Image and Perception in the Long Fourth Century
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On 17 December 2020, the virtual workshop Image and Perception in the Long Fourth Century was held under the organisation of Katharina Lorenz and Claudia Schmieder (Classical Archaeology, JLU), with support from Section 5 Media and Art at the Centre for Media and Interactivity and organisational assistance from Hilke Wagner and Tamara Ziemer. Thirty scholars from Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, and the United States participated in the workshop (Fig. 1). Across five lightning talks—short ten-minute presentations by individual researchers—the participants examined phenomena of vision and visibility in the material culture and literature of the “long” fourth century BC. The discussions explored how such phenomena may contribute to a better understanding of ancient practices of perception during a period characterised by profound visual transformations. The first two contributions focused on transitions within transmedial communication as a means of examining the affordances shaping audience perception. Verity Platt (Professor of Greek and Roman Art History, Cornell University) presented the paper Light, Matter, and Medium in Posidippus’ Poems on Stones. Drawing on an epigram by Posidippus concerning a gemstone (Lithika AB 13, 3rd century BC), she demonstrated how literary descriptions of materiality and sensory effects can reveal ancient concepts of perception by fragmenting experience into at times contradictory moments. Ivana Petrovic (Professor of Classics, University of Virginia) followed with the paper Enactive Imagining and Enargeia in Hellenistic Poetry, in which she examined Theocritus’ Idyll 15 and analysed the role of sensory stimuli in detailed descriptions of materials and actions that intensify the imaginative engagement of the audience. Nathaniel Jones (Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis) continued this line of inquiry in his paper Sight, Scene, and Unseen in Classical Painting, which addressed forms of indexical communication in visual imagery. Using a white-ground funerary lekythos by the Achilles Painter (c. 440 BC) as a case study, he explored visual strategies for directing the viewer’s gaze and discussed ways in which images associated with death negotiate the relationship between visibility and invisibility. |
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The concluding contributions likewise addressed strategies for directing the viewer’s perception. Nikolaus Dietrich (Professor of Classical Archaeology, Heidelberg University) presented the paper Visual Strategies in Late Classical Greek Sculpture and Theatre Architecture: The Interplay of Frontality, Multiperspectivity, and Hierarchized Space. Focusing on sculpture and theatre architecture in Hellenistic Priene, he examined how the preferential emphasis on particular viewpoints contributed to the emergence of new spatial hierarchies and corresponding aesthetic effects. Asja Müller (Research Assistant in Classical Archaeology, FU Berlin) explored the topic Landscape as Leitmotif – Landscape as Spatial Module: Enlivening, Perceiving and Conceiving Hellenistic Sanctuaries. Using the example of the routes taken by foreign envoys through the Hellenistic sanctuary of Asclepius on Kos during a religious festival (Fig. 2), she sought to develop new parameters for understanding the interaction between built and natural spaces as experienced by ancient visitors, particularly at points of transition between them. The lively exchange across different fields of ancient studies, national research traditions, and media spanning more than three centuries of material under discussion revealed several shared concerns relating to sensory-motor mediation and transitional processes within transmedial experiential contexts. These issues will be explored further with regard to their significance for the study of ancient perceptual practices during the “long” fourth century BC.
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Fig. 1 The virtual workshop during a discussion round. |
Fig. 2 View of the Asklepieion of Kos by Paul Schazmann. University library of JLU Giessen. | |
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