I’ve been thinking recently about the role of the plaster cast, and about collections of plaster casts and, in a sense, it seems to me that the cult of the plaster cast, in seventeenth to early mid-nineteenth century Europe, had much in common with what Stille’s describing in China. Mary Beard: This idea, of the meticulous copy being used as a stand-in for the ancient artifact – and that, somehow, this substitution can be its own historical object – well that’s one we actually find our own past. Stille writes that, in China, copying “is a sign of reverence rather than lack of originality.” Do you foresee any sort of interpretive conflict on the horizon between these different cultural notions of authenticity and the past? There’s an essay by Alexander Stille, for instance, called “ The Culture of the Copy and the Disappearance of China’s Past,” where he describes how meticulous copies are often used in China as stand-ins for ancient artifacts – without that substitution being acknowledged.
In this installment we discuss cultural authenticity and the rise of archaeo-tourism China, the pirating of ancient history, and plaster casts of statuary A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum the little-understood lost lifestyle patterns of the pyroclastically entombed Pompeii and the urban military spectacles of imperial Rome.īLDGBLOG: I’d like to ask you about different cultural attitudes toward copying and historical reproduction.
This is Part Two of a two-part interview with Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and general editor of the Wonders of the World, a new series published by Profile and Harvard University Press.
0 kommentar(er)
