This 2003 book treats the historiography of ancient Near Eastern and Classical art, examining the social, intellectual and institutional contexts that have shaped the way that the history of ancient art has been and continues to be written. It demonstrates how, from the Renaissance to the time of publication, the study and interpretation of ancient art reflect contemporary ideas and practices. Among the subjects considered are the classical tradition in the post-antique West; the emergence of academic disciplines; the role of collections in the evaluation of ancient art; and issues of race, gender, and cultural authority in the interpretation of ancient civilisations.

In the ancient Greek-speaking world, writing about the past meant balancing the reporting of facts with shaping and guiding the political interests and behaviours of the present. Ancient Historiography on War and Empire shows the ways in which the literary genre of writing history developed to guide empires through their wars. Taking key events from the Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman ‘empires’, the 17 essays collected here analyse the way events and the accounts of those events interact. Subjects include: how Greek historians assign nearly divine honours to the Persian King; the role of the tomb cult of Cyrus the Founder in historical narratives of conquest and empire from Herodotus to the Alexander historians; warfare and financial innovation in the age of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great; the murders of Philip II, his last and seventh wife Kleopatra, and her guardian, Attalos; Alexander the Great’s combat use of eagle symbolism and divination; Plutarch’s juxtaposition of character in the Alexander-Caesar pairing as a commentary on political legitimacy and military prowess, and Roman Imperial historians using historical examples of good and bad rule to make meaningful challenges to current Roman authority. In some cases, the balance shifts more towards the ‘literary’ and in others more towards the ‘historical’, but what all of the essays have in common is both a critical attention to the genre and context of history-writing in the ancient world and its focus on war and empire.

An introduction to the study of ancient Roman art in its social context.

The ancient Greeks traveled widely by sea and founded colonies in far-flung locations. On the north coast of the Black Sea were a number of such Greek settlements, places where the Greeks made contact with the local Scythian population. Greek goods were traded extensively throughout the region, and many of these often-luxurious articles eventually made their way into tombs. From its wealth of such Greek finds from the Black Sea, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has lent some 175 Greek objects to an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa. This richly illustrated catalogue to the exhibition presents nine essays on the archaeology of the northern Black Sea region and its history, culture, and art, including sculpture, pottery, gems, and jewelry. Written by curators at the State Hermitage Museum, Greeks on the Black Sea presents an intriguing world at once Greek and barbarian.

This volume assembles more than 30 articles focusing on the visual, material, and environmental arts of the Ancient Near East. Specific case studies range temporally from the fourth millennium up to the Hellenistic period and geographically from Iran to the eastern Mediterranean. Contributions apply innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to archaeological evidence and critically examine the historiography of the discipline itself. Not intended to be comprehensive, the volume instead captures a cross-section of the field of Ancient Near Eastern art history as its stands in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The volume will be of value to scholars working in the Ancient Near East as well as others interested in newer art historical and anthropological approaches to visual culture.

"Brings together the disciplines of art, music, and history to explore the importance of the past to conceptions of the present in the central Middle Ages"--Provided by publisher.

"In this authoritative book, the first of its kind in English, Christopher Wood tracks the evolution of the historical study of art from the late middle ages through the rise of the modern scholarly discipline of art history. Synthesizing and assessing a vast array of writings, episodes, and personalities, this original and accessible account of the development of art-historical thinking will appeal to readers both inside and outside the discipline. The book shows that the pioneering chroniclers of the Italian Renaissance--Lorenzo Ghiberti and Giorgio Vasari--measured every epoch against fixed standards of quality. Only in the Romantic era did art historians discover the virtues of medieval art, anticipating the relativism of the later nineteenth century, when art history learned to admire the art of all societies and to value every work as an index of its times. The major art historians of the modern era, however--Jacob Burckhardt, Aby Warburg, Heinrich Wölfflin, Erwin Panofsky, Meyer Schapiro, and Ernst Gombrich--struggled to adapt their work to the rupture of artistic modernism, leading to the current predicaments of the discipline. Combining erudition with clarity, this book makes a landmark contribution to the understanding of art history."--from book jacket