J. J. Pollitt – författare

What did the ancient Greeks think about their own art?  J.J. Pollitt attempts to answer this question by studying the critical terminology of the ancient Greeks—the terms they used to describe and evaluate sculpture, painting, and architecture. Although Greeks and Romans with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests—including artists, philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, and guidebook writers—wrote about art in antiquity, very few of their works have survived.  Mr. Pollitt has therefore had to draw largely on works of authors who, while discussing some other subject, make passing references to art for the purpose of analogy or illustration.  By carefully assembling and organizing these fragments, he presents a coherent view of art criticism in ancient Greece. This study is divided into two parts.  The first part provides a general history of Greek art criticism and its sources.  The second is an extensive glossary which collects, translates, and analyzes passages from Greek and Latin authors in which important critical terms are used.  The book can therefore be used by art historians and classicists as both a scholarly text and an important work of reference.

A comprehensive look at ancient sculptures, wall paintings, vases, and more depicting the elderly in Greek and Roman societySome of the most vivid portraits in ancient art depict older members of society. In marble and bronze sculptures, on coins and painted vases, and in wall paintings and mosaics, elderly men and women are shown with the telltale signs of old age: wrinkles, white hair, sagging jowls, and stooped postures. This publication examines more than 300 of these vivid images to reveal perceptions—both positive and negative—about aging and the aged in Greek and Roman society. Seven chapters explore medium and form—including Greek grave reliefs, marble grave monuments in Roman Africa, and Roman sarcophagi—as well as subjects, from priests and priestesses to ancient kings of Athens, old gods, and satyrs. Grounded in the analysis of art, contemporary literature, and the archaeological record, this comprehensive volume is the first in English to explore how old age was presented in art from antiquity.Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery

This book, a companion volume to Professor Pollitt's The Art of Rome: Sources and Documents (published by the Press in 1983), presents a comprehensive collection in translation of ancient literary evidence relating to Greek sculpture, painting, architecture, and the decorative arts. Its purpose is to make this important evidence available to students who are not specialists in the Classical languages or Classical archaeology. The author's translations of a wide selection of Greek and Latin texts are accompanied by an introduction, explanatory commentary, and a full bibliography. An earlier version of this book was published twenty-five years ago by Prentice-Hall. In this new publication Professor Pollitt has added a considerable number of new passages, revised some of his earlier translations and presented the texts in a different order which allows the reader to follow more easily the development of sculpture and painting as perceived by the ancient writers. The new and substantial bibliography, organised by topics as they appear in the book, emphasises works that deal directly with the literary sources or that supplement our knowledge of the personalities and monuments described in the sources. This collection will be welcomed by students and teachers of Greek art who have long been in need of an authoritative and reliable sourcebook for their subject.

The aim of this 1996 book is to identify and evaluate the distinctive styles of five important ancient Greek sculptors whose work is discussed by ancient writers. Its underlying assumption is that the history of Greek sculpture was not simply governed by impersonal, evolutionary forces but that, like the sculpture of later periods, it was shaped by the intuitions, predilections and innovations of particular individuals. The international group of authors whose essays appear here recognize that the problematical and fragmentary nature of the surviving evidence makes their task a difficult one. Nevertheless, by drawing upon the evidence of recent archaeological finds and by re-evaluating both the ancient literary sources and earlier scholarly literature, they expand our understanding of the role of personal styles in ancient Greek art.

Painting was one of the major achievements of the Classical world. This book examines the development of mural and panel painting in the Classical world from the earliest Minoan and Cycladic frescoes of the Aegean Bronze Age to late Roman painting, from approximately 1800 BC to AD 400. It provides a comprehensive study of major monuments, including exciting new material that has been discovered in recent years and has transformed the field. It also offers a critical overview of scholarly debates and controversies on aspects of style, iconography, technique and cultural context. This volume provides an up-to-date and much-needed overview of the monuments that are now known and of the ideas that have been generated about them.