#pliny nat.hist. 34.4- btw

[catominor]

anyway more republican art posting but. the characterization of republican art and the notions of personal appearance in that period make it so interesting to me. i think pliny said this when i was reading him talking about the ancestral imagines but he basically characterizes a 'decline' of art from the republican era to his time, essentially with art becoming less about showing the individual characteristics and personality of a person and more iconographic/about projecting things like wealth or power rather than capturing individual features. essentially he says portraits became more of a 'stereotype' which signalled what kind of person you were, rather than a portrait of your particular face. which i think, although i don't really know how right pliny was about his own time obviously, is definitely something which characterizes republican art in the cursory glance at roman art history i've taken; ie the focus on capturing idiosyncratic and individual portraits of people (even to the point of possibly exaggerating them, almost like a caricature) in order to capture almost something about their soul. i think this is why i find that era of portrait busts so alluring, and though there are also definitely imperial era ones which have the same idea of capturing an individual, the republican ones hit different imo