Читать книгу A History of Roman Art - Steven L. Tuck - Страница 29

Finally, it will be useful to introduce here the concept of narrative in art. Much of Roman art tells stories to the viewer and the ways in which those stories were told can differ dramatically. Ability to recognize narrative moments and the types of narrative used by artists can help art historians to analyze works and the meaning intended by the artist. For those stories illustrated by a single episode the moment selected falls into one of four categories: the initial moment of a story, the anticipatory moment (prior to the climax), the climactic moment, or the post‐climactic moment. Each gives a very different image and makes its own demands upon the viewer. The initial moment of the story only implies the further story to come. For example, the relief of a religious ceremony to found a Roman colony (Figure 3.24) need only show a Roman priest plowing while wearing his formal attire to convey the idea of the city about to be founded. The anticipatory moment relies on dramatic tension rather than explicit action to allude to a story. The tomb painting of Achilles and Troilus (Figure 2.23) illustrates the moment just before Achilles attacks and kills Troilus. The climactic moment is often the moment of the greatest action as the battle relief of the monument of Aemilius Paullus (Figure 4.31) uses to great effect. The post‐climactic scene often allows artists to concentrate on the emotional effect of an event or its outcome. The relief of the Emperor Trajan being crowned by Victory herself (Figure 8.23) carries with it the notion of the battles won without showing them more directly.

The various solutions for telling a story with multiple scenes were developed by Greek artists as they worked to create recognizable mythological narration. The major conventions are episodic, continuous, and synoptic narrative. Episodic narrative consists of a story told in a series of separate episodes, usually, but not invariably, arranged in chronological order. The Hadrianic Hunting Tondi (Figure 8.27) with their paired scenes of hunting and post‐hunt sacrifice are episodic. Continuous narrative tells a story in one work of art usually with the same characters portrayed repeatedly to create a sequence. The repeated figures are not separated by borders as are episodic scenes. The Column of Marcus Aurelius (Figure 9.15) exemplifies one of the longest continuous narratives in Roman art. Synoptic narrative occurs when different elements or symbols of a story are placed in one image together to give a synopsis of the overall story. Sometimes devices such as placing the climactic scene in the foreground indicate the narrative sequence. The pediment relief sculpture from Temple A, Pyrgi (Figure 3.5) illustrates synoptic narrative. The figures in the lower foreground represent the climax of the story while those in the background fill out the narrative with pre‐ and post‐climactic secondary events from the same story.

Although these names are not applied explicitly to every work in the following chapters, that’s not to say that they cannot be. You are encouraged to ask which narrative moment a work represents and how that decision affects the presentation and meaning of the art. Your answers to these and other questions on the themes covered can serve as some of the building blocks of art historical studies.