Roman Art

This volume focuses on the analysis of the beholder’s active share in the reception of works of visual art, whereby their meaning is shaped and appropriated by viewers of the time of creation, and subsequently. Therefore, the study of artworks in and through history, their careful visual apprehension, and their exposition, both orally in teaching and in writing to a larger public, constitute a seamless web of interactive functions, fundamental to the role of art historian. In that capacity, the visual delight and stimulation offered to the eye and mind transcend personal experience, without which there cannot be any valid interpretative activity, and imposes on that experience the need to share it in a disciplined, well- founded manner with others. Perhaps it is that motive that so energized Brilliant’s writing: to be so attentive to the stories told to make sense of the world, and to the images of ourselves, provided by us in person and portrayed by artists that establish the realities of our social existence and make them worthy of consideration.