Considerations about size and scale have always played a central
role within Greek and Roman visual culture, deeply affecting
sculptural production. Both Greeks and Romans, in particular, had a
clear notion of “colossality” and were able to fully exploit
its implications with sculpture in many different areas of social,
cultural and religious life. Instead, despite their ubiquitous
presence, an equal and contrary categorization for small size
statues does not seem to have existed in Greek and Roman culture,
leading one to wonder what were the ancient ways of conceptualizing
sculptural representations in a format markedly smaller than
“life-size.” Even in the context of modern scholarship on
Classical Art, few notions appear to be as elusive as that of
“small sculpture”, often treated with a certain degree of
diffidence well summarized in the formula Klein, aber Kunst? In
fact, a large and heterogeneous variety of objects corresponds to
this definition: all kinds of small sculpture, from statuettes to
miniatures, in a variety of materials including stone, bronze, and
terracotta, associated with a great array of functions and
contexts, and with extremely different levels of manufacture and
patronage. It would be a major misunderstanding to think of these
small sculptures in general as nothing more than a cheap and
simplified alternative to larger scale statues. Compared with
those, their peculiar format allowed for a wider range of choices,
in terms, for example, of use of either cheap or extremely valuable
materials (not only marble and bronze, but also gold and silver,
ivory, hard stones, among others), methods of production (combining
seriality and variation), modes of fruition (such as involving a
degree of intimacy with the beholder, rather than staging an
illusion of “presence”). Furthermore, their pervasive presence
in both private and public spaces at many levels of Greek and Roman
society presents us with a privileged point of view on the visual
literacy of a large and varied public. Although very different in
many respects, small-sized sculptures entertained often a rather
ambivalent relationship with their larger counterparts, drawing
from them at the same time schemes, forms and iconographies. By
offering a fresh, new analysis of archaeological evidence and
literary sources, through a variety of disciplinary approaches,
this volume helps to illuminate this rather complex dynamic and
aims to contribute to a better understanding of the status of Greek
and Roman small size sculpture within the general development of
ancient art.
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