When is a bird not a bird? When it is a painting of a bird. The cognitive tension generated between the representation of something and the thing itself lies at the heart of this analysis of Roman visual culture. It is therefore a welcome addition to an emerging area of study: Classical cognition. To date this topic has been predominately oriented towards the subjects of religion, Greek drama and Homer (much of it spearheaded by E. Minchin), currently there is little on Roman cognition, especially its relationship to material culture. To address this gap, J. takes an oblique approach to the semiotics of art and object, looking at commonly encountered items in Roman domestic life to reach for a more holistic understanding of Roman art.
J.’s study rests on two pillars: (1) that the Roman recognition of what was and was not art extended beyond painting, sculpture and literature to include entire spatial assemblages and their contents and (2) that these assemblages had an effect on Roman cognition. The volume's focus is on the structure of connections and demarcations between our definitions of art and artefact, arguing that ‘while we accept that there is not, and never was, a definitive boundary between art and not-art and that there was always a fluid boundary area, we can say that an emergent consensus about aesthetic, emotional, and intellectual content is a key element’ (p. 129). Tracing this emergent consensus, J. focuses on four interrelated items found within the spatial framework of the domus/villa. These are the garden (a consciously-demarcated domestic space that interpenetrated the household); garden painting (a specific genre of Roman art); tapestries (an example of craft production that traversed the fluid boundary of art and not-art); and the bird in a cage (an item found both as visual trope and as tangible ecofact ‘nesting’ within the artefact of the domus).
The introduction poses two main questions. What was the position of art in Roman society? And how, when it was encountered, did it affect cognitive development? These are vast and complex subjects to cover within 129 pages; readers should not expect to have them answered. Instead they will cover a great deal of conceptual ground through an impressively wide array of texts and objects arguing that the distinction (in Roman eyes) between art and not-art was a matter of social engagement (p. 28). This is most apparent in Chapter 2, where social engagement manifests in the intense and multi-layered role-playing opportunities that Roman gardens provided for their occupants. As a Roman ‘cultural phenomenon’ these spaces allowed for mythological role play via performative action (the Orphic dinner party of Quintus Hortensius), mixed media (paintings and sculpture on the Campus Martius) and intertextuality (Horace's insertion of the sumptuous Horti Maecenatis into the bucolic tradition). Gardens are also ‘recursive’ space, traversing concepts of inside/outside, creating a mise en abyme through painted walls (pp. 48–9).
Chapter 3 extends the discussion on the recursive nature of garden space, focusing on the garden room at Prima Porta. Given that, anecdotes about Sosas of Pergamon notwithstanding, nobody is really fooled by trompe l'œil, why use it at all (p. 68)? J. argues that the garden paintings not only helped supply performative prompts through multiple levels of mythic and historical references, but also that the tension between immersion and distancing effects reflected the cognitive structure of the Roman mind. Both Cicero and Quintilian provide direct evidence for the primacy of architecture in ars memoria (Cic. De or. 2.351–4; Quint. Inst. 11.2.17–22) indicating that a ‘meta-level’ of intellectual content determined the layout and decor of domestic space. J. suggests that the spatial interaction between the garden and the domus/villa, the representation of gardens within domestic space, and the representation of other times, people and places within the garden painting can be understood as a form of mental mapping. The use of multiple boundary levels within the Prima Porta garden painting is particularly suggestive of a need to maintain cognitive tension, especially if, as J. argues, the roof of the room was supported by pillars, thus adding another level of spatial complexity (pp. 70–3).
Pressing the theme of visual complexity and cognitive development, Chapter 4 considers the role of tapestries and hangings in demarcating interior space and establishing ‘porous boundaries’ (p. 98). J. makes a good case for the Roman recognition of tapestry as an art-form. Though very little survives in the way of Roman textile art, J. bridges the gap by shifting the discussion to the textual relationship between tapestry and ecphrasis through an analysis of Ovid's Arachne as a paradigmatic artist/poet (p. 82). In its articulation of the semiotics of art and object, ecphrasis performs a type of cognitive mapping for the viewer/reader similar to that found in domestic space. The final chapter re-examines the ideas found in earlier chapters on a granular level through the image of the caged songbird in visual art and literature. J. observes that in addition to introducing a controlled element of nature into domestic space, the caged bird could also represent occupants of the villa, with guests performing the role of ‘songbirds’ via their conversation or compelled presence, further closing the gap between viewer and object, real and represented. The approach is extended in the conclusion to considering the holistic relationship between the household, imagines, Roman portraiture and the self.
Read as individual chapters, J.’s study poses interesting questions, but as a volume it promises more than it delivers, mainly because the sections that deal with cognitive development are less developed than the sections on ancient art and culture. This is not the fault of the author, the science of cognition is notoriously contested, even with contemporary evidence; the evidential lacunae of Classics mean that J. can only provide a rough guess as to how domestic interiors shaped cognitive development (p. 45). Nevertheless, it is important to start asking the questions that will inspire further studies.
