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Full-Text Articles in Classical Archaeology and Art History

Animal Imagery In Eastern Han Tomb Reliefs From Shanbei 陝北, Leslie V. Wallace Jan 2023

Animal Imagery In Eastern Han Tomb Reliefs From Shanbei 陝北, Leslie V. Wallace

Visual Arts

Wild and fantastical animals climb, fly, scamper, and prance across pictorial stone carvings decorating Eastern Han tomb doors in northern Shaanxi. Alongside dragons and other mythical animals, bears felicitously dance, tigers grin opening their mouths to roar, and other wild animals frolic in swirling cloudscapes. While the same animals can be found in Eastern Han tomb reliefs and mortuary art in other regions, their frequency, emphasis on plasticity and movement, and combination with the yunqi 雲氣 motif are unique to the region. Originating in a hybrid style of art that was created during the Mid-Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE), …


The Incarnation Of The Word: Andrea Della Robbia’S Annunciation And Adoration Altarpieces At La Verna, Stephanie R. Miller Aug 2021

The Incarnation Of The Word: Andrea Della Robbia’S Annunciation And Adoration Altarpieces At La Verna, Stephanie R. Miller

Visual Arts

On the mountainous crest of the Apennines are several buildings comprising the monastic site of La Verna where St. Francis received his stigmata in 1224. Described in 1493 as another Jerusalem in the West, the monastery’s Chiesa Maggiore, Santa Maria degli Angeli, and the Chapel of the Stigmata house its most prominent images, Andrea della Robbia’s five altarpieces (c. 1476-c. 1493). This essay explores the beholder’s experiences before Andrea’s earliest two altarpieces at the Observant Franciscan monastery, the Annunciation and Adoration. The history and function of this monastery are considered in light of the themes of these altarpieces and their …


From Viewer To Voyeur: Victimizing The Barberini Faun, Quentin Clark Jan 2020

From Viewer To Voyeur: Victimizing The Barberini Faun, Quentin Clark

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

This essay explores the connection between the Barberini Faun and sexual predation. Often referred to as a hypersexualized statue, the Barberini Faun is a Hellenistic piece that relies on viewer-statue interaction to communicate ideas involving ancient Greek sexuality. By utilizing literary and material evidence, this essay suggests that the highly sexual yet vulnerable depiction of the Barberini Faun forces its viewer into a position as voyeur, transforming him or her into a potential sexual predator. The Barberini Faun turns the traditional depiction of a satyr on its head, making the statue an object of sexual desire – a potential sexual …


Dual Portraits Of The Deceased In Yangqiaopan M1, Jingbian, Shaanxi, Leslie V. Wallace Jan 2019

Dual Portraits Of The Deceased In Yangqiaopan M1, Jingbian, Shaanxi, Leslie V. Wallace

Visual Arts

Murals decorating an Eastern Han tomb excavated in Jingbian, Shaanxi include two large-scale representations of the deceased who appears in a processional scene on the left front wall of the tomb wearing typical Han elite dress, and then again on the rear wall in a regional version of a spirit seat (lingwei) composition, clean-shaven and donning a hairstyle uncommon in Han mortuary art. This paper considers these depictions in terms of Han pictorial conventions and argues that they are dual portraits of the deceased in which different attributes of his political, social, and cultural identity are stressed.