Understanding the Roman Nude

In the introduction to this book I noted that Roman nude portraits have in the past received surprisingly little attention. I also quoted a few choice descriptions of these works from earlier scholarship, in order to illustrate the strong antipathy generally felt towards these images by art historians. But the feeling that these portrait statues are somehow ‘problematic’, or ‘incongruous’, is not confined to specialists; it is experienced by expert and layman alike. To conclude the present study I would like to pose the question: ‘Why do these Roman nude portraits elicit such a powerful negative response from most modern viewers?’ As we shall see, these works violate some of modern western culture’s most deeply held beliefs of what is and what is not permissable in art—and especially in portraiture.

Aesthetics · Antipathy · Art · Art history · Epistemology · Feeling · Order (exchange) · Political science · Portrait · Scholarship · Archaeological Research and Protection · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Law · Philosophy · Visual Culture and Art Theory