Assertive mimesis : a comparative analysis of religious sculptures from the Roman provinces
The religious statues and reliefs of the Roman provinces are diverse, existing on a spectrum of those which wholly conform to Classical ideals of representation to those which radically diverge from it. Previously any statuary or reliefs that diverged from the Classical norms of representation were denigrated as the work of a poor artist â a failed attempt to emulate a Roman avatar. Following the postcolonial turn in Roman archaeology however, it came to be argued that these divergences were deliberate and intentional, that some of these so called âlow qualityâ sculptures looked exactly as they were intended; that is, to do something other than to be bound to and conform to the Roman ideals of representation. Whilst a large body of work has subsequently been undertaken on the reception and transformation of Classical art and religion in the Roman provinces, little of this work has considered the role of mimesis, and specifically the body of work on assertive mimesis in colonial contexts undertaken by anthropologists such as Taussig (1993), Stoller (1995) and Howey (2011). Mimesis in this capacity is taken as âthe faculty to copy, to imitateâ whereby âthe making and existence of the artefact that
Moat, Stephanie Marie
Assertive mimesis : a comparative analysis of religious sculptures from the Roman provinces. The religious statues and reliefs of the Roman provinces are diverse, existing on a spectrum of those which wholly conform to Classical ideals of representation to those which radically diverge from it. Previously any statuary or reliefs that diverged from the Classical norms of representation were denigrated as the work of a poor artist â a failed attempt to emulate a Roman avatar. Following the postcolonial turn in Roman archaeology however, it came to be argued that these divergences were deliberate and intentional, that some of these so called âlow qualityâ sculptures looked exactly as they were intended; that is, to do something other than to be bound to and conform to the Roman ideals of representation. Whilst a large body of work has subsequently been undertaken on the reception and transformation of Classical art and religion in the Roman provinces, little of this work has considered the role of mimesis, and specifically the body of work on assertive mimesis in colonial contexts undertaken by anthropologists such as Taussig (1993), Stoller (1995) and Howey (2011). Mimesis in this capacity is taken as âthe faculty to copy, to imitateâ whereby âthe making and existence of the artefact that
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