The history of art in book 35 of natural history: philosophemes and revisions

• Grant number: 14/10059-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2014
• End date: August 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Cesar Marques Filho
• Grantee: Antônio Leandro Gomes de Souza Barros
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The critical fortune of Book 35 of the Natural History, by Pliny the Elder, was singular. In lack of canonical paintings narrated, the book became the source from which it was possible to reconstruct, in imagination, the essential works of the historical development of ancient painting. On the other hand, he could not be taken as an objective source, because of the lack of paintings, but formed a set of topics relating to pictorial excellence to be interpreted according to the situation and the individual interests of the reader. Accordingly, in reviewing and considering its critical fortune, we propose to analyze critically the formal structure of the book and its historical conceptualization, considering the Book 35 itself a historiographical problem. To understand the method and meaning of this historiographical construction, we use the propositions formulated in the "New Science", by Giambattista Vico: the theory of vero narratio (true narrative); the notion of "poetic logic"; and the consequences of the principle of verum-factum. These propositions indicate that it is possible to analyze the Book 35 in approaches not yet covered, clarifying their role in relation to not only ancient art, but also to the subsequent production and aesthetic theory. So, relating the studies of the Book 35 to the historical thought of Vico, we propose a critical of the plinian anecdotes to recognize them as more than fictional cases, but as deep rhetorical elaborations, or as philosophemes, in other words as reflections on fundamental issues of the own art of painting. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

BARROS, Antônio Leandro Gomes de Souza. Paradoxography: the natural history of art history. 2019. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.