"Au Plaisir Des Dieux: Expériences Du Sensible Dans Les Rituels En Grèce Ancienne"
Adeline Grand-Clément
Published by Anacharsis Publishing
In ancient Greece the gods were omnipresent, from the clouds to the smallest sprig of rosemary. Rituals flourished. Soliciting deities was both frequent and extraordinary – and always possibly dangerous.
We know the procedures mobilized in these fragile moments of the "kitchen of sacrifice"; We are less informed about the range of senses that had to be awakened at the crucial moment of the encounter with the gods. Adeline Grand-Clément embarks here on an investigation as close as possible to the feelings of the participants, meticulously seeking to grasp how darkness or light, colours, smells, touch, sounds or landscapes shaped specific sensory spaces, considered effective because they satisfy the pleasure of the gods.
"The Colours of medieval English Alabaster Panels. Polychromy, production and perception" (English Edition)
Markus Schlicht, Aurélie Mounier, Maud Mulliez, in collaboration with Pascal Mora and Romain Pacanowski.
Published by Ausonius editions.
The bookdetails the work of a multidisciplinary team on the analysis and reconstruction of the polychromy of several English alabaster panels preserved in the Bordeaux region, andisavailable online.
"Seeing Color in Classical Art: Theory, Practice, and Reception, from Antiquity to the Present"
Jennifer M. S. Stager
Published by Cambridge University Press
The remains of ancient Mediterranean art and architecture that have survived over the centuries present the modern viewer with images of white, the color of the stone often used for sculpture. Antiquarian debates and recent scholarship, however, have challenged this aspect of ancient sculpture. There is now a consensus that sculpture produced in the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as art objects in other media, were, in fact, polychromatic. Color has consequently become one of the most important issues in the study of classical art. Jennifer Stager's landmark book makes a vital contribution to this discussion. Analyzing the dyes, pigments, stones, earth, and metals found in ancient art works, along with the language that writers in antiquity used to describe color, she examines the traces of color in a variety of media. Stager also discusses the significance of a reception history that has emphasized whiteness, revealing how ancient artistic practice and ancient philosophies of color significantly influenced one another.