Graeco-Roman Mosaics and Wall Paintings

This is a practical example of the removal of Paraloid B-72 coatings from Roman wall paintings executed in true fresco. The resin was applied to adhere fabrics used to detach the paintings with the stacco technique. The applied coating as so thick that it was preventing the cleaning of the paintings as it covered concretion of salts, dirt and significant bioform colonization, as well as some other alterations.

Research undertaken in Durham University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health: Department of Archaeology; supervised by Dr Anna Leone.

Viva voce examination held on April 15th, 2016.
Examiners: Prof. Roland R. R. Smith (University of Oxford), Dr Catherine M. Draycott (Durham University).
Outcome: passed forthwith (no corrections; thesis passed unconditionally).

Hadrianopolis is a site located on the principal western route from the Central Anatolian plain through the mountains to Bartın and the Black Sea, 3 km west of the modern town of Eskipazar, near Karabük, in what was in Roman times southwestern Paphlagonia (modern northwestern central Turkey). This site was a small but important city, controlling this major route and dominating a rich agricultural and especially vinicultural enclave on the borders between Paphlagonia, Bithynia and Galatia. Between 2005 and 2008, four survey, excavation and restoration campaigns were conducted at this Roman and early Byzantine site by Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir. As a result of the 2005 surveys of the area, it was confi rmed that Hadrianopolis was indeed coincident with Viranşehir, which is located c. 3 km west of modern Eskipazar and was active between the 1st cent. BC. and the 8th cent. AD. The fi eld surveys in 2005 identifi ed the remains of at least 24 buildings at the site. Among them are two bath buildings, two basilicas, a domus, an apsidal building, a fortifi ed structure of the Byzantine period, a possible theatre, a vaulted building, a domed building and some domestic buildings, most of which were paved with extensive mosaic floors. Following the publication of the inscriptions (Hadrianopolis I), glass (Hadrianopolis II), and pottery fi nds (Hadrianopolis III), the present volume IV of this multi-volume report is devoted to the early Byzantine mosaics and frescoes from this site, which have been dated mainly to the 6th and 7th cent. AD. The main find spots for mosaics and frescoes are Baths A, Baths B, Basilica A, Basilica B, the Apsidal Building and the Domus. One of the most remarkable discoveries was undoubtedly the floor mosaic of the nave of Basilica B, which displays personifi cations of the Four Rivers of Paradise: Euphrates, Tigris, Phison and Geon.

le 30e colloque de l'AFPMA aura lieu les vendredi 24 et samedi 25 novembre 2017 au musée départemental Arles antique à Arles.

Vous trouverez ci joint le programme de ces 30e rencontre et dans une autre rubrique la fiche d'inscription auditeur à retourner avant le 31 octobre.

Publication of the most important mosaic find from Mainz. Description of its saving, reconstruction and meaning. Originally part of a bath building near the Roman theater of Mainz, it perhaps commemorated an entertainment happened there once.

La Musa Polimnia di Cortona, in P. Barocchi, D. Gallo, L’Accademia Etrusca, Electa Milano, 1985, 32, 57-62, 101-102.

The Musa Polimnia of the Accademia Etrusca at Cortona was commissioned at Naples by the local erudite Marcello Venuti in 1740. In 1738 he was invited by King of Spain to order the Library in the Royal Palace at Naples. The 7th July 1739 he assisted at one of the first discovery of ancient paintings at Herculaneum, the portrait of a young couple dressed as comedy player (hapolòs neanìskos) and lyre player and ivy crowned as winners of a musical competition. Their eyes are looking straight to the beholder, as they in all ancient painted portraits do. Venuti commissioned a copy of the female lyre player on slate, the stone used for backing the ancient frescoes once they were detached from the wall. The copy was presented during the Notti Coritane of December 1744 ‘as a painting found 50 years ago under the ground of Villa of Petrognano, once property of the family Passerini of Cortona'. For Venuti (1748) the painting surmounted the ones discovered at Herculaneum, because it was covered with varnish similar to the one used by Apelles (Pliny 35.97). Until 1985 the painting was generally considered ancient, until I discovered its derivation from the Portrait of a Young Couple, Naples, Archaeological Museum inv. N. 9079.

OF THE DISSERTATION Faces in the Frame: Masks and Heads in the Boundaries of Roman Art By Mieke Paulsen Bahmer Dissertation Director: John Kenfield III Satyric and comedic masks, in addition to lively-seeming heads that could almost be masks, appear with pattern-like regularity wherever the Romans had a foothold; however, the near instinctive impulse to assign a straightforward, Hellenistically-derived Dionysiac message to the borders where these faces reside has rendered both masks and heads almost invisible to further iconographic study. The masks are more thoroughly examined as remnants of Classical theatre than in studies of antique mosaics, while the heads that supplant them are treated neither in theatrical studies nor, aside from stylistic analyses, in art historical scholarship. The assumption that satyrs (and their depictions) in the Roman world retained the same meanings and functions that had been given to them by their Greek originators ignores fundamental distinctions b...

La fouille d’un habitat antique, dans un secteur de la cité de Durocortorum / Reims connu pour avoir livré de grandes domus, a mis au jour plusieurs décors malheureusement très fragmentaires. Parmi eux, on retiendra un ensemble à panneaux sous pseudo-édicules au-dessus desquels évoluent des Amours tandis que les candélabres des inter-panneaux sont couronnés de riches figures sommitales dont l’identification demeure difficile. Un autre groupe permet de reconnaître une voûte d’arêtes dont la surface peignée révèle une mode caractéristique de la toute fin du IIe ou du IIIe s. p.C. D’autres indices témoignent encore de la présence de plusieurs décors à scènes figurées de grande taille ou au contraire d’ensembles à l’ornementation particulièrement sommaire, à fond blanc.

RESUMEN El artículo describe y realiza un primer estudio de las estructuras y los materiales de una villa romana recientemente excavada en Antequera. Entre ellos destacan el repertorio musivo y escultórico, de los que emerge la importancia del yacimiento.
SUMMARY The present article describes and attempts a first approach to the structures and materials from a recently discovered Roman Villa in Antequera. The Villa is particularly remarkable for its mosaics and sculptures, from which the importance of the site arises.

Inlaid with lapis lazuli, turquoise and malachite, the Pietra Dura work on the Taj Mahal is a testament to the beauty of this art form as well as its power to evoke emotion. Known locally as “Parchin Kari”, many who have come to personally see the Taj Mahal have also come to appreciate the detailed craftsmanship that has been poured into the inlaying of the majestic white marble. People have called the precise work on the marble as nothing short of an artistic phenomenon, knowing that it is able to add depth and richness to the entire monument and that it is able to seamlessly work together with all its architectural features.

Antik Dönem Hellen sanatında deniz ve nehir tanrıları önemli bir yer tutar.
Bu tanrı ve tanrıçalar ile ilgili sahneler, Roma Dönemi mozaiklerinde sevilerek konu edinilmiştir. Antiokheia ad Orontes ve Zeugma kentleri zemin mozaiklerinde Okeanos ve Tethys ile ilgili sahnelere rastlamaktayız. Hem bir deniz tanrısı olarak kabul edilen hem de yeryüzünü dört bir yandan saran bir nehir olduğuna inanılan Okeanos bir titandır. Onun eşi Tethys ise denizin verimliliğini simgeler ve bu figürün geç tarihli tasvirlerine Thalassa adı da verilir. Hellen mitolojisine göre Okeanos ve Tethys’in birleşmesinden binlerce nehir doğmuştur. Roma Dönemi ile birlikte deniz ve nehir tanrıları ikonografisi sanatta belirginleşir ve standart bir betimleme tarzına kavuşur. Bu tipik betimleme anlayışı zemin mozaiklerinde rahatlıkla takip edilebilmektedir.

Multiple connections between the Damascus mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; implications of the size of the surface area covered in mosaic; links with classical, early Christian, Byzantine and other Umayyad mosaics, and with the art of pre-Islamic Arabia; the meaning and iconography of the Damascus mosaics; originality of the Damascus mosque; problems and pitfalls in the interpretation of the Damascus mosaics; their originality and their place in late antique art; Qur'anic inscriptions on high buildings, gardens and rivers; the theme of paradise; the uses of colour in the Damascus mosaics; the karma.

This is the first update of the paper by the same title and author of July 10th, 2016. Here, some more information is incorporated about the mosaic, and especially his M+ and M- type meanders. This new information is instrumental in further analyzing the micro and macro mosaic design and construction imperfections and their underlying artistic and social conditions which gave rise to them.

This essay argues that abstract colouristic effects were favoured in the arts of ancient Rome in a manner long overlooked. Taking the wall paintings of Cubiculum B from the Villa Farnesina as a case in point, the article demonstrates that these images display an interest in interlocking planes of colour and shape that might be described as formalist. It juxtaposes this visual evidence with overlooked passages in ancient texts to explore how such effects were conceptualized in ancient Roman thought. What emerges is a model of aesthetic value that foregrounds terpnopoietic planar effects of colour and shape above those of mimetic representation – so long revered as the most important artistic practice theorized in the classical world. This paradigm of visual value is employed in relation to both figural and non-figural works alike. The absence of these surface effects in the standard narrative of classical art becomes testimony to that narrative’s limitations.