Full Name: Pliny the Elder
Gender: male
Date Born: unknown
Date Died: 79
Place Died: Pompeii, Napoli, Campania, Italy
Home Country/ies: Roman Empire
Subject Area(s): art history, art theory, books, literature (general genre), and natural history
Institution(s): Roman Empire
Overview
Describes and discusses art in books 34-36 of Historia Naturalis. Using a biomorphic paradigm to describe artistic development, Pliny uses a birth/development/decline method to art which would be highly influential for the art methodology of the middle ages and renaissance. In this sense he carries on the legacy of Xenokrates influencing as late a scholar as Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Pliny avoided discussing works of art as isolated examples of history.
Selected Bibliography
Historia Naturalis.
Sources
Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, p. 3.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen