Trajan\'s Column V Adamklissi

[Crispvs]

I agree with Nathan's comments so far. I don't think you can discount art just because it does not display the training of the classical schools of Rome of Greece. Just because it does not look 'classical' does not mean it is not the work of a Roman citizen. As most Roman soldiers of the time would have been of provincial heritage it would hardly be surprising to find that army sculpters were not all 'classically trained'. As a comparison, I know a fair bit about what a Roman soldier of a given period could have looked like. I could also draw a reasonable picture that would faithfully depict my image of a Roman soldier. Peter Connolley might paint a picture of exactly the same soldier as me (I have read his books after all) but it would not look the same, even though all of the essential details are the same. The difference between the two would be that he is a trained artist with an appropriate sense of proportion and style, whereas I am not a trained artist and therefore it would be natural for my image to be stylistically and proportionately different. There is no reason that I can see for saying that Roman soldiers could not have carved the Adamklissi metopes. Even if they were experiences sculptors they would not be working to the same formulae that sculptors trained in 'classical' schools would work to.
Adamklissi is not alone here either. However much you can say that other provincial sculpture is 'caracatured' classical, it remains markedly different to what is to be seen in Rome, even when it is in close proximity to more 'classical' images, such as many of the finer Rhineland tombstones. The military sculptures of the Rhineland and northern Britain are not classical, but few would suggest that they were executed by anyone other than the Roman army. An important point to bear in mind is that the Roman army in Trajan's time, for the most part, was not from Rome. Therefore it makes sense to think it would not always have done things the same way as they were done in Rome itself.

"For example, the frontal eye even when in profile, the treatment of drapery as a pattern. All of this is very very different. My suspicion is that this is a group of local artists trying to deal with Roman subject matter in their native style."

I think you will find examples of both those features in the Mainz colomn bases. The various odd anomalies to be observed in each of the four well preserved 'soldier' stones may actually suggest that the sculptors knew more about that actual appearance of soldiers than we do. As they come from a fortress, it is also highly unlikely that they would have been executed by native craftsmen.




(Courtesy of R.A.com imagebase)


(Courtesy of R.A.com imagebase)

These sculptures were carved quite possibly within sight of well executed figural tombstones but the style is not the same. The reason why this is the case does not have to be because one was carved by a soldier and the other was not. One may have been carved by a soldier who came from a family of sculptors and may thus have learned his craft from people established in the classical formulae whereas the other may have learned to sculpt stone in the army without reference to the same set of formulae. The same could easily apply to the Adamklissi metopes. They are in a provincial style but that itself does not discount to high probability that they were sculped by soldiers.

Crispvs