The Latin Style on Christian Sarcophagi of the Fourth Century

Abstract

Within the past generation, no more important contribution has been made toward a full understanding of late antique art in the West than the studies of Marion Lawrence in the field of fourth century Christian sarcophagi.¹ The basis of Miss Lawrence's work is a recognition of the essential duality of Early Christian sculpture; she has shown it clearly for the first time not as a simple decadence of one style but as a complex interaction of two, the native Latin tradition and a second wholly alien in technique and design. Her studies of the latter current have indicated its strong affinities with the Greek East, notably with the earlier pagan sarcophagi of Asia Minor assembled and defined by Morey.² In its Western form, this “Asiatic” style has been centered by Lawrence in Upper Italy and Provence, its influence being first felt in Rome at the mid-century. In detail the sculpture has been divided among several Northern ateliers and one or two clearly imitative in Rome. The largest subdivision, the columnar sarcophagi, seems to stem from work executed in Provence and thence exported to the south. In Upper Italy and Gaul, the ateliers produced the style's clearest epitome in the “city-gate” and “star-and-wreath” sarcophagi (Figs. 17, 18, 19, 26, 29, 47, 48).