Images and Translations: The Etruscans Abroad - Hardcover

by Larissa Bonfante (Author)

Professor Larissa Bonfante's great gift was the ability to evoke, in a fresh, immediate, and convincing way, the experiences, beliefs, and thoughts of people living more than two thousand years ago. Her final publication, Images and Translations: The Etruscans Abroad, communicates the sensations of other times and places, from the day-to-day to the solemnly ritualistic.

The world of the Etruscans, sophisticated and pleasure-loving, radiated throughout a vast area of the ancient world - a world very different from our own. Relying on a wealth of creative works, Images and Translations examines the expertise and productions of the artists who made them, the tastes of those who used them, and the sometimes surprising results of the exchanges between creators and buyers. Just as the French demand for Chinese ceramics in the seventeenth century gave birth to the unprecedented famille colors, so the production of Greek ceramics for the Etruscan market produced singularly expressive depictions. Humorous, pious, or erotic to the buyers, they could be shocking to the culture that made them.

Author Biography

Larissa Bonfante was Professor of Classics Emerita at New York University.