Consular diptychs, rhetoric and the languages of art in sixth-century Constantinople

• Autores: Antony Eastmond
• Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 33, Nº. 5, 2010, págs. 742-765
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Ivory diptychs were issued in sixth-century Constantinople to celebrate the annual appointment of the city’s consul and the games and entertainment that he funded. They were sent out as gifts, and conveyed the status of the consul and his wealth and generosity through a variety of very different visual languages. This paper examines the modes of communication employed by all the types of diptych in the light of rhetorical training and epistolary theories current in Late Antiquity. It suggests that the languages were employed, as in letters, to suit different recipients depending on their geographical or social proximity to the consul, rather than to delineate their social or hierarchical status, as has often been suggested in the past. A coda studies the apparently paradoxical monotony of consular production when all consuls’ diptychs in the sixth century are compared. This highlights the tension between the desire for individual memorial and the need for institutional anonymity in the unstable politics of the period.