Unbound from Rome: Art and Craft in a Fluid Landscape, ca. 650-250 BCE

An extensive examination of ancient art and architecture spanning four centuries, revealing the diversity of makers and viewers within and beyond Rome's ever-changing political boundaries. John North Hopkins aims to untangle the many peoples whose diverse cultures and traditions contributed to Rome's visual culture, reconsidering iconic works through the practices and peoples bound up with them. The book challenges an idea of Rome focused on elite production and the textual record, highlighting the lesser-known actors who were integral players in creating and experiencing art within and around the changing political boundaries of Rome.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 09 January 2024
Publisher: Yale University Press

Roman art and architecture are often seen as being tied to political events or as a series of aesthetic choices and experiences originating from Rome. However, John North Hopkins aims to expand our understanding of Roman visual culture by exploring the diverse cultures and traditions that contributed to it over a four-hundred-year period, from the first millennium BCE.

Hopkins reconsiders some of the most iconic works of this period, such as the construction of the Temple of Jupiter, the creative actions and encounters associated with luxury objects like the Ficoroni Cista, and the significant meanings held by sacred temple sculpture and votive offerings through their creation and subsequent practices of devotion.

A primary goal of this book is to challenge the notion that Rome was solely focused on elite production and the textual record. Instead, Hopkins emphasizes the lesser-known actors who played crucial roles in the creation and experience of art within and around the changing political boundaries of Rome. The result is a profound understanding of a diverse and historically rich Italic and Mediterranean world, as well as the myriad cultures, communities, and individuals who would have made and experienced art within and around the evolving political landscape of Rome.

Dimension: 279 x 216 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300270037