MOISA – SCS 2022 panel: “Ancient Music and the Visual Arts”
Music played an important role in the cultures of Antiquity. It is therefore not surprising that visual artefacts of all kinds—sculptures, figurines, wall-paintings, mosaics, and figured pottery—depicted mythological or historical musicians on a variety of occasions.
Such images provide fascinating glimpses into the largely lost world of ancient music, but they should be approached with caution: an image is not simply a source of information but a construction of its own. The visual artefacts’ medium, function, and their potential viewing audience ought to be taken into account if one is to use them to seek insights into the musical culture of the time and place in which the depictions were made.
Moreover, visual artefacts representing music present a unique challenge: while we see the musical performances, we cannot hear them. The present panel aims to examine this idea face on, by inviting papers that seek to reconceptualize the relationship between ancient music and the visual arts. Possible questions and topics to be investigated include (but are not limited to):
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How is ancient music represented, why is it represented, and what can it tell us about music in ancient societies?
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What does the broad range of musical images tell us about the sociocultural significance of music in Antiquity?
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What is unique about the ways the visual arts engage with music and performance?
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Conversely, what does music uniquely add to our understanding of ancient visual arts?
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What kind of questions about the ontology of music do visual artefacts bring up?
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Are we able to listen to ancient artworks?
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How do we account for the soundscapes of ancient art?
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How does the interplay of the senses affect our understanding of ancient representations?
We invite papers from various disciplines, such as classics, musicology, art history, and archaeology. In an effort to showcase the best papers and the most innovative research in the field of ancient music, we also welcome abstracts that deal with further interdisciplinary aspects of Greek and Roman music within the framework of the panel theme.
Abstracts for 20-minute papers to be presented at the 2022 SCS annual meeting should observe the instructions for the format of individual abstracts that appear on the SCS website. The deadline for submission is March 1st, 2021 and all prospective presenters should be SCS members in good standing at the time of submission. Please address your abstract or questions related to the panel to Cecilie Brøns (Cebr@glyptoteket.dk). In accordance with SCS regulations, all abstracts for papers will be read anonymously by two referees.