Relief in Greek, Roman, and Late Antique Art

Explores the historical, material, and theoretical aspects of relief across the breadth and width of Greco-Roman art.

Images in relief pervaded ancient visual culture from the archaic Greek to the Christian era. This book traces their significance across the chronological and geographic borders of the ancient world, and demonstrates the ubiquity, fluidity, and power of relief as an artistic category, in both antiquity and modernity.The artistic category of relief has long dominated scholarly discussions of ancient Greco-Roman art for good reason: images in relief pervaded ancient visual culture from the rise of the Greek city-state through to the Christian era. They are witnessed in public and private contexts; terracotta, bronze, and stone media; techniques as varied as incision, modelling, or repoussé; and scales from the miniature to the monumental. Precisely because of the ubiquity and fluidity of ancient relief, the category as such has not been given full consideration in own right, and many questions have remained under-theorized. Boasting an international cast of contributors, this volume addresses key questions about relief across the geographic and temporal scope of the ancient world, including how relief was conceptualized within antiquity, what role materials and techniques played in its creation, and what the relations were between relief media and their effects on viewers.