SQUIRE The Art of Body- Antiquity & its Legacy

7/28/2019 SQUIRE The Art of Body- Antiquity & its Legacy

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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.02.35

Michael Squire, The Art of the Body: Antiquity and Its Legacy.

Ancients and Moderns. Oxford; New York: Oxford University

Press, 2011. Pp. xv, 240. ISBN 9780195380811. $24.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Nicole Wilson, University of Calgary ([email protected])

Preview

The Art of the Body is Michael Squires contribution to the seriesAncients and

Moderns, edited by Phiroze Vasunia. This new series aims to show not only the

influence of the ancient world on the modern, but also how the modern world

illuminates the ancient. Squires work both stirs up debate on and complicates the

standard narratives about the legacy of Greece and Rome, objectives that Vasunia

states are the intention of the series (ix).

Squire, in his Preface, explicitly states that The Art of the Body is not a history of

ancient art. Nor is it a chronicle of its modern reception (xi). Instead, his aim is to

think about the ancient and modern alongside each other (xiv); he wants to reveal

not only the influence of representations of the body in antiquity on modernity, but

also to show how the influence of modern reception, from the rise of Christianity

through the Renaissance and Reformation to modern times, sheds light on ancient art

(xi-xii). Due to this process of mutual illumination (xii) or two-way

enlightenment (3), the book proceeds thematically rather than chronologically. The

author focuses his attention primarily on the Graeco-Roman legacy of naturalistic

representation (xiii) arguing that the idea that representations of the human body in

art are recognizable as bodies (naturalism) dates back to antiquity. But anotherimportant theme of his book is religion, which the author argues is an aspect that tends

to be ignored by modern art historians (96). Not only does Squire address the images

of gods and goddesses in their ancient religious context, but he also argues that the

various attempts to square the Classical with the Christian...have directed the entire

course of western art ever since (31). The Art of the Body covers a large expanse of

time and information in a small amount of space, but Squire is quick to point out the

areas of this book that could be open to criticism, such as its selectivity in material

and subjects (there is a concentration on free-standing sculpture). Indeed, Squire

himself notes that the book asks more questions than it can answer (31). It is precisely

this self-awareness and candour, along with Squires accessible writing, that make this

book one that will appeal to classicists and art historians alike.
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Chapter I lays the foundation for the subsequent chapters. The author uses Antonio

CanovasNapoleon as Mars the Peacemaker(1802-1806) to raise questions about

antiquitys influence on Western art, especially with respect to nudity. Here is where

Squires concern with naturalism begins. Not only is the medium of the statue(marble) familiar in western art, but the nudity, pose (contrapposto), and imitation of a

real-life figure are all recognizable aspects (1-3). Squire argues that these elements are

so embedded in the collective western consciousness of viewing that they are taken

for granted (3). He asks where these visual conventions come from, what they mean,

and how they have influenced modern western visual culture. He also brings the

readers attention to Polycleitus and Vitruvius discussions of proportion and

symmetry and their lasting influence, especially on the likes of Leonardo da Vinci

(14). Not only does Squire discuss the intentional use of classical art and naturalism in

modern art, such as during the German Enlightenment, but he also discusses the

rejection of these influences by modern artistic movements, such as Surrealism and

Expressionism. Squire concludes that the ancient art of the body remains with us whether as an ideal, antitype, or point of departure (27).

Chapter II addresses explicitly the issues of what modern art historians call

naturalism in ancient and modern art. In discussing how the modern world

influences how we look at ancient art, Squire notes that we view ancient bodies in

modern muscular terms, a result of our knowledge of the body from human dissection

(58-59). He criticizes the assumption that naturalism has always been an objective

and empirical standard (53) this point is at the heart of the argument ofThe Art of

the Body. For example, early Greek images of the body appear different from those

we associate with the Classical period. The more accurately a statue imitates the

human body the more accurately it approximates naturalism the later the date it isgiven (55). The author uses the Riace bronzes (c. 470- 430 BCE) to discredit this line

of argument. These works, rare examples of large-scale bronze statues from the 5 th

century, Squire argues, are impossible in their physical symmetry. No body is this

symmetrical, and therefore these natural bodies also are idealized in their own sense

(60-62). This chapter attempts to explain where, when, and why it became an

objective to make images believable and life-like. Squire answers this question by

arguing that naturalism was not an invention or part of what modern art historians call

the Greek Revolution (62); changes in the presentation of art are bound to

changing cultural, intellectual, and theological ideas about figuration on the one

hand, and about the individual viewing subject on the other (68). For Squire the artof the body can only be understood in cultic terms (68, his italics); the naturalism

involved in portraying the body concerned religion because of the challenge of

depicting Graeco-Roman gods.

In Chapter III the author turns his attention to the modern fiction of the female

nude (69), a phrase that not only refers to women without clothing, but implies the

assumption of artistic merit rather than mere pornographical arousal (71). Squire,

using Praxiteles statue of Aphrodite of Knidos (ca. 360 BCE), discusses the use of the

term female nude to describe the ancient images of ancient divinities. This chapter

picks up the discussion of naturalism from Chapter II. Zeuxis, when he painted the

three goddesses in hisJudgement of Paris, chose the best parts of five differentmodels to portray the female body.1 The message is clear, even in antiquity: no real,
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natural woman can match a mans ideal (82). The disappointment of real women is

found not only in antiquity (as exemplified by the legend of Pygmalion, Ovid,Met.

10.243-297), but also is echoed in the story of the Victorian art critic John Ruskins

shock at the reality of his naked wife (84). The discussion about the representation ofthe female body makes the intertwined relationship between ancient and modern art

history clear. After establishing this mode of seeing women or more accurately

idealizing women, Squire turns his attention to the male gaze and the appropriateness

of portraying Aphrodite naked. He highlights the mythological fates of those who saw

goddesses naked, such as Actaeon and Teiresias, and explores the fate of the viewer of

images of a naked Aphrodite. While Squire does not have answers for how to view the

female nude and admits that even in antiquity there would have been no

straightforward answers (106), the religious aspect of these images is important to

highlight. Aphrodite, while female, was more importantly a goddess.

The question of nudity in a Roman context introduces another issue. In his nextchapter, Squire asks questions about the inheritance of Greek motifs, not only by the

Romans, but by modern artists (117). Through various modern portraits, such as those

of George Washington and Mussolini, Squire reveals how modern artists have used

elements from ancient art and, more importantly, how viewers have received those

elements (120-123). He traces this inheritance of classical features to the Romans, and

calls them the first neoclassicists (117) rightly so, given Roman attempts to

incorporate, adapt, and reject Greek artistic conventions for their own agendas, such

as verism in portraits, and the use of the toga to clothe a nude body (127-131). The

author devotes much attention to the influence of the Prima Porta Augustus on

subsequent imperial representations, not only in terms of its combination of Greek and

Roman elements, but also in its message of immortality for the emperor (135-142).Squire also discusses the way that the Romans separated their treatment of the heads

and bodies in their portraits. The reception of Roman art is notoriously negative, and

in large part can be attributed to J.J. Winckelmanns claim that Roman art was not

only derivative (i.e., parasitic on the Greek), but also in bad taste (149). Scholars

like P. Zanker, argue that it took Augustus to set the Romans on the right path to

artistic expression.2 Squire notes, however, that there is no evidence that Roman

viewers found hybrid-bodies confused, incongruous, or monstrous in the way

that modern critics have done. Nor . . . can we dismiss the trait as some

mongrelisation of art (Greek with Roman, or Roman patrician with Roman plebian),

or indeed as something eradicated by Augustus (149). It is the modern scholars

preoccupation with naturalism that finds these hybrid sculptures offensive (152)

and Squire is right to bring the conversation back to how the Romans viewed these

pieces.

It is in Chapter V that Squire confronts the influence of Christianity and modern

religious thought on our interpretation of ancient art, and he admits that the transition

from pagan to Christian imagery was not a straightforward process (156). Christian art

was fashioned out of and also against ancient traditions of depicting gods in human

form. He notes that the reception of Graeco-Roman art involved an entangled

process of cultural- cum-theological negotiation, and this has influenced western

visual culture up to the present day (156). Debates about what the divine body lookslike and the appropriateness of visually portraying it exist today, and this is not
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peculiar to Christianity. The author discusses the difficulty in portraying Jesus

divinity and humanity as well as the differing opinions about how to do so. Squires

overall point here is that Graeco-Roman images helped determine not only what

Christian images looked like, but also how they were understood (191, his italics).He continues to argue that the conventions of Byzantine and Mediaeval art were a

reaction to those ancient traditions. The revival of classical forms in the Renaissance

also had a religious component; it is during this time that the crucified Jesus is first

shown naked (192-193). The questions about Christ and his body continued to be

discussed during the Reformation. According to Squire, it is this time that has paved

the way for art and art history as we know it (195). Squire draws on Georg Wilhelm

Friedrich Hegels ideas about the history of art noting that Hegel was the first to

discuss these subjects and to link them to religion (198-199).

Squire concludes that the Reformation represents a theological reaction against the

ancient art of the body and that this movement directly influences our mode ofviewing art (198), through its mistrust of what can be seen. It is this post-Reformation/

post-Enlightenment art for arts sake that has influenced the western way of viewing

art (201). The author presents his reader with interesting questions. His approach to

the history of the body and naturalism in art brings to the forefront the importance of

religion, both in antiquity and today. Squire ends his book with an extensive section

on Further Reading (202-228), which he admits focuses on English sources. The Art

of the Body is an excellent addition to theAncients and Moderns series, and will be a

welcome resource for an advanced level course on art history.

Notes:

1. Cicero, On Invention, 2.1; Pliny,Natural History, 35.64.

2. P. Zanker (1988). The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. trans. A. Shapiro.

Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

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