Ancient Sculpture Research Articles

Time-Domain-Filtered Terahertz Nanoscopy of Intrinsic Light-Matter Interactions.

Terahertz (THz) technology holds great potential across diverse applications, including biosensing and information communications, but conventional far-field techniques are limited by diffraction. Near-field optical microscopy overcomes this barrier through a sharp tip that concentrates incident THz waves into nanometric volumes, detecting scattered near-field to reveal nanoscale optical properties. However, owing to the large THz wavelengths, resonant surface waves arising on the tip and cantilever obscure the intrinsic response. Here we combine near-field microscopy with THz time-domain spectroscopy and implement time-domain filtering with an elongated cantilever to eliminate this artifact, achieving intrinsic nanospectroscopy and nanoimaging. By applying this technique, we distinguish and characterize historical pigments of an ancient sculpture, such as vermilion and red lead, on the nanoscale. We also unravel deep-subwavelength localized resonance modes in THz optical antennas, demonstrating capabilities for THz nanophotonics. Our work advances THz nanoimaging and nanospectroscopy techniques to probe intrinsic nanoscale THz light-matter interactions.

Material in its fashion: Proust’s Fortunys and the pleats of time*

ABSTRACT This article examines Proust's fascination with the dress as a site of transmaterial and transhistorical transformation. Descriptions of the Fortuny gown evoke its ability to conjure the visual and tactile qualities of ancient sculpture, architecture, and textile arts. The pleats and folds of the Fortuny become a medium through which the novel explores the dialectic between liquid and frozen temporalities, as well as the interplay between gender, materiality, and the aesthetics of the classical. Drawing on Ruskin, Stokes, Deleuze and others, the essay traces how the Fortuny functions as a complex creative material that transmutes evanescent life into lasting aesthetic impression. It also considers how the dress's enveloping folds allegorise dynamics of captation and fugitivity within Proust's narrative.

Digital technologies as a tool for identification the authorship of sacred sculpture

Latvian sculptures created before the mid-19th century are located mainly in churches, not in museum collections. The most serious obstacle to research of Latvian art in the given period is lack of pertinent documentary material. As a result, Latvian art historians have mostly studied the sculptures for which written sources are available. This article will offer solutions for further research in cases when written sources are limited or altogether unavailable. How much and what can be discovered using digitisation solutions? The study of the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church in Riga provides a paradigmatic case for further research with the help of digitisation. In 1967, when the congregation of the Biķernieki Church was forced to abandon the church, the sculptures were transferred to museums. Today they can be seen in the exhibition of the Rundāle Palace Museum. The scant extant documentary evidence does not allow us to establish the authorship of the sculptures or the time of their creation with certainty. The study discussed in the article shows the importance of digitisation in art history research. The current research is based on 3D models of the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church obtained using 3D scanning technology. Supplementing them with high-resolution photographs and other digital solutions can confirm or, on the contrary, refute assumptions about their authorship and creation made by historians so far. The article outlines the methods used to identify stylistic influences on the sculptures of the Biķernieki Church, suggesting that they may have been modelled after similar sculptures in Gdańsk (Danzig) and Dresden and even after certain antique sculptures. The graphic methods used in the research have made it possible to precisely identify the style of execution of a single sculptor in several churches in Riga.

Johan Niklas Byström and the so-called Venus of Stockholm. New research on a presumably lost sculpture

The inventory books of the Skulpturensammlung (Sculpture Collection) in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections, SKD) mention a plaster cast of a Venus sculpture, moulded from the marble so-called Venus of Stockholm. In the first half of the 19th century this statue—always considered an ancient artwork—had been owned by the Swedish sculptor Johan Niklas Byström, before it was sold to an English art collector. From that time on, the sculpture has been considered lost and it has remained unregarded by research. By contextualizing the Dresden plaster cast with other ancient Venus sculptures and textual sources, this article aims to show that the Venus of Stockholm was most likely an elaborate and mirror-reversed imitation made in its entirety in the 17th or 18th century. As such, the Venus of Stockholm was exceptional, because post-antique mirror-reversed copies of ancient sculptures are very rare. In addition, the article compares the Venus of Stockholm to statues sculpted by Byström, in order to highlight its impact on his oeuvre.

Ancient sculpture, modern production: Coade Stone’s Britannia and River God

Ancient sculpture, modern production: Coade Stone’s Britannia and River God

Twentieth-century private collecting

Abstract Dr Philip Nelson, who died in 1953, was an antiquary and collector who lived in Liverpool. One of the highlights of the collections of classical sculpture in the World Museum, part of National Museums Liverpool, is a group of statuettes and busts acquired by Nelson from the 12th Lord Kinnaird and formerly housed in Rossie Priory, near Perth in Scotland. Although Nelson bought only two sculptures from the first auction of sculptures from the Rossie Priory collection, held at Sotheby’s in London in December 1948, it is apparent that he acquired several others, either directly from Lord Kinnaird or through dealers. Details of this process can be found in the archives of the World Museum and the Walker Art Gallery, also part of National Museums Liverpool, including hitherto unpublished letters, notebooks and invoices, reproduced here in an online appendix. The correspondence provides an insight into the formation of a private collection of ancient sculpture in the first half of the twentieth century, a period often overlooked in collecting scholarship.

Pagan iconoclasts? Some case studies from Roman Burgundy during Late Antiquity

This paper examines case studies from Roman Burgundy involving suspected symbolic recarving during Late Antiquity. Is it possible that religious desecration took place before the Theodosian Codex, and if so, why? Can we differentiate them from cases of wanton violence? The ambiguous cases found at the “Sources de la Seine” sanctuary (Côte-d'Or) and Entrains-sur-Nohain (Nièvre) help demonstrate the methodological difficulties involved in understanding the destruction of ancient sculptures. Through an investigation of selected examples from Sainte-Pallaye, Escolives-Saintes-Camille, and Sens (Yonne), we see that while desecration was a reality, the variety of methods employed were linked to the destination of the mutilated sculpture, as well as local customs and legal contexts. On cover:Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900

Mechanical Technologies and Ancient Sculpture

This paper traces the idea of the “mechanical” as applied to ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. Use of the term is tracked from the eighteenth century onward and connected with the development of sculpturing machines during this period and their impact on the scholarly interpretation of making ancient stone sculpture. The disparagement of Roman marbles took off just as mechanical copying techniques were becoming better-known and more widely available. This paper explores the roots of this trend, showing how the notions of quality and the mechanical became entwined in a way that persisted well into the twentieth century.

Британские антиквары в Риме второй половины XVIII века

In the second half of the 18th century, an antique market flourished in Rome. That was largely due to the increased interest in the culture of the Ancient World, associated with excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as with the activities of the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who was convinced of the need to turn to the art of antiquity, which, in his opinion, had ideal beauty and was capable of cultivating a noble artistic taste. In European countries and in Russia, collections of antiques were formed during that period. Travelers who came to Rome tended to buy ancient sculptures, gems, vases. They turned to antique dealers working in this art market. A special place among the antique dealers belonged to the British, such as Gavin Hamilton, Thomas Jenkins and James Byres. It is largely thanks to their efforts that excellent private collections of ancient art have been formed in Great Britain and interest in art in general has been developing. The article examines the activities of these antique dealers on the examples of two English collectors depicted in the portraits of the Italian artist Pompeo Batoni: William Weddell and Peter Beckford.

Will to the Original: Platonism in Henry James’ Roderick Hudson

Will to the Original: Platonism in Henry James’ <i>Roderick Hudson</i>

"ОЛЕННЫЙ" КАМЕНЬ В КРАЕВЕДЧЕСКОМ МУЗЕЕ УЛЗИЙТ СОМОНА АРХАНГАЙСКОГО АЙМАКА (МОНГОЛИЯ)

The Khangai Mountains in Central Mongolia are rich in historical and cultural relics left by ancient nomads. In recent years new sites have been intensively discovered there, and the re-examination of already known sites has been carried out. In the summer of 2022 the complex of ancient sculptures of Khushuutiin dange in Ulziyt somon of Arkhangai aimag was examined. In the local history museum, located in the center of the somon, there was a damaged “deer” stone, information about which had not been published before. Judging by the images, it has analogies among statues of the Mongolian-Transbaikalia type. The Khushuutiin dange was first studied by the Soviet archaeologist V. V. Volkov. Since then, this complex has changed greatly. In this article the author outlines some issues of preserving the “deer” stones as important historical and archaeological sources.

Graphene meta-aerogels: When sculpture aesthetic meets 1D/2D composite materials

The engraving technique has grown in parallel with our human civilization, along with the targeted materials evolving from stone and metals to wood. Benefiting from the blossom of nanotechnology, the bulky nicking tools have downsized themselves to a micro-/nanoscale, such as laser beams, and the materials have been extended from traditional hard ones to soft functional nanomaterials. When ancient sculpture art meets modern advanced micro-/nano fabrication techniques and low-dimensional materials, impossible materials are born, which will redefine the functional scope of well-developed materials. Recently, a team from Tsinghua University reported such fascinating materials, graphene-based meta-aerogels, that process excellent elasticity, ultralight specific weight (down to 0.1 mg·cm⁻³), and superwide Poisson's ratio range (−0.95 &lt; <i>v</i>_peak &lt; 1.64) via facile and fast laser-engraving technique.

Антропология и искусство (о некоторых итогах и планах по антропологическому изучению древних и современных популяций по произведениям изобразительного искусства)

Introduction. The article is devoted to a retrospective review of the results of the anthropological study of fine art sources, achieved by the race research laboratory directed I.V. Perevozchikov that are currently ongoing. Materials and methods. Descriptions of materials and methods are detailed in the main articles of the team cited in the bibliography. Results and discussion. The anthropological study of fine art is a new interdisciplinary direction in anthropology; it is carried out in two directions: 1) the western european portraiture and russian portraiture, 2) the ancient sculpture and painting. The idea of using ancient human images in anthropology is not new, but the population approach to the analysis of series of images belongs to I.V. Perevozchikov. About one and a half thousand portraitures were described as samples from populations, anthropological characteristics and estimates of homogeneity of populations based on composite portraits were studied. Anthropological description of the ancient population of the Mediterranean was obtained from samples: fayum portrait, roman sculptural portrait, etruscan portrait. In the evolution of the portrait, certain stages of the reflection of the physical individuality are determined; human images can be viewed from the anthropoesthetic standpoint as markers of a person's biological and social needs for self-identification. Conclusion. Combination of the descriptive method and the composite portrait for studying ancient and modern portraits makes it possible to obtain objective data on the anthropological types of the depicted population. Obtaining anthropological information about ancient populations contained in a variety of art resources of the cultural heritage requires an interdisciplinary synthesis of scientific ideas and knowledge of specialists in the natural sciences and the humanities.

Review: In the House of the Muses: Collection, Display, and Performance in the Veronese Palace of Mario Bevilacqua (1536–93)

Review: <i>In the House of the Muses: Collection, Display, and Performance in the Veronese Palace of Mario Bevilacqua (1536–93)</i>

Formation of Ancient Sculpture on the Territory of Uzbekistan

This article examines the process of formation of ancient sculpture in Uzbekistan, the analysis of its historical development stages, creative traditions and artistic features, the connection of sculpture with socio-cultural life, common aspects of folk arts, ancient fine arts, detailed information on its role in development.

Портрет кирилла разумовского кисти Помпео Джироламо Батони

The article analyzes the portrait of Count Kirill Grigoryevich Razumovsky, painted in Rome in 1766 by the famous artist Pompeo Girolamo Batoni. The portrait has features characteristic of portraits of travelers making the Grand Tour of Europe. In the second half of the 18th century, these were usually young aristocrats completing their education. Young people studied at the best universities; acquired extensive communication experience during their stay in major European centers; improved their skills in horseback riding, dancing and swordsmanship in famous academies, and also acquired knowledge of the art of antiquity by visiting Italy. In the portraits of travelers, Batoni emphasized the elegant dignity of the persons depicted; motifs of ancient architecture and sculpture of Rome testified to their good taste. Kirill Razumovsky also commissioned a portrait from the artist during his Grand Tour. However, the Russian count was already a mature man of 38 years old, who experienced a rapid rise in his youth, when he turned from a shepherd boy into a nobleman, and the collapse of hopes for receiving the hereditary title of hetman in Little Russia shortly before his Grand Tour. Comparison of Kirill Razumovsky portrait with the portrait of the young British traveler Thomas Dundas, which is close in composition, reveals the peculiarities of Pompeo Batoni’s work: by making only minor changes in the composition of the works, the painter skillfully conveyed the inner world of the depicted persons.

Paleo Pathography In Neurological Education During The Pandemic, And Post-pandemic Times

The word Paleo pathography is used to denote the study of the life history, in particular the diseases of a person, as deduced from ancient art, paintings, or sculptures. Using examples from modern and ancient art, it is shown that without the “laying on of hands,” the usual method of neurological instruction, it is possible to acquire a neurological education during pandemic times. Some examples of ancient portraiture and sculpture are provided that, to a careful eye, reveal the hallmarks of neurological ailments that affected the subjects during their lives. With the spread of distance learning and ever more powerful computational tools, such educational endeavors will also be useful in post-pandemic times [1].

The Virtual Reconstruction of the Aesculapius and Hygeia Statues from the Sanctuary of Isis in Lilybaeum: Methods and Tools for Ancient Sculptures’ Enhancement

Thanks to recent technological developments in 3D surveys, computer graphics and virtual reality, new scenarios have been opened for the documentation and enhancement of ancient sculptures. When not totally preserved, sculptures can be digitally reproduced, modified and visualized to simulate their physical or virtual reconstruction in a non-invasive way for specialists or for dissemination aims. The virtual sculptural reconstruction process starts usually from the 3D survey of real fragments, and then continues by integrating missing parts with 3D modelling techniques by means of source evaluation. Along with primary data sources (reality-based model), secondary data sources (photos, drawings and 3D models of similar sculptures) can be directly used in the reconstruction process. This approach has a double advantage of making the reconstruction activities easier and less arbitrary, contributing to a decrease in the degree of uncertainty for the sculptural reconstruction work, also thanks to many iconographic comparisons to ancient copies. Moreover, virtual reconstruction can be easily visualized alongside a scalable rendering system using open-source Web3D apps and platforms, accessing information, 3D models and descriptions in order to enhance the experience of artworks. Inspecting theoretical and technical approaches, this work aims at establishing how primary and secondary data sources can be effectively used in sculptural reconstruction workflows, and how 3D outputs can be applied to implement digital sculptural heritage exploitation for museums and cultural institutions. The statues of Aesculapius and Hygeia from the sanctuary of Isis in Lilybaeum (Marsala, Italy) were chosen as a case study.

Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Diseases through the Lens of Roman Sculpture

Roman sculpture has often given the impression that it provides such a precise simulacrum of the bodies of ancient Romans that their portraits can be studied autoptically as if they were a patient. Specialists in medicine and art-history have studied Roman sculptures to the point of producing real medical diagnoses, generating a research niche which, while controversial, has led to some interesting discoveries. However, scholars had sometimes misunderstood certain elements of ancient sculptures, interpreting aesthetic choices as clinical signs. In this article several portraits from the Republican period to the Tetrarchic age will be observed, to assess if the diagnoses made on them are due to actual physical features of the individuals portrayed or not. This article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the study of ancient pathologies through Roman sculpture to delineate the limits and the possibilities of such an approach.

Research of Ancient Ukrainian Sculpture in the Works of Kyiv Circles of the Early XX Century

Purpose of research. The need for a thorough scientific and theoretical consideration and generalization of the formation of systematic knowledge about the national forms of our art at the leading stages of historical development, is gaining relevance in modern domestic science of art. Among other things, it requires the study of the achievements of scientists in the study of national creative heritage in the field of sculpture of Kievan Rus and the Cossack times during the formation of scientific art history. The article is devoted to the process of formation of the concept of evolution of forms of sculpture of the old princely years and the Cossack era in the works of specialists of the early twentieth century.&#x0D; The research methodology is based on a comprehensive historical and cultural approach, a systematic method, synchronous analysis of publications of one time period, structural analysis. This methodology allows us to consider the gradual formation of scientific views on the characteristic national differences and the direction of evolution of Ukrainian art of this period in the broader international context of artistic development.&#x0D; The scientific novelty of the results is to determine the process of formation of objective ideas about the formal and semantic features, distinctive features and high artistic level of monuments of Ukrainian sculpture from ancient times to the end of the Cossack era based on analysis of publications of various trends of leading experts of the late XIX – XX centuries .: D. Ainalova, E. Redina, E. Kuzmina, F. Ernst, M. Makarenko, K. Shirotsky, S. Yaremich, V. Modzalevsky, F. Schmidt, devoted to the study of this branch of ancient Ukrainian art and in the context of the characteristics of the general development of fine arts, and as an independent subject of research. Conclusions. Ukrainian science of art of the early twentieth century. has achieved undeniable success in the study of national forms of domestic sculpture of ancient Slavic times, Kievan Rus and the seventeenth – eighteenth centuries. as the period of the highest prosperity. The considered material testifies to the high professional level of formation of the substantiated scientific concept of national self-sufficiency of ancient Ukrainian sculpture as an important component of the general art process at various stages of its development.