Commentaries on Roman Art

Selected Studies

by Richard Brilliant

Book cover: Commentaries on Roman Art

Extent: 440 pages

Publisher: Pindar Press

Subjects: Art & Art History, Classical Studies

Language: English

(Hardback) (Published)

(December 1994)

ISBN: 9780907132745

Price: $63.00

In stock

Richard Brilliant’s work revolutionised the study of Roman art, tracing its connections to Greek art. This collection is divided into three sections: portraits, Roman adaptation of Greek models, and symbolic aspects of Roman art, including Jewish symbolism and Greek myths.


Professor Brilliant’s work on Roman art over the last twenty-five years has changed many of the ways in which we look at the subject. The papers reprinted here document the development of the author’s views on the art of the Roman world and its links with earlier phases of Greek art. There are three main divisions in the material here. The initial section deals with portraits, including five essays and a number of book reviews. Then follows a section on Rome and Greece, with five essays dealing with the methods by which Roman artists adapted earlier models. A final section deals with symbolic structures and characteristics of Roman art. This includes thirteen essays dealing with various aspects of the art of classical antiquity, including Jewish symbolism and the use of Greek myths in Roman art. Here again a number of the author’s reviews of books on the subject are included. The volume makes available for the first time the major part of Professor Brilliant’s work on Roman art, including a number of papers published here for the first time.

  • By (author) Richard Brilliant