The Parallel Worlds of Classical Art and Text - Softcover

Small, Jocelyn Penny

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521733065 ISBN 13: 9780521733069

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

The Parallel Worlds of Classical Art and Text is the first study to consider the relationship between artists and texts throughout classical antiquity and to cover the entire range of illustrated text from traditional literary to technical works. By systematically applying new and objective criteria to judge the fidelity between picture and text, it is becomes clear that artists illustrate stories, not texts. Jocelyn Penny Small argues that artistic transmissions follow the model of oral, not textual, transmission where the variant rules and where there is no original. Pictures on vases, she demonstrates, should not be used to reconstruct lost literary works. Finally, Small offers an analysis of literary sources on pictures in texts, proving that the appearance of the first illustrated literary classical texts occurred at the end of the Late Roman Republic.

About this title

About the Author

Jocelyn Penny Small is Professor II at Rutgers University in the Department of Art History. A recipient of Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim and other fellowships, she is the author of books and articles on aspects of classical art, most recently Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Literacy and Memory in Classical Antiquity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521733065
• ISBN 13: 9780521733069
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272