Movement and Ritual in Portraiture: The Kinetic Echo (20 min)

Presenters

Lindsey Mazurek, Indiana University, Bloomington

Abstract

In many sanctuaries we find images of humans performing ritual actions like sacrifices, processions, and pouring libations. Though the individuals performing these actions are not always identifiable as individuals, the images depict rites and movements that viewers and visitors would have performed themselves. Recent works by scholars like Sean Leatherbury, Hallie Franks, and Matthew Canepa have emphasized the importance of movement in understanding the multifaceted and context-dependent ways that ancient viewers experienced art. These images, then, create a moment of kinetic repetition for viewers in which they can identify themselves with the people represented in portraits. More importantly, their movements and memories become a key part of how they experience the sanctuary, even in its quietest moments.

In this paper, I rely on examples of Hellenistic and Roman sculpted portraits set up in sanctuaries to suggest that these images both heightened religious experiences and outlined appropriate actions in the sanctuary. I first examine a relief panel from the Thessaloniki Sarapeum that depicts a young man sacrificing a small animal. People sacrificing would have seen the image as they performed similar actions, an experience I argue was intended to create a moment of self-recognition that amplified the importance of their religious actions. Next, I turn to the priestess portraits from Messene’s Sanctuary of Artemis, which Petros Themelis and Joan Connelly argue depict their subjects in the midst of performing mystery rites. Though most viewers probably saw the images outside the context of that particular ritual, the statues’ arrangement and iconography brings visitors into the moment of that ritual experience. Taken together, these images suggest that portraits not only memorialized ritual actions, but allowed viewers to access movements and emotions outside of their own personal experience.