

“That Most Elementary Effect of Nature”

247 Fig. 6.32 Fish mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii (VI,12,2), ca. 120 BC. Mosaic, 175 cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 9997 (= 889).

Fig. 6.33 Fish mosaic from Pompeii (VIII,2,16), ca. 100 BC. Mosaic, 88cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale ­Archeologico, inv. 120177.

7.  The Rejection of Space

In der Tat ist die Geschichte der römischen Kunst die Geschichte des langsamen Absterbens des organisch-plastischen Sinnes und des wachsenden Übergewichts der flächigen Gestaltung in Relief und Malerei. The history of Roman art is, in fact, the history of the slow dying out of the organic and plastic tendencies and the growing predominance of surface forms in both relief and painting Bernhard Schweitzer, 1950.1

A Trajanic period tomb slab commemorating Ulpia Epigone (fig.  7.1) employs a well-known funerary motif, yet exhibits it by means of an unsual visual formula.2 Recumbent on her kline, her head propped upon a cushion, Ulpia lies in a box-like space hollowed out for her figure. This rectangular niche is clearly foreshortened and was intended to suggest that the forms of both body and couch were to be seen at an angle, receding into space, following the three-dimensional conventional statuary type employed atop sarcophagi (fig. 7.2) that provided the sculptural model.3 Yet Ulpia’s body appears tipped-up so as to display her parallel to the front of the relief block. She is arrayed in striking contrast to her setting, and only her bent leg, trailing behind, suggests any recession in space.4 The monument is thus marked by three fundamental aspects of style: her form is presented frontally, despite its recumbent pose; the choice to do so reflects a desire to convey her body in the most informative fashion possible (to recall a crucial aspect of both Lange’s and Loewy’s analyses of such forms);5 and the relief adapts and transforms a statuary type well-established on the funerary monuments of this period to the medium of relief. All three of these characteristics are not limited to private monuments, and find a place across a host of genres. As we shall see, the constellation of these aspects signals a rejection – albeit an ambivalent one – of space as a defining feature of sculpted relief. Schweitzer’s intuition of a gradual diminution of emphasis, from three dimensions to two, with a concomitant dominance of planarity, was clearly

250

Fig. 7.1 Ulpia Epigone funerary relief, first century AD. Marble, 1.19 m (H). ­Vatican, Musei Vaticani, inv. 9856.

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indebted to Riegl. In his assessment of the contemporary friezes on the Constantinian arch, his Austrian predecessor had articulated how, Schon eine flüchtige Ansicht des Reliefs lehrt, dass der Künstler seine Aufgabe in der Herstellung einer individuellen Einheit vermittels zentraler Komposition in der Ebene erblickt hat; wir haben es also noch immer mit einer antiken Ebencomposition und nicht mit einer modernen Raumkomposition zu tun. Even an intital glance at the relief reveals that the artist had recognized that his task was to create a singular unity in the plane by means of a centralized composition; we thus still have to do with an antique surface composition, and not with a modern spatial one.6

Schweitzer’s judgement had given the spirit of Riegl’s analysis lapidary form. More significantly, it captured the transformation of late antique art that had led to an attenuation, if not to an outright rejection, of the representation of space. Indeed, a nearly identical claim to that of Schweitzer’s, in almost the same formulation, had been anticipated by Rodenwaldt in the 1930s. In a discussion of the new visual forms employed on the mid-third century ad battle sarcophagi, he too had elaborated on Riegl’s radical vision: But, though this plastic treatment is still purely classical, we seem to perceive in the pose and movement of each figure a certain lack of sure feeling for the organic growth and rhythm of the whole which attests a falling off in plastic sensibility.7

This chapter endeavors to sketch some of the varied forms that contributed to the emergence of a Late Classical style as it came to be regarded in the first half of the twentieth century. It will analyze, by means of a series of examples, those factors that Rodenwaldt called the “first steps” (Vorstufen)

Perspectives without Space

251 Fig. 7.2 Kline monument with Reclining young girl, ca. 120–140 AD. Marble, 38 cm (H). Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 73. AA.11.

towards the stylistic transformation of artistic form that was to emerge in the later third century ad. The roots of this transformation were variously conceived by scholars, but the foundation of this episode of art historical criticism lay with Riegl and his radically novel interpretation of all the artistic forms – architecture, sculpture, and painting – an interpretation marked by his new emphasis on the perception of those forms’ material character. Yet it was mainly Rodenwaldt, later (and to a lesser degree) Hinks, and finally Bianchi Bandinelli, who played the major intellectual roles in the perspicacious development of a broad interpretation of the new style, its characteristic features, and its historical significance. These interpretations were rooted in a contrast defined as great and popular (Rodenwaldt), aulic and plebeian (Bianchi Bandinelli), or similar distinctions. But it would be Bianchi Bandinelli who would offer the most fulsome elucidation of the style’s contrasting modes, as the Italian scholar pursued a cogent and historical synthesis that has left the most profound mark on the history of scholarship.

Perspectives without Space The spatial phenomenon displayed on the tomb relief of Ulpia Epigone – a curious conjunction of perspective and its denial  – was not unique, although it was seldom so forcefully articulated. The same reclining figure motif appears on the famous funeral relief from Amiternum (fig. 7.3), with the similarly tilted-up corpse carried aloft on its bier and displayed for its beholders, within a scene whose overall recession of space is merely implied by the figures’ diminution in scale. Centuries earlier, on a fourth century bc votive panel to Aesklepios and Hygeia from Epidauros (fig. 7.4), a work marked by a nearly total disregard for the representation of space, the god appears to heal an incubant who similarly reclines on her couch, once again, unnaturally turned on her side so as to face, not the god or those shown as if attending the scene, but the relief’s viewers.8 All of these examples suggest the vivid effect of the artificial frontality to which their primary figures have been adapted, the characteristic that both Lange and

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Fig. 7.3 Funerary relief from ­Amiternum, late ­republican. Marble, 65 cm (H). ­L’Aquila, Museo ­Nazionale Abruzzese. Fig. 7.4 Asklepios incubation relief, ca. 350 BC. Marble, 42 cm. Piraeus, ­Archaeological Museum, inv. 405.

Loewy had regarded as a fundamental aspect, not only of Archaic art, but of much that had followed.9 This was the propensity to display images in a fashion that was, as Bianchi Bandinelli would describe it later, “the simplest form in which it is possible to enclose those aspects of the human form, both accidental and contingent, in an abstract schema.”10 The spatial peculiarities at work in such images appear with evident regularity in scenes that attempt to display things arrayed on a table-top. For example, a relief from Ostia (fig. 7.5) depicts a scene of a market stall, where a merchant stands surrounded by his goods, piled high at his sides and laid out before him on a trestle table, all at an unnatural scale. The most perplexing aspect of the image is that the table-top, like the image of Ulpia Epigone, is radically tilted up, perpendicular to the floor and parallel to the frontal plane, so as to display the produce for sale set upon it as it would be if viewed from above.11 A traditional fiction of being present at

Perspectives without Space

253 Fig. 7.5 Ostia Market Scene relief, ca. second century AD. Marble, 43 cm (H). Ostia, Museo Ostiense, inv. 198.

the scene is undermined as everything is spread out and displayed before the relief’s beholders, not at the visual angle of a prospective customer standing across the stall’s counter. There is only minor overlapping and virtually no recession, as three-dimensional spatial relationships are almost entirely reconceived as a two-dimensional design. The clashing points of view collapse any distinction between near and far, and destroy any sense of a compelling representation of the table’s recession in space, from behind which the merchant emerges. In this sense the image, whose spatial depth is everywhere limited and its planar quality paramount, declares itself virtually anti-perspectival in this drastic re-imagination of a scene widely known to experience from daily life. The relentlessly planar character of Ulpia Epigone’s monument and the Ostia market scene is evident and reinforced by a comparison with related images, several of which have already been adduced. The same conventions are employed, for example, by a group of amphorae, arranged in two parallel files, one set behind the other without obvious diminution, which fill a large portion of a fragmentary relief at the Vatican; another relief, in New York (fig. 7.6), presents a pyramidal stack of amphorae, now in three files, to similar effect.12 Both works display little if any sense of perspective; rather, at work in these examples, to a greater or lesser degree, is an effect of sameness, both of type and of size, rather than an impression of contrasting dimensions that coincides with the representation of distance. These works employ a widespread aesthetic formula for the rendering of

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Fig. 7.7 Adlocutio: Column of Trajan (scene 10), ca. 113 AD. Marble, ca. 1 m (H). Rome, in situ.

Fig. 7.6 Relief showing stacked amphoras, second ­century AD. Marble, 28.3 cm (H). New York, ­Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 25.78.63.

objects paratactically, as if to deny their array in space: one that substitutes planar superposition and juxtaposition for diminution and recession, and thus eradicates almost any expression of that artificially accelerated sense of scale reduction that often accompanies foreshortening. Such a paratactic array of elements, equal in size, is a variation on what Hamberg termed a “flock,” a composition marked by the dispersal of figures, adjacent to one another, staggered at different heights in rows. He regarded this, rightly, as a discrete pictorial structure: The primary characteristic of the flock is the equality of the figures [fig. 7.7]. In the flock there exists no marked difference between protagonists and supernumeraries or any differentiation between various types of action. In the flock all obey the same impulse […] all have approximately the same functions. This equality is expressed first and foremost by disposal of the rear persons in tiers, so that they are visible in semi-figure. In this way just that differentiation in value is avoided, which the isocephalic arrangement of figures behind each other must result in, by the rear ones

Perspectives without Space

255 Fig. 7.8 Frieze from the Siphnian Treasury, Delphi (detail: west freize), ca. 525 BC. Marble, 64 cm (H). Delphi, Archaeological Museum.

Fig. 7.9 Frieze from the Siphnian Treasury, Delphi (detail: north frieze), ca. 525 BC. Marble, 64 cm (H). Delphi, Archaeological Museum.

Fig. 7.10 Sulmona pastoral relief (from Corfinium), late republican. Limestone, 60 cm (H). Sulmona, Museo Civico.

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Fig. 7.11 Adlocutio: Column of Trajan (scene 85), ca. 113 AD. Marble, ca.  1 m (H). Rome, in situ.

in a more compact grouping being only partly visible in low relief between those in front. […] The action itself or the actors create the type and amount of space necessary for their purpose.”13

Variations on this formula, associated by Hamberg with the Roman historiated columns, were commonly employed throughout Greek and Roman times for a variety of representations in both painting and sculpture: the horses of quadrigae (fig. 7.8), the shields of soldiers (fig. 7.9), flocks of animals (fig. 7.10), or crowds of people (fig. 7.11).14 Since the represented elements in these scenes do not diminish in scale, this is not a true representation of recession in space, but what might be called its symbolization. And in relief its usage entailed the distinct advantage of requiring neither the reduction in size to signal distance into depth nor the successful representation of a spatial ambient, the two aspects of illusionism that, as we have already seen in the preceding chapters, posed, in a variety of ways, significant, if not insurmountable problems for relief sculpture. The stylistic device at work on the Ulpia Epigone and the Ostia merchant reliefs, the “tilting-up” of the represented forms so that they appear compressed against an imagined frontal plane, was neither novel nor culturally specific. One of the most striking examples is found on a pair of pedimental reliefs associated with the late Etruscan temples at Luni, Talamonaccio (fig. 7.12), and Civita Alba (fig. 7.13).15 Dated to the mid-second century bc, these group compositions, whether mounted as columen plaques, covering the ends of the roof’s ridge pole (as at Luni and Pyrgi), or fully pedimental (as at Civita Alba and Talamonaccio), were made up

Perspectives without Space

257 Fig. 7.12 Pedimental relief from the Talamonaccio temple, second century BC. Terracotta, 1.40 m (H). Florence, Museo Archeologico.

Fig. 7.13 Pedimental relief from Cività Alba (Sentinum), late second century BC. Terracotta, frieze 37 cm, Gabel 98 cm (H). Ancona, Museo Nazionale Archeologico delle Marche.

of terracotta slabs and fit together, like pieces of a puzzle, and their overlapping forms pressed together so as to close off virtually any view to a background plane.16 Among the distinctive aspects of these monuments’ style is how the figures are stacked vertically in the foreground, rising abruptly in the pedimental field. At Civita Alba, one intuits that the figures placed higher in the pediment stand on a receding ground plane that has been sharply and unnaturally, albeit invisibly, tilted upwards. Other than those at the very front of the group, the figures’ feet are hidden from view by the overlapping of forms. At Talamonaccio (fig.  7.12), the effect is emphasized by the figures’ frontality (or by its counterpart, a fully “back” view) and the isolation of those at the pediment’s apex. The implication of the steeply rising ground hardly suffices to explain how the background figures seem as if to hover over those in the foreground: indeed, their prominent wings are folded. In both pediments, these highly artificial compositions

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Fig. 7.14 Architectural view from the Villa of Publius ­Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (detail), ca. 50–40 BC. Fresco. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 03.14.13a-g.

demonstrate a radical response to the high architectural placement of the imagery, employing a visual form that responds to a beholder’s raking view of the scene so that it might present these compacted images in the most direct and fully informative fashion possible. But it cannot have been envisioned that these upper figures were to be understood as standing against a backdrop of empty space, for one can hardly speak of represented space, as any sense of it is seemingly squeezed out by the compression of the forms.17 One has the distinct impression that there is nothing behind these figures; rather, they appear as if to acknowledge only the space in front of them. And it is this characteristic of their compositions that asserts itself with an unusual power. An equivalent effect of such “stacked” forms has been recognized in painted architectural vistas of the Roman era (fig. 7.14), where images of buildings are piled, one atop the other, rising dramatically to fill their pictorial fields, with only the most tantalizing suggestions of an unrepresented, indeed non-existent, beyond. The intended impression of such crowded cityscapes finds a parallel in the designs of Apaturius of Alabanda, as they are reported by Vitruvius, which, with the reputed welter of architectural elements that formed the subject matter of their flat painted backdrops, were merely “things represented in pictures that can have no basis in truth.”18 Here we find a suggestion of the ancients’ cognizance of images that, despite their implications of a spatial character, might be recognized as an illusion, and as purely superficial images that have nothing “behind” them. Sculpture, as we have seen, was clearly capable of similar effects. At Talamonaccio (fig. 7.12) and Civita Alba (fig. 7.13), or similarly, with the columen group at Pyrgi, the reconstructions of their pediments demon-

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strate that, with their protagonists’ three-dimensional heads rising up in front of the raking simas, as if leaning out from the pediments into real space, these figures were intended to be seen at an angle that exhibited their already frontalized forms even more forcefully to their spectators below. Unlike the Classical solutions for both pediments and friezes we have discussed (cf. Ch. 6, above, pp. 215–216), the compositions devised for these compressed groups are a dramatic reaction to their elevated setting. They abjure the canonical spatial recession that had long been central to the naturalistic effect of relief; they reject the “straight-on” view and its normalizing conventions; they deny the spatial implications of the architectural forms in which they are set; they address themselves directly to their beholders below; and, in what is perhaps their most distinctive characteristic, they provide a powerful example of how a rudimentary sense of “perspectival” relations might be achieved without a compelling representation of depth. The set of visual phenomena we have been examining – the vertical stacking of figural elements, their tilting-up toward the forward plane, and the refashioning of their beholders’ implied vantage point – appear conjoined, to highly dramatic and unique effect. The implicit “overhead” view that distinguished the Ostia market stall relief (fig. 7.5) played a broader formal role, one that was adapted to other genres, in particular for the depiction of landscape. The result was an imagery virtually cartographic, and this is one of the most distinctive compositional devices utilized on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. The Column’s designer resolved the representation of the rivers that mark the northern landscape (fig. 7.15) by depicting them as though seen from above, as if on a map.19 If those ancient maps that survive in Renaissance copies of late Roman manuscripts are to be believed (fig. 7.16),20 this is what actually transpired in mapping practice: rivers were properly cartographic, as if seen from overhead, while landmarks were “tilted up,” articulated by familiar pictorial conventions, with the combination offering a variation on what we know as a “bird’s eye” view. But on the Marcus column this juxtaposition of points of view lacks not only pictorial coherence, but the contextualization provided for the overhead view by the maps. In the case of these rivers, depicted in what Loewy would have called a “primitive” manner, the column’s imagery has employed the most informative view of these landscape elements, here spread out across its surface, negating any sense of depth. The price of this strategy was the abandonment of the column’s superficial unity, one rooted in that approximated perspective generally employed on the monument to evoke a coherent sense of space.

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Fig. 7.15 Column of Marcus Aurelius (scene 10), ca. 165 AD. Marble. Rome, in situ.

Nothing “Behind” the Foreground All of the previous examples share a singular characteristic: all are conceived antithetically to those long-conventional quasi-perspectival constructions that facilitated an illusion of receding space. As has long been recognized, these constructions, whether employed in two- or three-dimensional media, sought to suggest that artistic representations conformed to visual experience, whether or not they did so by an adherence to optical and geometrical principles, such as those that had been established by Euclid. Rather, so many of the monuments we have been examining disavowed such conformity to our experience of reality, and did so in the service of their distinctive aesthetic effects. This was neither a cultural nor a chronological phenomenon. As we have seen throughout the preceding chapters, the forms and techniques with which artists responded to the space problem were manifold – and there were yet other solutions that settled the issue by a concerted rejection of established conventions. One approach, the use of repeated and individuated groundlines, or “turf segments” (a technique that may in some ways echo the innovations of Polygnotan painting), was, at times, employed in relief so as to eradicate that very illusion of receding space that such groundlines had served to effect in painting.

Nothing “Behind” the Foreground

261 Fig. 7.16 Surveyor’s illustration, late Roman (fifteenth century copy), BAV, Pal. Lat. 1564 fol. 105v–106r.

The decursio scenes on the base of the column of Antoninus Pius (fig.  2.5) provide one of the most vivid examples in relief. While the horsemen and foot soldiers, figures carved nearly in the round, occupy a shallow zone before the blank background plane that closes off an illusion of recession into depth,21 their primary accommodation to space is that the figures of the upper tier are slightly smaller to signal their distance from the foreground, an effect enhanced by the highly artificial point of view. And although the horsemen are separated into small groups, overlapping one another and appearing to move diagonally in and out of space, their forceful three-dimensionality, set within the same shallow zone, all equally isolated against the empty background plane, allows for neither overall cohesion nor a convincing representation of ambient space.22 In contrast, an Antonine hunting sarcophagus in Antalya (fig.  7.17) offers a radical and emphatic instance in which the full potential and significance of the turf segments are revealed. Here the individual elements of the scene are represented independently of one another, within the same shallow relief plane and juxtaposed without overlapping or diagonal arrangement in depth, so as to efface any sense of spatial integration.23 The scene is hierarchical in scale but not perspectival in conception. Its central figure is larger in size and there is an unnatural relative scale of animals to men, yet there is no graduated diminution. The expansive hunt, with its multiple animal fights, is represented in a tapestry-like form, whose surface unity is the work’s most powerful aspect of style. In this regard

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Fig. 7.17 Hunt sarcophagus, ca. mid-second century AD. Marble, 71 cm (H). Antalya, Archaeological Museum, inv. A.167.

the technique prefigures what one finds on a small scale in other media, a notable example of which is the famous Lycurgus cup (fig. 7.18), a glass cage-work vessel in this tapestry style, of the fourth century ad. What connects these examples is a vivid sense that there seems to be nothing behind any of the depicted figures: no receding ground, no ambient space, no perspectival transformation of the background  – nothing. This is true even on the decursio reliefs, where the figures and horses, consistently presented in elevation, distinguished by their lack of relative scale and their quasi-cartographic arrangement, produce only the barest semblance of recession. Everything represented, on the decursio as well as on the hunt sarcophagus, is merely set before the vacant expanse of the neutral ground plane. On both, the figures are shown in elevation (“straight on”), and their consistent, nearly equal three-dimensionality (despite the slight diminution in scale of the decursio’s upper tier), renders them as if suspended before their undifferentiated blank backgrounds. Devoid of an ambient and the spatial continuum that it would provide, the question of what lies behind – on either of these examples – can hardly be seriously entertained.24 Thus, we see how some examples of Late Roman art return to a visual equivalent of Archaic art’s neutral ground (see the discussion in Ch. 1), yet now with a new consciousness and purpose. The decursio reliefs’ empty background is not an unfulfilled aspect of form, which had marked much of early Greek art, but an appropriation of the blank, unrepresentational plane as a means to effect the abandonment of an illusionistic evocation of the depth of space. The new aspect of style constituted a re-assertion of the figures’ primacy, as both the manifest vehicle of their subject matter and as the formal evocation of a new and distinctive illusion of reality. In this way, liberation from the background plane was neither a developmental aspect of relief’s fundamental nature, nor a simple progressive reassessment of style, but a novel exploitation of one polar extreme always available, if seldom employed.

Figures without Settings

263 Fig. 7.18 Lycurgus Cup, fourth century AD. Glass with Silver mounts, 15.88 cm (H). London, British Museum, inv. 1958,1202.1.

Figures without Settings Relief styles do not require an effective representation of space; both the decursio and the Antalya sarcophagus are among the most radical forms that demonstrate this. These are new variations of those images whose figures seemingly had appeared “stuck on” the background or as if little statuettes that stand independently before it, rather than integrated within an illusionistic ambient (cf. the discussion in Ch. 1 above, at p. 17). One particular artistic technique, employed in the “minor” arts and seldom discussed in the context of spatial representations, suggests such an additive relationship of figure and ground. This is the essential characteristic that binds together those small, independently cast bronze figures that were attached as decorative elements to a variety of metal implements made throughout antiquity across the Mediterranean world. These include the small acrobats mounted as handles on Etruscan cistae (fig. 6.2), the elaborate handles of bronze mirrors or other vessels, or chariot fittings (notably rein-guides) and horse fittings (pectorals). The manufacture of all such “decorative” elements is indistinguishable, technically, from small bronze statuettes, and the form of their employ, as small free-standing sculptures

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Fig. 7.19 Balteus, later first century AD. Bronze, 22.2 cm (H). Aosta, Museo ­Archeologico Regionale.

attached to objects, seems predicated on a clear distinction between them and the background that they were designed to be mounted upon.25 The surviving bronze trappings that once ornamented the horses of aristocratic commanders demonstrate the distinctiveness of those works and their particular representational character. An example from Aosta (fig.  7.19), and its comparison and contrast to the famous gladiator’s helmet from Pompeii (fig. 7.20), suggest not only a technical difference in their modes of fabrication, but a conceptual disparity in aesthetic design. On the helmet, the figures are embossed from behind (repousée) and are integral to the helmet’s surface, against whose blank ground they are silhouetted and from which they seamlessly emerge in relief. On the Aosta pectoral, the figures are separately cast and affixed to the balteus, or girdle, that wraps around a horse’s front quarters, on which they are individually mounted as if small statuettes. The lower rim of the pectoral serves as a “ground line” for the foreground figures, but only for them, as those above and behind, which fill the expanse of the balteus and to which they are attached, appear divorced from the mounting plate and (in a manner reminiscent of the pedimental figures at Talamonaccio [fig. 7.12] and Civita Alba [fig. 7.13]) both project from its surface and extend beyond its borders. The design of these bronzes was such that the surface of the balteus appears neutral: neither as a receding ground plane, since it rises at too steep and angle, nor as a background plane, because the figures are so clearly not contained within its field. 26 Here one recognizes, even more forcefully than on the Etruscan pediments, a deliberate ambiguity about the relationship of figure to ground, and a concomitant disregard for that between figure and space. Figures now appear liberated from the confines of their support, and despite their small size and decorative role, seem as if to deny their affinity with relief and to emerge into real space.

Figures without Settings

265 Fig. 7.20 Gladiator’s helmet from Herculaneum (detail), ca. mid-first century AD. Bronze, 48 cm (H). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico, inv. 5673.

In the Trajanic era, such ambiguity about the representation of space in relief became a significant aspect of the tradition, when it began to be conspicuously employed on major public monuments. For one of the great innovations of the Great Trajanic frieze (fig. 7.21) was, in certain parts of this massively long work,27 the rejection of conventional forms of convincing spatial recession in the service of a new and vivid, but hardly naturalistic, rendition of battle. Here a pictorial model – epitomized, once again, by the Alexander mosaic (fig. 5.8) – was translated into stone, yet without recourse to the approximation of perspective that so often distinguished such images. On the frieze, the represented melée of military action, having jettisoned any attempt to render the tactical manoeuvres of the Roman troops, now transpires in the densely-packed field of overlapping forms, juxtaposed near the frontal plane and devoid of perspectival diminution. The rout of the barbarians is a whirling mass of body parts, and the frenzied scene of war aspires to evoke the cacophony of the field of battle.28 There is nothing here of what Wickhoff had described as the “organic” cohesion of the “illusionism” that he regarded as a hallmark of ancient art. Nevertheless, the scene still “pulsates with life,” although it now does so without a sense of a coherent ambient in which all of the forms are interrelated.29 Despite the staggering of figures and the reduction of the relief

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Fig. 7.21 Great Trajanic Frieze, 110–117 AD. Marble, ca. 3 m (H). Rome, Arch of Constantine.

Fig. 7.22 Battle sarcophagus (from Portonaccio), ca. 280 AD. Marble, 1.14 m (H). Rome, Museo ­Nazionale Romano, Palazzo ­Massimo, inv. 112327.

height of those at the rear, the frenzy of battle depends on the density of its composition and its compression of its participants near the frontal plane. While at the right of this scene (fig. 7.21), the Romans’ display of the Dacians’ severed heads recalls, with its coordinated gestures, that equality of protagonists and repetition of forms that marked Hamberg’s “flock,” here the predominant characteristic of the image as a whole is its thematic intelligibility, despite its seeming lack of a unifying compositional design.

Figures without Settings

267 Fig. 7.23 Battle sarcophagus, ca. 200 AD. Marble. Rome, Villa Doria-Pamphili.

Fig. 7.24 Great Ludovisi battle sarcophagus, ca. 260 AD. Marble, 1.53 m (H). Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps, inv. 8574.

The compacted crush of battle destroys any effective sense of depth, as the distinction between near and far collapses. It was a tremendous innovation of the Great Trajanic frieze to have effected a vital scene of war’s fury while preserving the image’s lucidity, and to have done so despite an almost total abandonment of spatial illusion as the basis of its organization. It was the Great Trajanic Frieze’s imagery that provided the model for the battle sarcophagi, more so than that of the two historiated columns, and these funerary monuments transferred its style and its forms to the private sphere. The frieze’s condensed form, presented in epitomizing excerpts without an overall narrative continuity, served to legitimate the isolated scenes on the funerary reliefs, almost always depicted without a sense of setting for their represented actions.30 This aspect of style on the sarcophagi became more emphatic as the size of the monuments became larger and their shape taller (cf. figs 7.22, 7.23 and 7.24). The figures

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became more abbreviated, due to their greater compression, overlapping, and diminution in scale, so that, as a consequence, their number was greatly increased. All of these changes in style were possible, in large measure, due to what Hinks once described, referring to a variant of the phenomenon found on the Aurelian Column, as “a certain indifference to overall spatial consistency,”31 a characteristic vividly manifest on the greatest of the late examples of the type (fig. 7.24). As Hinks would say of the great Ludovisi sarcophagus: Hier ist freilich kein einziger Zentimeter des tragenden Körpers wirklich sichtbar, doch ist das ganze offensichtlich ein plastischer Gegenstand. Das Relief hat freilich den Baublock verschlungen, und dabei ist es eigentlich kein Relief mehr. Der Betrachter stellt sich keinen verzierten Körper vor, sondern eine lockere gummischwammartige Masse […]. Die Körper [sind] aufgehäuft und zusammengedrängt und in jeder möglichen Weise stofflich verdichtet; und von irgendwelchem Fernblick kann selbstverständlich nie die Rede sein. Here, not a single centimeter of the supporting body [of the casket] is actually visible, nevertheless the whole thing is obviously a plastic [i.  e., carved] object. Indeed, the relief has engulfed the architectonic block, and thus it can no longer be called a true relief. The viewer conceives not a single coherently articulated body, but a loose, rubbery, sponge-like mass […]. The bodies are piled and crowded together and in every possible way materially compacted, and any sense of a distant view is, obviously, out of the question.32

This final point – that such a design was intended to be seen up close – plays a significant role in the intensification of the imagery on these battle reliefs, and served to effect the illusion, indeed, a phantasy, of being present at the heart of the depicted melée so as to fully understand that quintessentially Roman virtus the monument attributed to the deceased. In such a conception the representation of space has thus ceded its conventional aesthetic role in the establishment of a compelling sense of where a depicted scene is held to have occurred. On these sarcophagi it has given way to a powerful implication that the event portrayed is no longer to be conceived of as historical and specific, but as anachronic and generalized: its significance appropriated, it now takes place, outside the confines of the temporal, for its spectators gathered in the tomb. And where such events took place, and the space in which they would seem to take place, no longer seems to matter.

The Repudiation of Place This near effacement of the locus of depicted events, so palpable on the battle sarcophagi, appeared at times in other genres in a variety of ways and to differing degrees. We may conclude with a sequence of well-known examples of historical relief, which suggest the increasingly broad role that

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such a conception of represented events played – unmoored, as it were, from the places of their occurrence. In the high and late empire, the varied means for such a disavowal of the site of events, as a formal characteristic of the historical reliefs, is visible in a series of opposing choices that mark their compositions. First, on some reliefs the subject matter includes, by convention, an identifiable topography, with specific structures more or less clearly indicated. The sense of place these images signaled to their beholders played roles of varying importance, as their referential value might be either accentuated or diminished, and these two alternatives are seen on a variety of monuments. In some intances, the architecture of Rome provides a recognizable scenic backdrop before which significant events transpired, re-enforcing the official status of their intended message by reference to the cityscapes that provided these events’ actual settings. Appearances of the emperor addressing the populace in the Forum (fig. 7.25), along with the depiction of other acts of state, are granted greater affect, and a heightened veridical character, by their setting in those public locales in which, if they were not actually witnessed, they were known to have historically occurred.33 By contrast, on certain other reliefs the figures are convincingly integrated, spatially and three-dimensionally, within their setting, albeit at the expense of a recognizable topography (fig.  7.26; contrast fig.  7.27). Here the figures’ scale is enlarged in accordance with representational conventions – such as the fact that figures are required to be large enough in scale for their actions, if not their identities, to be intelligible – and clearly evident in the disparity between human and architectural forms. As a result, the architectural frames in which the figures are set are reduced in proportion, their identification often rendered indecipherable, and the realism that might be thought their rationale, devalued. Budde saw this

Fig. 7.25 Anaglypha Hadriani (adlocutio / alimenta in Forum Romanum), ca. 130 AD. Marble, ca. 1.70 m (H). Rome, Forum Romanum, Curia.

270 Fig. 7.26 Adlocutio of Marcus ­Aurelius, ca. 180 AD. Marble, 3.15 m (H). Rome, Arch of Constantine, in situ.

Fig. 7.27 Adlocutio scene (scene 104), Column of Trajan, ca. 113 AD. Marble, ca. 1 m (H). Rome, Forum of Trajan, in situ.

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aspect of the Sacchetti relief (fig. 6.23) as a rejection of Wickhoff’s “illusionism,” and drew a stark contrast with the adlocutio panel of Marcus Aurelius (fig. 7.26) now on the Arch of Constantine: Während nun zur Erreichung der Raum- und Tiefenillusion auf dem aurelischen Adlocutiorelief konsequenterweise die Figurenreihen des zweiten und dritten Planes in flachem Relief wiedergegeben sind, so daß die Ausschaltung des Schattens auf dem Reliefgrund die Illusion der räumlichen Tiefe verstärkt, wird beim Sacchettirelief durch die fast vollständige Plastizität auch der Figuren der zweiten und dritten Ebene diese Illusion empfindlich gestört, wenn nicht aufgehoben. While on the Aurelian adlocutio relief the rows of figures in the second and third planes are consequently reproduced in flat relief in order to achieve the illusion of space and depth, so that the elimination of the shadow on the background of the relief reinforces an illusion of spatial depth; [by contrast] in the case of the Sacchetti relief the almost complete plasticity of the figures on the second and third planes drastically disrupts this illusion, if not dissolves it.34

Here we find another kind of repudiation: not of the representation of space, but of Wickhoff’s “illusionism,” replaced in this instance by actual three-dimensionality, with its high-relief figures and their architectural structures that frame them, so that the protagonists appear “as if on a deep stage.”35 Budde thought that the archway at the left on the Sacchetti relief depicted the Arch of Titus, despite the fact that there is little resemblance to that monument. In any event, the compression of the highly elaborate architectural forms marked by their outsized ornament and their evident reduction in scale with respect to the figures demonstrate one of the relief’s most dominant stylistic features: that the locus of this scene is a backdrop assembled from typical elements of Roman architecture, and is thus hardly a compelling representation of a specific topography.36 To an unusually great degree, on the Palazzo Sacchetti relief space is no longer represented, but real, as an illusionistic depth is diminished, abandoned as an aspect of style in favor of a powerful three-dimensional presentness of the forms. But as a corollary of these formal characteristics, a sense of actual place, as an identifiable setting of the represented event has all but evaporated, despite the fact that these forms have nevertheless granted it a greater material reality.37 A second opposition contrasts such a topographical backdrop with the absence of any locale at all. Of course, the depiction of a realistic setting, whether as an illusionistic background or a material, three-dimensional setting, was not a requirement, neither for the historical character of the represented action, nor as a correlative of a naturalistic style. On some representations of acts performed by the emperor, the absence of a precise setting renders a reference to particular events less specifically, if not abstractly, as they are set before a blank ground.38 This was nevertheless effective since the monument on which a relief was mounted, one

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Fig. 7.28 Adlocutio scene (scene 54), Column of Trajan, ca.  113 AD. Marble, ca. 1 m (H). Rome, Forum of Trajan, in situ.

Fig. 7.29 Adlocutio scene, Arch of Septimius Severus (panel IV, detail), ca. 205 AD. Marble, 3.92 m (H = full panel). Rome, Forum Romanum, in situ.

assumes, would have provided an explicit context for its imagery (fig. 7.27; cf., by contrast, 7.24). The lack of setting, while it clearly diminishes the historical valence of such scenes, lent force to a more generalized understanding. Such an interpretation is legitimated by the artists’ recourse to certain consistently repeated compositional forms for a host of ceremonial scenes – for example, adlocutio, congiarium, liberalitas – and the standardized representational formats they employed, at every scale and in every medium.39 Among the most conspicuous are the lateral extension of the scene in horizontal format; an antithetical arrangement of the protagonist and his audience; and the consistent use of profile views that such forms and formats require. These characteristics are pervasive, across a host of subject types, whether the emperor stands or sits, whether he is elevated above or among the assembled throng. All of this is apparent on a small scale on the coinage, despite the fact that space customarily precluded the representation of an actions’ setting, and equally at large scale, in more extreme form, when,

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as free-standing statues (pedestres or equestres), protagonists are divorced from the context of their performance and a represented audience. Such examples demonstrate that the visualization of the traditional repertory of imperial acts could, and can, be readily comprehended, even when deprived of an anchor in both time and place. Indeed, such an effect was intended. The choice of a blank background was advantageous for yet another reason, and for representations of a fundamentally different conception of events. An empty expanse, as it renounces the site of what is shown to occur, could serve to signal an imperial action’s timeless sameness, which transcends its merely historical character as a particular incident. This was all the more appropriate when that event transpired in the company of the gods and allegorical personages, whose presence transforms the episode into a generalized, indeed universalized, occasion beyond the sphere of mere human action.40 Two final examples display yet another contrast, and both concern the reorientation of conventional motifs and their compositions. These instances further demonstrate the ancient sculptors’ exploitation of the often paradoxical relationship between space and place, and reveal how a choice of forms might visualize and prioritize one over the other amid the varied expressions of a traditional image type and its thoroughly conventionalized content. Variations of the adlocutio motif illustrate such an expressive potential. It was observed long ago by Hamberg that this motif was employed in a series of alternative forms, apparently beginning in Claudian times, which were notably transformed on the historiated columns and the Arch of Septimius Severus. What appears to have been the early form of the motif (known from the coinage), with the emperor seen in profile, gesturing to his troops arrayed before him in a lateral composition, devoid of a background setting (fig. 7.27), was reconceived over time in a host of ways. Chief among these was how, on the Column of Trajan, the emperor’s troops were redistributed to form a circle around his person (fig. 7.28), replacing the contrasting placement of speaker and audience with an image of cohesion, if not esprit de corps. This new arrangement, which transformed the starkly antithetical basis of the long-established motif, was elaborated on the Column of Marcus and the Arch of Septimius (fig. 7.29). There, as Hamberg noted with acuity, the commander’s figure was rotated ninety degrees, so as to approximate a frontally oriented address, not only to those gathered to hear him, but to the monument’s intended audience, to whom he is now shown “unobscured in representative frontality high above the heads of the crowd.”41 All of these variations should be understood, not as a progressive evolution of style, but as the development of a sequence of alternative compositions that recast the conventional form of the adlocutio motif so as to accentuate

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Fig. 7.30 Oratio scene, Arch of ­Constantine, ca. 312–315 AD. Marble, 1.07 m (H). Rome, Arch of Constantine, in situ. Fig. 7.31 Liberalitas, Arch of ­Constantine, ca.  312–315 AD. Marble, 1.02 cm (H). Rome, Arch of ­Constantine, in situ.

The Rejection of Space

differing aspects of its formal language and its expression of ceremonial content.42 For example, the image of the emperor encircled by his troops, which on Trajan’s and Marcus’ Columns had given new visual form to a profound sense of military unity, did so within the column’s overall framework of quasi-perspectival space. By contrast, on the Arch of Septimius, space was compressed by the blunt use of two distinct tiers on which the figures were arranged, abandoning even an incipient foreshortening in favor of a somewhat crude application of the convention that renders “higher” in the visual field as further away. As a consequence, the adlocutio, as a ceremony, is centered on the motif, now forcefully isolated within the composition; the grouping together of the emperor and his lieutenants is consolidated, as is the throng of soldiers below them, now an undifferentiated mass, underscored by the repetitive nature of both costume and pose; spatial relationships within the scene are destabilized by its juxtaposition with the other vignettes that fill the great panel; and any sense of a representation of place has been disregarded, as the image of this often-repeated ceremonial address, presented here as if a timeless iteration of imperium, takes on an independence from the narrative it has been enlisted to serve. One last example of this tendency to devalue the role of represented space and, concomitantly, to undermine a sense of specific, historial place, is presented by the paired scenes of Oratio and Liberalitas on the Arch of Constantine in Rome (figs 7.30 and 7.31). The force and clarity of this

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example drew the attention of numerous scholars, all of whom endeavored in their various accounts to do these unusual scenes justice. Set at the center of each of these two long sections of the Constantinian frieze, against their differing backdrops marked by civic architecture, the imperial presence stands out amid the depicted crowd that gathers about him. Riegl grasped the importance of these panels’ unusually emphatic symmetry: Von den übrigen Reliefs des in Rede stehenden Triumphbogens berührt sich am engsten mit [the Liberalitas panel] dasjenige mit Konstantin’s Ansprache an das Volk; an den übrigen war durch den Gegenstand (zumeist Kriegsscenen) eine einseitige Bewegung der Figuren gefordert, wobei eine so strenge Zentralisierung, wie wir sie an [the Liberalitas] beobachten konnten, nicht durchführbar war. Die Symmetrie wurde daher in diesen Fällen überwiegend in der Reihung gesucht, doch ist auch die Tendenz auf eine zentralere Zusammenfassung in die Symmetrie des Konstrastes vielfach nicht zu verkennen. Of the other reliefs of the triumphal arch in question, the one with Constantine’s address to the people is most closely related to [the Liberalitas]; on the others [scenes of the frieze], the subjects (which are primarily battle scenes) required the lateral movement of their figures, which did not allow such a strict centralization as we can observe in [the Liberalitas]. Symmetry was thus sought mainly in these two instances within the overall sequence, although in the symmetry of contrasts the tendency towards a more central concentration is often unmistakable.43

And he would go on to describe the two panels’ compositions, and to characterize what was, to his eyes, their distinctive appeal – an abandonment of Classical forms, but not of their purpose: Es läßt sich bereits aus diesen kurzen allgemeinen Andeutungen das Ergebnis ableiten, daß in den konstantinischen Reliefs beide Zielpunkte alles bildenden Kunstschaffens – Schönheit und Lebenswahrheit  – ebensogut angestrebt und auch tatsächlich erreicht waren wie in der klassischen Kunst; während sie aber in der letzteren zu harmonischem Ausgleiche (der Schönlebendigkeit) vereinigt waren, sind sie nun wiederum in ihre Extreme auseinandergegangen: einerseits die höchste gesetzliche Schönheit in der strengsten Form des Kristallinismus, anderseits die Lebenswahrheit in der extremsten Form des momentanen optischen Effekts. From these brief general indications, the result can already be deduced that in the Constantinian reliefs the two goals of all artistic creation – beauty and truth to life – were strived for and actually achieved just as well as in classical art. But while in the latter these [characteristics] were united in harmonious balance (that of a beautiful vivacity), they have now been reconceived in polar oppposition: on the one hand, the most legitimate beauty [appears] in the most severe form, as it were, crystalliized; on the other hand, the truth-to-life, in the most extreme form of momentary optical effects.44

For Riegl, the rigid symmetry of the two Constantinian panels, as they pressed the composition against the frontal plane, granted to the scenes an unprecedented ceremonial character, as it now insured their unity as an image.

276

The Rejection of Space

Nearly thirty years later, Rodenwaldt would develop these insights, and elaborate his predecessor’s account of the Constantinian depictions of the emperor’s actions: Führt hier der Begriff des Symbolischen zur Abkehr von antikem Empfinden, so tritt dazu, das Wesen des antiken Reliefs und der antiken Malerei umgestaltend, das Streben zum Repräsentativen. Auf zweien der Reliefs vom Konstantinsbogen werden feierliche Staatsakte geschildert. Während das altorientalische und das griechisch-römische Relief eine Handlung erzählen, die sich wie eine Theaterszene vor unseren Augen abspielt, und bei der sich die Figuren vorzugsweise im Profil bewegen, stehen wir hier vor einem symmetrischen Aufbau, dessen Mitte die Gestalt des Kaisers bildet. Auf dem einen Relief, das eine Schenkung des Kaisers an das Volk darstellt, thront er wie ein Götterbild in der Mitte, in kleinerer Gestalt sind die ihm zunächst Nahenden, noch winziger das ferner stehende Volk gebildet. Dieses Prinzip der Darstellung zieht den Beschauer in die Handlung hinein und verlangt von ihm nicht nur Betrachtung, sondern Verehrung. If the concept of the symbolic leads to a turning away from the classical mode of perception, there is also conjoined to it a striving for the representative, which transforms the essence of ancient relief and painting. On two of the [Constantinian period] reliefs from the Arch of Constantine solemn state acts are depicted. While ancient Oriental and the Greco-Roman reliefs tell a story that takes place before our eyes like a theater scene, and in which the figures preferably move in profile, we stand here before [in the case of the Constantinian friezes] a symmetrical structure, at the center of which is the figure of the emperor. On one relief [the Liberalitas], which depicts a donation from the emperor to the people, he is enthroned in the middle like a god, while those who approach him are shown at a smaller scale, and the people who are further away are even smaller. This principle of representation draws the viewer into the action and demands of him not only contemplation, but admiration.45

The striking frontality that had so clearly marked the Adlocutio scenes on the Septimius arch (fig. 7.29), the result of the rotation of the motif and the abandonment of its traditional format, was here further underscored, and the effect of this transformation elaborated. Rodenwaldt recognized that on the Constantinian reliefs a new representational modality was fully evoked, one as symbolic as it was narrative. With its forms now frontalized, and re-oriented towards the beholder (figs 7.30 and 7.31), the depicted scene, anchored by the familiar motif, was no longer self-contained as it was when extended laterally across the breadth of the panel. And in the case of the Oratio relief, which unambiguously represents the site as the forum’s rostra, this was perhaps even more striking. In much the same vein as Rodenwaldt, Lietzmann intuited the force of the Constantinian artist’s conception: Bei Konstantin erblicken wir die Rostra von vorne. Rechts davon steht, ganz wie noch heute in natura, der Bogen des Septimius Severus, links der jetzt verschwundene Tiberiusbogen. Aber an diesen schließt sich unverkennbar die Basilica Julia an, die in Wirklichkeit rechtwinklig zu den Rostra verläuft. Wir haben hier also ein Auseinanderbiegen des rechten Winkels zur geraden Linie vor uns und dürfen uns die Frage vorlegen, ob nicht auch die Volksmasse analog zu interpretieren ist: sie steht vor der Rednerbühne, ist aber auf beide Seiten auseinandergelegt, um die Mitte hervortreten zu lassen.

The Repudiation of Place

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On Constantine’s [relief] we see the rostra from the front. To the right stands, exactly as it is still does today, in natura, the Arch of Septimius Severus, while to the left, the now lost Arch of Tiberius. But this is unmistakably followed by the Basilica Julia, which in reality stands at right angles to the Rostra. So we have before us a folding of its perpendicular placement, to bring it into line with the scene before us. We are allowed to ask ourselves whether the mass of assembled people should not be interpreted analogously: that is, that [while, in reality] they would stand in front of the speaker’s platform, here they are spread out on both sides, around the center of the image, to allow it to stand out.46

L’Orange followed suit, citing Lietzmann and echoing his insight. He too recognized the function of the re-orientation of the Basilica in the Oratio: Die perspektivische Verkürzung wird nach der hergebrachten Art dieser Künstler dadurch vermieden, daß die Basilica in einer einheitlichen, durch die Rostra gegebenen Schauebene ausgebreitet ist. Perspectival foreshortening in the traditional manner is avoided by these artists by spreading out the Basilica in a uniform visual plane that was established by the Rostra.

This granted the two scenes their primary visual form, marked by die flächige Projektion des Figürlichen, durch welche, wie in der Oratio, die in Wirklichkeit vor dem Kaiser stehende, d.  h. in die Tiefe gruppierte Menschenmenge in eine einheitliche Schauebene auseinandergeklappt wird, in der sie sich zu beiden Seiten des Kaisers reihenweise entwickelt. the planar projection of the figures, as in the Oratio scene, by means of which they, standing in actuality in front of the emperor as a crowd arranged in depth, are spread out to form a uniform visual plane, in which the rows of figures extend on both sides of the emperor.47

Bianchi Bandinelli would subsequently take up this insight and would describe the monument’s reformulation of the traditional scene with even greater acuity and sensitivity: Quello che, al di là dello stile di quell momento e di quella maestranza, caratterizza la serie tarda con modi non solo diversi, ma opposti a quelli che sono i principii fondamentali della serie traianèa, si può riassumere in questi termini: a una vision naturalistica si è sostituita una concezione astratta e perciò alla prospettiva pittorica, che colloca le figure in una atmosfera di natura, priva di precisi contorni e di definizione, è sostituita una vision frontale, ottenuta mediante un ribaltamento della prospettiva (facendo cioè compiere alle immagini degli oggetti che si trovano in realtà ad angolo retto rispetto al fondo, una rotazione di novanta gradi per allinearle al fondo ed evitare gli scorci) […]. What, beyond the style of that moment and its artistry, characterizes the late series in ways that are not only different, but opposed to what are the fundamental principles of the Trajanic images, can be summarized in these terms: a naturalistic vision has been replaced by an abstract conception and therefore, that pictorial perspective, which places the figures in an atmosphere of nature without precise contours and definition, is replaced by a frontalized vision, obtained by reversing the perspective (i.  e., by giving the images of the objects that are actually at right angles to the background a rotation of ninety degrees, so as to align them to the background plane and to avoid foreshortenings) […].48

278

The Rejection of Space

Bianchi Bandinelli recognized how the competing demands of the representation of space and of place were resolved in favor of the latter at the expense of the former. Yet in this account an image of place was translated into the new visual language that marked nearly all late Roman reliefs with its characteristic features of form and its distinctive elements of style. And as a consequence, the representation of space is understood to have no longer been an essential aesthetic value. What had been implicit in Riegl’s claim for these panel’s ceremonial character, and what Rodenwaldt had implied about a new relationship between the monument and its audience, seems not to have been fully acknowledged by either Lietzmann’s or Bianchi Bandinelli’s account: that is, how, on the arch’s Oratio panel, the event and its setting were dramatically reconfigured along with the relationship of the emperor to his audience. Shifted to the sides of the rostra, the depicted crowd, no longer a cohesive and attentive unity, has ceased to be the focus of Constantine’s gaze and the object of his address  – and to a significant degree, he of their attention, as so many of them are clearly absorbed in their own conversations.49 The fundamental role of the Oratio’s addressees has been bequeathed to the relief’s real spectators, who stand below, looking up at the arch: they are now the emperor’s audience; the place of his address is no longer the depicted site of the forum Romanum, but now removed to the open piazza before the Constantinian arch; and most significantly, the transitory nature of the represented event, here monumentalized, is now enacted before the populus Romanus, as if eternally.

Coda

Das Kunstwollen des Altertums, das grundsätzlich auf Komposition der Figuren in der Sehebene ausgegangen ist, läßt sich daher an Werken der Reliefkunst am unmittelbarsten und deutlichsten demonstrieren; und da auch die Unterschiede, welche die einzelnen Perioden der Kunst des Altertums auszeichnen, am Relief am leichtesten ersichtlich gemacht werden können, erklärt sich hinlänglich, warum hier einer Schilderung der Entwicklung der spätantiken Kunst die Untersuchung der antiken Reliefkunst zugrunde gelegt wurde. The Kunstwollen of antiquity, which was fundamentally based on the composition of the figures in the visible plane, can thus be demonstrated most directly and clearly in works of relief art. And since the differences that characterize the individual periods of the art of antiquity can be most easily seen in relief works, this is sufficient to explain why a description of the development of late antique art was based on the study of ancient relief. Alois Riegl, 19011

Riegl’s insistence on the fundamental role of relief, in Graeco-Roman art and in the ancient Kunstwollen more broadly, was – as the preceding chapters have endeavored to show – among the most powerful articulations of a view that was widespread, and if not explicitly formulated, surely implicitly so. Embedded in his claim for the priority of “composition in the plane” is an acknowledgment of a Late Roman proclivity to limit the representation of space, which, as we have seen, constituted a repudiation of a long tradition of varied attempts to instill depictions with a compelling sense of both atmosphere and depth of the visual field. The studies brought together in the present volume have collectively attempted to sketch both the wide-ranging emphases on relief sculpture in Classical scholarship, from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth,  – specifically, its representation of space  – and the role that such research has played in the study of ancient art more generally. In the course of these seven chapters, several significant themes have emerged, revolving around a careful scrutiny of the role played by the representation of space, and they may be signaled here, in conclusion, as a way to

280Coda Fig. C 1 Gregorio Pagani, Italian (active Florence, 1558– 1605). The Flagelation of Christ, 1600–1601. Wax on wood panel support, 85.1 × 85.1 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, cat. 1142.

acknowledge not only their specific and substantial place in the historiography of Graeco-Roman art, but their implications for its future study.

1 The monuments and their varied interpretations demonstrate that the history of relief was, by and large, indifferent to the precision that the modern perspectival system for the rendering of spatial forms entailed. Collectively, the foregoing essays have demonstrated how ancient aesthetics operated, as best one can tell, without such rigid systemization as the costruzione legittima; whether or not such a perspectival structure was known to ancient mathematicians such as Euclid is irrelevant in the aesthetic domain, since space was readily implicated visually and charted graphically, albeit without mathematical accuracy, by a variety of strategies. The absence of such a system is not because it was inimical to relief per se. As a host of early modern and modern examples demonstrate (figs C1 and C2), a deliberate attempt to employ geometrical perspective in relief

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281 Fig. C 2 Raymond Mason (1922– 2020), Barcelona Tram. 1953 (cast 1968). Bronze, 780 × 1250 × 250 mm. Tate Britain, inv. TO3678.

is clearly possible. Yet even such efforts to represent space more fulsomely exaggerate the disparity of such examples’ compositional elements, resorting to a more prominent role for their foreground figures with consequently greater dramatic effect. Nevertheless, the most basic limitation of relief – that it cannot, ultimately, do more than imply a great part of the space it wants to depict – remains unresolved. As the present study has made clear, in the Graeco-Roman era space was not something foreign to the ancient way of thinking about the world and about its representation. But the representation of space in relief is hardly commensurate with our everyday experience and was conceived in dramatic contrast to our modern notion of a perspective system that was, itself, already an abstraction. And when, in the Late Roman era, a rejection of spatial representation emerged as a profound aspect of period style, so as to free artistic expression from the aspiration to render space as experienced in life, an intuition of space remained no less a factor in the appreciation of relief as a medium. For even on Late Roman monuments, a sense of liberation from the stranglehold of our perceptions of the world came at a cost, since the demands such perceptions make on the attempt to replicate that experience in some persuasively natural manner always remain.

2 The problem of the representation of space in relief has not been scrutin­ ized solely in Classical terms. Nineteenth and early twentieth century historians and critics did not shy away from employing other modern

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conceptions in their accounts of ancient art. Most notably they did not hesitate to enlist contemporary psycho-physiological ideas pertaining to both memory and vision in their attempts to assess the formal character of Graeco-Roman artistic productions. Such an appeal to science found its place within a broadly formalist approach, one that regarded the concretization of artistic forms as something driven by the innate functions of both eye and mind, whether this was regarded as some sort of “unconscious inference” (Helmholtz), an innate “desire to see” (Hildebrand), or a culturally and temporally intrinsic “artistic intention” (Riegl). The role of such fundamental interdisciplinary investigations was not limited to the study of Classical art, and was most famously paralleled by similar approaches to Modern art, notably Impressionism. In both instances, the recourse to psycho-physiological discoveries about human perception formed the basis of a new correlation between the study of artistic forms and an assessment of a beholder’s response, opening a new domain in the interpretation of aesthetic effects. Relief, as it grappled with the problem of representing space that would be manifest as part presence, and part illusion, offered a perspicuous analogy for contemporary scientific interests. In much the same way, music, with its disembodied and ineffable forms, posed equivalent problems for the late nineteenth century analysis of aesthetic experience.2 Both the visual arts and music provided, each in its own way, a litmus test for theories of vision, cognition, and the unconscious act of recollection that was held to bind together these mental acts and their physiological equivalents in an attempt to fathom the complex human experiences that defined both realms.

3 The often-invoked “laws of relief ” presumed stylistic unity, and these were re-enforced by the notion of period styles which they, in turn, served to anchor. An appeal to such rigid, if not absolute, formal principles allowed scholars to distinguish, indeed, to decree, what was an effective use of the relief medium; to elaborate a consistent sense of what constituted style; and to adjudicate the relative quality of a wide array of artistic productions from any given historical moment. Yet – eventually – the corpus of reliefs proved this to be misguided; multiple styles co-existed. The discomfort that attended the discovery of the Great Altar at Pergamon, and the contrast of its reliefs with those of the Telephos frieze, are only the most explicit signal of the failure of such “laws.” It gradually became clear not only that the formal principles asserted as the fundamental qualities of relief sculpture during the

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nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not preclude variations of style, but also that such variation transformed how those principles might be conceived. Nor did those principles demand that the characteristics of style held to articulate them be employed consistently and exclusively. What is striking is just how long it took for scholarship to recognize that the contemporaneous, at times simultaneous, employment of multiple styles was, in fact, a long-standing aspect of the Classical artistic tradition, rather than an aberration and a symptom of a decline in aesthetic quality. In no small measure, such pluralism found fertile soil in the varied forms that were devised for the representation of space, whose compatibility, on the same monuments, often side by side, had long been ignored.

4 Finally, and most broadly: historiographic tradition exerted its own pressures on the interpretation of space. Scholars, ever aware of prior contributions to the writing of history, respond differently to the burden of the past as well as the pervasive and anxiety-producing power of its influence, to which we devote differing forms of attention as we engage, rhetorically, in a dialectic of imitation and innovation.3 Thus the battle of varying interpretations, and the shifting ground on which these are erected, whether questions of nationalism and ethnicity, the geography of distinctive cultures, or the conflict of differing contemporaneous styles (to cite merely three of those elucidated in this context by Brendel), have fueled the continuing life of that tradition. Yet the historiographic tradition is marked, so often, by the recapitulation of earlier ideas as if they are either new contributions, or as though self-evident to analysis, and, as the essays of this volume have, on occasion, had reason to point out, this often occurs without acknowledgment of earlier scholarship. This, effectively a form of imitation, is in many respects understandable: those things that we learn from the views of others soon becomes ours, detached from their origins in the work of specific individuals: vires acquirit eundo. Indeed, this is, in practice, something hard to avoid; there are no doubt instances to be found of the same phenomenon in the present volume. But such imitation has its positive aspect. Does this not correspond, mutuatis mutandis, to the aemulative tradition that so dominated those artistic practices we study, particularly those of antiquity?4 For just as ancient artists so often, and for so long, reiterated an established artistic canon in new formats, often with new iconography and attributes that would seem to disguise their indebtedness, scholars similarly take up, and reiterate, interpretations and analyses, often without acknowledgement, as

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if blind to their belatedness. Of course, this is not to confuse or conflate the very different realms of scholarship and artistic achievement, but merely to observe that at some basic level, each sphere responds to its history in a parallel fashion as it participates in its own traditions. One aspect of the present volume has been an implicit attempt to develop, by means of its seven often heterogenous chapters, an argument about such participation in tradition – by modern scholars as well as ancient artists – as a fundamental aspect of their respective cultural practices. The dynamics of those practices determine the growth, the variety, and ultimately, the vitality, of that tradition we call Classics.

Notes

Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6

Brendel 1953 [1979]; important discussions in Settis 1982, 1989; Bianchi Bandinelli 1959; recent overview in Papini 2016, 5–24. Brendel 1953 [1979], 59. Two recent efforts: Martens 1989; Girard 2015. The sole monograph devoted to relief sculpture as a genre is Rogers 1974, a general survey of all periods. “A matter of two and a half dimensions”: the ingenious expression of Sanders 1968, quoted by Rogers 1974, 1. The biographies and bibliographies of many of these figures, along with an account of their contributions to scholarship, are to be found in, among other titles: Stark 1880; Rodenwaldt 1937; Rumpf 1953; Der Archäologe 1983; Lullies and Schiering 1988; Marchand 1996; Hölscher and Stupperich 2020 – all of which provide an introduction to the vast bibliography. On scholarly “forgetting,” cf. Bianchi Bandinelli 1942, 54, on the ideas of Loewy – Meno perdonabile è il fatto che le idee del Loewy si ritrovino ancora a fondamento di studi recenti e riappaiano inconsapevolmente, sotto una leggera vernice […]; see further below, Ch. 3 at n. 51.

1.  The Laws of Relief 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9

Bianchi Bandinelli 1933; 1973, 159–160. Brunn 1857, I: 588. Lange 1899: “Gesetze der Menschendarstellung.” Cf. Loewy 1900, 38; trans. 1907, 68; Courbaud 1899. To Brunn’s emphasis on movement, cf. Conze 1882, 567, on “movement in the surface”; Riegl 1927 [1901], 90: ewige Formgesetz; further, see Ch.  3, below, at n. 14. Commentary in Bianchi Bandinelli 1942, 54–56. Related invocation of such “laws”: Koepp 1927, 339. A compelling return to such a conception is found, e.  g., in Hurwit 1977. Loewy 1900, 38; trans. 1907, 68. Carpenter 1971b, 51. Kaltsas 2002, cat. 287; Neer 2010, 200–204 with bibliography. Kaltsas 2002, cat. 409. Kleiner 1987, cat. 7; Sinn 1991, cat. 10; Davies 2007, 55–58; Erpetti 2010, 182–191. Cf. further, despite its framed panel, the rendering of the chariot metope from temple C at Selinus and the high-relief figures from the Heraion at Foce del Sele (both ca. 550); similarly, note Stewart’s comments (1990, 115) on the high relief of the

286Notes

10 11 12

13 14 15

16 17 18

19 20

21

22 23 24 25 26

Sikyonian metopes, whose “plasticity and vigor dominate and organize the relief space” and the contrast with those from Sicily, where “space itself is primary.” Payne 1950 [1936], 48–49 and pl. 126,1; Willers 1975, 55 and pl. 31,1 (ca. 490–480); Ridgway 1977, 309–310 and pl. 66. Neils 2001, 33 gives the carvings’ depth (“never more than 5.6 cm from the background”); Ridgway 1981, 81 (“relief so low as to belong almost with painting and drawing”). Symbolism: Bianchi Bandinelli 1970, 57. Without sculptural effect: Weickert 1925, 26: “The flat figures, awkwardly cut in outline, seem stuck there, divorced from the ground. There is no trace of a plastic effect” (Unbeholfen im Umriß flach ausgeschnittene Figuren scheinen dort auf einen fremden Grund aufgeklebt. Von plastischer Wirkung keine Spur). Ryberg 1955, pl. 62, fig. 103; Kuttner 1995, 132. Thus rendering their frames “porous,” in the felicitous expression of Squire 2018, 531. Kaltsas 2002, cat. 410 (ca. 320); note too, the similar naiskos of Diogeiton (Athens): Clairmont 1993, cat. I.143; illustrated in Squire 2018, fig. 20. Cf. Rodenwaldt 1923, 66–67: Die Figure ist kaum noch ein Relief zu nennen [ … ] Der Raum führt hier ähnlich wie beim Tempelgiebel zur Rundplastik, nur dass es selbst nicht ursprünglich gegeben, sondern erst aus formalen Anregungen des Reliefs herausgewachsen ist (“[this] can scarcely be called a relief. Here, space approaches that of statuary in the round, similar to that in a temple pediment, except that [such statuary form] is not original [to this genre], but has developed from the formal suggestions of the relief itself ”). Cf. the comment of Koepp 1887, 123, on how high relief might appear as das Surrogat der Freisculptur. Himmelmann 2000; Neer 2010, 192–193 discusses some examples. Blanckenhagen 1942, 315; cf. Koeppel 1982, 528 on the similar effect on the frieze of the Arch at Benevento (“stuck to or standing before the relief ground”). Quotation: Sieveking 1925, 30: jede Figur möglichst zu isolieren, dadurch dass ein freier Raum mit neutralem Grund um sie herum aufgespart wird. Neutralization: Sieveking 1917, 82–83; Weickert 1925, 26; Koepp 1927; and cf. Mach 1903, 53 on the blank “perfectly plane” background of the Parthenon frieze; Rogers 1974, 64–65 “void between and behind the solid forms.” Cf. Riegl 1966 [1899], 300; trans. 2004, 412, on the treatment of the background plane in Egyptian art (“a nothing, a void”). For the Black figure Exekias amphora in the Vatican (fig. 1.16), ca. 530, cf. Hurwit 1985, 260 (and fig. 112), “the silhouettes are like cutouts pasted over the undisguised red wall of the vase” and “the light ground is not read as air or space but as a neutral void.” Note the comment of Kähler 1949, 58: Vasenmaler und Bildhauer [of the metopes from the Athenian Treasury] hätten die gleiche Schule besucht. Klenze 1838, cited by Marconi 2009, 162 n. 25; see the contributions (esp. of V. Brinkmann) in I Colori 2004. Blue has been found on the background of the pediment of the Megarian Treasury of Olympia, the frieze of the Siphnian Treasury as well as the metopes of the Athenian Treasury at Delphi, and on the frieze of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (Palagia 2012, 156–157). So already Hurwit 1985, 227. Loewy 1900, 31; trans. 1907, 56; cf. quotation in n. 24. Cf. Loewy 1900, 38; trans. 1907, 69, who spoke of “the most easily comprehended element of form, viz., the contour, and especially the general outline of the whole figure.” Cf. Stewart 2008, 38–39 and figs. 8, 10, on a similarly subtle foreshortening on a Red-figure amphora by Euthymides. Other examples in Kaltsas 2002, cats. 323 (ca. 420) and 311 (ca. 420–410).

Notes to chapter 1 27 28 29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43

44 45 46 47 48

49 50

287

Kaltsas 2002, cat. 417; cf. Squire 2018. See U. Koch-Brinkmann and R. Posamentir in I colori 2004, 197–208. Kaltsos 2002, cat. 100. Loewy 1900, 20; trans. 1907, 37–38. Cf. Carpenter 1971b, 64–65; Rogers 1974, 154. Brunn 1857, I: 587; Conze 1882, 570. Conze’s treatment of this issue is somewhat confused; see below, p. 49. The inward curve of the Aristion relief is well captured by an oblique photo in Rogers 1974 (fig. on p.  155). Cf. Loewy 1900, 55, on the Warrior relief from Pella: berechnete Neigung der Flächen von links- und rechtsher; trans. 1907, 99–100: “calculated inclination of planes from left and right to center.” Welcker is said to have spoken – appropriately and suggestively – of the “economizing” of the figure within the reduced field; his remarks, reported by Perry 1882, 106, are not given a reference and their source is unknown to me; they are not to be found among Welcker’s additions to Müller 1852, in either the German or the English translation (1876). Kaltsas 2002, cat. 95; Stewart 1990, figs. 138–140 (ca. 500). Conze 1882, 570. Aristion stele: Kaltsas 2002, cat. 100 (ca. 510) and cf. cats. 50, 53, 86. Votive relief: cat. 257 (ca. 410). Conze 1882, 571. Conze’s intuition was, nonetheless, undermined by his penchant to use the crucial term Grund indifferently: at times this serves as a synonym for Bildfläche, at others for the equivalent of Grundlinie (we shall return to this shortly). Conze 1882, 572–573. Courbaud 1899, 94–95. Courbaud 1899, 216–220, quotation at 218. Loewy 1900, 20, 45; trans. 1907, 37–38, 80: “[figures], still, in principle, stand out from a merely neutral field.” Cf. Hölscher 2003, 186: Zum einen werden geschlossene Heere vor dem Kampf in homogener Formation, als zwei Kollektiv-Körper, gegeneinander gestellt. Related motif of parallel dancers on a Red-figure krater in Basel, ca. 480 (Stewart 2008, fig. 19) and on the reliefs of the heroön at Trysa/Gjölbaschi (Richter 1950, figs. 421–422). Loewy 1900, 20–21; trans. 1907, 39 (slightly adapted). Parthenon: Neils 2001, 101, notes that this is “one of the only quietly posed horses in the entire frieze.” Related examples of this illusionistic phenomenon: Kaltsas 2002, cat. 203 (ca. 400–390), a votive relief from Athens; cf. cat. 162 (fragment of a small altar: a Roman replica of a fifth-century work?). Carpenter 1971a, 52 and 1971b, 64. Cf. the marvelous assessment of the sculptors’ handling of the shallowness of the Parthenon scene in Mach 1903, 48–51. Cf. Dietrich 2015, with other mid-sixth century examples; Grethlein 2018. Cf., exhaustively, Dietrich 2010; 2015. Cf. the Nike frieze, discussed just below; cf. the discussions of the Olympia metopes in Ch. 2; and the St. Remy panels and the Til-Châtel relief in Ch. 5. Other examples of the motif: Villa Giulia psykter 3577 (Cohen 2003, 176–177 quoting M. Robertson); Mausoleum of Halikarnassus (Ashmole 1972, figs. 194, 195); the so-called athletes’ base (Bianchi Bandinelli [1933] 1973, 160 and fig. 30); frieze on the Temple of Artemis in Magnesia (Webb 1996, fig. 53); Bassai frieze (Childs 2018, fig. 24); the famous horse on the Aemilius Paullus frieze (Stewart 1990, II: fig. 786). Mach 1903, 56–57; cf. Koeppel 1982, 526, referring to painting: “spatial impression is heightened […] by figures seen from behind acting into the background.” So too, Loewy 1900, 44; trans. 1907, 78: “with the introduction of foreshortening (and also of the back view) art goes outside the province of primitive conception for its subject and now draws its pictures direct from nature.” For a dramatic example, see the image in the tondo of an Attic red-figure cup attributed to Douris, now in the British Museum (inv. 1892,0518.1).

288Notes 51 Mach 1903, 57, echoing an argument of Philippi 1872, to which we shall turn shortly. 52 Nike frieze: Ridgway 1981, fig. 57; Mausoleum frieze: Ridgway 1997, 112–135. Figurae serpentinatae: Summers 1972 and 1977. 53 On the phenomenon, cf. now Marconi 2017, albeit with a differing, yet compatible, emphasis. 54 Broad discussion of the vase in Cohen 2003, 184–185 and fig. 12.9a; cf. Hurwit 1977 and 1992. 55 Cf. Deitrich 2015, 29 on a New York volute krater (Painter of the Berlin Hydria), where he contends that “the [fact that the] figures can still literally ‘fall out of the image’ shows that the picture field remains an essentially finite space, defined and delimited by the architecture of the vase.” Cf. the ambiguities of the Palermo Black-figure lekythos attributed to the Gela painter (ca. 500): see Williams 1991, 111 and fig. 45. Williams’ claim that the placement of the figures suggests space and distance is contradicted by the projection of the maenad in front of the upper border, despite the fact that she stands atop – and thus, behind – the satyr whose position, on the ground line below, argues for containment within the painted border. 56 Cf. Conze 1882 for same point. The motif’s appearance might well be subtle: Panofsky 1991, 107 n. 24, on the Metrodorus stele [Berlin], where his feet cross the supporting line, causing it to be rethought as the ground’s surface; discussion in Cohen 2010, 255–256, fig. 118 (dating the relief to ca. 300–250); Bentz 2009, whose fig. 15.11 shows the similarly foreshortened head of a centaur. 57 Philippi 1872, 303. 58 Hinks 1936, 239, reiterated (without acknowledgement) by Pelikán 1962, 57–58. 59 Rodenwaldt 1923, 17, ein unlösbarer Teil des Ganzen; note, however, the exception that had been singled out by Mach in 1903 (above, p. 41 at n. 49). 60 Cf. Ridgeway 1981, 20, 29, who has pointed out the metopes’ architectonic support “is not so much ignored as unutilized.” 61 Koepp 1887, 121–124; reiterated Koepp 1927, 341–342; accepted by Loewy 1900, 54; trans. 1907, 97. Something of the effect may be gleaned from the Haterii relief’s “Colosseum,” on which large-scale sculptures are depicted as displayed between the arcades of the upper story. 62 See at n. 21, above; Conze 1882. 63 Simon 1963; Matheson 1995; Denoyelle 1997. 64 Limitations: cf. Koepp 1927, 342 on die Bedingungen und Hemmungen der Entwicklung. 65 Brunn 1857, I: 587. 66 Conze 1882 had singled out the stela of Glaukias (= Conze 1893–1922, I, cat. 240) – although this is hardly the best example as it lacks the recessed “box”; the type is defined by Clairmont 1993, Intro. Vol., 41–42, and appears to have had great currency in the Piraeus; among the numerous examples are Clairmont, cat. 1.246 = Conze cat. 40 (Piraeus Museum), Clairmont 1.354 = Conze cat. 42 (now Athens, NM), and Clairmont 2.457 = Conze cat. 155 (Piraeus Museum). 67 Document reliefs: Lawton 1995. 68 Kähler 1949, 57: Ehedem war er in gewissem Sinne in die Darstellung einbezogen, gehörte gleichsam mit zum Thema, indem er Luft oder Wasser sein konnte, jetzt ist er ganz einfach Hintergrund und als solcher zunächst nicht Teil der Darstellung, sondern ihre hinter Grenze. Ja, im Unterschied zum altertümlichen Relief ist er als die eigentliche Metopenfläche, wie auch der Raum, den er nach hinten begrenzt, vor aller Darstellung gegeben. (“Formerly, it [the flat ground plane] was, in a certain sense, included in the representation, belonging to the theme as it were, since it could be air or water. Now it is quite simply the background and as such is not part of the

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69 70

71 72

73 74 75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83

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representation, but rather its rear boundary. Indeed, in contrast to ancient relief, it is given before any representation, as the actual surface of the metope as well as space, that it delimits to the rear.”). Loewy 1900, 40; trans. 1907, 71. This effect of compression, and its substitution of lateral extension for movement into depth, has been misunderstood (e.  g., by Podro 1998, 37–38 in his discussion of Donatello’s use of low relief). Dohrn 1957, 32 das älteste mir bekannte malerische Votivrelief; Benabò Brea 1973, 15, who compares the employment of receding planes to Polygnotan prospettiva and regards this as the first example of un fondo paesistico in [South Italian] relievo greco; Ridgway 1981, 136–137 for the landscape as “perhaps more extensive than in any other Attic relief ” and possibly “the result of a pictorial origin”; resumed in Ridgway 1983, 202. Brunn 1857, I: 587. Villa Albani relief: Bol in Bol 1989, 246–251, cat. 80. Objective surface: Riegl [1897– 1898] 1966, 143; trans. 2004, 216. Rocky ground: Clairmont 1993, II, 89–93, at 91 declares the “rocky formation […] very exceptional,” and suggests a topographical identification as Mt. Aigaleos (following W. Fuchs in Helbig4 IV, no. 3257). Cf. Ridgway 1981, 144–145. Brunn, 1857, II: 35. Same observation in Stansbury-O’Donnell 2014, 148. Overbeck 1881, II: 250. Overbeck 1881, II: 257: Die großen Reliefe dagegen, welche einen von der bildenden Kunst aller früheren Perioden vielfach dargestellten und durchgebildeten Gegenstand behandeln, haben eine größere oder geringere Anzahl ihrer Hauptmotive, wie viele können wir nicht sagen, aus älteren Kunstwerken entlehnt und mit den Compositionen auch den strengen und echten Reliefstil der ältern Periode, in welchem dem die Vorbilder gearbeitet waren, mit übernommen und in der erweiterten Darstellung fest­ gehalten. (“The Great Frieze […] treats a subject often represented and developed in the art of all previous periods, [and] displays a greater or lesser number of that tradition’s main motifs – just how many one cannot say – that have been borrowed from earlier works of art, together with the compositions of the strict and authentic relief style of the older periods as well […].”). Overbeck 1881, II: 251. Overbeck 1881, II: 250. Conze 1882, 573, followed by Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 82; trans. 1900, 71. Conze 1882, 566: zu der malerischen Eintiefung verschiedener Gründe hinter einander gelangte, citing the observations of einsichtigen Fachgenossen (explicitly following the observations of Schreiber 1880, 155). Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 82; trans. 1900, 71. Weickert 1925, 26 on the Great Altar frieze: dieselbe Art der Absonderung des Figürlichen vom Grunde. Riegl 1966 [1897–1898], 160, cf. 154; trans. 2004, 226, cf. 218.

2.  Between Two Planes 1 2

Göller 1887, 23; trans. 1994, 207 (slightly emended). “Cat Stele”: Clairmont 1993, cat. 1.550 and see Ch. 1 above, p. 13; Plangon’s stele: Conze 1893–1922, cat.  815 (oben im Felde sind zwei rätselhafte Gegenstände in Flachrelief ausgeführt.); Clairmont 1993, cat. 0.869a (“hung up against an imaginary wall”). There are only four such examples in Clairmont’s catalogue (the others are cats. 1.691, 2.356b, 2.710), where the motif’s use is merely noted, without interpretation of its formal role.

290Notes 3 On the life and career of Adolf Hildebrand (1847–1921), see the annotations in Sattler 1962; overview in Mallgrave and Ikonomou 1994, 29–39. 4 Hildebrand 1893, 96; trans. 1994, 265. Divorced from wall surface: Koepp 1927, 342, on the significance of the frame, which manifest the independence of relief works and their freedom from any tectonic connection. Cf. Philippi 1872, 304 (quoted and discussed in Ch. 5, p. 172). Similar argument affirmed in Koeppel 1982 and Koep­pel 1985. 5 Hildebrand 1893, 64; trans. 1994, 251 (slightly adapted; emphasis mine). 6 Loewy 1900, 9 n.1, 52 n.4, 57 n. 3; trans. 1907, 17 n. 15, 95 n. 34, 105 n. 51. 7 Loewy, 1900, 37; trans. 1907, 66–67 (slightly adapted); cf.  1900, 39: Ganz unterschiedslos an Hochreliefs, wie den Metopen von Olympia, und an Statuen, wie dem blitzschleudernden Zeus oder, wenn hier noch an Bequemlichkeit der Gusstechnik gedacht werden könnte, den Tyrannenmördern und selbst der sterbenden Amazone von Wien, liesse sich die Probe der beiden Platten machen (= 1907, 70–71). 8 Alberti 1991 [1435], 48. 9 Hildebrand to Fiedler (9 October 1881) in Jachmann 1927, 161; cf. at n.5 above and n. 37 below. 10 Not Alberti’s visual pyramid: Bock 1969, 26. 11 See below at n. 40 and above, Ch. 1, n. 69. 12 Rodenwaldt 1923, 66. 13 Rodenwaldt 1923, 66: Die Figur ist kaum noch ein Relief zu nennen. Cf. Kähler 1949, 55, on a similar comparison to pedimental sculptures; so too, Conze 1882, 570 and Loewy 1900, 48; trans. 1907, 86. 14 Cf. a base in Athens: see Clairmont 1993, no. 10; extensive treatment in Schmaltz 1978. See also the discussion of the Kallithea monument in Squire 2018, 536–539. 15 Helmholtz 1900 [1876]; Brücke 1877; Brücke 1881; Hauck 1885. The cultural and scientific circle is sketched in Lenoir 1997, chapter 6; for the relationship between Brücke and Loewy, see Galli 2013. Hildebrand would sculpt Hemlholtz’s portrait; in 1891, Brücke nominated Hildebrand for membership in the Knights of the German Nation (Lenoir, 168). 16 Brücke 1877. 17 Hildebrand to Wölfflin, 15 July 1893 in Sattler 1962, 410–412 at 411. 18 See the quotation above, pp. 65–66 and nn. 5 and 9. 19 Lenoir 1993, 145 explains the theory of vision as a “measuring device.” 20 Succinctly discussed by Turner 1994, 24–25; cf. Podro 1972, Chs 5–6. 21 Hildebrand to Fiedler 9 October 1881 in Jachmann 1927, 160; text given below at nn. 35 and 37. 22 Broad period treatment in Bentley 1899. 23 Helmholtz’s “unconscious inference” (unbewusster Schluss) was used in the first edition of his Handbuch in 1860; discussion in Hatfield 1990; Turner 1994, 26, 74–75. Wundt used the same terminology (Wundt 1862); discussion of the problem in Hatfield 1990, 196–208. 24 Helmholtz 1900 [1876], 607. 25 Hildebrand to Fiedler (August 1876) in Jachmann 1927, 63. That Hildebrand goes on to refer to Helmholtz’s essay on geometry (der Aufsatz vorher über Geometrie) makes clear that he had been reading the new volume of the Populäre wissenschaftliche Vorträge (Braunschweig, 1876). See also Hildebrand’s letters to and from Helmholtz in Sattler 1962, 373–374 (1891), 390–391 (1892) and note Wölfflin’s acknowledgment of the two men’s relations in 1931: Wölfflin 1946, 106. 26 Cf. the development of Hildebrand’s idea in Della Seta 1907, as what the latter would call “parallelism.” It should be added that Hildebrand also had qualms about Wundt’s account “of what one sees” by means of binocular vision: see the letters to Fiedler of 12 July and 13 August of 1879 in Jachmann 1927, 123, 129). On

Notes to chapter 2

27 28

29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38

39 40

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the period’s view of the relations between touch and sight, cf. the comments of Olin 1992, 134. Hildebrand 1893, 9–10; trans. 1994, 229 (slightly adapted). For Hildebrand’s explicit contrast of touch and sight, see the preface to the third edition (trans. in Hildebrand 1945, 14). Helmholtz had, nevertheless, recognized that relief offered a better analogue to vision than did painting. This emerges in the third part of his Handbuch der physiologische Optik (Helmholtz 1867, 659) = Helmholtz 1924–1925, III, 324: “There is the possibility of constructing a model in relief (Reliefbilder der Objekte zu konstruieren) in which all the depths are so reduced as compared with the original that when viewed at a closer distance, it will create the same impression as the latter [viz., the original] to form, dimensions and shading, and not merely as it looks to one eye but as it looks to both eyes (für binokulare Betrachtung); which is achieved by constructing the model in such a manner that it produces practically the same differences between the retinal images as would be obtained by looking at the original. It is just for this reason that a relief viewed from the proper standpoint is a very much more perfect means of reproducing an object, at least so far as its form is concerned, than the best plane picture ever can be (als es das vollkommenste ebene Bild je sein kann). This is true not only of the low reliefs and high reliefs of sculpture… [but also of other imagery].” Brücke 1877. Hauck, 1885, 16. Hauck 1885, 17. This would re-emerge in somewhat different form in Riegl 1927 [1901]. Helmholtz’s unbewusster Schluss: Helmholtz 1896, I: 110–112 (“On Seeing”); Helmholtz 1924–1925, III: 1–36 on perception and “inductive conclusions unconsciously formed” (27); discussion in Lenoir 1993, 120–124 with further references; cf. Hatfield 1993, 533 discussing Helmholtz’s desire, as he said, “to understand how regularity [in musical tones] can be apprehended by intuition without being consciously felt to exist (1863)”; and Turner 1994, 74–75: “Helmholtz elaborated…his more unusual conviction that these unconscious inferences are inductive and syllogistic in nature, and differ from logical inferences only in being imagistic rather than linguistic in nature.” Cf. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 136; trans. 1900, 121: “The painter, by employing the means which the illusionist style has at command, induces the spectator to go through analogous physiological processes to those of the act of vision.” Letter of 9 October 1881 in Jachmann 1927, 160: Daß sich in der Kunst dieser Proceß mit Bewußtsein vollzieht und dieser Vorgang den Unterschied zwischen Kunstform und Wahrnehmungsform ausmacht. Hildebrand 1893, 21–22; trans. 1994, 233. Hildebrand to Fiedler, 9 October 1881 in Jachmann 1927, 160; the translation is adapted from that of Podro 1972, 82. Note Hildebrand’s letter to Fiedler of 1 August 1893, following Das Problem der Form’s publication: Helmholtz hat es von der philosophischen Seite sehr interessiert – er sei auf ganz anderem Weg zu denselben Resultaten gekommen (in Sattler 1962, 413). See Podro 1972, 82–87; cf. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 99; trans. 1900, 88, on “the Erinnerungsbild with its evergrowing consciousness of the third dimension.” Loewy 1900, 39–40; trans.1907, 70–72 (slightly adapted). For Hildebrand’s account of forms “spread out along the surface” see text at nn. 5 and 11, above. Cf. Donahue 2011, on Loewy’s interest in the “memory images” and his debt in this regard to Brücke and to Hildebrand; see further, Galli 2013. On Loewy’s position in scholarship see Bianchi-Bandinelli 1942; Papini 2006.

292Notes 41 Die Probe der beiden Platten: Loewy 1900, 47; trans. 1907, 85. 42 Loewy 1900, 48; trans. 1907, 85–87, saw the Diskobolos of Myron as an equivalent case in statuary, one in which a new freedom in the composition of extremities and appendages emerged despite the retention of frontal or profile presentations: “in the broader sense […] a unifacial figure; in spite of the partial contortion of the upper parts of the body, the general scheme is compressed between the two parallel planes, and each part seeks to exhibit itself to the spectator in a full and exhaustive aspect.” Carpenter 1950, 329, was to follow the analysis explicitly – without acknowledgement – noting how “the animated relief [was carried over] into free-standing isolation by cutting the background away entirely […] [and] like a Greek relief it exists between two parallel planes.” 43 Loewy 1900, 57; trans. 1907, 104 (slightly adapted). 44 Cf. Carpenter 1950, 334. 45 Cf. Summers 2003, 448 and his fig. 223 and the diagram in fig. 224; followed by Neer 2010, 185, where the emphasis is on parallel divisions of space, what Neer calls “fretted” planes. 46 Hurwit 1985, 238–242; Hurwit 1999, 106–116 and his pl. III; Stewart 1990, 114 (whence the identifications that follow). Profile view of the lost figure: so Schuchardt’s reconstruction, followed by Hurwit 1999, fig. 86a. 47 Stewart 1990, 128–129; Hurwit 1985, 295–300; Neer 2012, 188–190. 48 Clairmont, cat. 2.153 with bibliography; the motif is not uncommon: cf. cats. 3.141, 3.171, 3.192, 3.200, 3.209, 3.218, 3.220, 4.205. 4.281, 4.650. 4.690. Perspicacious iconographic analysis in Neer 2010; similarly, and more broadly, Arrington 2015, 217–225. 49 Cf. the same effect on the Mausoleum frieze, ca. 350 (Stewart 1990, II, fig. 531). It should be recognized that the device of the shield employed to close off the representational space to the rear could be reversed, as if to invoke the frontal plane, as it is on the Olympia metope devoted to the Cattle of Geryon; so too on a warrior’s stele in Athens (Conze 1893–1922, cat. 1025), where he stands accompanied by a diminutive servant, nearly completely obscured by the mammoth shield he holds, there facing outward. 50 Cf. above, p. 65–66 and the materials cited in n. 40. 51 Clairmont 1993, cat.  2.156; Neer 2010, 192–194. Cf. the very similar stele from Taman, now in Moscow, discussed in Simon 2009, 17–21. 52 Frame debate: Clairmont 1993, II: 104 (“unlikely that the slab was framed even though on both sides there are dowel holes”); contra Neer 2010, 193 (“An architectural frame, affixed by metal clamps, originally surrounded the piece; it will have provided a boxy space for the figures to inhabit”). 53 Similarly Carpenter 1950, 336 (“each answers formally to the other, yet neither repeats the other”); cf. Neer 2010, 193 (“complementary”). Military iconography: see materials cited in n. 48, above. 54 Cf. Neer 2010, 193. 55 Neer 2010, 193: “fretted one behind the other.” 56 Matz 1952, 15–16: Die diagonalen Bezüge bleiben innerhalb der Körper. Den Raum vertiefen sie nicht. 57 Weickert 1925, 38: Das Eindringen in unbegrenzte Raumtiefe aber ist allen Reliefs der Ara Pacis gemein und unterscheidet sie von jedem griechischen Werk. 58 Weickert 1925, 26. 59 Weickert 1925, 26 concerning the Munich Family votive relief (below, fig. 4.4): “Here, the spatial imagination plays itself out significantly between two levels. The relief ground pushes the figures forward, the realistic conception executes the rounding of the forms before the relief ground, [yet] nowhere is it suggested that these penetrate into deeper space” (Hier spielt sich die räumliche Vorstellung deutlich zwischen zwei Ebenen ab. Der Reliefgrund stößt die Figuren nach vorne, die plastische Vorstellung

Notes to chapter 3

60 61 62 63 64

65

66 67

68 69 70 71 72

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vollzieht die Rundung der Gestalten vor dem Reliefgrund, nirgends wird sie angeregt, in seine Tiefe zu dringen). Discussion and bibliogaphy in Froning 1981, 80 and n. 44. Weickert 1925, 26. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 83; trans. 1900, 72. See also the passage quoted and discussed in Ch. 1 , p. 58. Weickert 1925, 26; cf., Bentz 2009 on the Berlin Metrodorus relief’s similarly chisled ground. Cf., e.  g., Turcan 2002, 28. The only similar effect known to me is on the Çan sarcophagus (see Rose 2014) and in the patterned background of the Endymion panel of the Spada reliefs (see Brilliant 1967, 227: “the dominance of this pattern in the composition tends to nullify distinction of depth”). Weickert 1925, 6: “Around the figures runs an approximately 1 cm wide strip made with the chisel, which disengages the contour from the background. By means of this unusual treatment a distinction, likely intended, between the ground and the figural representations, was achieved” (Um die Figuren läuft ein etwa 1 cm breiter, mit dem Meißel geglätteter Streifen, der den Kontur gegen den Reliefgrund absetzt. Durch diese verschiedenartige Behandlung ist ein wahrscheinlich beabsichtigter Unterschied zwischen Reliefgrund und figürlicher Darstellung erzielt). Cf. Froning 1981, 93, for related examples. Weickert 1925, 6: In flachem, 2,5  cm hohem Relief erheben sich die Gestalten zur idealen vorderen Ebene. (“Within its flat, 2.5 cm high relief, the figural forms rise toward an ideal frontal plane”). Weickert 1925, 27: “How differently a Greek handled similar problems is shown by the raft of Telephos or shields from Mausoleum or on the Alexander Sarcophagus: nowhere does the imagination allude to the ideal completion of the relief ” (Wie anders ein Grieche ähnliche Probleme behandelt, zeigen etwa die Arche des Telephosfrieses oder Schilde vom Maussoleum oder von Alexander-Sarkophag, nirgends berührt die Phantasie den idealen Abschluß des Reliefs). Brendel 1953 = 1979, 59–69 surveys the broad, highly polemical bibliography, and sketches the relative positions. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 115–116; trans. 1900, 101; Koeppel 1982; Koeppel 1985; contra: Pfanner 1983, 56–63. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 72; trans. 1900, 62–63 Die Gesetze des Reliefs: see Ch. 1 above, p. 12 and nn. 2–3; pp. 56–57 and 76. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 73; trans. 1900, 62. Cf. the similar relief now in Fermo (photo: D-DAI-ROM-81.74). Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 20, 72–73, cf. 114; trans. 1900, 18, 62–63, cf. 100. “Supplementing experience”: Blanckenhagen 1975; Cadario 2013.

3.  Insistent Planarity 1 2 3

Loewy 1900, 24; trans. 1907, 43 (emended). Vasari – Milanesi 1906, VII: 273. Vasari’s description is confirmed by Cellini in his Trattato [1568] (quoted and translated in Hibbard 1974, 56); all the relevant Renaissance source material is surveyed by Summers 1981, 98–100; cf. the discussions in Lange 1876; Wittkower 1977, 118. Absence in modern archaeological accounts: notably the major treatment of Pfanner 1989 (although his suggestion that a portrait head might be set in sand to aid its replication virtually reproduces Michelangelo’s method); Palagia 2003 (who garbles the sources); not mentioned in Anguissola 2012. 4 Winckelmann 1756, 34–35; adapted from Fuseli’s translation in Irwin 1972, 79.

294Notes 5 Winckelmann 1756a, 35; trans. after Fuseli in Irwin 1972, 79–80. 6 Winckelmann 1764, 251; trans. 2006, 245. Zenodorus: Plin. HN 34.46 with Cook 2020; Boutades: 35.153, Arkesilaus: 35.155 with Henke 2020. 7 Winckelmann 1760, 315–316, nr. 6. Cf. Bluemel 1955 [1927] 48 with figs. 33 and 35; extensive discussion in Steiger 1966, cat. 22 and Shedd 1991. 8 Fig. 3.2 reproduces Pierre Hutin’s engraving that served for both the final page of the first Dresden edition of Winckelmann’s Gedanken and the title page of the following year’s edition of the Sendschreiben; see the brief discussion of M. Kunze in Winckelmann 2016, xxix and n. 125. The vignette, drawn from Diog. Laert. II.19, depicts Socrates, reputed to have been a sculptor in his youth, working on a group of the Three Graces reported to have been on the Acropolis; cf. Paus. I.22, Plin. HN 36.32. 9 See the materials adduced below, at nn. 15, 16. Cogent discussion and diagrams in Neer 2012, 111 and fig. 4.29. 10 Hildebrand 1893, 113–114; trans. 1994, 273. 11 See the materials in n. 3 above. The process for the reproduction and scale-reduction of sculpture was mechanized, repeatedly, in the nineteenth century; Shedd 1992 surveys many of the inventions. 12 Hildebrand 1994, 273; trans. 1893, 114. 13 Surviving unfinished examples of statues clearly worked front-to-back have been much discussed although differently interpreted: Gardner 1890; Bluemel 1955 [1927]; Wittkower 1977; Pfanner 1989; Hollinshead 2002; Palagia 2003. 14 Lange: discussions in Marcussen 1990; Donahue 2005, 110–120. Loewy: Bianchi Bandinelli 1942; Donahue 2011; Papini 2013; Galli 2013. 15 Lange 1899, xii–xiv; 19: die Kunst die Figur nicht ganz als organische Gestalt, sondern mehr als Massenform und Raumgrösse auffasste; Loewy 1900, 18–19; trans. 1907, 34– 35, for “the silhouette sharply circumscribed and detached from the ground”; further, 1900, 25–32; trans. 1907, 45–56 on frontality and Einansichtigkeit. Cf. Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1938–1942], 50: “la forma più semplice nella quale sia possibile racchiudere gli aspetti accidentali e contingenti della figura umana in uno schema astratto.” Einansichtigkeit would become a dating criterion in later Greek sculpture: Krahmer 1927. Summary treatment of frontality: Bianchi Bandinelli 1960. 16 Nikandre dedication: Kaltsas 2002, cat. 7 (ca. 650); Loewy 1900, 30–31; trans. 1907, 55; cf. Hurwit 1985, 188 (“remarkably flat”), and 197 (“the kouros makes no effort to conceal its origins in a stone block or to soften the impression that its four principal views were independently conceived as two-dimensional drawings”). 17 Lange 1899, xxii. 18 A central argument of Loewy: 1900, 18–19, 38, 52–53; trans. 1907, 34–35, 68, 93–95. Cf. the similar insistence of Riegl 1966 [1899], 272; trans. 2004, 375, on das Gesetz der Frontalität and on a sense of “overall frontality […] [in which] the figure was positioned so that one side alone, the broad side (which was not necessarily the front), would be seen.” 19 Winckelmann 1764, 222. 20 Lange 1899, xii–xviii; 22: “The fact that the statue is depicted completely free from everything that is not the human form itself is a new point of view, a new principle.” (Dass die Statue völlig befreit von Allem dargestellt wird, was nicht die menschliche Gestalt selber ist, das bezeichnet einen neuen Gesichtspunkt, ein neues Prinzip.). Cf. Loewy 1900, 3; trans. 1907, 6. 21 Note the discussion in Winckelmann 1764; trans. 2006, 113 and 163 on “the similarity of Etruscan and Greek works […] [noting] some […] discovered in Tuscany that look like Greek works from a good period.” Some examples: the “hetrurische Vesta” once in the Galleria Barberini, now Museo Nazionale Romano (Winckelmann 2003 [1757], 89); the Callimachus relief of Pan and the Nymphs on the Capitoline “zu Horta in Etruria gefunden worden” (2003 [1757], 130 = 2006 [1764], 229–230); a late

Notes to chapter 3

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38

295

archaic funerary relief in the Villa Albani (Winckelmann 1767, nr. 56: “un di quelli de’ piu antichi tempi della scultura greca, o piuttosto degli Etruschi”); or the Apollinian triad relief in the Villa Albani (Winckelmann 2003 [1757], 141 = 2006 [1764], 239 and engraving no. 4). For the role of the Tuscanica Signa in the Geschichte (= Winckelmann 1764) see Adornato 2018. Winckelmann 2006 [1764], 230–231 with Adornato 2018; further discussion in Adornato 2019. Brunn 1897, 83; Lange 1899, 53 (on the statue from Orchomenos, “as if hewn with an ax”). Brunn 1897, 95; Lange 1899, 18; cf. the response of Gardner 1890 (noted by Loewy 1900, 34; trans. 1907, 61–62). Loewy 1900, 33; trans. 1907, 59 regarded the Apollo from Tenea as Dreiansichtig; cf. Boardman 1985, 21 on kouroi (“basically conceived in two dimensions rather than three”). Further, and in greater detail, Stewart 1986. Both the Nikandre dedication and the Apollo of Tenea served as the twin illustrations of “frontality” in Bianchi Bandinelli 1960. Gardner 1890, 131; cf. Gardner 1898, 122. Naxian statue: Kaltsas 2002, cat.  67 (ca. 540); the argument is rehearsed in Lapatin 2015, 213. Loewy 1900, 34–35; trans. 1907, 61–63. Loewy 1900, 35; trans. 1907, 64–65. Loewy 1900, 31; trans. 1907, 55; cf. 1900, 31: ihr [die Rückseite] Vorhandensein ist materielle Consequenz der ausgeschnittenen Vorderseite; further, 1900, 36: Die zur Betrachtung ausschliesslich oder hauptsächlich bestimmte Ansicht (Letzteres bei mehransichtigen Figuren die die allereste Conception enthaltende) bleibt merkwürdig flach. Note Loewy’s comment about the unfinished back of the Nikandre statue (1900, 31 n. 1; trans. 1907, 55 n. 19). Loewy 1911, 113. Cf. Riegl 1966 [1899], 309; trans. 2004, 425: “[Lysippus] definitively released the body from quadratic construction (the frontal view) and thereby discarded the last remnant of flatness, the attachment to a single plane”; Mach 1903, 250: “conceived on a front plane.” Plin. HN 34.56; text from Le Bonniec’s Budé edition. Lange 1899, 205. Sources in Pollitt 1974, 263–269. Kouroi: trenchant discussion in Neer 2010, Ch. 1. Delphi Charioteer and the Piombino Apollo as a statuae quadratae: Loewy 1900, 36; trans. 1907, 65. Cf. Ridgway 1970, 21, on the “block-like” figures at Olympia. Cf. the account of Carpenter 1971b, 107–108. Pollitt 1974, 263–269. Cf. Hurwit 1995, 12. Hildebrand 1893, 103–107, at 107; trans. 1994, 269–270. Riegl 1927 [1901], 389: daß es nach wie vor auf reines Erfassen der individuellen Einzelform in ihrer unmittelbar evidenten stofflichen Erscheinung gerichtet war; translation by Winkes [Riegl 1985] in Wood 2000, 87; cf. Riegl 1927 [1901], 400: […] das es zu jener Zeit im allgemeinen blos eine Richtung des Kunstwollens gegeben hat, die alle vier Gattungen des bildenden Kunstschaffens gleichmasig beherrschte, jeden beliebigen Gebrauchszweck und Rohstoff ihrem Kunstzwecke dienstbar machte und stets autonom die dem gedachten Kunstzweck entsprechendste Technik wahlte [author's emphasis] (trans. Wood 2000, 94–95: “In every period there is only one orientation of the Kunstwollen governing all four types of plastic art in the same measure, turning to its own ends every conceivable practical purpose and raw material, and always and of its own accord selecting the most appropriate technique for the intended work of art”).Contra Hinks 1936, 248 on late antique sculpture: hier halt die Lehre von einem einheitlichen Kunstwollen nicht mehr stand; see my discussion in Ch. 4, below. Loewy 1900, 30–31, 36–37; trans. 1907, 54–56, 66–68. Cf. the discussion in Ch. 2, above.

296Notes 39 Loewy 1900, 33–35; trans. 1907, 60–61, 64–65, respectively; see p.  101 and n.  28, above. Nineteenth-century emphasis on materiality: Semper 2004 [1851], 77 and 106–107, with Mallgrave’s commentary at 35–36). 40 Generic, static, and repetitive: Mack 1996 (followed by Neer 2010). Cf. Stewart 1986 on the Tenea Apollo; Hurwit 1995 on the echo of such characteristics in Polykleitos’ Doryphoros. 41 Cf. Riegl’s comments (1966 [1899], 310; trans. 2004, 426) on the Doryphoros (cited in Neer 2010, 185): “Not only the Doryphoros but all pre-Lyssipic art in general represented the ‘being’ as opposed to the ‘being seen.’ We also now know what ‘being’ means: objective, autonomous being, the ‘thing in itself.’ The ‘being seen,’ in contrast, signifies the thing as perceived by the human faculties.” 42 Cf. the broad and rich account of Marconi 2007, 214–222 for a distinction of semantic and stylistic interpretations. Yet his formulation of the beholder’s relationship to such scenes (“calling the observer into the narrative” [220]) is, I believe, misconstrued, both as to their purpose and their effect. Self-sufficiency: see p. 113, below. Made to be seen: following Fried 1980. For other formal strategies for the accentu­ ation of the fiction of “presentness,” see below, Ch. 5, p. 185; Ch. 7 pp. 276–277. 43 Lange 1899, 93–94; again, the formula recalls the effect of Brunn’s “two planes” (see above, Chs 1 and 2). 44 Lange 1899, 96: während die Beine und der Unterkörper gerade im Profil dargestellt sind, sind die Schultern und die Brust (oder der obere Teil des Rückens) ganz auf der Fläche entfaltet. 45 Gardner 1898 [1896], 238–239; cf. Loewy 1900, 49; trans. 1907, 88 on “the specific perfection of statuary” in “direct contact with nature.” This anti-theatrical argument had already been articulated by Semper 2004 [1851], 143: “[a work of art] exists for itself alone, and is always distasteful when it betrays the purpose of pleasing or seducing” – and can be traced to the writings of Diderot (analysis in Fried 1980). 46 Gardner 1910, 62. 47 Lange 1899, 75–76; cf. Riegl 1927 [1901], 390: [the late Roman Kunstwollen] “was no longer content to see the individual form presented in two-dimensional extension. Rather, it wanted to see three-dimensional, fully spatial, and self-contained form.” (dass es sich nicht mehr damit begnügt hat, die Einzelform in ihrer zweidimensionalen Ausdehnung zu schauen, sondern dieselbe in ihrer drei-dimensionalen vollräumigen Abgeschlossenheit vorgeführt sehen wollte.); trs., Winkes in Wood 2000, 88. 48 Loewy 1900, 48; trans. 1907, 86–87. 49 Carpenter 1950, 329; Carpenter 1971, 82–83 and pl. ix, illustrating what appears to be Rizzo’s reconstruction of the Porziano replica; cf. already Carpenter 1941, 4 (“more appropriate to a relief than to a statue in the round”) and the account of Neer 2010, 89–90, quoting another description from Carpenter 1971, 165–166. The “parallel planes” idea would later be similarly invoked à propos of the Discobolus by Robertson 1975, 340. 50 Bocci Pacini 1994; Mattusch 2002, 2004; Anguissola 2005, 2007, 2015; Papini 2006; Thliveri 2010. 51 Cf. Donahue 2005, 119, on Carpenter’s “pastiche of concepts, stated or implicit, borrowed or rejected, from the work of Lange, Loewy, Wölfflin, Hildebrand, Riegl, and others.” 52 Gardner 1898 [1896], 238 on the Lancellotti replica (“a dryness and definition of work, especially in the rendering of the muscles”); cf. the more detailed account, along similar lines, of Carpenter 1941, 4, referring explicitly to the Porziano copy (“the ‘best’ versions […] have tried to enhance [the work’s] naturalism”). Thliveri 2010 gives the most detailed descriptions of the replicas and adduces the full bibliography. For some of the problems inherent in such stylistic dating, see Hallett 1995, 127.

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53 Quintilian 2.13.10; Lucian, Philop. 18; Philostratus, Imag. 1.24 (Hyacinthus). Athens statuette: Thliveri 2010, 39 and fig. 2.18b. Munich statuette: Anguissola 2015, cat. 26; Koortbojian 2015 describes the context for such reduced-scale replicas. The forward-facing heads of the Townley and Vatican Discobolus replicas are not original. 54 Mattusch 2002 and Mattusch 2004 elaborate the essential differences; cf. Thliveri 2010. 55 Reconstructions: Papini 2006 (Rizzo); Schröder 1920 (Dihl). 56 Findspot of the Porziano replica: plans and photo of the site in Lanciani 1906; reproduced in Anguissola 2007; reconstruction drawing in Rizzo 1907. Tivoli replicas: both were apparently found on separate occasions in the vicinity of the Casino of Giuseppe Fede (= the Theater: Pinto and MacDonald 1995), although no precise findspot is known: see the letter of Zoega (18 Feb. 1792) in Welcker 1849, 422–423; bibliography in Anguissola 2007, nn. 10, 14. 57 Anguissola 2007, figs. 2, 3. 58 Giuliano et al. 1979, vol. I, 1, nrs. 120, 117; Papini 2006, fig. 6, 8. 59 A greater correspondence is to be seen between the Townley and Porziano replicas: illustrated in Thliveri 2010, fig. 2.12a–b. 60 Loewy 1900, 48; trans. 1907, 87; cf. Krahmer 1927. Findspots: see above, n. 56. 61 One-sided: Loewy 1900, Lange 1899, Carpenter 1971, Ridgway 1970, 85 (implicitly), Robertson 1975, Childs 2018, 165. Multifaceted: Mattusch 2002, 104, Thliveri 2010, Neer 2010, 90, Jenkins 2012, 16. 62 Jason: Ridgway 1964, esp. 124 (“actually three dimensional in pose yet emphasizes its two dimensional aspect”), with an account of the replicas, to which add those from Perge and Side, for which Ridgway 1997, 307–308 (on “the eloquent silhouette […] that makes the action most clearly understandable”) and 2001, 81–82, only slightly modifying her earlier views. Cf. Loewy 1900, 49; trans. 1907, 87, who, rather uncharacteristically off the mark, took the statue to represent the perfection of a multitude of views (unendlich viele Ansichten) and “the direct connection to Nature” (der unmittelbare Anschluss an die Natur erreicht). 63 Severe Style: Ridgway 1970; Stewart 2017; provocative re-assessment in Adornato 2019. 64 Bases, their inscriptions, and the siting of statues: Keesling 2003, 185–191 and 2017, 124–128; Krumeich 2010; Adornato 2017, Adornato 2019, Krumeich 2022; cf. the small-scale equestrian monument of Ischyrias set up in the Athenian Agora: Ma 2013, 205–206 and his fig. 6.1. 65 Fig. 3.27: Athens, Acropolis Museum, no. 596 (base with plinth and feet). The short end to the front, with inscription: Richter 1942, cat. 115 and pl. xcviii, fig. 345. See also Kissas 2000, no.  20 and figs. 28, 29 for the stepped base (NM 4754) of the Anavysos Kouros (NM 3851). Cf. further the similar comments of Neer 2010, 83, 85 on the Tyrannicides. 66 Epicharinos: Adornato 2019, 561 and fig. 2. Xenophantes: Kissas 2000, cat. 21 and figs. 31, 32. See also below pp. 126–127. 67 Aegina: Stewart 2008, 57–59; Ridgway 1970, 13–17; Pollitt 1972, 18–20. 68 Pollitt 1972, 115; Rolley 1994, 114. For the Munich copy: Lutzow 1869, 19–20. 69 Gardner 1898, 298: “transparent drapery […] floating in rich folds across the field of the relief ”; Carpenter 1929. Drapé d’atelier: Rolley 1994, 114 (comparing the Balustrade’s other Nike [“Nike 2”]); illustrations in Ridgway 1981, figs. 76, 77). Comparison to Parthenon metope S27: Rolley 1994, 114. Bassae: above, fig. 1.23. 70 Brunnsaåker 1955, 163 on the group’s “front” and 85–90 on its inscription. See now Baltes 2020, Strocka 2021, and Stewart 2022 on the problems of reconstructing both Antenor’s and Kritios’ groups. 71 Cf. Loewy 1900, 39; trans. 1907, 70, claiming that “the test of the parallel planes could be applied equally well” to all such works. Interpretation (à propos the Ar-

298Notes

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

80 81

82

temesion God, whether Zeus or Poseidon): Carpenter 1971, 165 (“depends on construction along a single plane […] as a vividly outlined silhouette”); Ridgway 1970, 62 (silhouetted and likened to the form of a metope); Mattusch 2002, 105 (“best viewed in silhouette”); Stewart 2008, 45–51 (on the chiastic composition); cf. Pollini 2016, 221 (“show[s] the god from the optimal viewing angle, that is, the profile, as all scholars agree”); differently, Neer 2010, 87 (“impressive from multiple vantage points […] best suited to viewing in an open space”) and 88 on the significance of the three-quarter view. Brunnsåker’s analysis of the phenomenon involved, with regard to the Tyrannicides’ pose and its relationship to the group’s representation in its two dimensional reproductions, remains the most cogent discussion: Brunnsåker 1955, 152–164. Foundry Cup: Mattusch 1980; Keesling 2003, 189–190; Tyrannicides: Schmidt 2009 (minimalist account); Azoulay 2017 (maximalist account). Loewy 1900, 36; trans. 1907, 66. Loewy 1900, 31–32; trans. 1907, 56–57. Brunnsåker 1955, 152, 158, 162 (“the other statue, in either case, [is] regarded as a secondary part of the composition”). Loewy 1900, 47; trans. 1907, 84. Pointed out in Pollini 2016. Krumeich 2010 with full bibliography and reconstruction (see his figs. 30–36); the statue and base were later re-used and re-dedicated to Germanicus; now see Krumeich 2022. Following and elaborating Krumeich 2010, 355–361. The bases of similar monuments demonstrate how an original pairing of frontal address and dedicatory inscription might be divorced from one another when the monument was reused, so that a subsequent dedication was inscribed on the long side of the base (or on the top of it) so as to be seen from the side. As a result, in either case the profile took on a new significance and effectively became the “frontal” view – but not necessarily the aesthetically dominant one. Some other examples: (1) Krumeich 2010, cat. A9 and fig. 5, dedicated to Lampon (ca. 100 bc?) with a vigorously striding bronze statue, originally inscribed on the short end, then re-inscribed in the Augustan period to C. Aelius Gallus on top with the lettering facing the side when the front inscription was erased and replaced; similarly Keesling 2010, 312–314 and 2017, 212–214 and fig. 65. (2) Krumeich 2010, cat. A10 and fig. 5, twice reused: the original inscription on the short end was erased when the statue was re-inscribed to Marcellus, then, a later dedication was subsequently added on the long side (ca. 120 ad). Noted by Ridgway 1971, 338, regarding Athens NM 2720 (and possibly NM 3645), following Richter 1942, 66–70 (statues’ plinths set “obliquely” in their bases). Payne 1950 [1936], 8. While the Rampin head is in the Louvre, the body is Acropolis Museum 590; which base Payne refers to is unclear to me, although it is possible he is referring to DAA 169; cf. Keesling 2003, 89 (noting that none of the statues can be matched to bases with certainty); Ridgway 1977, 140–142. For another equestrian monument with its inscription on the short side of its base, see Kissas 2000, no. 21. Ajootian 1998, 9 (“ancient viewers were cast in the role of Athens’ enemies”); Baltes 2020, 365 (“placed the viewer in the position of the victim”); cf., rightly, Brunnsåker, 1955, 163 (“the attack is directed against nobody in particular”) and less clearly, Stewart 1990, I: 136 (“since [the spectator] stands right in their path, the warning is clear: Let future tyrants beware!”) and recently in Stewart 2022, 338 (seeming to “threaten us”) while more compellingly, at 332, à propos of Antenor’s group (they appear “to rush to eradicate tyranny”). As “general symbols” analogous in this sense to cult statues: Brunnsåker, 163  f. Cf. Neer 2010, 84, on the “headlong rush” and its archaic character.

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83 Hölscher 2018a, 274–275, reiterating his earlier views; so too Keesling 2017, 23– 24. 84 Implicit in the comments of Neer 2010, 83: “the ongoing amplification and intensification of standard Archaic effects.” 85 Loewy 1900, 34; trans. 1907, 62: die vierseitige Auffassung der menschlichen Gestalt als schon vorher bestehend annehmen (“the conception of the human form as foursided already previously existed in the mind of the artist”). Here Loewy explicitly invoked the similar view of Gardner 1890. 86 Junker 2002. 87 Rodenwaldt 1923, 67. Demetria and Pamphile relief: Himmelmann 1999, 39, 59 n. 80. 88 Fig. 3.41: Philodemos stele, Athens. Cf. Brauron Museum BE92 (= Clairmont 1993, cat. 2.909) and Athens NM 720 (= Clairmont cat. 1.315).

4.  Manifold Forms and Styles 1 2 3 4

5 6

7

8 9 10 11 12

13

Matz 1932, 282. The duality and its historiography were analyzed in Brendel 1979 [1953]. Cf. Ch. 1, pp. 43–44. Weickert 1925, 26, compared a votive relief in Berlin (his fig. 4) and the Telephos frieze (“a work of better quality”). In fact, Sieveking 1925, 19, had remarked just the opposite effect on the Ara Pacis friezes: “this is reversed on the Ara Pacis where the relief images recede into depth” (sie in den Reliefbildern der Ara Pacis umgekehrt in die Tiefe zurückweichen). Tendentious arguments: a central aspect of the discussion in Brendel 1979 [1953], passim. Matz 1932; his ideas were incorporated in Bianchi Bandinelli 1933. Brendel 1979 [1953], 69; noted by Bianchi Bandinelli 1933, but not mentioned in any of the subsequent studies that pursued Brendel’s ideas: neither in Brilliant 1974, Settis 1982, Settis 1989, nor Hölscher 2004 [1987]; cf., however, the related conception in Brilliant 2007. Matz 1932, 278; cf. 282, referring to “[…] the form employed by the classical art of the fifth and fourth centuries, in which it prevails […] by a shallow spreading out and arrangement in multiple layers […]” ([…] die Form der klassischen Kunst des 5. und 4. Jh. […] [ist] flächige Ausbreitung und Schichtung […]). Matz 1932, 279 (here explicitly following Krahmer 1927); discussion in Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 160–166. Matz 1952. Matz 1932, 282 (italics mine). Should one imagine an implicit critique here of Panofsky 1927? Related argument, without mention of Matz, in Schweitzer 1953, 13 (“Körperperspecktive”). In the case of the Venice Cybele relief (fig. 4.2), despite the fact that its figures are spread out paratactically before a wall, Matz seems to have ignored the door behind that suggests a possible opening into depth – making this example perhaps more suited to his second type, if only implicitly. Matz, 1932, 281–282 on the Ara Pacis’s densely packed figures: “[…] when space is formally occluded by means of closely packed masses of figures.” ([…] oder durch dichtgedrängte Figurenmassen wird der Raum förmlich blockiert.); Conze 1882, 570 had recognized this as a Greek technique. Cf. the rehearsal of Matz’s first three types in Pelikan 1962, 58: closed; infinite; and a background view blocked by foreground forms (clearly following Matz, without acknowledgment); critical commentary in Koeppel 1982.

300Notes 14 Hildebrand 1893, 55; trans. 1994, 247. Matz’s idea was endorsed in Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 166; the lesser-employed concave arrangement is noted as the exception in the compositions on Etruscan ash urns by Freytag 1986, 208. Cf. the contrasting views concerning the Titus arch spoils relief of Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 118; trans. 1900, 103 and Pfanner 1983, 58–60 (with his diagrams in figs. 42, 43). 15 Koepp 1927, 329–330 on Pinder 1926; the passage is noted in Koeppel 1982, 509–510 Cf. the views of Overbeck, Wickhoff, and Conze discussed in Ch. 1, above, pp. 56–58. 16 In this respect Matz’s views were the forerunners of the anachronic aspect of Hölscher’s Bildsprache (Hölscher 2004 [1987]). 17 The point would subsequently be made in relation to late antique style by Hinks 1936, 239, 248. 18 Zimmer 1982 and Laird 2015 offer the best of the limited accounts; cf. Woods 1991; Petersen 2006, 227–230; Corbier 2006, 243–244; CIL 14.393. 19 Other probably contemporary Publii Nonii from Ostia are attested (CIL 14.389 and 392). 20 Correspondence with mensae: Amelung 1903, 778 (Masstisch). Mensae Ponderariae: Lange 2010 and Lange 2011. Iconography: Zimmer 1982, 114–115; cf. a related claim for such “professional” imagery in D’Ambra 1988. “Giving good weight”: McPhee 1979. 21 Zimmer 1982, in part following Moritz 1958. 22 This was not a phenomenon of Graeco-Roman culture alone; such combined forms were long known in Egyptian art: see the examples adduced by Summers 2003, 448 and his figs. 223, 224 (followed and expanded by Neer 2010, 185–186 with Greek examples). 23 Kaltsas 2002, cat. 260; Vikela 1997, 181 and n. 42, with bibliography. 24 Painted ground: Rodenwaldt 1923, 71. 25 Kaltsas 2002, cat. 266; Tagalidou 1993, 208–211: in perspektivischer Ansicht dar­ge­ stellt; Kekulé 1869, nr. 374 merely noting the oben architrave. Dating: Tagalidou, 210: am ehesten um 390 v. Chr.; Childs 2018, 162. 26 The motif is also found on vase painting: see Simon 2009, 61–67 for its appearance on a Kelchkrater attributed to Asteas. 27 See Pfuhl and Mobius 1977–1979, II: 310–314 and for Fig. 4.20, their cat. 1439. The rider motif might be coupled with a banquet scene, in separate fields: cf. Pfuhl and Mobius 1979, cat. 1452 (II: pl. 211). 28 Mitropoulou 1976 collects the examples, but offers little discussion of the problems presented here. 29 Other aspects are discussed in Koortbojian 2013. 30 Blanckenhagen and Alexander 1990, 23. 31 I shall return to this phenomenon in Ch. 7, below. 32 Langner 2001, 324, with earlier bibliography; Flohr 2013, 109, 114–116, 144. 33 Rodenwaldt 1940; Bianchi Bandinelli 1970; Petersen 2006; Hölscher 2016. 34 Hinks 1936, 247. I have taken the liberty to signal his examples. 35 Hinks 1936, 247: dies Gleichgültigkeit der räumlichen Konsistenz. Cf. Rodenwaldt 1935 and Rodenwaldt 1940. 36 Koeppel 1982; Koeppel 1985. 37 As Koeppel 1982, 529; Koeppel 1985, 102 had pointed out, this had been intuited by Sieveking 1925, 19. 38 This paragraph rehearses Koortbojian 2019, 132. 39 Here following Riegl 1927 [1901]. 40 Riegl 1927 [1901], 122; cf. Hildebrand 1893, 49–50; trans. 1994, 245: In dieser Ver­ ein­fachung der gegenständlichen Erscheinung zu einer einheitlichen Flächenwirkung, gegenüber der Hintergrundsfläche, liegt es, daß uns die Gegenstände in natura, wenn

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man sie aus der Entfernung einzeln fixiert, flach erscheinen, im Verhältnis zu der starken und brutalen Modellierung, mit der sie in der Nähe uns entgegentreten. (“This simplification of the appearance of the object into a coherent surface effect against a background is the reason why objects in natura, when viewed individually at a distance, appear flat, by contrast with the stronger and more brutal modeling of objects closer at hand.”). 41 The universality that Riegl assigned to his distinction is apparent in other writings not devoted to late antique art – notably Riegl 1899; trans. 2020; I owe this observation, and the reference, to Nathan Stobaugh.

5.  The Differing Kinds of Pictorial Relief 1 2

3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20

Conze 1882, 574. Conze 1882. This label did not become a ubiquitous technical term: cf. Schreiber 1888, who spoke of Steingemälde (3) and das malerische Relief (4); however Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 77: Reliefgemälde. Examples of the phenomenon are presented and discussed in Ridgway 1983. Glanum mausoleum’s basic publication: Rolland 1969, who gives the panels’ dimensions (variously between 2.17–2.20 × 3.78–3.82 m). Conze 1882, 572. These reliefs may well have been produced by Greek artists working in Gaul: see Kleiner 1977. Schreiber 1888, 5. Schreiber 1888, 3. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105; trans. 1900, 93. Wickhoff goes on to remark of the Alexander mosaic that “In place of the sky there appears a white expanse as in earlier paintings” (Anstatt des Himmels erscheint noch wie in der älteren Malerei eine weiße Fläche). As Wickhoff’s discussion of the Titus panels demonstrates (discussed below), this was hardly a compelling account of the characteristic here described. Matz 1932. Weickert 1925, 27–28; cf. the related emphasis on Italic style in Sieveking 1925, 20 (“no echo of Greek painting”). “Spread across the surface”: cf. in Ch. 2 the view of Hildebrand (p. 64) and Loewy (p. 76). Weickert 1925, 28. Weickert 1925, 29; cf. Ch. 2, above, pp. 84–85. Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 173. Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1939], 364; cf. Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 174, citing the similar treatment of contours on a relief in Brussels (his fig. 65); similarly on the arches at Orange (Stilp 2017, esp. figs. 94, 98); at Carpentras (Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1942], 329 and fig. 169); and on the Basilica Aemilia frieze (Fless, Langner, et al. 2018, Kat. 8, Taf. 68, 69). That such channeling might serve to establish a silhouette at the start of carving is revealed by a relief now in El-Beida, Libya (illustration: DAI Rom Inst. Neg. 61.1742). Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1939], 364. Kaschnitz von Weinberg 1961, II: 26. Philippi 1872, 304–305. Schreiber 1888; Weickert 1925; Matz 1932; Hinks 1936. E. g., Hölscher 2009 and Hölscher 2018b; cf. Anderson 2013 for the panels’ affinity with late second- and early third-century sarcophagi. Kleiner 1980b and Gros 1981 discuss the ambiguous subject of the south panel (fig. 5.2).

302Notes 21 Thus an exception to Garger’s claim for the staggered heights of the figures on all of the panels (1937, 32), which setzen die rückwärtigen Figuren um ein bis zwei Kopflängen höher. 22 Livy 44.40.4–10 and Plut., Aem. 18 with Kleiner 1980b, 119 (also citing the motif’s appearance on the relief from Lecce [also to be dated to the second century], now in Budapest) and Pollitt 1986, 156–157 and fig. 163. 23 Cf. Riegl 1927 [1901], 118 and 127 n. for the same phenomenon on the Kalydonian Boar Hunt sarcophagus in the Museo Capitolino. 24 Conze 1882, 572; Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105; trans. 1900, 93. 25 Conze 1882, 571–572; Wickhoff (as in n. 24, above). 26 Garger 1937, 32; Conze 1882, 572. 27 Garger 1937, 36–37; cf. Schreiber 1880, 156 (noted by Conze, 1882, 566) who saw this as an incipient aspect of the bucolic panels (which he would come to regard as Hellenistische Reliefbilder) that was brought to fruition on the Titus reliefs. 28 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 93; trans. 1900, 68; Bianchi-Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 173 and Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1939], 364; Rolland 1969, 47. Cf. Leander-Touati 1987, 119 on the Great Trajanic Frieze and its precedents; similarly Moreno 2001, 33, for the related heavy black outlines employed on the Alexander mosaic; generally, Conze 1882, 569, 575; Riegl 1927 [1901], 111. 29 Rolland 1969, 47 and 56; contra Bianchi-Bandinelli 1973 [1933], 173. 30 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105; trans. 1900, 93. 31 Philoxenus: Plin. HN 35.110 with Furhmann 1931. Survey of discussions in Cohen 1997; historical character: Hölscher 1973 and Hölscher 1988, 297 (depicting Issos, Gaugamela, oder eine Zusammenschau verschiedener Schlachten) yet cf., contra, Ehrhardt 2008; authenticity of armour and paraphernalia: Pfrommer 1998; four colors: Plin. HN 35.50 and 92 and Cic. Brutus 18.70, with Cohen 1997, 168–169. 32 Wooton 2002, with earlier bibliography. 33 Andronikos 1984; Baumer and Weber 199; Tripodi 1991; Saatsoglou-Pliadeli 2011; Franks 2012. 34 Dependence on the beholder’s imagination was a Hellenistic preoccupation: Blanckenhagen 1975; Cadario 2013. 35 Cf. Loewy 1900, 54–55 and fig. 29; trans. 1907, 98–99 and fig. 44 on the Alexenor stele (ca. 490); the Athens Dancers (ca. 500), especially the hands; the Sounion relief (ca. 460). See also Ch. 1, above. 36 Glanum: see p. 174 and n. 28, above. 37 The sole example known to me of a Greek battle frieze whose overall composition may have been similarly compressed in the lower part of the relief field is represented by a fragment of a small Attic frieze of ca.  390 now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 29.47): see Hölscher 1973, 107–108; Ridgway 1983, 201–202 and Ridgway 1997, 199. Paliadeli 2019 unconvincingly proposes that the original on which the Alexander mosaic was based was a more conventionally-proportioned composition, without the compression of its figures into the lower part. 38 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 87–90; trans. 1900, 78–80; cf. the analysis of Koeppel 1982; contra Pfanner 1983. This sense of atmosphere is to be distinguished from the role such a blank expanse plays on a series of fourth and third century votive reliefs, where this formal characteristic resulted from the need to depict the divinities at a much larger scale: “atmosphere” is not a characteristic of these votives: so Karusu 1979, followed by Ridgway 1983. 39 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 89; trans. 1900, 78–80 slightly modified: scheinen somit das gewünschte Zurückweichen des Grundes zu stören; cf. 1912, 105; trans. 1900, 93–94; followed by Kaschnitz 1961, 60. Respirazion: Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 87; trans. 1900, 78; this idea may well have derived from Wölfflin’s emphasis on how architecture

Notes to chapter 5

40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57

58

59

303

“breathes” in his Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur of 1886, 27, which is discussed by Levy 2015, 101. Kleiner 1980a; Hesberg 1981; Chaisemartin 2019. Cf. Weickert 1925 (cited above, p. 170). The motif is also found in Third Style paintings, but in a much attenuated form. The only comparison, which is hardly alike given the differing genre and function, is the presence of a hanging garland above figures on many lares altars (e.  g., Pompeii I.13.2; IX.13.1–3; IX.9.b–c; or Delos, Maison de la Colline – on these see Flower 2017); one might also compare the garlanded “frame” of the garden painting in Pompeii’s Domus Ceii, which differs yet again. Architecture (Pompeii’s Tomb of the Garlands): Kockel 1983, 126–151. Sarcophagi: Zanker in Zanker and Ewald 2012, 28–29. Painting: Barbet 1985, 75–76 (following Grimal). Cf. the rather different strategy (“self-sufficiency”) discussed above in Ch.  3 , p. 113. Schreiber 1880, 155. Schreiber 1889–1894; addenda in Sampson 1974; further, Schreiber 1896. Schreiber 1888, 21. Respectively Himmelmann 1980; Hesberg 1986; Allen 2018 (notably on the bucolic sarcophagi). Private setting: cf. what Cicero refered to in a letter to Atticus as typos […] quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere (Cic. Att. 1.10.6 = SB 1.6.3; cf. the usage at Plin. HN 35.128 and 151). Scale: the largest were the Grimani reliefs, yet still less than one meter in height (see n. 59, below). The much greater Spada panels (originally ca. 175 × 100 cm) whose mythological imagery broadly corresponds to these reliefs, arguably belong to a distinct and unparalleled example of large-scale, perhaps domestic, decoration (see Newby 2002 with the earlier bibliography; also included in Schreiber 1888). On “self-sufficiency” see Philippi 1872 (p.  172, above) cf. Schreiber 1888 (p.  168, above) and see the materials referred to in Ch. 3 nn. 45–46. Froning 1981, 140–153 (with bibliography) and pls. 5.2, 52–60. The figural frieze of the Medici krater, roughly 75 cm high, is smaller than that of the Grimani panels. Ashmole 1929, 106–107; Hesberg 1986, 13–14, with bibliography (33 × 47 cm). Hesberg 1986, 20 with bibliography in n. 97 (34 × 39 cm). A similar relief, of comparable size (34 × 46.7 cm) is in St. Louis: Vermeule 1981, cat. 195. The artificiality of the motif is evident on the Munich Peasant relief, the Turin relief, and the Grimani sheep panel; see the comments of Schreiber 1880, 156–157; cf. the more naturalistic rendering of such a rocky receding landscape in the “Origins of Rome” painting from Pompeii’s House of Marcus Fabius Secundus (see Cappelli 2000, esp. 166–176). Hesberg 1986, 20 with bibliography in n. 100 (38 × ca. 46 cm [?]). Hesberg 1986, 7–8 with bibliography in n. 6 (30 × 34 cm). Hesberg 1986, 8 with materials cited in his n. 7. A good comparison is provided by the imitation panel pictures in the frescos of the Villa Farnesina’s Crytoportico A, which are similar in scale: roughly 47–50 × 36–39 cm, with their frames (dimensions from Bragantini and De Vos 1982); dimensions of the marble reliefs given in nn. 52 and 53, above. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website gives the dimensions of the east wall vignette of the Boscotrecase Black Room (15) as 30.5 × 31.8 cm. Dream-like atmosphere: Blanckenhagen in Blanckenhagen and Alexander 1990, 25–26; “immeasurable depth”: 41–42. Vienna Lioness: 94 × 81 cm; Vienna Sheep: 95 × 81 cm; Palestrina wild boar: 94 × 81 cm. A fragment in Budapest is thought to represent a fourth relief: Giuliano 1985.

304Notes 60 Schraudolph 1993, 107–108 and pl. 55, with earlier bibliography. 61 Nach einem Gemälde dieser Art mag auch das Relief gearbeitet sein (Helbig3 II [1913], no. 1403). 62 Broad treatments of the type, mostly iconographic: Bianchi Bandinelli 1970; Falletti-Maj 1977; Petersen 2006; Hölscher 2012; the comments of Rodenwaldt 1921–1922 (on similar forms on the sarcophagi) remain relevant. Some other aspects of this “everyday” imagery are discussed in Koortbojian 2013. 63 Deyts 1976, cat. 205; Deyts and Barçon 1984; Langner 2001, 333–336; Langner 2003. 64 The strategy and effect of the “straight-on” view is not substantially different from that which had been employed long before on many Black-figure vases (cf. figs 1.16, 1.18, 1.28, 1.32, 1.33, above). 65 Clarke 2003, 259–261, on the view as if merely adjusted to enhance the recognition of the protagonist and his memorable act. Cf. Falletti-Maj 1977, 375, who simply notes the role of perspective (scorcio) and the visione dell’alto; further, but similarly, Zevi 1991, 270. 66 “Sacro recinto”: Pesce 1941, 22 (cat. 24,); illustrated and briefly mentioned in Zanker 1988, 23 and fig. 19; for the conventional garden fence, see Bergmann 2014. “Pompa di magistrato”: Pesce 1941, 22–23 (cat. 25). 67 Angelicoussis 2009 gives a thorough description and the bibliography; Rodenwaldt 1940 remains fundamental. Dimensions: ca. 59 × 94 cm. 68 Vatican sarcophagus: Rodenwaldt 1940, 35–36 and fig.  12 (192  cm long). As the preserved Ince relief is 94 cm long, a symmetrical arrangement with the standing couple on axis implies an original of roughly 155 cm in length, making it one of the largest examples of this funerary type and suggests a comparison with the lintel block from the famous Haterii tomb (164 cm wide). 69 Getty sarcophagus: Koortbojian 2013; Vatican sarcophagus: see previous note. 70 The examples adduced are drawn from Bergmann 2008, where the entire series is fully analyzed. 71 Cf. above, p. 196 and cf. Gardner in Ch. 3, p. 113 at n. 45, and Ch. 7, p. 271 (the public variant).

6.  The Challenge of Depicting Cohesive Space 1 2 3

4

5 6 7 8 9

Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 103; trans. 1900, 91 (slightly emended). Cf. the discussions of the related ideas, previously by Brunn (Ch. 2, above) and subsequently by Matz (Ch. 4, above); cf. Schweitzer 1953. In what follows, depending on the context in which Wickhoff employed the broad term geschlossen, I will translate it, variously, as “enclosed,” “unified,” “self-contained,” “cohesive,” etc. Cf. Summers 2003, 450: “establishing a virtual ‘somewhere’ around and behind the completed figures.” Schefold 1960; Gombrich 1966. The reception of contemporary art in the 1880’s had recognized a similar dilemma. The discussion of Seurat’s critics’ polarized responses to Une Dimanche à la Grande Jatte–1884 were clearly torn between the painter’s ability to produce compelling landscapes and the awkward stiffness of his figures: acute analysis in Butterfield-Rosen 2021, Ch. 1. Hinks 1936, 244–245. Weitzmann 1947; Blanckenhagen 1957; Brilliant 1984; von Dippe 2007. Cf. Riegl 1927 [1901], 124–127 on the penchant for continuous (zyklische) narration; Hinks 1936, 247: haben sich für die zweite Alternative (i.  e., the temporal aspect) entscheiden. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 103; trans. 1900, 91. Asteas: Simon 2004; Simon 2002 = Simon 2009, 61–67.

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10 Wurzburg fragment: Tanner 2016. Open loggia: cf. Richter 1970, fig.  195. Krater from Syracusa with coffered ceiling (ca. 340): Trendall 1991, 174 and fig. 71. 11 Cf., on the Telephos frieze, the interiors (slabs 44–46), or those other scenes that filled the entire field (e.  g., slab 8). 12 Cf. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 87; trans. 1900, 78. The best discussion of the Telephos frieze variations is Heres-von Littow 1970, although her three “Gruppen” are somewhat differently conceived. 13 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 82–83; trans. 1900, 72. Cf. Conze 1882 (cited in Ch. 1, above, p. 33). 14 Because of the shadows that such relief elements might cast on the background representing “the air,” Wickhoff did not regard this as a satisfactory solution (1912 [1895], 83; trans. 1900, 72); cf. the discussion above in Ch. 5, p. 183 at n. 39. The use of the strategy was widespread: cf. its employment on the Dolon relief (Vienna): Froning 1981, pl. 8,1. 15 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105–106; trans. 1900, 94: als Zeugnis für den Übergang zum raumumschließenden Hintergrunde wichtig (emphasis mine). 16 Panofsky 2000, 30–31 (trs. Wood) = Panofsky 1927, 261. 17 See Stinson 2011. It is a virtue of Sinisgalli 2012 that the author has called attention to the relevance of Euclid’s Catoptrics to the question of whether the ancients had the mathematical sophistication to devise a compelling perspectival construction. 18 Bibliography in Stinson 2011 and Hinterhöller-Klein 2015; cf. Borchardt 1980, 260 on räumlich-perspektivisches Sehen ein Naturgesetz ist (explicitly following Kaschnitz von Weinberg). 19 Blanckenhagen 1963, 105; exhaustive treatment of the frescoes in Biering 1995. The paintings, discovered in 1848, were known to Wickhoff, although he does not comment on their landscapes (1912 [1895], 189; trans. 1900, 174). 20 O’Sullivan 2007, 502: “somewhere above eye level.” Cf. the similarly high setting of the “Forum frieze” in the Praedia Iuliae Felicis: Olivito 2013, esp. fig. 18. 21 Blanckenhagen 1963, 111–112. 22 Bibliography in Ch. 5, n. 33. 23 Five: Weber in Baumer and Weber 1991, 29; six: Saatsoglou-Pliadeli 2011, 282–283. 24 Discussion in Franks 2012, 18–19. 25 Jacobsthal 1931, cat. 103. 26 Weber in Baumer and Weber 1991, 29. 27 Cf. Carroll-Spillecke 1985, 152: “There is no suggestion of unlimited space beyond the figures” – which, although true, fails to do the effect justice. 28 Cf. the comments of Rodenwaldt 1923, 98–99 with his fig. 119. 29 Marconi 2007 surveys the earlier examples. On the question of the angle of viewing and its effects, see Stillwell 1969, Osborne 1987, Ridgway 1999, and most fully, Marconi 2009. 30 Presumed dado in the Lesche: Stansbury-O’Donell 1989, 205. Reconstructions: Faedo 1986 and Stansbury O’Donnell 1989, 1990, 1999. One might imagine the same for the presumed eponymous paintings in Rome’s Porticus Argonautorum and Porticus Meleagri. 31 Related commentary in Hölscher 2009. 32 Riegl 1966 [1890–1891], 154; trans. 2004, 218. 33 Riegl 1996 [1890–1891], 161; trans. 2004, 226–227. 34 See Ch. 4 above, pp. 145–146. 35 Rodenwaldt 1923, 71. For the surviving pigment on a related, contemporary votive from Athens see Brinkmann in I colori 2004, 321–324 and figs. 428–429. 36 Later variations among the reliefs depicting the cave of the nymphs transpose or alter the disposition of figures without altering the basic effect: cf. Kaltsas 2002, cat. 450, 452, 458 (all Athens), with Pan outside, Nymphs within the cave; Vikela

306Notes

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68

1997, 181 and her pl. 22,3 (Munich), where Pan appears inside the cave – twice. On the interpretation of the relative scale of these figures see Hedreen 2021. Rodenwaldt 1923, 75–76 and fig. 92 (here, fig. 6.15); cf. Vikela 1997, 217, pl. 28,3 on which “the nymphs play only a secondary role;” further, Ridgway 1983, 204. E.g, the Grimani reliefs (figs 5.23, 5.34, 5.25) and the Spada panels (see Ch. 5 above, n. 49). Pinkwart 1965; Newby 2007; Papini 2008. Discussion in Pinkwart 1965, 82: soll mit größter Wahrscheinlichkeit den Helikon darstellen. Brunn 1857, I: 588. Sieveking 1917, 82. Sieveking 1917, 82–83: Wir dürfen das Archelaosrelief daher nicht als Kunstwerk betrachten und für die Entwicklungsgeschichte des landschaftlichen Reliefs benutzen. Sieveking 1917, 83. Similarly Wegener 1985, 186–187. The effect is to be distinguished from the simultaneous use of the “straight-on” and “bird’s-eye” views on a work such as the famous painted riot scene from Pompeii, where the conventionality and recognizability of the real setting and, above all, the drastic changes of scale produce a very different sort of image. Koepp 1927, 337–338. Koepp 1927, 347. As Koepp remarked, this was “a constantly employed motif.” Cf. two fragmentary reliefs in the Museo Capitolino; a panel at Chieti; the Villa Albani Diogenes (for all of these see Hesberg 1986) to which add the ceiling stucco from the Farnesina (here, fig. 6.12). Ridgway 1983, 201–203; cf. also her discussion of the fragment thought to depict “The Birth of Asklepios” (her fig. 13.15). Gasparri in Settis and Gasparri 2020, cat. 25. Giuliano et al. 1979, cat. 180 (P. Rendini); E. Simon in Helbig4 III, no. 2306. Cf. the contrasting views of Sieveking 1925, 29 and Koepp 1927, 335. Koepp 1927, 346. Koepp 1927, 346. See Childs 1978, pls. 13.2, 15–17; cf. Carroll-Spillecke 1985, 107 “figures on the verge of slipping into the depth of the relief itself.” Tanner 2016, 114. Dawson 1944, 31–32. Kaineus: Cohen 2003. Zeuxis and Parrhasius: Plin. HN 35.65–66. Kuttner 1995, 127–131; related materials collected in Jucker 1980. Homeric bowls: Sinn 1979, cat. MB 37 (Athens), depicting the abduction of Helen; cf. Childs 1978, 66 and fig. 31. Kuttner 1995, 128–131. What follows is indebted to a lecture on “The Archaeology of the Implicit” given by Richard Brilliant at the symposium “The Art of Rome: Shifting Boundaries, Evolving Interpretations” (9 March 2002), Barnard College and Columbia University; cf. Brilliant 2007. Philippi 1872, 254: so einzelne unter ihnen nur mit einem kleinen Theile ihres Körpers als Silhouette vom Reliefgrunde sich abheben. Philippi 1872, 255. Philippi 1872, 255. Cf. Rodenwaldt 1935; Rodenwaldt 1940. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 85, 86, 118; trans. 1900, 74, 76, 103. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105; trans. 1900, 93–94. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 105; trans. 1900, 93–94.

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69 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 85; trans. 1900, 74. 70 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 87–88; trans. 1900, 78 (adapted). 71 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 89; trans. 1900, 79 (slightly adapted and emphasis added): “Atmosphere”: see Ch. 5, above, pp. 231–232 and nn. 38–39. 72 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 89–90; trans. 1900, 76 (slightly adapted). 73 The New York Times, 25 June 2012, C3 (E. Povoledo). 74 Cf. the rationalist interpretations of Riegl 1927 [1901] and Pfanner 1983, both of whom refused to accept Wickhoff’s account of the transformation of the background plane from its material role to its pictorial one; Riegl was to regard the composition of the Spoils relief as one “of surface not space” (Riegl 1927, 116). 75 Sieveking 1925, 16. 76 Noted by Koeppel 1982, 523; Koeppel 1985, 94. 77 Hildebrand (cf. Ch. 2, p. 65); Loewy (see Ch. 2, p. 76); Weickert (see Ch. 5, p. 169); Matz (see Ch. 4, pp. 135–136); cf. Riegl 1927 [1901], 112–113, who spoke of “bringing the foremost figures […] into a plausible planar connection with the background despite their optical isolation on the plane of the surface. For the foreground and background are still divided spatially without our being able to estimate the distance between them. In all its essentials, the task of their unification still depends on their composition in the plane” (Dieses Gedränge hat aber keinen anderen als den rein künstlerischen Grund, die vordersten Figuren, um die es sich ausschließlich handelt, trotz der optischen Isolierung in eine plausible flächenhafte Verbindung mit dem Hintergrunde zu bringen. Denn noch immer fallen Vorder- und Hintergrund räumlich vollkommen auseinander, ohne daß man die Raumdistanz dazwischen abzuschätzen vermöchte. Die Aufgabe der Vereinheitlichung obliegt somit in allem Wesentlichen noch immer der Ebenkomposition). 78 Sieveking 1925, 17. 79 Sieveking 1925, 18: Aber wieder ist durch die fein abgestufte Stellung der Figuren zueinander, zum Beiwerk und zum Hintergrund der Eindruck der Räumlichkeit gewonnen (italics mine). 80 Blanckenhagen 1942, 320–321. For the idea of an “indifferent” ground, cf. the same formulation in Philippi 1872 (quoted in Ch. 1, p. 46). 81 Cf. Weickert 1925 (quoted in Ch. 2, p. 84). 82 As noted at n. 62, above. For Philippi, this did not require a formal solution that would compensate for what was lacking and that would rationalize the evident hierarchy that absence imposed on compositions. Thus it is in direct opposition to the phenomenon termed the “flock” by Hamberg (1945, 115), discussed below, Ch. 7, p. 254. 83 Koeppel 1982; Koeppel 1985. 84 Hildebrand 1893, 34; trans. 1994, 239. 85 Riegl 1966 [1890–1891], 161; trans. 2004, 226–227: Man mußte die Grundfläche überhaupt beseitigen und einen leeren Raum wenigstens dem Scheine nach an ihre Stelle setzen. 86 Kaltsas 2002, cat. 172 (mid-fifth century); cf. Despinis, Stefanidou, Voutiras 1997, cat. 15 (ca. 390–380) and Kaltsas 2002, cat. 319 (ca. 375). 87 Asklepios votive (fig. 6.22): Ridgway 1983, 196–197 and Ridgway 1997, 197; Kaltsas 2002, cat. 442; recently Platt 2011, ch. 1. Cf. Aristonautes (fig. 1.13). Fig. 6.23: see Ch. 7, p. 271. 88 The common iconography of the first two examples is discussed in Bohm 2004, 85–87 with figs. 49, 52; the small altar of Lucius Hermeros is discussed by Zanker 1988, 134 and fig. 112 and Flower 2017, 331  f. and fig. IV.27 (with further bibliography); the replica of Sosos’ “Doves Drinking” from Hadrian’s Villa in Donderer 1991, 189–197 and Massa-Pairault 2010; recent commentary and additional replicas given in Seaman 2020, 111 and n. 4.

308Notes 89 The preoccupation of so many late nineteenth century Classical scholars with the formal character of Modern art (Impressionism, in particular) is too well-known to require elaboration. 90 Cf. Schweitzer 1953 on die Körperperspektive (and see the discussion in Ch. 4, above, pp. 134–135). 91 Hildebrand 1893, 33; trans. 1994, 238–239. 92 Plin. HN 34.81 = Overbeck 1868, no. 868; Overbeck 2014, no. 1086; Muller-Dufeu 2002, no. 1068, before 429?). Cf. HN 22.44 for the slave of Pericles as the splanchnoptes (cf. Overbeck’s reference to Plut. Pericles, XIII: the same story?). 93 Plin. HN 34.79 = Overbeck 1868, nos.  864, 865; Overbeck 2014, no.  1085; Muller-Dufeu 2002, nos. 1063–1064, before ca 440?). Cf. Paus. I.23.7 (= Overbeck 1868, no. 863; Overbeck 2014, no. 1080) who notes “on the Athenian Acropolis a bronze boy, holding a sprinkler (perirrhanterion = aspergillum), by Lykios, son of Myron;” note Jeffery 1980, 51, for an inscribed base from the Acropolis possibly to be attributed to Lykios and dated ca. 440–430; see Ch. 3, above, pp. 126–127. 94 Cf. Furtwängler 1900, II: 243 (with pls. 50, 35): “The group, certainly of Hellenistic origin, was popular in Roman times, in which it was also produced in sculpture”; cited by Schmidt 1925, 96, amidst what remains one of the most pertinent discussions. 95 HN 35.141 = Overbeck 1868, no. 2154; Overbeck 2014, no. 3569). 96 Plin. HN 35.138 = Overbeck 1868, no. 1942; Overbeck 2014, no. 3045 with the other attestations; Reinach 1921, 382: ca 310–280). Cf. Plin. HN 35.114 for Antiphilus’ other works; noted by Ridgway 1983, 203 and n. 35. 97 The effect produced was acknowledged by Pliny in another context: “Anaxilaus even made a sport with it [burning sulphur] by putting some in a cup of wine and placing a hot coal underneath and handing it round at dinner-parties, when by its reflection as it flared up it threw on their faces a dreadful pallor as if they were dead” (Plin. HN 35.175–176). 98 Pompeii Pitture e Mosaici 1994, vol. V (VI.15.1), sala Q east (fig. 143) with De Angelis 2011 and Monteix 2016. Paintings depicting Hephaestus at the forge might well have employed the effect, but it is impossible to discern in the surviving examples given their parlous state. 99 Gasparri 2009, cat. 43; further, n. 103 below. The composition’s authenticity would seem to be confirmed by ancient gems: Furtwängler 1900 (see n. 94 above). A small bronze statuette depicts a similar boy blowing coals (Paris, Louvre). 100 Ridgway 1990, 319–320; recently, Papadopoulou in Picón and Hemingway 2016, cat. 222. 101 There is one such in the Steinhart Collection (New York). 102 A terracotta relief, now on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 103 Discussion and replica lists in Zielinski 1884; Schmidt 1925; Kurz 1954, 115–117; Amedick 1988; Menninger 1996; Campanelli and Mandolesi 2015, cat. no. 17. 104 Athen. XI.474D = Frag. 63 Preller (trs. C. B. Gulick) = Overbeck 2014, no. 2834; discussion in Wickoff 1912 [1895], 104  f.; trans. 1900, 92–93. On Polemon’s place in the history of ancient art criticism: Sellers 1896, xxxix-xl; Dorandi 2002, lxxxlv–cxx. 105 Evidence for the ancients’ awareness of ceilings above and floors below is collected and discussed in O’Sullivan 2015. 106 Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 104; trans. 1900, 92. There is a long and continuing tradition of internally-lit scenes in painting, and it was a staple of the eighteenth century – one might think of Joseph Wright of Derby’s 1768 “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” (National Gallery, London) or of the many such scenes painted in the previous century by Georges de la Tour. 107 Loewy 1900, 24; trans. 1907, 43: so sträubt die Kunst sich hier allenthalben gegen die Körperlichkeit.

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108 Hildebrand 1893, 32–33; trans. 1994, 238 (slightly adapted). 109 Nauman-Steckner 1999. 110 Vertical section: Levi 1947, 597. “Fish-eye view”: Kuttner 2003, 107; cf. Rouveret 1989, 297 (“la construction centripète”). See the painting from the garden of the Villa of Diomedes at Pompeii known as “the wall of fishes,” recorded in the watercolors by Cooke in 1818 and Morelli in the 1820s; such a mosaic is still in situ in Pompeii’s House of the Colored Capitals (VII.4.31.51). The broader mosaic phenomenon was fully studied in Molholt 2008 (for these fish mosaics, see esp. 168–170).

7.  The Rejection of Space 1 Schweitzer 1963 [1950], II: 203–204. 2 D’Ambra 1989; Sinn 1991, I, cat. 13 (with bibliography); cf. Loewy 1900, 11; trans. 1907, 23 for similar figures “lying rigidly on their sides for the sake of preserving full visibility.” 3 Wrede 1977; Wrede 1990. 4 An old motif: cf. its use for the death of Achilles on a (lost) vase by the Inscription Painter, ca. 540–530 bc (reconstruction in Rumpf 1927, pl. 12). 5 See above, Ch. 3. 6 Reigl 1927 [1901], 85; cf. Rodenwaldt 1921–1922. 7 Rodenwaldt 1936, 554. 8 Amiternum relief: Franchi 1963–1964, 24. Epidauros votive: Lamont 2015. The difference from the more naturalistic and conventional pose is evident on the Haterii reliefs: cf. the deathbed scene with the figure atop the tomb building (Sinn 1991, pls. 8, 11). A list of related uses of the motif is given by Sinn (cat. 15, n. 9). 9 Loewy 1900, 11–14; trans. 1907, 25–27, with his own comparison to the work of Lange. 10 Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1937], 50. 11 Zimmer 1982, cat. 183, perspektive wird durch Aufklappen der Gegenstände ersetzt (“perspective is replaced by the tilting of the objects”); cf. Kampen 1981, 62 (“space is flattened to show the most important elements”); Franchi 1963–1964, 24 on the Amiternum relief (“ribaltata”). The type is not a specifically Italianate phenomenon: cf. similarly, a relief from Arlon (now, Musée Luxembourg): Langner 2001, 329–331 and fig. 15a. 12 Zimmer 1982, cat. 179 (Vatican Museum), cat. 187 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). 13 Hamberg 1945, 115–116. 14 Quadrigae: cf. also fig. 1.28. Shields: cf. fig. 1.30. Animals: cf. fig. 4.25 and a similar work in Bologna (see Koortbojian 2013, fig. 3). Crowds: cf. figs 7.28 and 7.29. 15 Broad surveys: Richardson 1960, 303–312 and Massa-Pairault 1985. Luni: Strazulla 1992. Talamonaccio: Vacano 1969; Freytag 1986. Civita Alba: Zuffa 1956; Verzar 1976. 16 Strazzula 1992, 171 on Luni: serrata e compressa. Jigsaw puzzle: Brendel 1995 [1978], 425–426. 17 Against empty space: Richardson 1960, 308, 310–311. Space squeezed out: cf. Freytag 1986, 208, following Matz 1932, 208: Hier wird in den – zudem noch untereinander unverbundenen – schmalen Raumstreifen mit der absoluten Frontalität der benennbaren Gestalten und dem bildparallel, in einem “geschlossenen Flachbühnenraum” geführten Angriff der Krieger jedes Element unterdrückt, das räumliche Tiefe bewirkt (“Here, in the narrow bands of space – which are still not connected to each other – given the absolute frontality of the identifiable forms parallel to the surface, the

310Notes

18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34

attack of the warriors is carried out in a ‘closed flat stage space’ [Matz] with every element suppressed that creates spatial depth”). The interpretive context of Matz’s remark is discussed in Ch. 4, above. Si ergo quae non possunt in veritate rationem habere facti in picturis probaverimus. For such illusions on flat surfaces, cf. Vitr. 7, praef. 11. Gros 2008, 14–15 has pointed out the relationship between the story of Apaturios of Alabanda’s stage sets ­(recounted at Vitr. 7.5.5) and the cacophonously superimposed architecture in these frescoes from the Boscoreale cubiculum. Cf. the reliefs known as “The Homecoming of Dionysos” (fig. 6.19), discussed in Ch. 6, p. 226. Scenes 10, 13, 33. Cf. Coarelli 2008, 129 (verticalmente, è rappresentato un fiume); Griebel 2013, 237 (vertikal). On the manuscript tradition see Dilke 1967; Acolat 2005; Doherty 2010 provides a broad discussion of the relationship to landscape imagery. Hinks 1936, 243: Hier […] ist die räumliche Tiefe unbedingt ausgeschlossen. Following Vogel 1973, 62–63: their “localized spatial recession” does not “make a unified space across the whole relief.” Also adduced, with brief comment, by Vogel 1973, 77 and n. 79. Cf. Brilliant 1974, 259, denying a typical “bird’s-eye view” of the decursio’s background surface “behind and not beneath the riders;” thus, the composition “suggest(s) […] the ultimate destruction of illusionistic space.” Examples in Mitten and Doeringer 1967; Comstock and Vermeule 1971. The bronze pectorals are treated exhaustively in Kreilinger 1996, who also discusses the technical aspects (19: cire-perdu-Technik; 157: a form of Massenproduktion – “not made as serial casts directly from the same matrix, but at least some of the underlying wax models were copied from a matrix, sometimes assembled from parts and then reworked”); cf. Zanda 1998, 67 (produzioni di serie); Braemer 1994; Ronke 1994. Neutral ground: Kreilinger 1996, 122; cf. Zanda 1998, 67 (non sono semplicemente sovrapposte al support, ma creano un complesso effetto di altorilievo). Cf. the distinc­ tion of Hinks 1936 between adhesion and protrusion (see Ch. 4, pp. 154–156). Leander-Touati 1987. Overlapping and interlaced forms without perspective: cf. Leander-Touati 1987, 84: “these might create the wanted effect of relative remoteness, although there is no foundation for it in objective mass-relations or relief height.” No tactical display (as on Trajan’s Column): Hamberg 1945, 170. Everything near the frontal plane: Philipp 1991, 14: “everything has moved as if into the foreground” (non vidi; quoted in Faust 2012, 11 n. 62). Whirling forms and synesthesia effect: Bianchi Bandinelli 1973 [1939], 372: sempre nuove e variate masse arabescate e turbinate di figure, di comporre gesti e panneggi in un tessuto musicale di toni e di pause and Hamberg 1945, 170: “a pompous visual and acoustic vision of strength and fighting spirit”; cf. Philipp 1991 (quoted in Faust 2012,13): Wirbel. Wickhoff 1912 [1895], 20; trans. 1900, 18. Cf. Brilliant 1967, 227–228 on the highly unusual, yet much-diminished architecture on the Villa Doria-Pamphili battle sarcophagus. Hinks 1936, 247: die interessante Tatsache ist gewiss diese Gleichgültigkeit der räumlichen Konsistenz gegenüber. Hinks considered this “the decisive characteristic of late antique art” (das entscheidende Charakteristikum der spätantiken Kunst). Hinks 1936, 243. Cf. also Rodenwaldt 1936, 554, on the Ludovisi sarcophagus: “there appears […] a whole crowd of figures filling the plane out evenly, for the figures that are behind stand out in the same relief as those in front or bend forward their heads to the front plane of the picture.” Anaglypha: Brown 2020, who adduces the large bibliography. Budde 1955, 20.

Notes to chapter Coda

311

35 Budde 1955, 18. 36 Contra Budde, 1955. Many of the characteristics that mark the Sacchetti relief take their place in a broader account of Severan style: discussions in Franchi 1960; Brilliant 1967; Koeppel 1990; Newby 2007; Lusnia 2014. 37 Budde 1955, 61, identifies the façade with the Severan palace on the Palatine Hill (kann nach der ganzen Situation nur die Fassade der Kaiserpaläste wiedergeben), and the arch with that of Titus (in Abbreviatur wiedergibt) – neither of which is convincing, nor, as I’ve tried to suggest, actually relevant to the artistic endeavor. 38 Brilliant 1967, 78. 39 Variations on the liberalitas / congiarium and adlocutio in Hamberg 1945; multiple examples of other rituals (adlocutio, liberalitas, submissio, adventus) are given in Brilliant 1963. 40 Cf. Hamberg 1945 for what he termed the “allegorical paraphrase.” 41 Hamberg 1945, 141. 42 Lehmann-Hartleben 1926 argued for a progressive development of these changes on Trajan’s Column; dismissed, effectively, by Hamberg 1945, 137. 43 Riegl 1927 [1901] 89. 44 Riegl 1927 [1901] 91. 45 Rodenwaldt 1927, 86–87; the notion of a “striving for the representative” is further developed in Hölscher 2012 (Präsentativer Stil). 46 Lietzmann 1927, 344. Cf. already Rodenwaldt 1921–1922, 78: “Instead of emphasizing the three-dimensionality of the sculptural forms, the aim is to spread out, as much as possible, the greatest part of the figural forms in a flat relief ” (An Stelle der plastischen Rundung herrscht das Bestreben, möglichst große Teile der Figuren in einem flachen Relief auszubreiten). 47 L’Orange in L’Orange and von Gerkan 1939, 81 and 90. 48 Bianchi Bandinelli 1961 [1952], 221. 49 Pace Lietzmann 1927, 343 (alle Aufmerksamkeit des Beschauers auf den Kaiser fällt). By contrast, Riegl’s claim for unity was a matter of the panels’ form, not their content.

Coda 1 2 3

4

Riegl 1927 [1901], 95. Helmholtz 1885; cf. Helmholtz 1863; trs. 1875, with Hatfield 1993. Here cursorily adapting to the practice of scholarship the leitmotifs of four of the most well-known works devoted to the problem of artistic imitation: respectively Bate 1970, Bloom 1975, Kermode 1985, Conte 1986; others could easily be cited. Cf. most recently, Gregory in the London Review of Books, 19 Nov 2020. Among others, Jucker 1950; Gazda 2002; Perry 2005; Marvin 2008; Anguissola 2012.

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List of Figure Sources

349

Fig. 7.1 DAI, Hannestad-71-A0615 (Photo: Hannestad). © J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Alinari Archives, Florence (ACA-F-036101-0000). D-DAI-ATH-Piraeus-0092 (Photo: Welter). Fig. 7.4 Getty Images. Fig. 7.5 Fig. 7.6 © Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fletcher Fund, 1925), New York. Fig. 7.7 D-DAI-ROM-91.153. Fig. 7.8 © American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Archives, Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, ST 78. Fig. 7.9 © American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, ST 20. Fig. 7.10 D-DAI-ROM-34.362 (Photo: Felbermeyer). Fig. 7.11 D-DAI-ROM-89.551. Fig. 7.12 Wikimedia Creative Commons (Photo: Sailko). Fig. 7.13 Wikimedia Creative Commons (Photo: G. Linke). Fig. 7.14 Metropolitan Museum of Art (Rogers Fund, 1903), New York. Fig. 7.15 Photo: author. Fig. 7.16 Photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Fig. 7.17 DAI, Hannestad-93-A0772 (Hannestad). Fig. 7.18 © The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Fig. 7.19 Regione autonoma Valle d’Aosta (Photo: Gabriele). Fig. 7.20 Wikimedia Creative Commons (Photo: Harrsch). Fig. 7.21 D-DAI-ROM-37.328 (Photo: Faraglia). Fig. 7.22 D-DA-ROM-33.426B (Photo: Faraglia). Fig. 7.23 D-DAI-ROM-69.514 (Photo: Singer). Fig. 7.24 D-DAI-ROM-58.2011C. Fig. 7.25 D-DAI-ROM-68.2783. Fig. 7.26 D-DAI-ROM-504_29221,04. Fig. 7.27 D-DAI-ROM-89.583A. Fig. 7.28 D-DAI-ROM-89.715. Fig. 7.29 after Brilliant 1967, pl. 87. Fig. 7.30 Photo: Noel Lenski. Fig. 7.31 Photo: Noel Lenski. Fig. C 1 Fig. C 2

© The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Photo: Tate Britain.

Index 1: General

adhesion (Angeklebtsein)  155, 310 n. 26 adlocutio  271–4, 276, 311 n. 39 air, representation of  237–238, 286 n. 20, 288 n. 68, 305 n. 14 ambiguity  25, 43, 49, 153, 184, 264–265 anti-naturalistic  17, 33 Apulian vases  206, 209 architectural setting of reliefs  47, 81, 216 atemporal (see timeless) atmosphere  39, 43, 144, 182, 185, 203, 223, 231, 238, 277, 279, 302 n. 38, 303 n. 58, 307 n. 71 attentiveness 129 autonomy (see “self-suffiency”)  61, 64–65, 98, 108, 118, 172 back view  41, 43, 84, 221, 257, 287 n. 50 balteus 264 banquet scenes  149, 196–199, 300 n. 27 battle scenes  168, 174–176, 178, 181, 250, 265–268, 275, 302 n. 37, 310 n. 30 behind, absence of any sense of  22, 151, 233, 258, 260–262, 286 n. 18 beholder  19–23, 81, 90–131, 142, 158, 162, 185, 196–197, 203–229, 276 Bildfläche  30, 33, 72, 155–156, 230, 287 n. 36 binocular vision  71–72, 290 n. 26 “blowing coals” motif  241–243, 308 n. 99 bronze (statues)  92, 101–106, 115–118, 128, 263, 298 n. 79, 308 nn. 93 and 99 bucolic/pastoral imagery  150, 186–194, 200–202, 255, 302 n. 27, 303, n. 48 commemoration  45, 153, 185, 199 compacted figures  30, 49, 52, 56, 68, 76, 84, 164, 174, 188, 208, 230, 258, 268

composition  22–30, 35–40, 44, 53–58, 62–66, 76–79, 81–87, 97–98, 112–129, 133–136, 150, 153–154, 165, 169–178, 181–196, 199–201, 208, 212–220, 223–240, 250–259, 266, 269, 272–281, 292 n. 42, 293 n. 64, 298 n. 71, 302 n. 37, 307 nn. 74, 77, 310 n. 24 antithetical views  5, 29, 82, 84, 124, 214, 272 centralized  250, 274 graduated/successive  70, 234, 261 in tiers  55, 145, 174, 220, 227 condensed  58, 267 consciousness  74, 227, 234, 240–241, 262 continuity spatial  8, 75, 223, 226–227, 236, 245–246, 262 surface 28 Doric  21, 47, 64 Erinnerungsbilder  12, 70, 291 n. 39 eternal  15, 278 Etruscan  99, 169, 172, 256, 263–264, 294 n. 21, 300 n. 14 fiction  109, 127, 202, 216, 252, 296 n. 42 figurae serpentinae  43, 288 n. 52 fish  246–247, 309 n. 110 Fläche  1, 7, 12, 30, 47–60 and passim flatness  1, 12–13, 17, 28, 90, 106, 124, 130, 156, 295 n. 30 and passim “flock”  254, 256, 266, 307 n. 82 frame  5, 13–14, 18–19, 28, 43–46, 48, 64–65, 82, 88, 131–132, 135, 145, 149–151, 153, 156–161, 170–171, 178, 181,

Index 1: General 184, 188, 190, 192, 198, 212, 216, 218, 220, 237, 245, 269, 271, 285 n. 9, 286 n. 14, 290 n. 4, 292 n. 52, 303 n. 42 frieze  4, 15–18, 20–24, 29–32, 35–39, 41, 43–45, 47–49, 56–59, 64–65, 80–81, 86, 132–133, 135–137, 139, 144–145, 166, 168–172, 176–178, 181–184, 206–208, 211–216, 223, 227, 229–236, 242, 245, 259, 265, 267, 275–276, 282, 286 nn. 76 and 82, 292 n. 49, 299 n. 4, 301 n. 14, 302 nn. 28, 37, 303 n. 51, 305 nn. 11, 12, 20 foreshortening  12–13, 16, 24–25, 28, 41, 53, 75–77, 81, 98, 112, 119, 124, 126, 131, 146, 165, 168–171, 174, 177, 188, 195, 206, 220–221, 233, 249, 254, 274, 277, 286 n. 25, 287 n. 50, 288 n. 56 frontality  8, 81, 90, 98–99, 106, 113, 126–128, 251, 257, 273, 276, 294 nn. 15, 18, 295 n. 25, 309 n. 17 front-to-back carving  90, 93–94, 96, 101, 106, 294 n. 13 fuller 152–153 funerary (monuments)  14–15, 17–18, 20, 26, 44–45, 52, 62, 77–78, 82, 140, 152–153, 170, 184–185, 188, 194, 249–250, 252, 267, 295 n. 21, 304 n. 68 garlands  184–185, 303 n. 43 glass vessels  246 Gleichzeitigkeit 140 glyptic  99, 104, 106 Greek-Roman debate  2, 59, 132–133, 169–170, 194 ground (Gründ)  30, 32, 56–58, 67, 78, 85–86, 94, 133–134, 165, 169, 208, 218, 231–232, 234, 286 nn. 12 and 18, 287 n. 36, 289 nn. 80, 82, 302 n. 39, 307 n. 77 background (Hintergründ)  57, 78, 86, 111, 168, 208, 218, 221, 224–226, 229–230, 232–233, 288 n. 68, 300 n. 40, 305 n. 15, 307 nn. 77, 79 Gründfläche  51, 53, 307 n. 85 Gründlinie  55, 287 n. 36 material ground/surface  14, 23–24, 30, 33, 47, 58, 65, 86, 131, 142, 146, 157, 166, 208, 218, 271, 307 n. 74 neutral ground  5, 7, 12–13, 22–26, 29, 47–48, 56, 59, 62, 64, 84–86, 143–146, 151, 169, 188, 221, 223–225, 262, 264, 286 nn. 18, 20, 287 n. 40, 310 n. 26

351 Reliefgründ  45, 85, 134, 229, 234, 271, 292 n. 59, 293 n. 65, 306 n. 62 rising ground  53, 150–151, 206, 218, 257–259 uneven ground  28, 30, 49, 53 Vorderfläche  85, 125 Vordergründ (foreground)  78, 86, 224 homogeneity  211, 246 horizon line  171, 181, 214, 222, 246 horse  39, 126, 129, 149–150, 174, 263, 287 n. 48 Italic art  86, 169–170 implicit  14, 30, 33, 36, 44, 55, 68, 79, 112, 131–135, 144, 177, 203, 216, 227–228, 234, 236, 259, 306 n. 61 impressionism  131, 282 indifference to spatial consistency  156, 268 inscriptions  18, 24, 119–120, 126–127, 140–141, 297 nn. 64–65, 71, 298 nn. 79, 81 interiors, representation of  62, 141–146, 150, 153, 194, 203, 205–208, 220–221, 227, 244, 305 n. 11 kline  249, 251 kouros  28, 110, 126, 294 n. 16, 297 n. 65 Korperfläche  47, 155–156 Kunstwollen  105, 107, 279, 295 n. 37, 296 n. 47 Landscape  8, 19, 22, 28, 39, 53, 57, 59, 68, 86, 147–150, 182, 190, 194, 203, 206, 208, 211–229, 259, 289 n. 70, 303 n. 54, 304 n. 4, 305 n. 19, 310 n. 20 laterally displayed forms  15, 28, 66, 70, 81, 120, 122, 128–129, 229, 272–276, 289 n. 69 “laws of relief ”  7, 11–13, 34, 46, 58, 61, 88, 106, 186, 282, 285 n. 3 lekythos  26, 42, 46, 288 n. 55 light  59, 70, 72–73, 75, 88, 104, 157, 159, 183, 196, 203, 231–232, 240–245, external  73, 159, 231 internal (represented)  72, 241–245 manifold forms/styles  4, 8, 131–164, 199, 235, 260 “many-sidedness”  100–106, 114, 118

352 megalographia 192 memory  12, 70–76, 106, 282, 291 n. 40 metope  5, 15, 21–22, 28, 30, 36, 46, 47–48, 51–53, 64, 75–78, 109–112, 129, 157, 167–168, 285 n. 9, 286 nn. 20–21, 287 n. 47, 288 nn. 60, 68, 290 n. 7, 292 n. 49, 297 nn. 69, 71 middle ground  78, 192, 214–215, 223, 228, 234, 236 modeling  28, 30, 38, 53, 72, 81, 85, 114, 123, 144, 171, 231, 244, 301 n. 40 models for sculpture/painting  83, 89, 90–92, 96, 106, 115, 140, 170–171, 176, 188, 190, 194, 201, 205, 216, 243, 245, 265, 267, 281 n. 88, 310 n. 25 modes of address  118–120 Muses  150–153, 220 naiskos  18–19, 21, 44, 67–69, 286 n. 15 narrative  8, 77, 108, 120, 128, 229, 244, 267, 274, 276, 296 n. 42 continuous 205 implied 128 naturalism  7–8, 17, 88, 98, 113, 118, 217, 223, 296 n. 52 Nature, observation of  34, 41, 72, 99, 112–113, 240, 287 n. 50, 296 n. 45, 297 n. 62 “one-sidedness” (Einansichtigkeit) 93, 100–101, 114–120, 123, 294 n. 15, 297 n. 61 optic, opticality  3, 6, 15, 30, 44, 48–49, 58, 61, 64–74, 144, 158–163, 184, 213, 260, 275, 307 n. 77 oscillation of views  100, 124 overlapping  17–18, 24, 30, 33, 35, 43–44, 49, 79, 81, 83–84, 135–136, 151, 171, 174, 177–178, 189, 213–214, 253, 257, 261, 265, 268, 310 n. 28 painted sculpture/architecture  23, 26, 28, 45, 47–48, 82, 88, 146, 149, 285, 212, 218, 232, 300 n. 24 “painterly” (malerisch)  45, 58–59, 86, 165, 168, 171–172, 176, 230, 289 nn. 70,80, 301 n. 2 Panathenaic amphora  83, 180, 217 paratactic arrangement  52, 213, 233, 254, 299 n. 12 partial representations  12, 14, 74, 169, 188, 228–230, 235, 292 n. 42 pastoral (see bucolic)

Index 1: General pediment, pedimental sculpture  20–21, 44, 67–68, 79, 81, 120, 256–259, 264, 286 nn. 15, 21, 290 n. 13 perspective  3, 5, 7, 11, 30, 34–38, 46, 53, 55, 58, 61, 68–75, 86, 131–132, 134, 138, 144, 150–151, 153, 185, 190, 193–200, 205–206, 211, 213, 219, 224–225, 229–233, 235, 251, 253–254, 259–262, 265, 274, 277, 280–281, 304 n. 65, 305 n. 17, 309 n. 11, 310 n. 28 aerial perspective  33, 36, 165, 167 higher equals further away (convention)  4, 208, 213, 219, 257, 274 “shifting of surfaces”  229 physiognomic distortion  241–243 pictorial forms  57, 167, 177, 189 pictorial surface (see Bildfläche) planarity  7, 18, 53–53, 57, 65, 70, 75–79, 81–82, 86, 90, 97, 114, 120, 123, 129–130, 153–154, 159, 249, 253–254, 277, 307 n. 77 plane (passim) spread out in  36, 117, 122, 134, 233 successive/staggered planes  5, 79, 96, 143, 195 “transparent”/imagined frontal plane (die obere Fläche)  7, 53, 64–65, 82, 85, 87, 120, 156–157, 178, 193, 258, 293 n. 66, 296 nn. 43, 49, 297 n. 71 “two/twin planes”/parallel planes  7, 30, 34–35, 51–53, 56, 61–88, 103, 114, 131–132, 135, 156, 223, 237 pointing method/machine  94, 95 Pompeian Styles Masonry (first style)  167 Second Style  170, 184–185, 226 Third Style  190, 192, 303 n. 41 presence, material/physical  1–2, 5, 13, 24, 38–39, 46–48, 56–57, 64, 81, 83, 85, 99, 159, 162, 231, 282 (see implicit) presentness/“present at”  185, 197, 202 projection (of forms)/protrusion  4–5, 16, 22, 28, 43–46, 53, 57–58, 93, 155, 178, 183, 188, 310 n. 26 proplasmata  92 quadratus/“four-sided”  97–98, 101, 104–106, 109, 118–120, 124–125, 128, 295 nn. 30, 33 recession  4–5, 22–24, 35–38, 50, 53, 58, 69, 79, 81, 84, 134–136, 151, 154, 174,

Index 1: General 189, 195–196, 206, 215, 218, 220–223, 235, 249 251, 253–256, 261–262, 265, 310 n. 22 relief style high  4–5, 13–15, 18–22, 33, 36–38, 47–48, 56–58, 66–68, 77–78, 85–86, 89, 91, 97, 111, 114, 154, 156–159, 165, 174, 230–231, 235, 271, 285 n. 9, 293, n. 66 “hollow” 156–158 low  4, 15–17, 21–22, 38–39, 87, 154, 156–158, 177, 235, 242–243, 256, 261, 289 n. 69, 291 n. 28 pictorial  8–13, 40–41, 44, 48–49, 55, 57–59, 66, 138, 140–146, 153–155, 162, 165–202, 215, 224, 227–235, 254–259, 265, 277, 289 n. 70, 307 n. 74 “packing of figures”  168–9, 230 Reliefgemalde  44, 58, 163, 165–203, 218, 231, 301 n. 2 repetitive forms  28, 30, 108, 174, 266, 274, 296 n. 40 represented world  5, 15, 22, 75, 108–109, 185, 194, 202, 212, 281 “resistance to roundness”  125, 130 respiration  183, 302 n. 39 retina/retinal images  70–75, 106–107, 291 n. 28 Romanitas 84 rotation towards spectators  120, 129, 277 scaena frons  206, 208 scale, hierarchical  53, 219, 261 sculptural and pictorial  1, 35, 47–48, 59, 140–144, 167, 171, 186 Seh-Bedurfnis 74–75 “self-sufficiency”  109, 172, 188, 296 n. 42, 303 nn. 44, 50 setting, lack of  5, 15, 21–22, 98, 151, 171, 214, 263–268 shadows  13, 16, 21, 25, 28, 38–39, 48, 53, 58–59, 70, 72–76, 86, 88, 157–159, 183, 196, 203, 231–232, 271, 305 n. 14 silhouette  14, 21–25, 28, 30, 32, 36, 38, 43, 48, 68, 76, 81, 92–93, 97, 101, 114–117, 120–124, 142–144, 170, 190, 194, 198, 208, 215, 229, 231, 264, 286 n. 20, 294 n. 15, 297 nn. 62, 71, 301 n. 14, 306 n. 62 simultaneity  4–5, 94, 97, 109, 136, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 162, 184, 195, 213, 222–223, 283 306 n. 46

353 space ambient  2, 5, 13, 21, 24, 28, 32, 40, 43, 48, 56–57, 68, 132, 136, 143, 145, 148, 151, 174, 182–183, 189, 203, 208, 212, 235, 244, 256, 261–265 “box-like”  52–53, 64, 66, 79, 83, 244, 249, 288 n. 66, 292 n. 52 claustrophobic  208, 240 closed  64, 68, 84, 131, 134, 144, 146–147, 153, 203, 205, 208, 219–220, 224, 233, 240, 244, 299 n. 13, 304 n. 3, 309 n. 17 compression of  15, 24, 34, 53, 59, 65, 74–76, 79, 81, 83, 103, 113–114, 153, 171, 174, 178, 184, 188, 190, 231, 256, 258–259, 266, 268, 271, 274, 289 n. 69, 292 n. 42, 302 n. 37, 309 n. 16 contained  7, 19, 62–67, 81–83, 101, 108, 154, 168, 188, 203, 223, 230, 237, 248, 304 n. 3 geometrical/mathematical  3, 66, 69–70, 73, 211, 260, 280 illusionistic  1–2, 4–5, 11, 13–17, 21–24, 30, 35, 38, 43–44, 48, 55–56, 58, 60, 62, 64–68, 79, 81, 85, 88, 127, 131–132, 142–143, 146, 153–154, 156–159, 162, 167, 169–170, 174, 183–186, 188, 192, 200, 203, 208, 216, 220, 222–223, 225, 228–236, 240, 245, 256, 260–265, 267, 271, 282, 287 n. 43, 310 nn. 18, 24 infinite (Unendlichkeit)  58, 66, 84, 131, 144, 211, 235, 299 n. 13 interior  62, 141–146, 150, 153, 194, 203, 205–208, 220–221, 227, 244, 305 n. 11 multiple artistic forms for  133–139, 150, 282 open  32, 47, 165, 235, 298 n. 71 real  1, 4–5, 13, 19, 23, 39, 64, 67–69, 78, 81, 158, 174, 237, 259, 264 stage-like  62, 64, 66, 68, 134–135, 139, 205–206, 214, 220, 227, 240, 271, 310 nn. 17–18 unbounded (unbegrenzt)  7, 84–88, 131, 170, 235–236 unrepresented  214, 227, 236, 258 “stacked forms”  70, 220, 257–258 staffage  5, 39, 57, 68, 135, 171, 182, 224, 234 statue base  28, 44, 68–69, 117–120, 124, 126–127, 160, 165, 178, 182, 261, 287 n. 48, 290 n. 14, 297 nn. 64–65, 298 nn. 78–81, 308 n. 93

354 statues carved like relief  90, 93, 96–97, 101 stele, stelai  13–15, 18–21, 27–30, 51–52, 62–64, 67–68, 78, 81–84, 107, 110, 112, 129–130, 132, 146–149, 153, 157, 170, 220, 237, 239, 287 n. 35, 288 nn. 56, 66, 289 n. 2, 292, nn. 49, 51, 299 n. 88, 302 n. 35 style Archaic  11–12, 15, 24, 26, 28, 30, 66, 75, 86, 93, 97–101, 104, 107–113, 118–120, 123, 126–130, 169, 177, 252, 262, 295 n. 21, 298 n. 82, 299, n. 84 Classical  7–8, 11, 23, 43, 50–51, 53, 56, 64, 77–78, 81, 90, 101–102, 106, 127–130, 139, 157, 169, 177, 213, 215, 250, 259, 275–276, 281–283, 299 n. 7 echt Stil  56–57, 289 n. 76 praesentativer Stil  153, 311 n. 45 period styles  140, 281–282 Severe  119, 297 n. 63 sunken relief (Bildfeldstele)  18–19, 52–53, 64 surface effects  75, 300 n, 40 surveyor’s manuscript illustrations  261 symbolism  17, 286 n. 12 symmetry  4, 98, 119, 136, 275–76, 304 n. 68 tactile  48, 144, 159, 162 tapestry form of relief  261–262 tectonic structure  43, 46–47, 64, 67, 101, 106, 120, 154–157, 166, 290 n. 4 temporal contingency  131, 134, 139–140 temporality  99, 108, 113, 205, 213, 268, 282, 304 n. 7 theatricality  109, 296 n. 45 three dimensionality  1, 4–5, 13–15, 18–21, 23, 28, 36, 41, 44–46, 48, 55, 57, 64, 66, 68–72, 74–75, 78–81, 83, 90–91, 94, 97, 100–103, 106, 118–122, 124, 127, 129–130, 134, 143, 149, 154, 157–159, 171, 193, 237–238, 243, 245, 249, 253, 259–62, 269, 271, 296 n. 47, 297 n. 62, 311 n. 46 timeless 99 topographical imagery  218–219, 221, 269, 271, 289 n. 72 turf segments  69, 260–261

Index 1: General unfinished statues  90, 95–97, 101, 294 n. 13, 295 n. 29 Ungleichzeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen  140 unrepresented forms  177, 214, 227, 236, 258 unsconscious inference  71, 73, 282, 290 n. 23, 291 n. 33 vase painting Black figure  24–25, 39–41, 46, 63, 83, 177–180, 286 n. 20, 288 n. 55, 304 n. 64 Red figure  23–25, 35, 108, 124, 180, 209, 239, 286 n. 25, 287 nn. 41, 50 White ground  40, 42 verisimilitude, absence of  217–223 views/vantage point angled/high 22 “birds-eye”  194, 196, 200, 212–213, 222, 259, 306 n. 46, 310 n. 24 distant  38, 72, 74, 161, 268 frontal  99, 102, 108, 111, 114, 124–127, 230, 295 n. 30, 298 n. 79 low  21, 174, 188, 194–195, 215 multiple  125–126, 298 n. 71 near  71–72, 223, 253, 265–267, 310 n. 28 profile  38, 81, 107, 110, 116–120, 122, 126, 128–129, 133, 272, 292 n. 46 prominent 119 raised/elevated  142, 195–196, 202 “straight-on”  195, 199, 222, 246, 259, 262, 304 n. 64, 306 n. 46 “tilted-up”  251–251, 257, 259 three-quarter  124, 126, 298 n. 71 overhead 259 vision, mechanics of  69–75, 84, 290 nn. 19, 26, 291 nn. 28, 34 visual pyramid  66, 290 n. 10 votive  15, 17, 33, 52, 137, 145–146, 149, 168, 218–219, 224, 227–228, 234, 238, 251, 287 nn. 35, 43, 292 n. 59, 293 n. 4, 302 n. 38, 305 n. 35, 307 n. 87, 309, n. 8 water bath copying method  92–93 “work-arounds” (Umgehen) 223–228

Index 2: Persons

Alberti, Leon-Battista Apaturius of Alabanda  258 Arkesilaus  92, 294 n. 6 Asklepios  238, 252, 306 n. 50, 307 n. 87 Athenaeus 244 Bianchi Bandinelli, Rannucio  1, 9, 11, 13, 153, 170–171, 195, 251–252, 277–278, 285 nn. 1, 6, 1, 3, 286 n. 12, 287 n. 48, 291 n. 41, 294 nnn. 14, 15, 295 n. 25, 299 nn. 5, 6, 8, 300 nn. 14, 33, 301 nn. 13–15, 302, nn. 28, 29, 304 n. 62, 309 n. 10, 310 n. 28, 311 n. 483, 7, 66, 193, 290 nn. 8, 10 Blanckenhagen, Peter Heinrich von  88, 151, 213, 234–235, 286 n. 17, 293 n. 72, 300 n. 30, 320 n. 34, 303 n. 58, 304 nn. 19, 21, 307 n. 80 Boutades  92, 294 n. 6 Brendel, Otto  2, 6, 132, 148, 283, 285 nn. 1, 2, 293 n. 68, 299 nn. 2, 4, 6, 309 n. 16 Brücke, Ernst  69–70, 72–73, 290 nn. 15,16, 291 nn. 29, 40 Brunn, Heinrich  6–7, 11–13, 28, 34, 50, 52–57, 61, 64–66, 76, 79, 81, 85, 88, 100, 103, 106, 114–115, 131, 135, 156, 193, 220, 223, 237, 285 nn. 2–3, 287 n. 31, 288 n. 65, 289 nn. 71, 73, 295 nn. 23–24, 296 n. 43, 304 n. 2, 306 n. 4 Budde, Ludwig  269, 271, 310 n. 34, 311 nn. 35–37 Caravaggio 240–241 Carpenter, Rhys  6, 13, 39, 81, 90, 114–115, 285 n. 5, 287 nn. 30, 47, 292 nn. 43, 44, 53, 296 nn. 34, 49, 51–52, 297 nn. 61, 63, 71

Courbaud, Edmond  6, 12, 33–36, 285 n. 3, 287 nn. 38–39 Conze, Alexander  6, 13, 28, 30, 32–36, 44, 48–50, 53, 57–61, 64–66, 81, 86–87, 114–115, 131, 133, 165–171, 176, 285 n. 3, 287 nn. 31, 34, 36–37, 288 nn. 56, 62, 66, 289 nn. 79–80, 2, 290 n 13, 292 n. 49, 299 n. 13, 300 n. 15, 301 nn. 1–3, 302 nn. 24–28, 305 n. 13 Dawson, Christopher  6, 227, 306 n. 57 Dihl, Marie  115, 297 n. 55 Euclid  3, 260, 280, 305 n. 17 Fiedler, Conrad  6, 70–71, 74, 290 nn. 9, 25–26, 291 nn. 37–38 Gardner, Ernst  6, 90, 101, 113, 294 n. 13, 295 nn. 24, 26, 296 nn. 45–46, 52, 297 n. 69, 299 n. 85, 304 n. 71 Göller, Adolf  61, 289 n. 1 Hamberg, Per Gustave  6, 254, 256, 266, 273, 307 n. 82, 309 n. 13, 310 n. 28, 311 nn. 39–42 Hauck, Guido  70, 72–73, 290 n. 15, 291 nn. 30–31 Helmholtz, Hermann von  61, 69–75, 282, 290 nn. 15, 23–25, 28, 291 nn. 33, 38, 311 n. 2 Herbart, Johann Friedrich  70 Hildebrand, Adolf  7–9, 61, 64–84, 90, 94, 96, 99, 105, 107, 114, 134, 136, 161, 233, 236–237, 240–241, 244–248, 282, 290 nn. 3–5, 9, 15, 17, 21, 25–26, 291 nn. 27, 36–38, 40, 294 nn. 10, 12, 295

356

Index 2: Persons

nn. 36, 51, 300 nn. 14, 40, 301 n. 10, 307 nn. 77, 84, 308 n. 91, 309 n. 108 Hinks, Roger  6, 47, 154–156, 204–205, 251, 268, 288 n. 58, 295 n. 37, 300 nn. 17, 34–35, 301 n. 18, 304 nn. 5, 7, 310 nn. 21, 26, 31–32 Hölscher, Tonio  153, 285 n. 6, 287 n. 41, 299 nn. 83, 6, 300 nn. 16, 33, 301 n. 19, 302 nn. 31, 37, 304 n. 62, 305 n. 31, 311 n. 45

Mach, Edmond von  6, 41, 43, 286 n. 18, 287 nn. 44, 49, 288 nn. 51, 59, 295 n. 30 Matz, Friedrich  6, 8, 131–140, 144, 150, 154, 169, 233, 235, 292 n. 56, 299 nn. 1, 5–13, 300 nn. 14, 16, 301 nn. 8, 18, 304 n. 2, 307 n. 77, 305 n. 17 Michelangelo  89–94, 96, 245, 293 n. 3 Myron  113–117, 126–129, 241, 292 n. 42, 308 n. 93

Kähler, Heinz  6, 53, 64, 286 n. 20, 288 n. 68, 290 n. 13 Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Guido  6, 171, 301 n. 16, 302 n. 39, 305 n. 18 Kephisodotus  101–102, 106 Koepp, Friedrich  6, 47, 133, 140, 223, 285 n. 3, 286 nn. 15, 18, 288 nn. 61, 64, 290 n. 4, 300 n. 15, 306 nn. 47–492, 52–54 Koeppel, Gerhard  156–157, 286 n. 17, 287 n. 49, 290 n. 4, 293 n. 69, 299 n. 13, 300 nn. 14, 36–37, 302 n. 38, 307 nn. 76, 83, 311 n. 36 Krahmer, Gerhard  6, 116, 294 n. 15, 297 n. 60, 299 n. 8 Kritios (and Nesiotes)  122, 128, 297 n. 70 Kuttner, Ann  228, 286 n. 13, 306 nn. 59–60, 309 n. 110

Nikandre  100, 294 n. 16, 295 nn. 25, 29

Lange, Julius  6, 8, 12, 90, 97–100, 104, 106, 110–111, 113–115, 118, 128, 249, 251, 285 n. 3, 293 n. 3, 294 nn. 15–17, 20, 295 nn. 23–24, 296 nn. 43–44, 47, 51, 297 n. 61, 309 n. 9 Lietzmann, Hans  6, 276–278, 311 nn. 46, 49 Loewy, Emanuel  6, 8, 12, 24, 38, 53, 66–67, 71, 75–79, 81, 84–85, 89–90, 97–107, 114–116, 118, 122–128, 130–131, 134, 233, 244, 249, 252, 259, 285 nn. 6, 3–4, 286 nn. 23–24, 287 nn. 30–31, 40, 42, 50, 288 n. 61, 289 n. 69, 290 nn. 6–7, 13, 15, 291 n. 40, 292 nn. 41–43, 293 n. 1, 294 nn. 14–16, 18, 20, 295 nn. 24, 27–30, 33, 38, 296 nn. 39, 45, 48, 51, 297 nn. 60–62, 71, 298 nn. 73–74, 76, 299 n. 85, 301 n. 10, 302 n. 35, 307 n. 77, 308 n. 107, 309 nn. 2, 9 L’Orange, Hans Peter  6, 277, 311 n. 47 Lotz, Rudolf Hermann  70 Lykios  126–127, 308 n. 93 Lucian  115, 297 n. 53.

Overbeck, Johannes  6, 56–57, 289 nn. 75–78, 300 n. 15, 308 nn. 92–96, 104 Paionios 88 Panofsky, Erwin  58, 211, 246, 288 n. 56, 299 n. 10, 305 n. 16 Parrhasius  228, 306 n. 58 Pausanias 55 Payne, Humphrey  6, 126, 286 n. 10, 298 n. 81 Philippi, Adolf  6, 46–47, 172, 229–230, 232, 234–236, 288 nn. 51, 57, 290 n. 4, 301 n. 17, 303, n. 50, 306 nn. 62–64, 307 nn, 80, 82 Philiscus 241–242 Pinder, Wilhelm  140, 300 n. 15 Pliny the Elder  92, 104, 241–244, 308 n. 97 Polemon of Illium  244–245, 308 n. 104 Polygnotus  48, 177, 216 Polykleitos  83, 102–105, 113, 241, 296 n. 40 Quintilian  115, 297 n. 53 Riegl, Alois  6, 12, 59, 90, 105, 107, 159–162, 205, 218, 233, 237–240, 250–251, 275, 278–279, 282, 285 n. 3, 286 n. 19, 289 nn. 72, 83, 291 n. 32, 294 n. 18, 295 nn. 30, 37, 296 nn. 41, 47, 51, 300 nn. 39–41, 301 n. 41, 302 nn. 23, 28, 304 n. 7, 305 nn. 32–33, 307 nn. 74, 77, 85, 311 nn. 4344, 49, 1 Rizzo, Giulio Emanule  115, 296 n. 49, 297 nn. 55–56 Rodenwaldt, Gerhard  6, 47, 64, 67–68, 129–130, 153, 199, 219, 250–251, 276, 278, 285 n. 6, 286 n. 15, 288 n. 59, 290

357

Index 2: Persons nn. 12–13, 299 n. 87, 300 nn. 24, 33, 35, 304 nn. 62, 67–68, 305 nn. 28, 35, 306 nn. 37, 65, 309 nn. 6–7, 310 n. 32, 311 nn. 45–46 Schreiber, Theodore  6, 167–168, 171, 186, 188, 289 n. 80, 301 nn. 2, 5–6, 18, 302 n. 27, 303, nn. 45–47, 50, 54 Schweitzer, Bernhard  6, 249–250, 299 n. 11, 304 n. 2, 308 n. 90, 309 n. 1 Sieveking, Johannes  6, 133, 220–221, 232–234, 286 n. 18, 299 n. 4, 300 n. 37, 301 n. 9, 306 nn. 43–44, 52, 307 nn. 75, 78–79 Stosch, Baron von  92 Styppax of Cyprus  241–242 Varro  104, 106 Vasari, Giorgio  89–90, 93, 293 nn. 2–3 Vitruvius  206, 208, 258

Weickert, Carl  1, 6, 84–87, 131–133, 154, 169–171, 201, 233–235, 286 nn. 12, 18, 289 n. 82, 292 nn. 57–59, 293 nn. 60, 62, 65–67, 299 n. 4, 301 nn. 9, 11–12, 18, 303 n. 41, 307 nn. 77, 81 Wickhoff, Franz  6, 8, 13, 48, 58–59, 84, 86–88, 133, 156–157, 159, 168–171, 182–183, 186, 203, 205–214, 218, 223, 230–240, 243–244, 246, 265, 271, 289 nn. 79, 81, 291 nn. 34, 39, 293 nn. 61, 69–72, 300 nn. 14–15, 301 nn. 2, 7, 302 nn. 24–25, 28, 30 38–39, 304 nn. 1, 3, 8, 305 nn. 12–15, 19, 306 nn. 66–68, 307 nn. 69–72, 74, 308 n. 106, 310 n. 29 Wölfflin, Heinrich  6, 290 nn. 17, 25, 296 n. 51 Wundt, Wilhelm  70, 290 nn. 23, 26 Zenodorus  92, 294 n. 6 Zeuxis  228, 306 n. 58

Index 3: Individual Monuments and Works of Art

Alexander mosaic (Naples)  230, 265, 301 n. 7, 302 nn. 28 and 37, 303 n. 58 altars of Numerius Lucius Hermeros  239, 307 n. 88 of Romulus and Remus (Ostia) 225–226 Arch of Augustus at Susa  16, 18 Arch of Trajan, Benevento  286 n. 17 architectural sculpture (metopes, friezes, pediments) Aegina Temple pediment (Munich)  120–121, 297 n. 67 Aemilius Paullus monument (Delphi)  174–175, 287 n. 48 Bassae, Temple frieze  31, 120, 181, 297 n. 69 Bluebeard pedimental group (Athens) 79 Cività Alba temple pediment  256–257, 259, 264, 309 n. 15 Lagina Hekate temple frieze  136, 138 Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, frieze  43–44, 175, 286 n. 21, 287 n. 48, 288 n. 52, 292 n. 49, 293 n. 67 Olympia, Temple of Zeus, metopes  15, 35, 53, 75–78, 109–112, 123, 287 n. 47, 290 n. 7, 292 n. 49, 295 n. 33 Parthenon frieze  4, 15–21, 30, 35–38, 39, 49, 65, 120, 216, 232–233, 286 n. 18, 287 nn. 43–44 Parthenon metopes (London)  15, 17, 30, 297 n. 69

Pergamon Great Altar frieze  32, 57–58, 132–133, 137, 230, 282, 289 n. 82 Telephos frieze  48, 56, 58–59, 166, 182–183, 206–211, 216, 223, 227, 282, 293 n. 67, 299 n. 4, 305 nn. 11–12 Sentinum (see Cività Alba) Talamonaccio temple, pediment  256–259, 264, 309 n. 15 Trysa Heroon frieze  145, 227, 287 n. 41 Aristonautes naiskos (Athens)  19–20, 68, 307 n. 87 Boscoreale cups (Paris)  228 Chigi olpe  39 gladiator helmet (Naples)  264 Knucklebone players (from Herculaneum) 201 Lycurgus cup  262–263 Mason, Raymond (Barcelona Tram [Tate, London]) 281 Medici Krater  188, 303 n. 51 Pagani, Gregorio (Flagellation of Christ [Philadelphia]) 280 paintings, Greek Vergina hunt frieze  176, 178, 213–216, 223 Lesche of the Cnidians, Delphi  216, 305 n. 30 Stoa Poikile, Athens  216

Index 3: Individual Monuments and Works of Art  paintings, Roman Boscoreale, Villa of P. Fannius Synistor  170, 185, 258, 310 n. 18 Boscotrecase wall painting (New York)  151, 192, 303 n. 58 “Bread seller” painting (Pompeii VII.3.30) 196–197 Cupid frieze (Pompeii)  242, 245 Garden Room (Pompeii VI.17.42)  201 Odyssey Landscapes  212–216 Praeneste, Temple of Fortuna  170, 186 Prinias temple  120–121 Probianus diptych  204–205 reliefs Amiternum banquet relief  196, 309 nn. 8, 11 Amiternum funerary relief  251–252 Archelaos relief / Apotheosis of Homer  50, 220–221 Aristion stele  29–30, 287 nn. 31, 35 “Ballplayer” statue base  178, 182 Barcelona Tram (London)  281 Capua amphitheater reliefs (Naples)  197–199, 244 “Cat” stele (Athens)  13–14, 21, 62, 289 n. 2 Este banquet relief  197, 199 market scene (Ostia)  252–254, 256, 259 Meleager relief  213–214 Messene Lion hunt relief  43–44 Nike Balustrade relief (Athens)  120–121, 297 n. 69 Niobids roundel (London)  221–222 Orpheus relief (Liverpool)  190 Palazzo Sachetti relief (Rome)  238, 271, 311 n. 36 pastoral relief (Sulmona)  255–256 peasant relief (Munich)  190, 192, 224–228, 303 n. 54 Polyphemus and Galatea relief (Turin)  190–191, 303 n. 54 Polyphemus relief (Munich)  189–191, 194 Pythodorus relief  225 Sounion relief (Athens)  112, 302 n. 35 St. Rémy, cenotaph reliefs  44, 46, 58, 165–173, 216, 287 n. 47 Til-Châtel funerary relief (Dijon)  195–197, 287 n. 47

359

Torlonia relief (Rome)  53–54, 225 Ulpia Epigone relief  249–252, 254, 256 Villa Albani relief (Rome)  53–55, 289 n. 72 Rome, in situ Anaglypha Hadriani  216, 269, 310 n. 33 Ara Pacis Augustae  84, 133, 135–138, 228–229, 231–236, 292 n. 57, 299 n. 4 Processional frieze  135, 137, 229, 231–236 Tellus relief  136, 138 Aeneas relief  228–229, 234, 236 Arch of Constantine  250, 266, 270–271, 274–276, 278 Arch of Septimius Severus  272–274, 276–277 Arch of Tiberius  277 Arch of Titus  16, 20–21, 133, 156, 182, 229–231, 236, 271, 311 n. 37 Spoils relief  87, 136, 183, 231, 300 n. 14, 307 n. 74 Triumph relief  183–184 Column of Marcus Aurelius (Rome)  155, 259–260, 268, 273 Column of Trajan (Rome)  48, 155, 256, 270, 272–273, 310 n. 28, 311 n. 42 Salpion Krater  188 Sandalbinder (see Nike Balustrade relief) sarcophagi Acilia 157 Adonis 159 Badminton (Dionysos and Seasons) 158 battle  250, 266–268, 310 n. 30 Christian  158, 162, 199 Constantia 161 Helena 161 hunt  178, 261–262, 302 n. 23 kline  155, 249, 251 Ludovisi  267–268, 310 n. 32 marriage 155 Muses 150–153 Portonaccio 266 Villa Doria Pamphili  267, 310 n. 30 Sosos’ Doves mosaic  239, 307 n. 88

360

Index 3: Individual Monuments and Works of Art

statues Apollo from Piombino  104, 295 n. 33 Apollo from Tenea (Munich)  100–101, 295 nn. 24, 25, 296 n. 40 Artemesion Zeus (Athens)  120, 122–127 Athena and Marsyas group (Vatican)  129, 241 Athena Lemnia statue  (Dresden) 101–102 Cartilius Poplica, C., statue (Ostia) 117 Discobolus Lancelotti (Rome)  115–116, 296 n. 52 Porziano (Rome)  115–116, 296 nn. 49, 52, 297 nn. 56, 59 Townley (London)  115, 297 nn. 53, 59 Jason statue (Hermes? [Copenhagen])  117–118, 120–122, 297 n. 62 Nikandre dedication (Athens)  100, 294 n. 16, 295 nn. 25, 29 Rheneia youth (Athens)  94–95 Runner/hoplitodromos (Tübingen) 119–121 Tyrannicides (Naples)  120–130, 297 n. 65, 298 nn. 71–72 Ugento Zeus  118–120

vase painters Achilles Painter  24–25, 28 Antimenes Painter  40–41, 63 Asteas  206–207, 300 n. 26, 304 n. 9 Berlin Painter  35 Euphelitos Painter  180 Exekias  24, 286 n. 20 Exekias (manner of?)  39–40 Gorgon Painter  46 Lysippides Painter  24–25, 39 Niobid Painter  48, 180 Painter of London B343  180 Painter of the Berlin Hydria  179, 288 n. 55 Painter of Bologna 48  39 Priam Painter  179 Trophy Painter  108 Villa Farnesina, ceiling stucco  215, 306 n. 49 votive monuments Aesklepios  238, 252, 307 n. 87 Archandros  145–146, 218–219, 223, 228 Athena  15, 17 Herakles 146 Munich family votive  137, 218, 224–228, 234, 292 n. 59 Neptune  18–19, 59 T. Flavius Constans  52 Zeus Parthenios  219, 306 n. 37