Unbound from Rome: art and craft in a fluid landscape, ca. 650-250 BCE

Abstract

"Roman art and architecture are typically understood as being bound to political events, aesthetic choices or experiences stemming from a center in Rome itself. Moving beyond the misleading catchall label 'Roman', this book centers the diverse cultures and traditions contributing to Rome's visual culture spanning four hundred years. Over five chapters, John North Hopkins carefully reconsiders some of the periods most iconic works, including the extraordinary and complex effort to build the Temple of Jupiter, the creative actions and diverse encounters tied to luxury objects like the Ficoroni Cista; and the important meanings held by sacred temple sculpture and votive offerings through their making and subsequent practices of devotion. This book calls into question an idea of Rome that has focused on elite production and the textual record; Hopkins instead calls attention to lesser-known but integral figures. The result is a deep understanding of a diverse and historically rich Italic and Mediterranean world, as welt as the myriad cultures, communities, and individuals who would have made and experienced art within and around the changing political boundaries of Rome."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Chapter 1. Making space for makers : recovering presence, capability, action, and contribution -- Chapter 2. Making space for many makers and materials : compounding mobile copresences -- Chapter 3. Beyond control : time, accumulation, and multiplication -- Chapter 4. Meaning unmoored : creative assemblage and entropic potentials in the Ficoroni Cista -- Chapter 5. The quiet, effective disorder of sacromaterial practice -- Chapter 6. Unending views.