Product Description: What did sex mean to the ancient Romans? In this lavishly illustrated study, John R. Clarke investigates a rich assortment of Roman erotic art to answer this question―and along the way, he reveals a society quite different from our own...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Art and the Roman Viewer presents a fresh analysis of a major intellectual problem in the history of art: why did the arts of Late Antiquity move away from classical naturalism towards spiritual abstraction? Arguing from a close examination of ancient art images and texts, Jas Elsner shows how an understanding of Roman viewing practices greatly deepens our insight into this fundamental transformation. The sophisticated arts of the early empire, such as Pompeian painting, sculpted reliefs and silverware, entertain the potential for irony, parody, and deconstruction. By contrast, the symbolic arts of the Christian empire, notably the mosaics of Ravenna, eschew irony, while complexity remains, indeed intensifies, as multiple meanings compete to enrich a fundamentally sacred truth. By addressing the subtleties inherent in ancient viewing, this study embarks on a quest to enrich our understanding of an era of profound artistic change.

Product Description: In this iconological study, the author demonstrates the invalidity of the current interpretation of the relief on the so-called Peleus and Thetis sarcophagus in the Villa Albani in Rome, an interpretation which goes back to Winckelmann...read more