Shaping Roman Landscape: Ecocritical Approaches to Architecture and Decoration in Early Imperial Italy

Landscape became a prominent theme in Roman Late Republican and Early Imperial periods, with writers describing its qualities and integrating it with architectural and decorative trends. This book explores how representations of real and depicted landscapes contributed to the creation of novel languages of art and architecture, applying an ecocritical lens to examine the changing relationship between humans and nature.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 08 August 2023
Publisher: Getty Trust Publications

Landscape emerged as a significant theme in the Roman Late Republican and Early Imperial periods, with writers describing its qualities and seeking them out in everyday life. Contemporary perceptions of the natural and built environment, as well as ideas about nature and art, were intertwined with architectural and decorative trends. This generously illustrated volume examines how representations of real and depicted landscapes, and the merging of both in visual space, contributed to the creation of novel languages of art and architecture. Drawing on a diverse body of archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence, this study applies a groundbreaking ecocritical lens that moves beyond the limits of traditional iconography.

Chapters consider how garden designs and paintings appropriated the cultures and ecosystems brought under Roman control, and how miniature landscape paintings chronicled the transformation of the Italian shoreline with colonnaded villas. This study makes a timely and original contribution to current discourses on ecology and art and architectural history, revealing how Roman ideas of landscape, and the decorative strategies at imperial domus and villa complexes that gave these ideas shape, were richly embedded with meanings of nature, culture, and labor.

A fresh and original perspective on Roman landscape painting and architecture, this book integrates these artistic forms into an ecocritical approach examining Roman attitudes toward landscape and nature more broadly. It confirms my belief that art and material culture truly come alive as essential sources for understanding the ancient world when studied within the context of their environmental and social settings.

Weight: 906g
Dimension: 188 x 264 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781606068489