SeungJung Kim, “The Temporal Revolution in Ancient Greek Art”
Departmental Colloquium
April 2, 2021
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
The tradition of stylistic periodization looms large in the canonical art historical narrative of Greek Art: the stiff Archaic style of kouros figures suddenly breaks away into the breathing, naturalistic body and the swaggering contrapposto of the Classical male nudes. This so-called “Greek Revolution,” purportedly occurring at a precise date of 480 BCE, represents the hegemony of formalism that has dominated subsequent western art historical discourse. And it did so using one single criterion: the sculptural styles of the Greek male nude.
In this talk, I present an alternative narrative for how Greek art developed from the Archaic to the Classical Periods, focusing on the fundamental issue of time and temporality. The fifth-century Greek society underwent a profound change in the way it related to time. Epitomized by the concept of Kairos (the right moment), this qualitative notion of temporality represented a novel interest in the present moment and everything that comes with it: opportunity, agency, intuition, sensationalism and embodied experiences. In this talk, I present an overview of how this new attitude towards time became manifest in the wider visual culture of Greece – in sculpture, vase painting, and panel paintings – and demonstrate that it was not just the artistic practice itself, but the viewers’ perception and their relation to the visual arts which were deeply transformed.
SeungJung Kim is an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto specializing in Greek art and archaeology. Her previous training as an astrophysicist engendered a fascination with time, which she has brought to bear on her research in Greek art. Her forthcoming book The Temporal Revolution in Ancient Greek Art (Cambridge University Press) explores concepts of time and temporality in the visual culture of Archaic and Classical Greece, which she contextualizes to the larger cultural history, bridging philosophical, social, literary and scientific understandings in ancient Greece. She has also been active as an archaeologist in Sicily, and harbors a keen interest in the cross-cultural currents of Gandharan Buddhist art.
Date posted
Mar 16, 2021
Date updated
Mar 16, 2021