Creating life. Sculptors and artists in ancient Greece.
PUSeptentrion (Lille)| N° d'inventaire | 14793 |
| Format | 16 x 24 |
| Détails | 381 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2011 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
What place did the artisan and the artist have in ancient Greek society? This book revisits an ancient and complex debate through the case of sculptors: their career, from apprenticeship to full possession of their art, the creative process, from commission to delivery, and the image that ancient societies conveyed of them. While archaeology and anthropology have renewed the data since the 1970s, they have focused attention on material sources and production activities. An archaeologist and art historian trained in classical philology, the author draws on the rich corpus of written sources: literary texts, often contradictory, and inscriptions—construction site accounts, signatures, honorary decrees—which shed a different light, that of economic and social realities, and nuance the partial vision of the work of artisans offered by philosophers. The supposed contempt of the Greeks for artisans and artists is only a moralist's fantasy: in fact, artists enjoyed significant consideration, which was reflected in the market value of their works. The book thus offers a dynamic and modern vision of the ancient artist, far from the "primitivism" that has long prevailed. It returns to the problem of the "historical construction of the figure of the artist" and shows that the study of the image and imagination of the artisan constitutes, in the same way as archaeological documentation, an object of history.
What place did the artisan and the artist have in ancient Greek society? This book revisits an ancient and complex debate through the case of sculptors: their career, from apprenticeship to full possession of their art, the creative process, from commission to delivery, and the image that ancient societies conveyed of them. While archaeology and anthropology have renewed the data since the 1970s, they have focused attention on material sources and production activities. An archaeologist and art historian trained in classical philology, the author draws on the rich corpus of written sources: literary texts, often contradictory, and inscriptions—construction site accounts, signatures, honorary decrees—which shed a different light, that of economic and social realities, and nuance the partial vision of the work of artisans offered by philosophers. The supposed contempt of the Greeks for artisans and artists is only a moralist's fantasy: in fact, artists enjoyed significant consideration, which was reflected in the market value of their works. The book thus offers a dynamic and modern vision of the ancient artist, far from the "primitivism" that has long prevailed. It returns to the problem of the "historical construction of the figure of the artist" and shows that the study of the image and imagination of the artisan constitutes, in the same way as archaeological documentation, an object of history.