Mountains in Greek and Roman Art

This chapter talks about mountains, which were objects of fascination in Greek and Roman art in ways quite different from modern landscape painting. Mountains in Greek and Roman art were compressed and miniaturised because of the restrictions of the media within which they were depicted, such as on a coin, and it was also a consequence of their symbolic function, which allowed the image to stand as a shorthand for a particular place. The chapter analyzes the mountains recurring frequently in Roman mythological wall paintings that tie images from myth to particular places with powerful, centuries-old narrative associations. The chapter highlights the greater realism of mountains in Greek and Roman art that tempt the viewer into a fantasy of identification with the scenes on display. The Greek and Roman images of these mountains draw on the ever-present potential for mountains to be experienced as landscapes of risk where human agency is liable to be overwhelmed.

Aesthetics · Ancient Greek · Art · Art history · Fantasy · Greek art · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Painting · Realism · Roman art · Visual arts · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · History