Ancient Art

ANCIENT ART

Chair: Bridget Sandhoff

1. “Chilling with the Gods: Innovations of the Menil Psykter”

Virginia S. Poston, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN

vposton@usi.edu

The Menil Collections' black-figure psykter, the earliest surviving example of this oddly-shaped vase type, differs from later examples in shape and decoration. Meant for chilling wine but popular for less than a century, most examples have scenes relating to Dionysos, the symposium, or active figures. While Gigantomachies are common on amphorae, this psykter is unusual in having this scene upon it. Additionally, it diverges from more standard representations, downplaying Athena, omitting Zeus altogether, and creating unlikely pairings, such as Hera and Dionysos fighting back-to-back. Psykters were designed to sit inside a calyx-krater on the floor or table, and a viewer either moved around it or spun it to perceive the full effect of its decoration. Debate continues over whether the wine was in the psykter itself or in the krater, with the psykter containing the snow or ice. The unusual nature of the Menil psykter’s decoration may provide clues to the subsequent shape changes and also start a dialog about creators and receivers, functionality, and the fluidity and power of stories. All in all, this psykter fits well with the inventiveness of 520s Athens and can still stir up conversation today, just as it was designed to do originally.

2. “Beyond the Apotropaic: Aesthetic Arrest in Greek Art”

Michael Anthony Fowler, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN

fowlerma@mail.etsu.edu

A survey of Greek art yields innumerable images that scholars characterize as apotropaic. The most ubiquitous of these is the severed head of Medusa, or gorgoneion, which frequently exhibits two features associated with prophylactic functions: frontality and monstrosity. In this paper, Fowler explores the gorgoneion and the monstrous criterion of the apotropaic, with its attendant concepts of abnormality and ugliness. While Medusa was invariably represented as monstrous in pre-Classical art, monstrosity is not a category which necessarily implied ugliness for ancient Greeks. Medusa is a case in a point, as her representation was increasingly aestheticized from the Classical period on. In spite of Medusa’s beautification, her gaze never forfeited its lethal and, by extension, apotropaic, power. How was this possible? Fowler argues, through a consideration of relevant textual and visual sources, that although beauty and ugliness were conceptualized as distinct ontological categories, they were not necessarily experienced in radically distinct ways. Grotesque and beautiful gorgoneia shared an aesthetic capacity to arrest their viewers. Despite the relatively late appearance of the beautiful Medusa in Greek art history, select usages of gorgoneia in the Archaic period already betray an interest in exploring the formal limits, and experiential dynamics, of beauty and ugliness.

3. “Private Propaganda: Iconographic Dialogue in the Large Imperial Cameos of the Early Roman Empire”

Julia C. Fischer, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX

jfischer1@lamar.edu

In Private Propaganda, I examine the iconography of the Gemma Augustea and the four other large Imperial cameos of the Early Roman Empire, revealing a referential language of private propaganda different from the public art seen by the general population. In cameos, emperors and members of the Imperial family had the freedom to present themselves and their family members how they truly wished to be viewed, versus art in the public sphere in which the emperor and his family had to adhere to specific criteria. Critically important, female members of the Imperial family were the patrons of these cameos, using the gemstones to advance their sons' dynastic careers. By addressing the large cameos as a coherent group, I expose how large Imperial cameos were in constant dialogue. In addition, large Imperial cameos demonstrate Göran Hermerén’s four stages of the development of iconography, experimenting with transmitting new Imperial messages that will become common in the public art of subsequent dynasties, revealing that cameos were an iconographic testing ground for the Julio-Claudians. Roman Imperial cameos are minor arts, but Private Propaganda reveals that these gemstones constitute a major component to understanding the development of Roman art.