If these stones could speak: War memorials and contested memory

This article explores how war memorials engage with the contested nature of public sculpture and commemoration across historical, political, aesthetic and social contexts. It opens with an analysis of the Australian commemorative landscape and the proliferation of Great War Memorials constructed after 1918 and their ‘war imagining’ that positioned it as a national coming of age. The impact of foundational memorial design is explored through a number of memorials and monuments which have used traditional symbolism synonymous with the conservative ideological and aesthetic framework adopted during the inter-war years. The authors then analyse international developments over the same period, including Great War memorials in Europe, to determine the extent of their impact on Australian memorial and monument design. This analysis is juxtaposed with contemporary memorial design which gradually echoed increasing disillusionment with war and the adoption of abstract designs which moved away from a didactic presentation of information to memorials and monuments which encouraged the viewer’s interpretation. The increase of anti- or counter-war memorials is then examined in the context of voices which were often excluded in mainstream historical documentation and engage with the concept of absence. The selection of memorials also provides an important contribution in relation to the ideological and aesthetic contribution of war memorials and monuments and the extent of their relevance in contemporary society.

Public Sculpture and Social Practice in the Roman Republic

This chapter examines the production, function, and social use of public sculpture during the Roman Republic (509–27 bce). After an historical introduction, it focuses on the active interaction of plastic arts with the viewer and the different levels of meaning and understanding, surveying the types, subjects, and materials and the intent (honorary, commemorative, votive, funerary, or cult images) of republican sculpture. The state-regulated management of statues in public places—mainly honorary portraiture, which spread from the fourth century bce onward—is also discussed. Space is devoted to the viewing and reception of a portrait, which was a system of visual and material signs. Besides, statues “functioned” in a specific topographical setting. The chapter then discusses the urban scenography for statues along the triumphal route in Rome; the impact of the new Greece-oriented artistic tendencies in marble sculpture and acrolithic cult statues with respect to the conservative perception of the traditional terracotta plastic; and the ideological and religious meaning of the temple coroplastic art, which followed the spread of sacred buildings constructed both in Rome and in Italy.

Public Sculpture and Social Practice in the Roman Empire

One of the more fruitful lines of research in recent decades has been the exploration of how Roman sculpture interacted with the lives of its contemporary viewers. This chapter employs monumental reliefs, large-scale sculptures set up in public areas by official authorities, as a case study to examine how sculpture contributed to social practice under the Roman emperors. Particular focus is given to the phenomenon of imperial portrait types, the blending of history and myth in sculpted narratives, issues of visibility, and the afterlife of some reliefs. The chapter also examines possible means of evaluating responses to relief monuments, from provincial imitations, to private copies in other media, to the written record. In the end, monumental reliefs prove an excellent means to highlight the general dissonance between ancient and modern perceptions of sculpture.

Research on the Involvement of Computer Graphics Algorithms in Systems for the Creation of Public Sculpture

Currently, there is less research on how to improve the efficiency of the application of computer graphics technology in the creation of public sculpture. Therefore, this paper will focus on how computer graphics algorithms can enable systems for the creation of public sculpture with the intervention of computer graphics technology to create more accurate and completed works of public sculpture. It will explore and analyze how computer image algorithms can help creators apply computer image technology to finish complete and accurate public sculptures, and individual studies, computer imagery, and model analysis are also used. In systems for the creation of public sculpture, the point cloud data of the model is obtained through 3D laser scanning technology; then the algorithm of the point cloud model is integrated and the Statistical Outlier Removal algorithm of the point cloud model intervention is processed. By this way, the point cloud model of the work is optimized, and then a more completed and accurate public sculpture work can be produced by 3D sculpting or 3D printing. The research shows that, in the creation of public sculptures with the intervention of computer graphics technology, the computer graphics algorithm acquires the basis of the high-definition public sculpture data model. The computer graphics algorithm improves the accuracy and completeness of the creator using computer graphics technology; it is also the key to transform the accurate enlargement and transformation of the sculptural model into the actual sculptural work.

Between the Pagan Past and Christian Present in Byzantine Visual Culture

Up to its pillage by the Crusaders in 1204, Constantinople teemed with magnificent statues of emperors, pagan gods, and mythical beasts. Yet the significance of this wealth of public sculpture has hardly been acknowledged beyond late antiquity. In this book, Paroma Chatterjee offers a new perspective on the topic, arguing that pagan statues were an integral part of Byzantine visual culture. Examining the evidence in patriographies, chronicles, novels, and epigrams, she demonstrates that the statues were admired for three specific qualities - longevity, mimesis, and prophecy; attributes that rendered them outside of imperial control and endowed them with an enduring charisma sometimes rivaling that of holy icons. Chatterjee's interpretations refine our conceptions of imperial imagery, the Hippodrome, the Macedonian Renaissance, a corpus of secular objects, and Orthodox icons. Her book offers novel insights into Iconoclasm and proposes a more truncated trajectory of the holy icon in medieval Orthodoxy than has been previously acknowledged.