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(piano music)
Man: It's clear looking at this.
Who the Romans are. The good guys, and who their
enemies, likely the Goths.
Lady: And the Romans perpetrating themselves as the
good guys here, and they look more noble, more heroic.
Their features are more idea.
The Goths, their enemy, look almost
character with puffy noses, and cheeks, and
wild expressions on their faces.
Man: Well, their the barbarians, and it's
interesting because that's something that the
Ancient Romans are borrowing directly from the
Ancient Greeks. Yet, this is the style that is
pulling away from the traditions of classical
antiquity.
Lady: In that we have none of that clear since of
space around them. Instead, their piled one on top
of another.
Man: That's right. They've lost their autonomy
in the world. They don't have room to move.
Instead, we have this dense carpet of figures.
We're looking at the Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus.
It's this large tomb. A huge piece of marble,
that has been carved in this incredibly deep relief.
Lady: And the skill of the carving, I think,
is one of the most remarkable things here.
Not only is every area of this sarcophagus
covered with figures, and horses, and shields,
but there are some places where the carving
is so deep that the forms, the limbs, the heads of horses
are almost completely off-set from the background.
There two to three or four layers of figures
and forms.
Man: Well, it's such a dense tangle, that it
actually takes us a moment to be able to follow
each body and understand where each persons
body begins and ends.
Lady: And when we look closely, what we see in
the center at the top is obviously the hero.
He is coming in on his horse. He's twisting
around opening his right arm bringing his horse
along with him. Look how he is off-set against
his horse. He looks almost wild and passionate,
but he looks calm.
Man: His body is splayed out. The drape of his
armor creates this radiating sense. He's almost
like a sunburst in the center of this composition.
Lady: Yeah and moving at the same time.
In fact, everything here is moving.
Man: It's almost impossible to remember that
this is just static rock, because the surface
is so activated.
Lady: When we look closely, we see that the
Romans look stern and serious.
For example: The figure at the far left. He's
charging into battle. So there's a sense of
the seriousness of battle.
Man: There are these moments of moral decision making.
Look at the Roman soldier who has a captured
Goth bound at the wrist. He's holding his chin,
he's holding the back of his head, and you
have the sense that he's making a decision as
whether to be merciful or to slay this prisoner.
Lady: And strangely if we look toward the bottom
of the sarcophagus the figures get smaller instead
of larger. Which we might expect for the horses
along the bottom are smaller. The figures who
are slaying or wounded on the bottom are also
slightly smaller.
Man: It's as if we are looking down from above
some hell. We have a kind of interesting perspective
that's constructed in here, certainly not linear
perspective, but kind of an organizing perspective
that makes sense of this complex surface.
One of the issues that I find most interesting
is the way in which the shields and other elements
create canopies that frame individual figures,
and bring our eye deeply into this composition.
Lady: Look at the figure who we see in profile.
Whose head is framed by two shields.
Man: That's right. Peeking through at this wonderful
moment.
Lady: That dark shadow behind him, it's really
wonderful about this sarcophagus is the alternation
of light and dark that animates the surface.
Where we see the most shadow and the most deep
carving is in the hair of the Goths, in their
faces, and the smooth surface of the marble is
reserved for the Romans, who are left deeply
carved.
Man: That's right. That texture is associated
with the enemy and a kind of roughness.
Lady: We see more and more sarcophagi, or the
plural of sarcophagus, beginning in the second
century in Rome, and continuing through the
third century.
Man: Right. Previously the Romans had cremated
their death, but we know that by the second century
it became fashionable to bury the dead in the
sarcophagus. After all it does give one the
opportunity to create these monumental sculptural
forms.
Lady: Artisans have been trying to identify the
figure whose sarcophagus this is, and they
have one or two ideas, but we're not really sure.
It must have been someone wealthy and powerful,
because this is an enormous piece of marble.
That would have taken a very long time to carve.
Man: So what we can see here is a choice to move
away from the high classical Greek carving
that we associate with the great sculptures
of the Parthenon that we know the Romans also
loved. Instead, we see the intention been put
on the interaction between these figures.
Lady: It's important to remember than in the
second and third centuries the empire was not
as stable as it was in 100 or 200 years after Augustus.
There's civil war, there's instability in the
empire generally, and it's possible to associate
this style with these political and historcial
changes.
Man: It might be too much to say in the chaotic
qualities of this surfacing to mirror the chaos
of the empire. I think it is appropriate to say
that we see a turning away from the high classical
tradition, and the adventure of a more complex
style that is less concerned with the elegance
of the individual human body.
(piano music)