Tyler Jo Smith’s Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece fills a lacuna in scholarship, since there is simply no updated and combined treatment of both ancient Greek art and ancient Greek religion. The book analyzes where, how, and why religion and art are connected in Archaic and Classical Greece. Smith’s ultimate concern is with how visual and material means show, visualize, and convey religion, though she clarifies that this is not “an illustrated manual of Greek religion” (xi). Rather, “religion provides a framework with which to observe and question the art, and the art a venue to better comprehend religious customs and attitudes” (xi).
Smith organizes her book around core themes of Greek religious experience. After her robust discussion in chapter 1 of the relationship between Greek art and religion, chapter 2 introduces major Olympian deities and how they are visualized individually, in pairs, and in scenes. Interestingly, they are illustrated not only as objects of worship, but also as performers themselves of religious acts. Smith pays careful attention to the relative positioning of divine figures, how they seem to interact with other figures, how they engage the viewer, and how they use gestures. All of this evinces how artists conveyed religious subject matter. Chapter 3 deals with liturgical spaces and occasions, which connects to Smith’s corrective for art historians to focus more on lived religious experience. Various art forms contain elements of the regular performance of religious activity, including depictions of religious personnel, cultic spaces (altars, temples, statues), and movable cultic objects (baskets, incense burners, etc.). Attention to these features can reveal not only specifics about ritual, but also the competitive and celebratory nature of Greek religion.
Chapter 4 presents one of the staples, and perhaps most private side, of Greek religion: votive offerings. Though Smith admits that identification of a particular object as votive involves interpretation, she examines three broad categories of objects dedicated to gods and sanctuaries: figurines; plaques and reliefs; and vessels and vases. Chapter 5 looks at art for what it communicates about phases and events that punctuated ancient Greek life. Various objects are examined for how they visualize and materialize birth, childhood, adolescent initiation, marriage, funerals, and the afterlife. Although more art exists for death, funerals, and life after death, Smith carefully captures the underappreciated attention Greek artists gave to the religious activity of children and the religious nature of earlier life stages.
Smith is quick to point out that her book is not comprehensive, nor does it try to produce a “cohesive narrative bashed on a systematically collected corpus of visual and material data” (19). For that, there are running citations of works that concentrate on a particular art form or select period or even a specific location of art production. More fundamentally, she questions our very assumptions about ancient Greek religious art—and all religious art for that matter—by asking a very penetrating question: How do we know religious art when we see it? What counts as religious art? Smith’s discussion of religion and art hinges on a few key links. One centers on connectivity: How do artists invite their viewers and consumers to experience religion on reliefs, vases, and other arts? Furthermore, she utilizes performance as an analytical category to understand various objects and images. Religion as performance highlights not only where and how religious activity is presented, but what the images and object communicate about the impressions and experiences of religion on the part of both the viewer and artist. In this way, her book also focuses on the craft production of religiously motivated images. Through a focus on materiality and function, one begins to see how some artists in Archaic and Classical Greece specialized in the production of religious art.
Smith’s approach is also balanced. She dismisses the possibility of reconstructing religious life—beliefs and rituals—from only artistic evidence. Instead, she combines material culture and iconography with other approaches to ritual, performance, and religion (21). The book does make certain choices, though. For instance, Smith chooses to sideline evidence of architecture and freestanding sculpture and focus more on art forms that “uncover a more private viewpoint and one based on the everyday, personal experience of religion” (14). She examines a breadth of pottery, figurines, stelæ stone slab monuments), plaques, coins, gems, mirrors, and other material objects. In distinction from previous scholarship’s overwhelming focus on mythological stories in Greek art, Smith looks for what art can reveal about religious practice through context, gestures, gender, interaction between depicted figures, and so on. Undoubtedly, textual sources remain invaluable for our understanding of Greek religion. However, it is a mistake to think art directly illustrates text, which also ignores how art possessed its own visual language (20-21).
Smith (or the publisher) makes a few curious choices, mostly in terms of usability. For one, she uses “BC” and “AD” for dating throughout her book, without any statement as to her reasoning. I am not familiar with any recent book on the ancient Greek world that perpetuates this outmoded chronological scheme. Furthermore, the bulk of material evidence examined in this book dates primarily to 7th through early-4th centuries BCE. Allowing for selectivity of course, it is notable that Smith’s book is yet another work that appears to overlook the Hellenistic period in discussions of Greek art and religion.
While the preface makes an appeal to a wide audience, especially students and scholars (xi), those not trained in art history or classical archaeology might find some aspects of the book difficult. The addition of a glossary or a list of key terms at the conclusion of chapters could help nonspecialists. The book helpfully places figures of art on the very page (or following page) that features Smith’s discussion. However, she often cites additional images that are not included as figures or plates in the book. To complicate things, the cataloguing and location of this art is often left for the endnotes, where it is not always clear how a nonspecialist should track these references down. Although this book is not marketed as a textbook—nor does its price point afford such a status—the book could serve as an important resource for graduate seminars in ancient Greek religion or Greek art. It ought to at least find a place on recommended bibliographies for those interested in exploring the endless connections between art and religion in the ancient world.
Jordan Barr is a graduate student at Florida State University.
Jordan B. Barr
Date Of Review:
May 10, 2024
