Classical and Byzantine Studies

"Ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan civilizations come vividly to life in this selection of over one hundred highlights from the MFA's collection of Classical art. An introduction by curators Christine Kondoleon and Richard A. Grossmann outlines the geographical and historical scope of the Classical world from the Bronze Age to Late Antiquity describes the range of materials and techniques used by ancient artists, and provides a brief history of the MFA's collection. An appendix by conservator Pamela Hatchfield shares the conservation stories of some of the featured objects. In the splendidly illustrated body of the book, the highlighted artworks are grouped according to five broad themes: myth and religion, heroes and warriors, love and loss, daily life, and beasts and beauties. Celebrated mosaics, statues, and vases share the stage with less-familiar jewelry, coins, and glassware - each piece accompanied by a concise discussion of its artistic creation and cultural context. Both shared interests and varied traditions emerge in cross-cultural discussions of topics such as war and politics, commemoration of the dead, sports and entertainment, and the human form, providing rich insight into the astonishing civilizations that produced and used these fascinating objects so many centuries ago."--BOOK JACKET.

The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture spans every art form, medium, and civilization the fall of the Roman Empire, The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture is a comprehensive reference source on this important field of study. Drawing on the expansive scholarship of The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols) and Grove Art Online, and adding dozens of new entries, the Encyclopedia includes all subject areas in the classical arts, including philosophers, rulers, writers and artists, architecture, ceramics, sculpture, and more. Arranged alphabetically, this two-volume set contains over 800 entries tracing the development of the art forms in classical civilizations such as ancient Greece and Rome. Illustrated with 400 halftones, maps and line drawings, and 32 color plates, the Encyclopedia is a reliable and convenient resource covering this field of everlasting significance in the development of western culture.

The art and architecture of Greece and Rome lie at the heart of the classical tradition of the western world. Their legacy is so familiar as to have become commonplace, yet despite appearing straightforward, the development of classical art in antiquity was complex and remarkably swift. It ran from near abstraction in eighth-century BC Greece, through years of observation and learning from the arts of the non-Greek world to the east and in Egypt, to the brilliance of the classical revolution of the fifth century, which revealed attitudes and styles undreamt of by other cultures. After Alexander the Great this became the art of an empire, readily learned by Rome and further developed according to the Romans' special character and needs, until it provided the idiom for the imaging of Christianity. Here, five leading scholars tell the story of this pageant of the arts over some 1500 years, through a rich succession of illustrations on to which the narrative is woven. They demonstrate how the arts served very different societies and patrons - tyrannies, democracies, empires; the roles and objectives of the artists; the way in which the classical style was disseminated far beyond the borders of the Greek and Roman world; but especially the splendour and quality of the arts themselves.

How did the statues of ancient Greece wind up dictating art history in the West? How did the material culture of the Greeks and Romans come to be seen as "classical" and as "art"? What does "classical art" mean across time and place? In this ambitious, richly illustrated book, art historian and classicist Caroline Vout provides an original history of how classical art has been continuously redefined over the millennia as it has found itself in new contexts and cultures. All of this raises the question of classical art's future. What we call classical art did not simply appear in ancient Rome, or in the Renaissance, or in the eighteenth-century Academy. Endlessly repackaged and revered or rebuked, Greek and Roman artifacts have gathered an amazing array of values, both positive and negative, in each new historical period, even as these objects themselves have reshaped their surroundings. Vout shows how this process began in antiquity, as Greeks of the Hellenistic period transformed the art of fifth-century Greece, and continued through the Roman empire, Constantinople, European court societies, the neoclassical English country house, and the nineteenth century, up to the modern museum. A unique exploration of how each period of Western culture has transformed Greek and Roman antiquities and in turn been transformed by them, this book revolutionizes our understanding of what classical art has meant and continues to mean.