9780521846141 - The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece Hardback: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation (Cambridge Classical Studies) von Tanner (3 Ergebnisse)

hardcover w/ dj. Zustand: Sehr gut. Auflage: Illustrated. 348 Seiten Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langjährigem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). Very good, clean copy. This is arguably one of the most ambitious, provocative, and interesting books on Greek sculpture to appear since the publication in 1990 of Andrew Stewart's Greek Sculpture: An Exploration. In this bold book, which is a revised version of a PhD dissertation submitted to the University of Cambridge in 1996, Tanner takes on many of the core interpretive issues in classical art history - the development of naturalism and the "Greek revolution" (chapter 2), the invention of individualized portraiture (chapter 3), the notion of the artist and artistic agency (chapter 4), the creation of the conceptual category of "art for art's sake" (chapter 5), copying in the post-classical period (chapter 6). His deployment of a sociological framework for the interpretation of Greek art ("art as expressive symbolism"), based primarily on the work of Talcott Parsons, will be familiar to those who know Tanner's work; his aim in utilizing this theoretical approach is "to develop a framework which not only interprets art, but also seeks to explain developments in art and in the institutional frameworks of art production and consumption in the context of long-term social and cultural processes" (19, author's italics). Tanner also uses Karl Weber's concepts of rationalization to think through why art changed over time and why certain styles emerged at certain periods. The first chapter, in which he clearly sets out this interpretive approach, is, however, unnecessarily polemical, and at times downright uncharitable to scholars who have made major contributions to the field (e.g. Robertson, Boardman, Metzler, Hölscher, Stewart). It is hard not to feel at least a little irritated by this historiography (work of the 1970's and 80's comes in for particularly sharp criticism) and therefore to be somewhat resistant to Tanner's own project "to bring to classical art history the conceptual tools which will make possible the explicit and systematic exploration [.] of the production and reception of art" (19). It would be a shame if the tone of the first chapter dissuaded some from continuing, as the book has much to offer to the study of Greek art. Those readers who persevere will be richly rewarded for their efforts. Tanner argues in chapter 2 that the change in the style of cult statues from the archaic to the classical period, and the development of naturalist images of the gods, had a specifically religious significance. According to Tanner, "the key differences between archaic statues of deities and classical statues lies not in their iconographic meanings as traditionally understood but in the way they appropriate the viewer's body in constructing affective attachment to religious and social orders" (54-55). Rather than being a symptom or a byproduct of a particular political development, such as the creation of democracy, or the result of aesthetic experimentation and innovation by great masters, such as Pheidias, naturalism developed within "the ritual performance of viewing cult statues" (89); naturalism allowed for a more immediate and direct relationship between the viewer and the god. This new style is linked to the rise of democracy, and the shift in power from the old aristocratic elite, whose needs had been fulfilled by the Archaic style, to ordinary people, who desired a different relationship with the divine. Naturalism intensified the image's expressive effect on the viewer, and therefore enabled the viewer to establish a closer relationship with the god, to interact more directly and personally, without the intervention or mediation of the elite. While there is much to disagree with here (e.g., the association of votive kouroi/korai exclusively with the elite; the use of Roman ideal sculpture to stand in for Greek cult statues; the absence of any discussion of the Persian Wars; the argument that Athenian democracy was a motivating factor, when naturalism as a sculptural style can be found throughout the Greek world) Tanner's focus on a viewer-centered perspective and his insistence that we consider the ritual context of images are important interpretive interventions. While I found his formulation of the changes in artistic language provocative and at times compelling, not everyone will agree with his conclusion that Greek naturalism is a style which invites the viewer into a close, affective relationship with an image; indeed Jas Elsner has recently argued much the opposite, also from a viewer-centered perspective. [1] Chapter 3 examines the invention of portraiture, also through the lens of the Greek revolution. Previous explanations that linked the birth of the portrait to the rise of the individual in Greek culture and the creation of democracy are, not surprisingly, found wanting; modern concerns with personal identity and portrait likeness are rightly marked as unproductive. Tanner suggests an alternative (although not altogether new) interpretive framework that seeks to understand the portrait as the visual expression of a person's social category or role, rather than as a realistic and recognizable likeness of a particular individual. He discusses the introduction of the word eikon in the early 5th century and the important shift that it marks in the contemporary conception of figural representation: from statues of men that were indistinguishable from those of the gods in the Archaic period to statues of men that were differentiated from images of gods by the introduction of individualizing characteristics. This shift in language signals a shift in the function of these images; changed social and cultural dynamics "shaped the creation and development of a distinctive practice of portrait.

Zustand: New. In.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - Offers a contemporary sociological approach to fundamental questions in the history of Greek art.