Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art

Explores how rhetorical techniques helped to produce innovations in art of the Hellenistic courts at Pergamon and Alexandria.

Kristen Seaman (Author)

9781108490917, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 April 2020

206 pages, 50 b/w illus. 8 colour illus. 1 map
25.9 x 18.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.62 kg

'… Seaman's book presents a fresh, stimulating, and captivating reading. The breadth of her argument – one that bridges the boundaries of literary and historical studies, archaeology, art history, and, to a certain degree, cultural anthropology – provides what appears to be one of the richest, most articulate, and immersive surveys of Hellenistic imagery. The book is beautifully illustrated, with many black-and-white figures and color plates that assist the reader in following Seaman's arguments and descriptions.' Lucrezia Mastropietro, CAA Reviews

Hellenistic artworks are celebrated for innovations such as narrative, characterization, and description. The most striking examples are works associated with the Hellenistic courts. Their revolutionary appearance is usually attributed to Alexander the Great's conquest of the Near East, the start of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and Greek-Eastern interactions. In Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art, Kristen Seaman offers a new approach to Hellenistic art by investigating an internal development in Greek cultural production, notably, advances in rhetoric. Rhetorical education taught kings, artists, and courtiers how to be Greek, giving them a common intellectual and cultural background from which they approached art. Seaman explores how rhetorical techniques helped artists and their royal patrons construct Hellenism through their innovative art in the scholarly atmospheres of Pergamon and Alexandria. Drawing upon artistic, literary, and historical evidence, this interdisciplinary study will be of interest to students and scholars in art and archaeology, Classics, and ancient history.

1. Rhetoric, innovation, and the courts
2. Narrative in the Telephos Frieze
3. Personification in the Archelos Relief
4. Ekphrasis in Soso's Unswept Room mosaic
5. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Architecture [AM], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]