Lonely Aphrodites: On the Documentary Photography of Sculpture

Abstract

This paper considers several instances of sculpture (Greco-Roman, Renaissance, modern, and postmodern objects) represented in photography, with the thesis that the documentary photography of sculpture is a special area of art historiography. Such photographs have formed some of our most fundamental perceptions of sculpture, and they define their own realities, which are dense, problematic, and self-referential. When critical questions are asked of these images, used in art history as frequently as the verbal texts that accompany them, the nature of inquiry can be broadened and deepened.

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Notes on contributors

Mary Bergstein

Mary Bergstein, who earned her Ph.D. from Columbia, is Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design. Her articles on Renaissance sculpture have appeared in the Burlington Magazine, Rivista d'arte, and other periodicals; she is currently completing a book on Nanni di Banco [Rhode Island School of Design, 2 College Street, Providence, R.I. 02903].