Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus

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Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in St. Peter's Basilica, and we're looking at a famous early Christian sarcophagus.발음듣기

It's the tomb of Junius Bassus.발음듣기

Now it's a little complicated because what people generally see is the copy that the Vatican has in their museum.발음듣기

But we're in the Treasury, and this is the actual sarcophagus.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: And so Junius Bassus was a Roman prefect in around the mid fourth century.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: Right. We know he had his position in 359.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: So we're looking at a very early moment, soon after Constantine has made it legitimate to be a Christian in the Roman Empire.발음듣기

And Constantine is in the process of, in a way, making Christianity or leading toward Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, which will happen in the end of the 300s.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: So this is an early example, then, of a kind of openness and really a magnificent rendering of the iconography of Christian tradition.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: Right. And what's interesting is that it doesn't look the way that we expect to, in a way, because Christ is here in the center represented with probably Peter and Paul, or two figures on either side of him.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: It looks likely Peter and Paul, yes.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: But he looks very useful, like the young philosopher-teacher.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: He's even holding a scroll in his hand.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: And he's seated and frontal, though not entirely frontal.발음듣기

So I guess what I'm saying is that things that we normally associate with representations of Christ, where he looks like an emperor who's older, and he's got a beard-- here he's represented very youthful.발음듣기

Although he's seated and frontal, he does have a kind of naturalism and movement to his body.발음듣기

His left leg comes forward a little bit.발음듣기

His head is slightly turned. And he's got his foot above an image of a river god.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: Which is interesting because it shows Christianity surmounting the old polytheistic traditions of the ancient Romans.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: Using the iconography of ancient Roman pagan art in a new Christian context.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: I really am interested by the point you made earlier about Christ not fulfilling the physical attributes that we come to expect.발음듣기

And this is so early that, in a sense, those traditions hadn't yet developed.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: Exactly.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: They hadn't yet been really constructed and accepted.발음듣기

So this is a very flexible moment.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: Right.발음듣기

That iconography is being developed. And here, he looks much more like a pagan figure, in a way.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: That's certainly true because of the classical garb that he wears.발음듣기

And it's interesting stylistically because this sculpture is really showing a pretty high-pitched naturalism in terms of the rendering of the bodies, the contrapposto that we see the figures standing in, and even some of the sort of emotional attributes of figures.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: There is a kind of naturalism, although we see the beginnings of a kind of early Christian style.발음듣기

There are some hints of what's to come.발음듣기

The heads are a little bit too large for the bodies.발음듣기

The bodies are starting to be a little bit on the stubby side.발음듣기

So it's a very interesting transitional moment.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: We see some other scenes from the Bible.발음듣기

And we're seeing early expressions of it here, but these are ways of representing the scenes that will become very familiar to us.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: So we have Adam and Eve on the lower register.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: Right.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: And also other Old Testament scenes that would have prefigured the events in Christ's life.발음듣기

Right. So that idea of saying that events in the Old Testament, such as the sacrifice of Isaac, prefigured Christ's own sacrifice for the salvation of mankind, so that way of saying that Christ's life is a fulfillment of the prophecy and the events of the Old Testament.발음듣기

STEVEN ZUCKER: What we're witnessing here is the invention of a new iconography.발음듣기

This Is the invention of a new visual language for the telling of this critical stories.발음듣기

BETH HARRIS: What I'm also noticing is just how deeply carved it is.발음듣기

It is essentially a relief sculpture.발음듣기

But the figures are in very, very high relief.발음듣기

Some of them seem to be entirely separate from the marble ground.발음듣기

And I love these columns with capitals and bringing together of the classical and the beginnings of the Christian.발음듣기

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