
Figurines are objects of handling. As touchable objects, they engage the viewer in different ways from flat art, whether relief sculpture or painting. Unlike the voyeuristic relationship of viewing a neatly framed pictorial narrative as if from the outside, the viewer as handler is always potentially and without protection within the narrative of figurines. As such, they have potential for a potent, even animated, agency in relation to those who use them. This volume concerns figurines as archaeologically-attested materials from literate cultures with surviving documents that have no direct links of contiguity, appropriation, or influence in relation to each other. It is an attempt to put the category of the figurine on the table as a key conceptual and material problematic in the art history of antiquity. It does so through comparative juxtaposition of close-focused chapters drawn from deep art-historical engagement with specific ancient cultures - Chinese, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican, and Greco-Roman. It encourages comparative conversation across the disciplines that constitute the art history of the ancient world through finding categories and models of discourse that may offer fertile ground for comparison and antithesis. It extends the rich and astute literature on prehistoric figurines into understanding the figurine in historical contexts, where literary texts and documents, inscriptions, or surviving terminologies can be adduced alongside material culture. At stake are issues of figuration and anthropomorphism, miniaturization and portability, one-off production and replication, and substitution and scale at the interface of archaeology and art history.
This volume investigates the conceptual and material significance of figurines as objects of physical interaction within ancient literate cultures. Author Jaś Elsner, a scholar of art history and classical antiquity, utilizes a comparative framework to analyze how the tactile nature of small-scale objects influences the relationship between the viewer and the artifact. By examining diverse traditions—including Chinese, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican, and Greco-Roman—the text argues that figurines possess a unique agency that distinguishes them from flat art and necessitates a new discourse in art history.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and art historians recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of material culture and the intersection of archaeology and art history. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the rigor with which the author applies comparative methodologies to disparate ancient civilizations.
Page Count:
205
Publication Date:
2020-01-01
ISBN-10:
0192605291
ISBN-13:
9780192605290
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