Chiara Ballestrazzi
Università di Pisa, Sistema Museale di Ateneo, Department Member
- Classical Archaeology, Classical philology, Posidippus, Pliny the Elder, Engraved gems, Glyptics, and 16 moreEkphrasis, Ancient Science, Roman Art, Greek Archaeology, Greek and Latin Epigram, Ancient Medicine, Magical Gems, Ancient magic, Ancient jewellery, Anthologia Palatina, Heliodorus, Ancient Greek Painting, Theophrastus, Polychromy in Ancient Art, Roman Jewellery, and Intagliosedit
- Università di Pisa & Fondazione Pradaedit
According to ancient aesthetics, the art of gem engraving involved a special cooperation of human and natural artistry, and was characterized by a peculiar fluidity in its relationship with the “major” arts, namely painting and sculpture.... more
According to ancient aesthetics, the art of gem engraving involved a special cooperation of human and natural artistry, and was characterized by a peculiar fluidity in its relationship with the “major” arts, namely painting and sculpture. Literary sources point to the hybrid status of glyptics, which from a technical viewpoint is indeed a form of sculpture, but whose medium possesses a natural mimetic potentiality which is eminently pictorial: engravers paint with precious stones like painters with pigments, giving semantic significance to the natural colours, veins and spots of the mineral. Alongside literary sources, on the peculiar ambiguity of glyptics with respect to painting and sculpture played the engravers who signed their intaglios and cameos assuming the names of great painters and sculptors of the past. The analysis of two jaspers signed by the imperial engraver Aspasios discloses the room left to the creativity of the glyptic artist when he confronts the celebrated masterpieces of painting and sculpture.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Philostratus, Ekphrasis, Alexander the Great, Apuleius, and 14 moreAncient Mosaics, Graeco-Roman Mosaics and Wall Paintings, Ancient Greek and Roman Art, Glyptics, Pliny the Elder, Engraved gems, Greek Sculpture, Gemstone, Ancient Greek Painting, Roman Glyptics and Jewelry, Greek and Roman Sculpture, Heliodorus, Athena Parthenos, and Pyrgoteles
Focusing on the personalities of engravers and jewellers known from literary sources and signatures on intaglios and cameos, this study outlines some fundamental peculiarities of the art of gems in Greece and Rome. In antiquity, glyptics... more
Focusing on the personalities of engravers and jewellers known from literary sources and signatures on intaglios and cameos, this study outlines some fundamental peculiarities of the art of gems in Greece and Rome. In antiquity, glyptics and jewellery were almost never considered under the historical and diachronic perspective necessary for the development of a canon of artists and of a ‘history of art’ equivalent to those of painting and sculpture. The exceptional recognition of a past of the glyptic art and of successions of masters and disciples was made possible by initiative of the artists themselves: it is thanks to the signatures on gems and cameos that today we know two dynasties of engravers, and that the masterpieces of the great Hellenistic and Roman masters could be appreciated as such also after centuries of gradual decline of the art of engraving precious stones.
Keywords. – Glyptics. Jewellery. Gem artists. Signatures. Pliny the Elder. Posidippus of Pella. Dynasties of engravers. Historical perspective. Ars. Materia.
Keywords. – Glyptics. Jewellery. Gem artists. Signatures. Pliny the Elder. Posidippus of Pella. Dynasties of engravers. Historical perspective. Ars. Materia.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Art History, History of Art, Greek Archaeology, Ancient Greek and Roman Art, and 13 morePosidippus, Glyptics, Pliny the Elder, Ancient jewellery, History of Art History, Classics: Ancient History and Archaeology, Greek and Roman Art and Architecture, Roman Art, Greek Art, Roman Glyptics and Jewelry, History of Greek Art, Roman Archaeology, and Greek and Roman Art
Research Interests: Greek Tragedy, Late Antiquity, The Classical Tradition, Ekphrasis, Ornament (Archaeology), and 12 moreText And Image, Ancient Greek and Roman Art, Greek Architecture, Pergamon, Greek sanctuaries, Greek Sculpture, Greek Epigram, Ancient Greek Mythology, Cyzicus, Attalids, Anthologia Palatina, and Ancient Greek Painting
Conference, Università di Pisa, 8-9 June 2023
Research Interests:
Colloquia Anatolica et Aegaea Congressus internationales Smyrnenses XI, Izmir (Turkey)
Records of the e-conference in YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89iPO_6ujodh2SbM7FSnVfeIkx6OmBZ3
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL89iPO_6ujodh2SbM7FSnVfeIkx6OmBZ3