Greek Art in Context ─ Archaeological and Art Historical Perspectives

What do we mean by ’context’? In which ways and under what circumstances does context become relevant for the interpretation of Greek material culture? The chapters in this volume include approaches to the study of Greek sculpture and pottery from the Archaic to the Late Classical period in which the notion of context plays a prominent role. The Parthenon, the statue landscape of the Athenian Agora, and the Stoa Poikile are among the topics discussed in the first section of the book. The contributors take full account of aspects such as location and findspot, the social processes involved in the creation of sculpture, political history and local mythology, and the dynamic nature of viewing context for the interpretation of the works. The second section focuses on painted vases and archaeological pottery and, together with contributions which emphasise the findspot and the context of deposition of pottery to reveal the process of the meaning-making of Athenian iconography, this part also includes studies which move away from the question of provenance to incorporate new ways of looking at images borrowed from other disciplines, such as phenomenological perspectives and complexity and reception theories. This volume gathers scholars from different backgrounds and traditions with the aim of presenting new insights into archaeological and art historical research.

Diana Rodriguez Perez?is the Mougins Museum Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. Prior to this, she worked as a Research Assistant for the Beazley Archive Pottery Database (Oxford) and held a postdoctoral fellowship (FECYT) at the University of Edinburgh. She received a European Doctorate in History of Arts from the University of Leon (Spain) and has published a monograph and several articles on various aspects of Greek material and visual culture in international peer-reviewed journals. Her research interests are in the areas of Greek art and archaeology, Athenian pottery, trade, mythology and religion.