"In Certamine": Artist Competitions as Media Archaeology (15 min)

Presenters

Roko Rumora, University of Chicago

Abstract

Pliny the Elder's treatment of the history of art in the Natural History includes several anecdotes that feature two or more celebrated Greek artists in direct competition (e.g., NH 34.53; 35.65; 36.17). The narratives focus on various aspects of the process: some foreground the rivalry between the artists that drove to the competition in the first place, while others focus on the evaluation and response of a judging audience. What is unusual is that the anecdotes outline a habit of competition in the visual arts (sculpture and painting) that is without firm parallels in the archaeological record, despite the integral role played by public competition in most other areas of Greek cultural production. Rather than as an accurate reflection of Greek agonistic practices, this paper argues that the artist competition trope developed as a Roman interpretive strategy for making sense of decontextualized (Greek) objects, especially those that were displayed in pairs or multiples. Employing stylistic attribution as a form of media archaeology, Pliny’s narratives about artistic competitions reveal Roman imperial anxieties about an increasing number of public artworks whose meaning got lost over time.

  AIA-2A