The artist as anecdote: creating creators in ancient texts and modern art history

Art and Archaeology

“…Nowhere is the point clearer than when it comes to using Greek and Latin texts (above all, in Seaman's opening survey of 'The Social and Educational Background of Elite Greek Artists'). 8 One might respond that, to have any hope of making sense of changing concepts like technê and ars, it is necessary to consult a much wider range of materials than those usually suggested by classical archaeologists (think of the prologue to Callimachus' Aetia, for example, or the cultural framework of Ovid's Ars amatoria). 9 If scholars have to think carefully about which texts to prioritize, there must surely also be a question about what to do with them: classical archaeology has a long history of raiding literary 'sources', but it's still markedly less adept at critically reading them.…”

“…18 'To the end of her life on Christmas Eve 2007, she continued to manage Gardens of the Roman Empire and had the manuscript at her side to the last, anticipating the annual meeting of the editors the following week' (9). The result is 'slow scholarship' at its best: if large swathes of the volume derive from a conference in 2003 (8)(9)(10), 'the research and production for this book took place from 1954 to 2016' (xxxvi).…”