[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This book accompanies an exhibition in San Antonio, curated by Jessica Powers; it however offers much more, since the contributions written by experts in the field are useful for interested general readers and researchers on one of the most appealing genres of iconographic themes, landscape. The material discussed and on display in the exhibition (catalog) covers 150 years, between 50/40 BC and the late first century AD. Powers has brought together an exquisite team of experts, which guarantees a fine read.
There is a long tradition of studies on painted landscape in the ancient world and most former studies are listed in the bibliography. After a brief presentation by Powers, who unfortunately does not define the term ‘landscape’ as used in this volume, Bettina Bergmann introduces the ’art’ of landscape representation, in which, as we know, there were no renderings of real environments made en plein air, but rather fantasies containing stock as well as specific elements. No landscape depiction is ever copied, so each representation is unique. Immediately the definition of ‘landscape’ comes to the fore: do depictions of harbors, villas, and cities (cf. Vitruvius’ list of topia in De architectura 7.5.2) belong to this genre? Or should we consider real landscapes only? The definitions are not as clear in the Roman past as they are nowadays. Bergmann starts from Vitruvius’ list and includes all his subcategories. Maybe deservedly so, since all these different genres contain human-made elements and are no paysages purs. What is more, the painted landscapes form part of wall systems and should be seen as components of the motif repertoire of the painters. Bergmann stresses the presence of ‘numinous forces’ (p. 31) and refers to the auguria to explain the bird’s eye panoramic views of many specimens. Among the conspicuous inhabitants are nature divinities like Diana, but also Hecate, Priapus, and Dionysus. A large category, well represented in villas, is the seashore occupied by villas, fascinating ‘fake’ representations of the real situation that enhance the otium atmosphere of the real thing. Admittedly, the pictorial quality in several cases, e.g., at Stabiae, is at odds with the quality of the villa’s architecture and furniture, a puzzling point not addressed by Bergmann or her colleagues.
Verity Platt discusses the components of the landscape paintings. She foregrounds the ‘flow’, or the agency landscapes had within their context and in dialogue with the beholders. Water is seen as a focus in this narrative (cf. the seashore paintings discussed by Bergmann). The presence of personifications like a Source or an Akte underpins this active interference, especially in mythical scenes. We should not forget the human factor as the predominant element, at the expense of the landscape proper. Platt observes that the materiality of the paintings ties in with the materiality that nature itself has, according to the articulation Pliny the Elder made in his Naturalis Historia. Platt elaborates her ideas in an analysis of the landscape paintings in the House of the Centenary in Pompeii, beginning with the famous depiction of Vesuvius and Dionysus in the shape of the grape bunch from the house’s large lararium. The dialog between scenery, religion, and the house itself is a major agent in its interpretation and in that of the Dionysiaca.[1] Furthermore, there are large-scale landscapes as well as scenes with animals in other important rooms, all displaying other approaches to the theme of landscape. A similar exercise is conducted by Lynley J. McAlpine on the relation between villas and ‘landscapes of luxury’. Her point of departure that “Many of the landscape scenes that appear in this exhibition were created for the private enjoyment and contemplation of wealthy Romans” (p. 55) can be questioned: many of them are simple and small sketches, located in average houses. But, despite the risk of overestimating landscape paintings, McAlpine has a strong point by connecting the content with the rêverie of villa owners, enjoying pastime in a luxurious environment at a safe distance from daily turmoil. She addresses other means to evoke the realm of domesticated and dominated nature like imagery on precious glass and silver table ware, reliefs, and sculptures, of which examples graced the exhibition and feature in the catalog.
Timothy M. O’Sullivan’s paper illuminates myths represented in landscape settings, which as far as we know starts with the Odyssey Landscapes from the Esquiline, dated to the third quarter of the first century BC. Whereas here the figures are ‘dwarfed’ (p. 69) within the natural scenery, they get larger in Augustan panels occupying the central part of the wall systems. In the case of the double presence of the protagonist (e.g. Perseus in Boscotrecase and the House of Cornelius Teges in Pompeii and Polyphemus in Boscotrecase) the natural features serve as structuring parts, or even as stage drops in a performance. O’Sullivan makes clear that this combination of narratio continua and landscape was at its best when people were familiar with the stories told. He makes a fine comparison with the marble ensemble from the grotto at Sperlonga, which—O’Sullivan does not enter this debate—might date between the Odyssey landscapes and the Third-Style large depictions and be from the same time as Virgil’s Eclogae. With O’Sullivan, we start to see a tight web of landscape elements in many forms of contemporary art and culture.
The last paper is Thomas Fröhlich’s discussion of painted landscapes in funerary contexts. He has worked extensively on Roman columbaria of the Augustan age. Landscapes and gardens (both real ones surrounding the tomb and painted ones) served as references to the Elysian Fields, the locus amoenus where the deceased hoped to find their eternal rest.[2] Fröhlich lucidly explains the introduction and diffusion of columbaria as worthy resting places for middle-class people living and working in early imperial Rome. The horizontal friezes between the tiers of niches contained fixed sets of small, modestly painted scenes, including hazy landscapes and water scenes with ducks. Importantly, the scenes do not differ from contemporary landscape paintings and reliefs (here cat. 54-61). Fröhlich finishes his analysis with comparisons to epigrams and literary texts and concludes that the genre continued for two more centuries.[3]
The Catalog (pp. 91-187) is a true museum in book form, displaying 68 objects, mostly paintings, but also marble statues, cinerary urns and reliefs, glass, silver, and one mosaic. Various marble objects belong to garden furniture (e.g., cat. 21-27). McAlpine and Powers have compiled these texts, furnished with extensive references. There are subcategories like “Coastal views and cultivated landscapes’ and ‘garden landscapes’. They correspond with the chapters of the first part.
Among the landscape paintings, there are many monochromes in yellow, red, and bluish greenish (cat. 30-31, 37-38, 45). Discussing an example from the Villa of the Papyri (here cat. 30) I have suggested some decades ago that they suggest imitations or evocations of precious reliefs (in giallo antico, porphyry, and other types of marble) or stucco.[4] Or was it, in case of blue monochromes, cameo glass as discussed by McAlpine (p. 60, fig. 37; cat. 39-40)? Powers briefly mentions this suggestion in her entry for cat. 30.
I cannot but congratulate Powers and her team for this splendid book, which forms an excellent testimony of the San Antonio exhibition and constitutes a fine contribution to the beloved genre of landscape depictions in Roman art.
Authors and Titles
Introduction: Landscapes of the Roman Imagination (Jessica Powers)
The Roman Art of Landscape (Bettina Bergmann)
Art, Nature and the Material Divine in Roman Landscape Painting (Verity Platt)
Roman Villas and Landscapes of Luxury (Lynley J. McAlpine)
Mythological Landscapes in Roman Painting (Timothy M. O’Sullivan)
Locus amoenusor Elysium? The Landscape in the Tomb (Thomas Fröhlich)
Catalogue (Lynley J. McAlpine & Jessica Powers)
Notes
[1] To the rich set of references we may add to those on lararia a newly edited set of papers: A. Dardenay, L. Bricault (eds), Gods in the House. Anthropology of Roman Housing – II, Turnhout 2023 (Antiquité et Sciences Humaines 9). As to Dionysus in Pompeii, see also I. Kuivalainen, The Portrayal of Pompeian Bacchus, Helsinki 2021 (Societas Scientiarum Fennica; Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 140).
[2] One misses in his notes references to a fine volume edited by Nicole Blanc, quoted in the bibliography: Au royaume des ombres. La peinture funéraire antique, Paris 1998.
[3] See cat. 68, a representation of the Elysian Fields, now in the Museo Nazionale Romano (on which see also my paper Symbolic Meaning of Roman Funerary Art in Late Antiquity, in S.L. de Blaauw, E.M. Moormann, D. Slootjes (eds), The Recruiting Power of Christianity. The rise of a religion in the material culture of fourth-century Rome and its echo in history, Rome 2021 (Papers of the Royal Institute in Rome), 49-66, esp. p. 50-51, fig. 1).
[4] Le pitture della Villa dei papiri ad Ercolano, in M. Gigante (ed.), Atti del XVII Congresso internazionale di papirologia, Napoli 1984, 637-674.