scholarly journals Circling Round Vitruvius, Linear Perspective, and the Design of Roman Wall Painting

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Small
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
Linear Perspective ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Pliny The Elder ◽  
History Of ◽  
Concentric Circles ◽  
Roman Wall Painting

Many scholars believe that linear perspective existed in classical antiquity, but a fresh examination of two key texts in Vitruvius shows that 1.2.2 is about modularity and symmetria, while 7.Pr.11 describes shading (skiagraphia). Moreover, these new interpretations are firmly based on the classical understanding of optics and the history of painting (e.g., Pliny the Elder). A third text (Philostratus, Imagines 1.4.2) suggests that the design of Roman wall painting depends on concentric circles. Philostratus’ system is then used to successfully make facsimiles of five walls, representing Styles II, III, and IV of Roman wall painting. Hence, linear perspective and its relatives, such as Panofsky’s vanishing vertical axis, should not be imposed retrospectively where they never existed.

A misleading source: the fortuna of a sixteenth-century engraving and its impact on the history of Roman baths studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-335
Author(s):  
Giacomo Savani
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Baths ◽  
Uncritical Acceptance ◽  
Roman Wall Painting ◽  
Intellectual Networks ◽  
Cutaway View

AbstractIn this article, I follow the mixed fortunes of a woodcut depicting a cutaway view of a set of ancient baths, so far neglected by modern scholarship. First published in a mid-sixteenth-century treatise on balneology and based on a misinterpretation of Vitruvius (5.10.1), it reappeared as a copy of a Roman wall-painting in several eighteenth-century antiquarian works. The remarkable resonance enjoyed by this image in specialist and popular publications until the early twentieth century makes it one of the most influential and controversial sources in the history of Roman baths studies. In exploring the reasons behind the enduring, uncritical acceptance of this depiction, I raise broader questions concerning the nature and extent of intellectual networks in eighteenth-century Europe.

Divination and Human Nature

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter T. Struck
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Observable Fact

This book casts a new perspective on the rich tradition of ancient divination—the reading of divine signs in oracles, omens, and dreams. Popular attitudes during classical antiquity saw these readings as signs from the gods while modern scholars have treated such beliefs as primitive superstitions. The book reveals instead that such phenomena provoked an entirely different accounting from the ancient philosophers. These philosophers produced subtle studies into what was an odd but observable fact—that humans could sometimes have uncanny insights—and their work signifies an early chapter in the cognitive history of intuition. Examining the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists, the book demonstrates that they all observed how, setting aside the charlatans and swindlers, some people had premonitions defying the typical bounds of rationality. Given the wide differences among these ancient thinkers, the book notes that they converged on seeing this surplus insight as an artifact of human nature, projections produced under specific conditions by our physiology. For the philosophers, such unexplained insights invited a speculative search for an alternative and more naturalistic system of cognition. Recovering a lost piece of an ancient tradition, this book illustrates how philosophers of the classical era interpreted the phenomena of divination as a practice closer to intuition and instinct than magic.

Nephrology in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.)

1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natale Gaspare De Santo ◽  
Giovambattista Capasso ◽  
Dario Ranieri Giordano ◽  
Mario Aulisio ◽  
Pietro Anastasio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Pliny The Elder ◽  
History Of

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Industry

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Leisure Time ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Sports Clubs ◽  
Team Games ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Comprehensive History

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Industry covers the period 1800 to 1920. Over this period, sport become increasingly global, some sports were radically altered, sports clubs proliferated, and new team games - such as baseball, basketball, and the various forms of football - were created, codified, commercialized, and professionalized. Yet this was also an age of cultural and political tensions, when issues around the role of women, social class, ethnicity and race, imperial relationships, nation-building, and amateur and professional approaches were all shaping sport. At the same time, increasing urbanization, population, real wages, and leisure time drove demand for sport ever higher, and the institutionalization and regulation of sport accelerated. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training, and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion, and segregation; minds, bodies, and identities; representation.

scholarly journals On the possible ellipticity of Saturn's ring

1924 ◽  
Vol 106 (739) ◽  
pp. 526-552 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gravitational Attraction ◽  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
Small Oscillations ◽  
First Approximation ◽  
Elliptical Ring ◽  
Single Ring ◽  
History Of ◽  
Concentric Circles

Clerk Maxwell’s investigation into the constitution and stability of Saturn’s Ring was based upon the fundamental supposition that the rings were composed of particles arranged in concentric circles. Although the particles could perform small oscillations about their mean positions, it is evident that the outline of the ring would be to all appearances circular. A line in Clerke’s ‘Popular History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century’ (page 299) suggests that some observers have regarded the outline of the ring as elliptical. It is therefore of interest to enquire under what conditions an elliptical ring could exist. The ellipse is a more general form than a circle. If, therefore, it can be shown that an elliptic ring is possible, any explanation of the origin of the rings must take account of this fact. In this paper a single ring of particles is examined. The actual Ring of Saturn probably consists of numerous rings, one within the other. By their gravitational attraction, each will affect the motions of the others. As a first approximation, however, it is sufficient to consider the case of a single ring.

scholarly journals Les débats sur les fondements de la perspective linéaire de Piero della Francesca à Egnatio Danti: un cas de mathématisation à rebours

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 474-504
Author(s):  
Dominique Raynaud
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Vision ◽  
Linear Perspective ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Physiological Basis ◽  
Piero Della Francesca ◽  
Broad Field ◽  
Field Of Vision ◽  
History Of

In the Quattrocento and Cinquecento the rise of linear perspective caused many polemics which opposed the supporters of an artificial geometrisation of sight to those who were praising the qualities of the drawing according to nature, or were invoking some arguments on a physiological basis. These debates can be grouped according to the four alternatives that form their central concerns: restricted vs. broad field of vision; ocular immobility vs. mobility; curvilinear vs. planar picture; monocular vs. binocular vision. By retaining the first terms of these four alternatives, the history of perspective eliminated many heterodox constructions. From the viewpoint of mathematisation the interest of these debates is that they succeeded, rather than preceded, the adoption of a perspective system defined by the intersection of the visual pyramid. Thus the history of linear perspective constitutes a genuine case of a posteriori justification, or, put differently, it gives us a case of upside down mathematisation.

About the Trinity: Painting, Calligraphy and Poetry in China. The Symbolism of Clouds in Chinese Painting

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vyara Popova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Representation ◽  
Linear Perspective ◽  
Chinese Painting ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Third Dimension ◽  
Perspective Model ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Painting System

The text is based on Hubert Damish’s thesis in „A theory of (cloud): toward a history of painting“ (2002), where the cloud is interpreted as non-inclusive, not participating in the perspective model as a painting system. Respectively, the cloud as an anachronism of the picturesque as opposed to a linear (perspective) dominant Western norm (in Damish terminology) is traced as functioning in Eastern, Chinese painting itself as a kind of cultural and historical rudiment. And it is through the synthesis of painting and word in Chinese painting: 1 / it is demonstrated in contrast to Foucault’s thesis in “This is not a pipe“ how it is possible for a verbal sign and visual representation to be given simultaneously; 2) the historical origin of the letter is displayed as a sign from the image as a hieroglyphic symbol; 3) demonstrates how the third dimension is constructed not in perspective, but in a meaningful depth, and precisely through the clouds as a metaphor for the Maya (illusion) of the visible and all-in-one nature of things; 4) so summarizing: the cloud rises from scenic scope and instrument to the level of universal cultural metaphor.

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