The Living and the Monumental on the Anaglypha Traiani

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4894052
AutoresNicole G Brown (Williams College, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume124
Fascículo4
Páginas607-630
Data de publicação2020-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Journal of Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-9114 • E-ISSN: 1939-828X
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.3764/aja.124.4.0607
OpenAlexW3084676857
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas19

Of the many interpretive puzzles presented by the so-called Anaglypha Traiani, a pair of Roman imperial reliefs today located in the Curia Julia, one special curiosity is their depiction of a tree, commonly identified as the Ficus Ruminalis, otherwise rendered naturalistically but shown as if growing directly out of a stone base or pedestal. Close interrogation of this feature yields two important avenues of investigation. The first is a matter of historical realism, concerning how living trees were incorporated into the Forum Romanum in real life and thus how we should conceive of the Ficus Ruminalis itself. The second pertains to the use of the base as a formal device, one which activates—in concert with multiple architectonic platforms across the two panels—a sophisticated interplay between the “living” and the “monumental.” This approach reveals a careful design in which the monuments in the reliefs' foregrounds were selected on both symbolic and historical grounds. Ultimately, this analysis paves the way for a new reading of the two panels as a pair of distinct ideological visions, united within an overarching temporal framework that emphasizes continuity among Rome's origins (the Ficus Ruminalis) and republican institutions (the Marsyas statue) and its imperial present, as well as between one emperor and the next

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Art history · Depiction · Emperor · Interpretation (philosophy · Literature · Sociology · Statue · Vision · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Anthropology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Philosophy