Questions of gender and sexuality have been central to the study of ancient art for the last several decades. Yet new studies are welcome and indeed necessary as our own understanding of these concepts continues to develop and shift, inflecting how we understand them operating historically. B.’s new book addresses the topic of gender in ancient sculpture through the objectifying power of the gaze – one that artists, viewers and even sculptures themselves could both invite and resist. It is the privileged status of the male subject in ancient cultures, in opposition to his female counterpart, that is most at stake in her analysis of ancient sculpture.
Arranged into ten short chapters, each focused on a single case study, the book covers a broad chronological span, though it confines itself to what B. describes as ‘naturalistic’ art (p. 2) – a somewhat problematic categorisation, especially considering the range of objects under investigation. Much of the book, in terms of the case studies chosen and the contemporary theoretical frameworks applied, covers familiar territory. As B. discusses in her introduction, this familiarity is intentional, allowing her to reconsider some of the most recognisable symbols of Greek and Roman art (mixed in with a few lesser-known examples) by working through complex scholarly debates that have emerged around them. Students new to these debates will find useful and even-handed introductions, while specialists will find critical reappraisals from an avowedly feminist perspective, one that draws on the work of a variety of theorists of gender and sexuality from domains well beyond the study of ancient art.
B.’s selection of case studies belies an interest in iconography above all. Of the five chapters devoted to Greek art, four examine statues only known through Roman copies. As a result, her discussion is largely focused on imagery that remains stable through the copying process, and leaves to the side questions of materiality and facture. Only two of the ten case studies, moreover, come from a secure archaeological context, which compels her to rely more often than not on generalisations when considering the conditions under which they were experienced in antiquity. Yet by selecting case studies that are today distanced from their ancient viewing contexts, B. puts pressure on silences in the archaeological record, subtly challenging notions of what it means for us to speak on behalf of an ancient viewer. That many of these works are well known and widely reproduced enables B. to confront modern expectations directly. It is in her careful attention to the ways in which our own biases and preconceptions about gender and identity inform our assessment of ancient art that her study finds its greatest value.
The first two chapters examine what are perhaps the most canonical ancient Greek nudes – Polykleitos’ Doryphoros and Praxiteles’ Knidia. B. treats both as embodiments of ideals of masculinity and femininity, asking especially what women might have seen when they looked at these statues. Similar questions are posed of the Tanagra figurine that is the focus of Chapter 3. Like the Doryphoros and the Knidia, the Tanagra figurine, for B., functioned as a kind of mirror through which a viewer could understand and construct her own body, but in terms of dress and costume rather than naked flesh.
Chapter 4 moves from the ‘ideal’ woman to the deliberate depiction of an abject body: the Roman version of a Hellenistic statue of an old woman now in Munich. Employing Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque, B. seeks to recuperate the subject of this statue from her status as a reprobate in much of the scholarly literature, arguing that her appearance ‘suggests not the helplessness of an old lush but a bold disregard for social and sexual convention’ (p. 68).
One of the most intriguing case studies is that of the Hellenistic statue of the hermaphrodite, illustrated here with a Roman version now in the Louvre, which B. addresses in Chapter 5. Locating the significance of the statue in the sacro-religious context of the Dionysiac thiasos, B. explores how the figure of the hermaphrodite destabilises the fixity of not only gender but sex by drawing on contemporary discourses around non-binary individuals, with particular attention to how they are eroticised and objectified. Considering how contemporary artists have responded to and reclaimed the ancient hermaphrodite, B. forces us to confront the difficulties of historicising such an image in our own present. These insights could be further nuanced through a closer engagement with ancient medical texts that reveal conceptions of the sexed body that are very different from those we use today (see for instance B. Holmes, Gender: Antiquity and its Legacy [2012]).
The interpretative frameworks of the following three chapters, each focused on a different Roman portrait statue, are grounded in historical events and personae rather than contemporary gender theory. In the case of the Prima Porta Augustus, for instance, B. tries to imagine what the widowed Livia would have made of the youthful image of her husband. B. seeks a similarly reparative female perspective in the following chapter, where, in her examination of the Flavian portrait usually known as Marcia Furnilla, she sees the potential sensuality of the nude Venus body muted by the celebration of age and maturity in the statue's face and hair. The statue of Hadrian's beloved Antinous found at Delphi is treated in Chapter 8 as a similar host of contradictions, presenting a body that is feminised yet masculine, a powerful god and a non-citizen boy, a Greek youth and a Roman portrait.
If Antinous is a feminised man, Chapter 9 turns to masculine women on a unique relief from Halicarnassus with a depiction of female gladiators. In B.’s analysis, these figures break down traditional gender dichotomies by reframing notions of female beauty, aligning the desirability of their bared breasts with the active, muscular male torso. The final ancient sculpture, a statuette from Herculaneum of Pan copulating with a she-goat, moves into a world of sexual encounters between animal and human and between animal and deity. Here, B. turns to ancient as well as modern accounts of bestiality to ask whether the statue is simply a joke or a depiction of sexual assault. The book ends with an epilogue that considers the post-antique impact of ancient sculpture through the work of the Italian Baroque sculptor Bernini.
Tragically, the book was incomplete when B. passed away in 2016, and the manuscript was prepared for publication by M. Silk, together with J. Elsner, S. Matzner and M. Squire. While there are fewer infelicities in production than one might expect under these circumstances, too many works under discussion are not illustrated (despite the inclusion of four different images of the widely reproduced Prima Porta Augustus). This is particularly regrettable since this book will surely appeal to readers who are interested in questions of gender and identity but lack general familiarity with ancient art. Moreover, despite the book's distinctively presentist vantage point, only ancient works are illustrated (with the exception of one Bernini), leaving B.’s colourful comparisons with works by contemporary artists difficult to visualise. Despite this shortcoming, the book remains a stimulating and thought-provoking contribution to the study of gender in ancient art.
