07-18-2007, 10:33 PM
I have no doubt that the colours are correct as colours. Howver, my comments were about the heavy use of them in all the drawings. My comments were not directed at you as the advisors of the artist, but at the artist and his general choice of colours, including backgrounds. Just a personal taste thing.
The use of the Arch of Constantine as a correct source for contemporary details is a double-edged sword...
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Hello Dear,
I understand Your point of view. The problem is the quality of the print. We used very different shades of gold and purple following the colours described by Corippus - in In laudem Justinii - and the colours of the miniatures and - for example in the Guardsman and Constantius, both taken from the Kertch plate - artistic artworks. But they used for the print the same tonality.
If You can see the original paintings You maybe would understand better it...Albertini did a terrible effort. I was asking him to change the shades a lot of time. Anyway after all it is not so bad the quality of the print.
About the question of helmets and Roman tradition it is a old topic. The respect of the traditional shape did not mean less effectviness. The so called Attic or pseudo-attic helmet used in IV-VII cent. was for sure not the chalcidian helmet of the 4th cent. BC
Pseud-Attic helmets, like the specimen from Worthing (here in my plate worn by the last Praetorian on the right in bronze scale armour) were used diffusely in 3-4 cent. and they were one of the most updated helmet. You can see it on the Constantine arch very clearly, and also on the figures from the pilasters of the arch, maybe coming from a Diocletian monument. The pseudo-attic helmets were just a element of continuity of the Roman military tradition, as today we have also some cloth caps originated in 19 cent. and still used in modern army. But the attic helmet tradition was composed of models that varied in size and utility: on the Constantine arch we have also pseudo-Attic helmets upon the Cornuti, that are similar to some helmets already represented on Dura Europos frescoes. The same typology of helmet You can see on the Maximian cathedra in Ravenna (without the typical badge of the Cornuti), and this is a shape that sometimes is made of a unique bowl, sometimes has got a ridge construction. The helmet of Kerak today is badly damaged, but originally it could be also of this shape. It was the helmet from which originated the typical VIII century helmet, that You can see in use in West and in East, on East-Roman carvings and Carolingian miniatures. A fragment of it is in Novi Sad museum, I hope to be able to take a picture on the next week for the Greehill book.
The Constantine arch freeze today is like the Trajan column: no more colours, missing details. Nothwistanding the correspondance of the details with the description of Eusebius, Claudianus, Heliodorus, are striking and the details of shoes, tunics and weapons, as well as the shield blazons are clearly (at least for me) a true portrait of the reality. You could inderstand it if You coudl see it when just finished: metallic insertions, tunics painted like in the Piazza Armeina mosaics, some crest inserted, the colour of the shields....
We have here represented for example all the category of helmets: Attic, Hedderneim, Intercisa. So or we are in front to a crazy artist, who represents in correct way the belt fittings and carves wrongly some helmets, or we are simply in front of the reality, what I believe.
Today we have - beside the main pseudo-attic helmets of 3-4 cent. - the specimens of Richborough that confirms the true about the Theodosian column images, often neglected. And also here the pseudo-attic helmets are worn by Imperial Guardsmen.
In the Gainas plate, the Huns are too small because we thought much more impressive the Cataphract. I have prepared also two Hun warriors, but I will reserve it for an other book. The artists of the Arcadius column knew very well the Huns, because on the column fragment You can see clear details of the Goths. But they preferred to avoid - maybe, because we do not have all the fragments of the column - to adscribe the victory to Uldin and of course celebrated Fravittas.
Why the battle scene of the column show Romans against Goths often Roman dressed? it is easy. Because the Goths of Gainas were partially equipped with Roman arsenal. Just until a day before of the exit from the city they were in the Imperial Guard!!!
Best wishes
Raf
Quote:The Praetorians are represented only with these types of helmets, because they were very effective and more linked with the Roman tradition.Ah, but isn't that a dangerous assumption? The helmets, if they were so effective, why were they phased out, as the evidently were? And were the Praetorians that 'traditional'- and did that mean they walked around and 'archaic' armour as a result of that 'link with Roman traditions'. Even more so, how do we know that there was a 'Roman tradition' when it came to practical things such as armour?
Quote:The helmets of the 3rd cent. were still widely used in the fourth.I agree with no. 1, but I would rather turn your previous argument around; in my rasoning, as an elite force, the Praetorians would sooner have had the new style helmets rather than the old.
Of course other types of helmets were in use, but the sources I used for this warriors were with these helmets. For example a second type of helmet shown for the praetorian was a kind of helmet with eagle protome.
The horns are exactly like this in the Constantine Arch. There are represented two versions.
The use of the Arch of Constantine as a correct source for contemporary details is a double-edged sword...
Quote:Gainas was killed by a combined army of Romans and Huns in the winter (23 December 400). The scene was represented on the Column of Arcadius so I had to use the warriors from the Coloumn.Although I can imagine that the Column of Arcadius would have no good idea of what Huns looked like, I agree with you that are perfectly right in this choice. Having said that, I would have loved to see the Hunnic king Uldin!
[/quote]Hello Dear,
I understand Your point of view. The problem is the quality of the print. We used very different shades of gold and purple following the colours described by Corippus - in In laudem Justinii - and the colours of the miniatures and - for example in the Guardsman and Constantius, both taken from the Kertch plate - artistic artworks. But they used for the print the same tonality.
If You can see the original paintings You maybe would understand better it...Albertini did a terrible effort. I was asking him to change the shades a lot of time. Anyway after all it is not so bad the quality of the print.
About the question of helmets and Roman tradition it is a old topic. The respect of the traditional shape did not mean less effectviness. The so called Attic or pseudo-attic helmet used in IV-VII cent. was for sure not the chalcidian helmet of the 4th cent. BC
Pseud-Attic helmets, like the specimen from Worthing (here in my plate worn by the last Praetorian on the right in bronze scale armour) were used diffusely in 3-4 cent. and they were one of the most updated helmet. You can see it on the Constantine arch very clearly, and also on the figures from the pilasters of the arch, maybe coming from a Diocletian monument. The pseudo-attic helmets were just a element of continuity of the Roman military tradition, as today we have also some cloth caps originated in 19 cent. and still used in modern army. But the attic helmet tradition was composed of models that varied in size and utility: on the Constantine arch we have also pseudo-Attic helmets upon the Cornuti, that are similar to some helmets already represented on Dura Europos frescoes. The same typology of helmet You can see on the Maximian cathedra in Ravenna (without the typical badge of the Cornuti), and this is a shape that sometimes is made of a unique bowl, sometimes has got a ridge construction. The helmet of Kerak today is badly damaged, but originally it could be also of this shape. It was the helmet from which originated the typical VIII century helmet, that You can see in use in West and in East, on East-Roman carvings and Carolingian miniatures. A fragment of it is in Novi Sad museum, I hope to be able to take a picture on the next week for the Greehill book.
The Constantine arch freeze today is like the Trajan column: no more colours, missing details. Nothwistanding the correspondance of the details with the description of Eusebius, Claudianus, Heliodorus, are striking and the details of shoes, tunics and weapons, as well as the shield blazons are clearly (at least for me) a true portrait of the reality. You could inderstand it if You coudl see it when just finished: metallic insertions, tunics painted like in the Piazza Armeina mosaics, some crest inserted, the colour of the shields....
We have here represented for example all the category of helmets: Attic, Hedderneim, Intercisa. So or we are in front to a crazy artist, who represents in correct way the belt fittings and carves wrongly some helmets, or we are simply in front of the reality, what I believe.
Today we have - beside the main pseudo-attic helmets of 3-4 cent. - the specimens of Richborough that confirms the true about the Theodosian column images, often neglected. And also here the pseudo-attic helmets are worn by Imperial Guardsmen.
In the Gainas plate, the Huns are too small because we thought much more impressive the Cataphract. I have prepared also two Hun warriors, but I will reserve it for an other book. The artists of the Arcadius column knew very well the Huns, because on the column fragment You can see clear details of the Goths. But they preferred to avoid - maybe, because we do not have all the fragments of the column - to adscribe the victory to Uldin and of course celebrated Fravittas.
Why the battle scene of the column show Romans against Goths often Roman dressed? it is easy. Because the Goths of Gainas were partially equipped with Roman arsenal. Just until a day before of the exit from the city they were in the Imperial Guard!!!
Best wishes
Raf
