Ancient Abstractions: Roman Visual Trends beyond the Natural
Curated by Nicola Barham
The lifelike naturalistic bodies of Greek and Roman sculpture have been a source of wonder since the Renaissance. Indeed, the Italian Renaissance artist Vasari identified the ancient world as the time “when sculpture rose to its greatest height.” But close likenesses of the natural world are not the only visual products of the ancient past. This exhibition traces alternative visual trends of the ancient Roman world that today would be considered examples of abstraction. It focuses on monuments and motifs that have long been pushed to the margins of our accounts of ancient art. Oversize arrangements of interlocking shapes pulsate in bold block colors from tombs, temples, and homes; stylized animals flicker into view in colorful textiles, only to collapse once more into bright geometric arrangements; and artists adopt experimental shorthands for the depiction of space across media. Anticipating recent interests in color and form, the visual trends of antiquity emerge as much more varied than has long been told.
Expected opening: Fall 2026
