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Art and Visual Culture in the Roman World

Module description

Art and visual culture of ancient Italy and Rome have left an enduring legacy. This product of particular socio-political contexts exposes multiple narratives on everyday life, religion, politics, culture, power, ambition, humour and trauma. In this module, you will engage with multiple art forms (sculpture, architecture, paintings, objects, mosaics, graffiti), across diverse contexts. Was the art of the Roman world art for art’s sake? What is the power of art and how is it used?  Which symbols persist, and which take on different meaning now? You will discuss these questions, and similar ones, about what art meant to ancient viewers and creators, and how it can help historians better understand ancient ideologies and value systems. No previous knowledge of ancient art or visual culture is required.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module will explore various genres of Romano-Italian visual and material culture in their physical, social and ideological contexts. The course aims to encourage critical thinking about art and material culture as a tool for understanding ancient cultural ideologies, and historical processes. You will address key debates on the construction and transformation of ancient communities, exploring notions of identity, cult, language, economy as well as forms of settlement and political organisation. You will focus on specific cases of Romano-Italian art and architecture that provide the basis for an examination of the ancient viewer, as well as representations of the self and 'other', notions of power, and ways of reading image and space. Overall, the course aims to provide you with the necessary tools to access those histories and ideologies which appear unattainable through the literary sources alone, allowing for the expansion of existing narratives and challenging the underlying models which inform our understanding of key historical and cultural processes and constructs.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. On completion of this module, students should be able to demonstrate knowledge of a wide selection of relevant primary material from the Roman world, and critical skills for analysing and discussing such material in its social context.
• 2. Work critically with different types of material/visual evidence, and use them in effective combination as a tool of historical and socio-cultural analysis and reconstruction.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Collate and analyse widely different types of evidence, much of which is incomplete and ambiguous in its significance.
• 4. Demonstrate familiarity with how material and visual culture enhances our understanding of past societies, and how this culture needs a different approach to written forms of evidence.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Demonstrate evidence of independent research skills.
• 6. Demonstrate the ability to show a broad awareness of issues involved in thinking about art and society, and think autonomously and analytically on the basis of written and visual sources as well as secondary literature.
• 7. Construct, organise and present an argument in both written and oral form, by using PowerPoint presentations or other tools to visually support your argument.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that the module will cover some or all of the following topics:

• What is/was art?
•  Between art and text: conflicting histories; the case of Etruscan women.
•  Warriors & princesses - chariots, knives, spinning wheels: burial and society.
•  Culture contact: technology, art and Homeric societies beyond Greece.
•  Art in private: ancient and modern sensibilities.
• The art of power: celebration or oppression.
• Theatres and drama in the landscape.
• Art between peace, war and trauma.
• Wilderness and gardens (real and home-made).
• Abstract art in Late Antiquity.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bernard, S.eth, and Mignone, L.isa M.arie Mignone, eds. Making the Middle Republic: new approaches to Rome and Italy, c. 400-200 BCE. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
• Borg, Barbara B. E., ed. A companion to Roman art. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
• Clarke, J.R. 2003. Art in the lives of ordinary Romans. Visual representation and non-elite viewers in Italy, 100 BC – AD 315 . Berkeley.
• Elsner, J. 1995. Art and the Roman viewer . Cambridge.
• Elsner, J. 2007. Roman eyes. Visuality and subjectivity in art and text . Princeton.
• D. Fredrick, D. The Roman Gaze. Vision Power and the Body (Baltimore, London 2002).
• Gildenhard, Ing.o and Gotter, U.lrich, eds. Augustus and the destruction of history: the politics of the past in early imperial Rome. Cambridge Classical Journal : Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society. Supplementary Volume. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 2019.
• E. Gombrich, E. Art and Illusion (Princeton 2000, 11th ed.).
• Hales, S. 2003. The Roman house and social identity . Cambridge.
• Hannestad, N. 1988. Roman art and imperial policy . Aarhus.
• Hölscher, Tonio. Visual Power in Ancient Greece and Rome: Between Art and Social Reality. Vol. 73. Univ of California Press, 2018.
• Kleiner, D. 1992. Roman sculpture . Yale.
• Loar, Matthew. et al.  Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation. Cambridge 2018.
• Onians, J., Classical art and the cultures of Greece and Rome (New Haven, 1999).
• Pandey, Nandini B. The Poetics of Power in Augustan Rome. Latin Poetic Responses to Early Imperial Iconography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Perry, E.E. The aesthetics of emulation in the visual arts of ancient Rome (Cambridge 2005).
• Pollitt, J.J. 1983. The art of Rome c. 753 BC – AD 337. Sources and documents . Cambridge.
• Russell, A.my, and Monica Hellström, M. eds. The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery. Cambridge: 2020.
• Stewart, P. 2008. The social history of Roman art . Cambridge.

Key words search

Ancient Rome, Ancient Italy, Art, architecture, material culture