Visual culture was an essential part of ancient social, religious, and political life. Appearance and experience of beings and things was of paramount importance. In Visual Power in Ancient Greece and Rome, Tonio Hoelscher explores the fundamental phenomena of Greek and Roman visual culture and their enormous impact on the ancient world, considering memory over time, personal appearance, conceptualization and representation of reality, and significant decoration as fundamental categories of art as well as of social practice. With an emphasis on public spaces such as sanctuaries, agora and forum, Hoelscher investigates the ways in which these spaces were used, viewed, and experienced in religious rituals, political manifestations, and social interaction.

About the Author

Tonio Hoelscher is Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and a visiting lecturer in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. His main publications address political monuments, social imagery and the use of images, public architecture, and urbanism in ancient Greece and Rome.

Reviews
"[Any] omissions do nothing to detract from the theoretical richness and the numerous insights that fill all the pages of this deeply suggestive and wonderfully dense work of scholarship." * Gnomon *



Book Information
ISBN 9780520294936
Author Tonio Hoelscher
Format Hardback
Page Count 426
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 254mm * 178mm * 38mm