Transferring Historical Iconography into a Contemporary Visual Perspective. Case Study: Adamclisi Monument

Abstract

It's known that any form of communication uses signs. Communication through signs, the imagistic dimension of artistic creation, has been the basis of all periods of cultural development of humanity. Understanding these periods in human history has been a constant concern for historians, art historians and archaeologists. For example, the translation (the decoding) of the hieroglyphs (i.e. visual narratives) allowed the understanding of the complexity of the Egyptian culture. Another example comes from the time of ancient Rome, where visual narratives contain complex infographic messages. The war periods followed by peace were an opportunity for cultural affirmation and development in which infographics played an important role. The power of the prominent figures of the Roman Empire was also due to the use of infographics on the emblematic monuments. This paper aims to bring a new perspective on the cultural history of humanity through the presence of infographics as a political tool for transmitting complex messages. The study presented in the paper is a decoding of the Adamclisi Monument, a Roman triumphal piece of architecture located in southern Romania, used to show a strong cultural and political message about war and peace. By transferring the symbols, shapes and human images from the metopes of this monument into contemporary visual form, one can lead to new ways of rendering historical and cultural events in a contemporary artistic interpretation.