Research and Innovation

This study employs both archival and material evidence to offer fresh solutions for treating Roman sculpture and its interpretation. Beginning with an investigation of two of the most famous works to survive from Classical antiquity, the Farnese and Latin Hercules statues found in the Baths of Caracalla, this paper demonstrates how Roman sculpture acquires true meaning - not just aesthetic value - through precise context. Understood as part of an overall decorative program, these statues shed light on the material culture of Roman bathing complexes and the underlying rationale of imperial patronage. In comparison, this paper argues that the so-called Giustiniani Hercules statues said to be from the Baths of Nero, which lack archaeological documentation of their findspot, cannot be interpreted with the same degree of nuance as their securely documented comparanda from the Baths of Caracalla. This paper, then, not only proposes news insights into the four statues under review, but also a new framework for discussing both an imperial patron's intentions with regard to sculptural display and that sculpture's possible reception by the ancient viewer.

Book and exhibition review of the first major retrospective in over 30 years devoted to Charles White’s career and impact. Published in Art Journal.

Taking three recently published books on Japanese modern art as its starting point, this essay considers the relationship between art and war, and the aesthetics of beauty and violence, during the period of Japan’s modern wars from the 1890s through 1945.

The great painter Pieter Bruegel and the humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam each challenged their viewers, or readers, to look into themselves, to judge their own worth, and to consider how they comprehended others. Erasmus, more the humanist optimist, hoped to move people to strive for perfection, while Bruegel asked them to acknowledge the insignificance of humanity's place in the universe.

Learn about the life of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, from his start as part of graffiti duo SAMO to his rise as an internationally renowned painter. A Ted-Ed Video.

Huang Yao (1917-1987) was a member of the Chinese Diaspora who lived in Malaysia and who worked with the traditional Chinese art forms of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. This verbal-visual representation was characteristic of artists who painted for "themselves and like-minded friends," not dependent on commissions or signing contracts as is more often the case in western art. Huang Yao's attachment to this traditional Chinese art form is fascinating, especially as the artist was a member of the minority elite Chinese population in Malaysia, partaking of this traditional culture over and against the cultural pressures exerted by the majority native population. Students in the Seminars in Honors program at UMD have taken advantage of the research and insights in the bilingual book in which over 100 paintings are discussed. Not only are the students exposed to the work of Huang Yao, but they are receiving an immersion in the various artistic forms on which Huang Yao drew and practiced (poetry, ink painting, calligraphy). The capstone project of their immersive semester is to curate an ideal exhibition of the artist's work, populating one of two existing virtual Sketchup models of art spaces on campus (University of Maryland Art Gallery and Stamp Gallery) with a selection of the artist's works from the book.

A catalog to accompany an exhibition at the Michael Goedhuis Gallery, London.

Across the Roman Empire, ubiquitous archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence attests to the significance of bathing for Romans' daily routines. Given the importance of bathing to the Roman style of living, imperial patrons enhanced their popular and political stature by endowing eight magnificent baths (the so-called imperial thermae) in the city of Rome between 25 B.C.E. and 315 C.E. This book presents a detailed analysis of the decoration of the best preserved of these bathing complexes, the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 C.E.). An interdisciplinary approach to the archaeological data, to the textual and visual sources, and to anthropological theories facilitates new understandings of the visual experience of the Baths of Caracalla for a diverse Roman audience and simultaneously elucidates the decoration's critical role in advancing imperial agendas. This reassessment of one of the most sophisticated examples of architectural patronage in Classical antiquity examines the specific mechanisms through which an imperial patron could use architectural decoration to emphasize his sociopolitical position relative to the thousands of people who enjoyed his benefaction. The case studies addressed herein, ranging from architectural to freestanding sculpture and mosaic, demonstrate that sponsoring monumental baths was hardly an act of altruism. Rather, even while they provided recreation for elite and sub-altern Romans alike, such buildings were concerned primarily with dynastic legitimacy and imperial largess. The unified decorative program - and the messages of imperial power therein - adroitly articulated these themes.

Decoration was integral and vital to the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 CE). Polychrome marbles were to be found everywhere: in the mosaic pavements underfoot; in the freestanding sculpture adorning various niches; and in the revetment of the walls and ceiling vaults. This paper examines the subtext of this sumptuous display, addressing the visual experience of the baths for a wide range of viewers. From the most sophisticated senator to his client, thousands of people a day would have followed the visual cues embedded in the baths' polychrome decoration in order to navigate through them and to engage in an afternoon of recreation and relaxation. The case studies addressed in this chapter, encompassing mosaic, architectural, and freestanding sculpture, demonstrate that endowing monumental baths was a concern of dynastic legitimacy and imperial largess.

In a volume analyzing Classical New York, this paper uses the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 CE) to consider the role of monuments in the transmission of cultural memory and identity. Thus, the author investigates the Baths of Caracalla's architectural afterlife in America when used as the prototype for, among others, the Palace of Fine Arts, St. Louis (1904); Union Station, Washington DC (1907); Union Station, Chicago (1925); and, most importantly in the context of this study, Old Pennsylvania Station, New York (1910). This paper contrasts the lived experience of the recreated architectural spaces of the Baths of Caracalla in New York with their original design and queries the underlying ambitions of various patrons, whether the emperor Caracalla or Alexander Cassatt, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and driving force behind Old Pennsylvania Station. In so doing, it attests to the rich and varied adaptations of the Baths of Caracalla in modern America. This study emphasizes intercultural influences and stresses the value of cross- cultural comparisons to address issues of reception, projection, and appropriation. The author devotes special attention to primary sources that vividly illustrate the ways in which iconic Roman landmarks were promoted as physical embodiments of cultural memory. Newsreels and photographs, for instance, are evocative witnesses to this phase of the Baths' reuse as the model for Old Pennsylvania Station, and these and other sources reveal the ways in which Roman baths were fundamental to the reception of the Classical past in twentieth century New York.