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Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration
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Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration

A special issue of Arts (ISSN 2076-0752). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Arts".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (16 July 2021) | Viewed by 19109

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Vanessa Rousseau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Independent Scholar, St. Paul, MN 55104, USA
Interests: Greek and Roman art; wall painting; opus sectile; surface decoration; Sardis; art authentication; antiquities trade
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Elizabeth Molacek

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA
Interests: Roman wall paintings; Hellenistic and Roman mosaics; art and architecture of Greek and Roman worlds; history of excavating and collecting in the U.S. and Europe

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In this Special Issue of Arts focused on “Exchange: Media, Movement, Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration,” we look forward to exploring surface treatments in the visual and material culture of the ancient and early medieval periods. At a moment when our world is hyper-focused on how people, things, and ideas move between geographies, surfaces, and spaces, we turn to the ancient world to understand instances of visual, technical, and material exchange as manifest in ancient surface decoration. Purposefully diverse in terms of chronology, geography, and cultural purview, the contributions in this Special Issue should address the many mechanisms that propelled the transfer and transmission of artistic concepts, themes, motifs, and decorative schema in ancient painting, mosaic, stucco, textile, and other surface media. Our goal is to foster diverse perspectives, encourage collaboration, and promote critical discourse among those working on the topic of ancient artistic exchange, interchange, and intersections, and we are particularly interested in contributions that spotlight multiple media, time periods, or geographies.

If you are interested in contributing to this Special Issue, please send a brief abstract by 1 December 2020 to Elizabeth Molacek and Vanessa Rousseau.

Dr. Vanessa Rousseau
Dr. Elizabeth Molacek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • material culture
  • media
  • Mediterranean
  • Antiquity
  • visual culture
  • decoration
  • movement
  • wall painting
  • stucco
  • textiles
  • vase painting
  • Roman
  • Greek
  • Egyptian

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

33 pages, 33168 KiB  
Article
Reverberations of Persepolis: Persianist Readings of Late Roman Wall Decoration
by Stephanie A. Hagan
Arts 2023, 12(3), 102; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts12030102 - 12 May 2023
Viewed by 2627
Abstract
Animal combats (venationes) were a popular entertainment in the Roman world. Splashy panels of inlaid marble (opus sectile) commemorate these bloody contests in several buildings in and around Rome. Among the most well-known are survivals from the 4th century CE Basilica of Junius [...] Read more.
Animal combats (venationes) were a popular entertainment in the Roman world. Splashy panels of inlaid marble (opus sectile) commemorate these bloody contests in several buildings in and around Rome. Among the most well-known are survivals from the 4th century CE Basilica of Junius Bassus and, several decades later, the marble-revetted hall from Porta Marina at Ostia. On the face of it, the wall decoration from these sites memorializes typical Roman activities, but the panels expose the vast geography implicated in these combat spectacles. The brilliant stones used to render them came from lands as far off as the Caspian tigers and Asiatic lions they depicted. The iconography of the panels was also foreign: the animal combat, or symplegma (intertwining), is seen on works from pre-Achaemenid sculpture to Sasanian textiles, and most recognizably, at the Achaemenid palace at Persepolis, where a lion attacks a bull in relief on the Apadana stairway. Reading these panels through a Persianist lens illuminates the ways in which the Persepolitan model animated Roman themes and visual programs. Though they recalled events in the Roman arena, they also imparted political and astrological signification to the decoration by means of their Persian associations. By alluding to the Achaemenid empire, a great power of the past and a continuing rival in the form of the Sasanians, the Roman patron accrued to himself some measure of the veneration for this culture and showed himself able to communicate in an idiom legible to an international clientele. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration)
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38 pages, 30947 KiB  
Article
The Waiting-Servant Motif in a Late Antique Textile in Chicago: Iconography, Visuality, and Materiality
by Katharine A. Raff
Arts 2022, 11(3), 64; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts11030064 - 14 Jun 2022
Viewed by 3111
Abstract
This article explores the use and adaptation of the iconographic motif of the waiting servant, known primarily from late Roman wall paintings, mosaics, and other media, within the sphere of Late Antique furnishing textiles. Taking as a case study a fifth- to sixth-century [...] Read more.
This article explores the use and adaptation of the iconographic motif of the waiting servant, known primarily from late Roman wall paintings, mosaics, and other media, within the sphere of Late Antique furnishing textiles. Taking as a case study a fifth- to sixth-century CE hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection, the first section argues that the addition of elaborate, multihued architectural settings and floral motifs in this hanging and several comparable examples built upon the existing waiting-servant iconography offer an enhanced message of “the good life” within the household. Such compositional elements were rooted in earlier Greek and Roman artistic traditions, namely architectural polychromy and the visual interplay between artifice and reality. However, they also exemplify the Late Antique “jeweled style”, an aesthetic characterized by dazzling visual and polychromatic effects and an interest in artistic mimicry of other media. Striking visual parallels between the waiting-servant hangings and contemporary painted interiors suggest that textiles were considered on par with permanent media and operated in a system of cross-media artistic exchange. The article concludes with a consideration of the materiality of the Chicago hanging and its potential functions within a Late Antique residence, exploring how its portability as a woven object encouraged its flexible use within the home and allowed it to convey and even amplify particular messages through its juxtaposition with other objects, architecture, or people. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration)
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20 pages, 8359 KiB  
Article
Wall Surfaces as Interfaces: The First Pompeian Style
by Annette Haug
Arts 2022, 11(1), 16; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts11010016 - 11 Jan 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3117
Abstract
This article investigates the role of wall surfaces as an interactive medium in the First Pompeian Style, referring to examples from Pompeii. Five different aspects are investigated in more detail: (1) surfaces and their relation to the core; (2) surface qualities; (3) surfaces [...] Read more.
This article investigates the role of wall surfaces as an interactive medium in the First Pompeian Style, referring to examples from Pompeii. Five different aspects are investigated in more detail: (1) surfaces and their relation to the core; (2) surface qualities; (3) surfaces as image carriers; (4) surfaces and their relation to the physical space; (5) surfaces and their relation to the social space. These aspects allow for a deeper understanding of the First Style’s ornamental, pictorial and spatial qualities. In this view, surfaces can be conceived as media interfaces. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration)
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18 pages, 6593 KiB  
Article
Following the Thread: Elite Iconography on Weaving Objects at Poggio Civitate (Murlo)
by Nora K. Donoghue
Arts 2022, 11(1), 15; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts11010015 - 07 Jan 2022
Viewed by 3415
Abstract
Evidence for industrial scale production of numerous manufacturing processes has been attested in all phases of occupation at Poggio Civitate (Murlo). A subset of these, tools for the production of textiles and fibers, indicates that textile crafts were manufactured on a large scale [...] Read more.
Evidence for industrial scale production of numerous manufacturing processes has been attested in all phases of occupation at Poggio Civitate (Murlo). A subset of these, tools for the production of textiles and fibers, indicates that textile crafts were manufactured on a large scale as a part of a centralized and organized industry. These industrialized practices occurred within and around the monumental seventh and sixth century BCE complexes which displayed architectural decoration bearing iconographic themes that served to secure the positions of the aristocratic elites. This paper investigates the stamped decoration present on rocchetti and its relationship to the architectural decoration present on the monumental structures of the site. As small moveable objects used by members of the community, rocchetti present an opportunity to investigate the movement of elite images through the non-elite population of a community and their reception of aristocratic ideology presented in monumental structures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration)
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35 pages, 37235 KiB  
Article
Negotiating Identity through the Architecture and Interior Decoration of Elite Households in Ptolemaic Egypt
by Sara E. Cole
Arts 2022, 11(1), 3; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts11010003 - 23 Dec 2021
Viewed by 4820
Abstract
In Ptolemaic Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC), numerous physical spaces served as loci of identity negotiation for elite individuals inhabiting a setting where imported Greek traditions interacted with local Egyptian ones. Such negotiations, or maneuverings, often took place through visual culture. This essay explores [...] Read more.
In Ptolemaic Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC), numerous physical spaces served as loci of identity negotiation for elite individuals inhabiting a setting where imported Greek traditions interacted with local Egyptian ones. Such negotiations, or maneuverings, often took place through visual culture. This essay explores a sample of the Greek architectural elements and surface decorations used in wealthy Ptolemaic homes and what they communicate about the residents’ sense of identity. The decorative choices made for a home conveyed information about the social status and cultural allegiances of its owner(s). Some comparisons are possible between Ptolemaic homes in Alexandria, the Delta, and the Fayyum and those from other Hellenistic sites in the eastern Mediterranean such as Priene and Delos. Elites in Alexandria and the Egyptian chora incorporated Greek traditions into their homes and adapted them in increasingly novel ways, creating architecture and surface decoration that was uniquely Ptolemaic. These households were visually in dialogue both with broader Hellenistic trends and with their Egyptian context. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exchange: Media, Movement, and Meaning in Ancient–Medieval Surface Decoration)
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