Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans Visual Representation and Nonelite Viewers in Italy

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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS sentation of war in ancient Rome is a complicated and nuanced bailiwick, and the papers in this volume provide a wide-ranging and well-documented overview of different approaches to certain aspects of the subject . MARTIN BECKMANN Section OF CLASSICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY WATERLOO, ON N2L 3CS JOHN R. CLARKE. Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C.-A.D. 315. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. eleven + 383; 24 color plates, 156 black and white illustrations . US $65.00 (hb), $24.95 (pb). ISBN 0-520-21976-7. When I first received this book for review, I admit I was quite skeptical. Could we really identify "ordinary" Romans? Could ane make up one's mind what non-elite viewers "idea" of art when no literary record of this exists? Was it possible to know what role "art" therefore played in their lives? Could we actually isolate whatsoever criteria for identifying not-elite works of art? I was suspicious: wasn't the whole project somewhat reminiscent of the faintly supercilious study of "plebeian" art in the late 1960s, when "existent" Roman art was the art of the elite? Past the end of the volume, I was convinced that the answers to the higher up questions were aye, yep, yes, yes, and no. John Clarke, with the meticulous yet innovative scholarship that made Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1998) such a must-read for historians of Roman sexual mentalite, has produced another original and provocative book. His close readings of frescoes, mosaics. shop signs. and tombstones are ever done with attending paid to context. location. and position of viewer. The works of art selected are often piddling known (at least to me), and if they are well known. Clarke manages to infuse his readings with a new outlook and fresh observations. The Introduction is the near important chapter for much of Clarke'southward thesis. and I summarize it briefly here. He seeks (4) to examine artworks in their original context, to gain a better understanding of the attitudes. belief systems. and cultural practices of ordinary Romans. He is conscientious to define his terms: an aristocracy Roman was one who had money. important public appointments. social prestige. and membership in an ordo (4). A non-elite (S-6) was someone who had none of these things Volume REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 279 and no access to the upper strata of society. Clarke~s theory (7) is that ordinary Romans "tend to esteem activities that the elites of the upper classes do non, and that they express this departure in their art." Thus such persons chose to represent themselves doing "everyday" activities: elites past contrast portrayed themselves in official prestigious practices. Clarke is also careful to differentiate betwixt a Roman viewer and a modernistic scholar, who has access to close-up photographs and is able to view (for instance) the frieze on Trajan~s Column as a coherent whole (12). The aboriginal viewer was limited in ways in which we as art historians are not: thus to run into Roman fine art from a modernistic viewpoint is often to misconstrue its purposes and pregnant for an aboriginal viewer. Clarke admits that at that place is scant literary testify for ordinary viewers~ reactions to fine art (10), and thus feels entitled to use a healthy dose of historical imagination. (This may seem problematic to traditional scholars, but this is in fact essential: washed prudently, such hypothesizing is invaluable in the study of ancient mentaJite, as it tin illuminate chief materials and heighten the understanding of historical processes.) Clarke restricts himself to works of art where he knows that the patron did not qualify for the upper strata (vii), and organizes his book thematically rather than chronologically. Part one is entitled "Regal Representation of Not-Elites," and looks at several elite monuments from the perspective of a not-elite Roman "that emphasizes, in a new fashion, the not-elites living in Rome" (8). He looks at the circuitous imagery on the outside of the Ara Pacis (19-31) and at the helical frieze of Trajan\s Column (31...

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Source: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/591414

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