Looking at Greek Art

by Mark D. Stansbury-O'Donnell

• ISBN13: 9780521125574
• ISBN10: 052112557X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Looking at Greek Art, by Mark D. Stansbury-O'Donnell, offers a practical guide to the methods for approaching, analyzing, and contextualizing an unfamiliar piece of Greek art. It demonstrates how objects are dated and assigned to an artist or region; how to interpret the subject matter and narrative; how to reconstruct the context for which an object was made, distributed, and used; and how we can explore broader cultural perspectives by looking at questions of identity, gender, and relationships to surrounding cultures. Each section focuses on different theoretical approaches, providing an overview of the theories, key terms, and required evidence. Case studies serve to demonstrate each process and some key issues to consider when using a given approach. This book explores a variety of media, including terracotta, metalwork, and jewelry, in addition to works found in major museum collections in the United States and Europe.

Author Biography

Mark D. Stansbury-O'Donnell is a Professor of art history at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of Pictorial Narrative in Ancient Greek Art (Cambridge, 1999) and Vase Painting, Gender, and the Social Identity of Archaic Athens (Cambridge, 2006). He has published in the American Journal of Archaeology and has contributed to several other books on Greek art and vase painting.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
The Study and Presentation of Greek Art	p. 1
Studying Greek Art and Historical Narratives	p. 1
Encountering Objects and Narratives of Display	p. 8
Questions and Approaches	p. 16
Further Reading	p. 19
Description and Visual Analysis	p. 20
Stylistic and Formal Analysis	p. 21
Region, Chronology, and Medium	p. 29
History and Development of Style	p. 36
Stylistic Plurality	p. 42
Medium and Quality	p. 47
The Artist and Biography	p. 50
Conclusion	p. 54
Further Reading	p. 54
Meaning	p. 57
Iconography and Narrative	p. 58
Semiotics and Structural Analysis	p. 72
Repetition and Information Theory	p. 88
Poststructuralism, Hermeneutics, and Viewer Response	p. 92
Further Reading	p. 107
Context	p. 110
Marxism: Production and Distribution	p. 111
Politics	p. 130
Contexts	p. 133
Agency	p. 149
Ritual Analysis and Cultural Poetics	p. 154
Object Biography	p. 163
Context Considered	p. 167
Further Reading	p. 168
Identity	p. 170
Psychoanalysis, Gaze, Vision, and Identity	p. 171
Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality	p. 180
Other Forms of Identity: Class, Civic, Ethnic	p. 194
Postcolonialism and Cultural Diffusion	p. 201
Further Reading	p. 214
Conclusion	p. 216
Further Reading	p. 219
Glossary	p. 221
Notes	p. 233
Bibliography	p. 237
Index	p. 249
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