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SEEING THE PAST OBLIQUELY
Geraldine Chimirri-Russell
Curator of Numismatics, The Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary
It is a truism that the best way to appreciate the aroma of new mown hay is to smell it; the sweetness of sugar to taste it; the delicacy of a baby’s skin to touch it; the song of a bird to hear it; and the panorama from a mountain top to see it. The pleasures of the senses are intense and for that reason artists and authors have attempted, with various degrees of success, to record these highly personal sensations. It is the intent of this paper to examine the process of viewing, whether static or in motion, the effects of cultural bias upon the interpretation of artistic creations by viewers, and the degree of power that the viewer has in determining what he can see.
Before proceeding it is necessary examine the nature of viewing; Nelson makes an important distinction when he notes that vision is: "the domain of science and the history of science, whereas visuality belongs to the humanities or social sciences because its effects, context, values, and intentions are socially constructed. These are to be found in diverse sources: literary, religious, political, philosophical, and, it should be emphasized, artistic" .
By recognizing visuality as a social construct it is possible to begin to describe the ways in which a viewer interpreted what was seen in a meaningful fashion, but as Stewart cautions: ‘Artworks, in particular, do not “speak for themselves” as I was once taught to believe; we ventriloquize them. We look at them and speak about them under a description. So our simplest statement about them comes freighted with personal memories, beliefs, and agendas. ’ Therefore, it is necessary not only to be aware of personal attitudes and beliefs, but also to attempt to comprehend the ‘language’ of the image that was used in antiquity, and thus to be able to ‘read’ the image clearly. Stansbury-O’Donnell has remarked:
"Just as a poem is made up of sounds, words, and parts of speech that are structured to create a coherent meaning, so too an image is made up of lines, planes, colors, and surfaces that create a recognizable set of forms. For language, one must recognize subject, verb, and modifiers in order to articulate the basic pattern of action that a narrative describes, and so too the viewer must decide what the forms of an image represent and their immediate relationship to one another in the picture."
Unlike the Rosetta stone that assisted in the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics, there is not one simple key that can be used to interpret or ‘translate’ ancient images. Brilliant notes: ‘Because reading is first a visual activity, it superficially resembles the process of seeing or “reading” a work of visual art. But artwork is far from being a simple symbolic code. ’
The written record of literate societies can provide information regarding the intent of the artist who produced the artifacts, and the reaction of the viewer to the artifact or monument. The literary record includes epigraphic evidence and the record from both the writers describing artistic production, and the commentators and critics of artistic endeavour. Unfortunately many of the ancient commentators were biased in their critiques, a bias that has influenced current understanding of ancient artifacts . The Roman author Pliny felt that the aim of the artist was to reproduce nature in the most realistic fashion . His emphasis was on ‘the figure of the artist as innovator and on the goal of art as naturalism which Western art since the Middle Ages and the historiography of Western art have never yet been able to shake off’ . Increasingly scholars are noting negative cultural bias in the interpretation of ancient art:
"When we encounter visual practices and theories of vision different from ours, we may at first regard them as simply wrong, or we may write them into our histories of science as primitive or as a sign of an earlier stage in the progressive evolution to the orthodoxy of the present. The projection of unexamined assumptions of normality or universality can flatten, obscure, and even destroy the delicate vestiges of prior practices. The past thereby becomes a mirror of the present. Both the history of science and the history of art are prone to teleology and presentism."
In recognizing the effects of cultural bias it is also necessary to be able to identify its source and influence. Since the Renaissance, in an effort to provide the most realistic representation of the world around them, artists have used the technique of perspective to give the illusion of depth to an image produced on a flat surface. Viewers have been trained, whether knowingly or not, to accept this representation and to mentally translate a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional form. The viewer is bombarded with these illusions in the form of books, magazines, photographs, paintings, drawings, and movie, television and computer screens. As part of this training the viewer has become increasingly passive before artistic creations. In their two-dimensional representation the viewer is powerless to select an alternate viewpoint, and in a display situation, such as a museum setting, an actual object is seen under controlled lighting and usually from limited vantage points. The viewer again is powerless to examine an artifact from his choice of angles or in a chosen light level. Often objects have been removed from their original location and are presented to the viewer from an unnatural viewpoint.
The literary record is the first source to examine in the process of comprehending how a viewer in antiquity would have interpreted and interacted with the artistic creations of his time. Within the literary record are numerous occasions where objects of art are described, a technique known as ekphrasis. Authors used this technique to turn their listeners into spectators. There were two forms of ekphrasis, the first whereby the writer painted a picture with words and the second whereby the writer described an actual image in words. In both cases the writer has the power to place his audience in a virtual stance where they are statically facing the object that is being described. For example, Virgil describes Aeneas visiting the construction of Carthage under the direction of her Queen Dido. He stands in amazement as he regards decorated panels on the wall of a temple depicting the Trojan War: ‘Enthralled, devouring all in one long gaze. ’ He appears motionless viewing the images from a fixed vantage point that the reader shares. Much later the author Pausanias wrote a description of Greece for fellow travelers whether actual or of the ‘armchair’ variety, and as such was a precursor of the genre of travel guides, such as the Baedecker and Michelin series. Amongst his many descriptions is a lengthy account of a painting by Polygnotus of the Trojan War that he saw on a wall in a so-called Place of Talk building in Delphi. He provides in exhaustive detail the placement and identification of the figures in the painting , for example, in the following manner: ‘Under those who are administering the oaths to Ajax, and in a line with the horse by Nestor, is Neoptolemus, who has killed Elasus, whoever Elasus may be. ' Although Pausanias gives the impression that he stands, like Aeneas, facing the painting taking in all the details in one long gaze, reason demands that to create his word-map he must have moved from one part of the painting to another in order to see the small details, to interpret the various vignettes and to read the numerous inscriptions. The author entices his reader to view the painting from a single, fixed vantage point, but in reality, to appreciate all these details, a viewer would have been in motion before the static painting.
On occasions the technique of ekphrasis appears to be supported by archaeological evidence. One of the earliest instances of ekphrasis is found in Homer’s Iliad where there is an elaborate description of the images found on the divinely produced shield of Achilles.
"And Ares led them and Pallas Athene. these were gold, both, and golden raiment upon them, and they were beautiful and huge in their armour, being divinities and conspicuous from afar, but the people around them were smaller" .The size differential between gods and humans, used to designate the relative importance of the figures is noticeable in various genres of art at various periods in the ancient world: it is seen on Mycenaean seals, coinage from the Graeco-Roman world (Figure 1), and votive reliefs from fourth century Greece that depict human worshippers and the deity, where “The goddess is much taller than her worshippers, but all figures are standing on the same level, close together, sharing one architecturally framed space” . The intent of the author was to create through ekphrasis the highest level of verisimilitude, and in so doing would transform the reader or listener into a viewer. In the process of this transformation, the reader is not necessarily able to make the fine distinction between the description of an artifact and the description of an event. The following verses concerning the shield of Achilles illustrate this point well:
"And in their midst a youth with a singing lyre played charmingly upon it for them, and sang the beautiful song for Linos in a light voice, and they followed him, and with singing and whistling and light dance-steps of their feet kept time to the music"No matter how divinely created the shield was, it was not possible for it to actually reveal whether the lyre was played charmingly, or whether the song was produced in a light voice, or whether the steps of the dancers were light or in time to the music. The author attempts to convince his reader that just as the scene comes to life through the skill of his words, so a skilled artist could beguile a viewer into imagining that the figures on the image could move . This evident display of the writer’s talent in bringing the scene to life through his descriptive powers also highlights the powerlessness of the reader in deciding for himself what he will view. The visual world of the author has tight boundaries, there is no choice available to turn the head to see another view, to return to the scene on another day when rain threatens, or to touch the shining object for oneself.
This is not to say that all descriptions of objects are seen statically, as illustrated in a passage in the Iliad describing Hector’s helmet. Here the object is both seen to change as it is moved, and also to change the form of its wearer as he moves:
"So speaking glorious Hektor held out his arms to his baby, who shrank back to his fair-girdled nurse’s bosom screaming, and frightened at the aspect of his own father, terrified as he saw the bronze and the crest with its horse-hair, nodding dreadfully, as he thought, from the peak of the helmet. Then his beloved father laughed out, and his honoured mother, and at once glorious Hektor lifted from his head the helmet and laid it in all its shining upon the ground" .
Such an interaction with an object is also described in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Winter comments upon Gilgamesh’s vision where he sees and then holds and caresses an axe of unusual appearance . In both these examples there is evidence of the choice of the viewer to manipulate an object and to appreciate it from more than one vantage point. Two factors should be noted; firstly that a viewer can interpret an artifact in various ways through movement and secondly, that an object could give pleasure to a viewer who could hold and manipulate it.
On seeing an artifact a viewer has numerous choices of classification. These can be linked to the physical characteristics of the item including fabric, dimensions and weight; or according to shape such as aryballos, vase, kylix, amphora; or according to decoration, painted, incised, relief; or according to the identification of the figures depicted, gods, heroes, actors; or according to date; or can be based on simple naïve value judgments: ‘That’s nice’, ‘What a pretty decoration’, ‘It’s cracked’. The viewer is not only influenced by any or all of the classifications that he might apply to the object, but also by the context in which he regards the object. Stansbury-O’Donnell notes three aspects of this context:
"first, the physical nature or architecture of the narrative image, including its scale, the field of view, the viewing angle, and the shape and framing of the picture field; second, the place of the image, particularly whether it is public or private; and third, the purpose of the narrative work, whether votive, grave good, public commemoration, or domestic use".
Stansbury-O’Donnell uses the example of the Chigi aryballos to illustrate the viewing context. This small artifact, 7.0 cm high, is decorated with four figured friezes, and it could be manipulated and rotated by the viewer both in the action of usage, as described by the author, but also doubtless through the viewer’s pleasure in seeing the painted figures and curiosity to see all the elements of the artifact. The author utilizes an illustration of the aryballos after Washburn, drawn in 1906. This particular approach to illustrating ancient artifacts immediately removes the object from the viewer’s experience to an artificial analysis of the component parts of the painted decoration. The whole artifact is drawn only from two angles, front and side, and the friezes are drawn flattened, as if they had been a label removed from a can of beans, rather than a carefully designed band on the tapering sides of the aryballos. The viewer holding and rotating the aryballos would have been able to see any relationship between the friezes while he was manipulating it, and would also be aware of the texture of the object and even perhaps how the fluid coming from its mouth affected the images on the sides.
Stansbury-O’Donnell provides another illustration of a kylix by the Sotades Painter of Polyeidos and Glaukos in the tomb . The interesting feature of this cup is the two snakes that appear on the inside close to the rim. The viewer would see the image within the cup clearly only when it was tipped as if to drink. At that moment the mound of the tomb crested by a tripod is apparent, with the two figures inside. Polyeidos has a spear that he is about to use to kill the snakes that appear to wriggle below him. The artist has used the shape of the kylix to perform an artistic function, in the knowledge that a viewer would have control and choice regarding the manipulation of the object.
I will now discuss larger objects that would not have been manipulated by the viewer. The ruins of monumental buildings have a dramatic effect on viewers today. However, their aspect is distorted by a number of factors, such as the incomplete nature of the building, the destruction of the environs in which the building had stood, the removal of architectural and decorative elements from the building, the fading of the painting that would have enhanced them, and the destruction of landscaping that would have been co-existent with the building . The result of these changes means that the prospect of the building bears remarkably little relationship to that of antiquity. To take one element: the landscaping around buildings, particularly houses and temples. Gardens in antiquity were often as remarkable, or sometimes more remarkable, than the structures they surrounded. Ancient sources comment upon the softening of angles and the provision of shade and colour that vegetation brings to a building . The archaeological work of scholars, such as Dorothy Thompson and Wilhelmina Jashemski , has revealed the extent and importance of landscaping in antiquity. In recognition of how important the vegetation was in completing the impression that a viewer gained of a building, some gardens have been recreated in association with buildings in Pompeii. The gardens would encourage a viewer to move around the building’s grounds to experience the pleasures associated with the vegetation, including the fragrances, songs of the birds and the cool breezes coming from the fountains and artificial streams . It would be highly unlikely that a viewer in antiquity was a passive, static observer of all buildings he saw.
Many ancient buildings, particularly temples, were surrounded by statues, steles and altars. Some of these would have been placed to provide a particular visual impact upon the viewer. A number of Hellenistic monuments take the form of hemicycles, such as the Argive monument at Delphi. Onians makes an important observation about the placement of the statues: ‘One of the ways in which such an arrangement of figures differs from a group in a straight line is that the spectator is made clearly aware that he is looking at a group and not at a series of individual statues which may seem to run on into adjoining series. In Aristotle’s terms it makes possible a “periodic” rather than a “continuous” arrangement, having a beginning and an end. Another important point is that the spectator can stand still and enjoy an equally close relation with each statue, while if they were arranged in a straight line he would need to move along in order to confront each statue individually. ’ This observation regarding the necessity of the viewer to move in order to appreciate a linear group of statues is significant. Stewart’s fine investigation of the ‘Little Barbarian’ statues, originally located on the Acropolis in Athens, shows how the linear grouping and placement of statues would have been visually dramatic and would have encouraged the viewer to move from one grouping of statues to another . Other static constructions, such as the Ara Pacis and narrative sarcophagi , require the viewer to walk around the object if narrative images depicted on their surfaces are to be comprehended.
That the viewer was encouraged to move to appreciate a static monument is particularly well illustrated by Trajan’s Column in Rome. This construction is decorated with a helical narrative in bas-relief. The monument was famous when it was first erected, as illustrated by the coins minted during Trajan’s reign depicting the column (Figure 2). To see the details of the figures at the top of the column is challenging, a fact that has encouraged scholarly debate. One issue that has been repeatedly raised is why the artist would have bothered creating details on the column that would have been out of sight for a viewer standing on the ground. Although provision was made for the effects of foreshortening by increasing the height of the upper registers, and the figures were painted to achieve the necessary differentiation between them, the question does not seem to have been answered satisfactorily. With the lack of a simple explanation of the intent of the artist in creating such a visual narrative, the focus of scholarly attention has moved to the patterning and placement of the visual elements on the column. Scholarly dissection of the elements of the column have led to interesting observations regarding the placement and balance of key figures, such as the emperor Trajan. Brilliant interprets the intent of artist who created the column as converting ‘the narrative into a double system of sets, one proceeding along the helix, the other, as a paranarrative, set in tableau form. The pattern of the paranarrative emerges clearly from Piranesi and others who distorted the relief in their rendering of the column by flattening the surface, which extends the registers laterally beyond the true bounds of visibility, and by reducing the effect of foreshortening’ .
This academic exercise is interesting but it is not informative in any discussion of the viewer’s reaction to, or interpretation of the monument, nor does it assist in assessing whether the viewer was a passive observer of the monument or whether he would have moved around the column in order to understand the purposes of the narrative images. It has been argued that the viewer might have seen the upper registers of the narrative relief from adjacent buildings, such as the Basilica Ulpia, but such a vantage point was very limited and would only provide a view of one side of the column. It remains true that the most natural way of following the narrative would be to literally follow it in circular fashion by walking around the column. The viewer’s eyes might well have become slowly adapted to the images, but perhaps there would have been the ever-present guides who would have been happy to describe to the visitor for a fee the images that were just outside his range of vision.
The search for meaning on Trajan’s Column through patterning and design has led scholars and commentators into an academic analysis that is largely irrelevant for the experience of the viewer standing in front of the column. The search for meaning through the investigation of patterning and design has occurred in the study of Celtic coins that were minted by tribes in Northwest Europe in the Iron Age, from about the second century BC to the first century AD . This focus on the two-dimensional features of the coins has greatly influenced the viewer of the twenty first century who might see these two-dimensional illustrations without ever having the opportunity to handle the actual artifact, thus making his experience of viewing very different from the experience of viewing that a Celt would have known. The following discussion is an attempt to account for these differences.
Summaries of the art of the Celts have often been pejorative and dismissive. For example, Sir Mortimer Wheeler writing about Roman art in 1964 accounts for the patterning in Celtic art in a most bizarre fashion, apparently substituting the Ice Age for the Iron Age in Northern Europe:
"Classical art, as a product of the amiable climate of the Mediterranean, was actively and uninhibitedly concerned with the human body, exposed or lightly clad. The Celtic artist, in the damp and hostile gloom of the northern forests, gave little thought to shivering encased humanity. His mind turned from unattractive reality to abstract pattern, and his idiosyncrasy was for bold and eccentric curves, pivoted upon emphatic points of design or colour. If, as on rare occasions, a reminiscence of human or animal form found its way into this kaleidoscope, it was twisted at once into conformity with the abstract rhythm".
Images depicted on coinage are an expression of the culture of the society that produced them, and without attempting to understand this culture it is highly challenging to comment upon it artifacts. Artistic conventions observed by members of cultural groups allow for the works of artists to be comprehended by the viewing members of the same group. When a cultural group applies their own artistic conventions to the work of another group, the interpretation of the artistic production can be incorrect, or limited in scope. This has occurred in the case of the modern interpretation of Celtic art and coins where, I would argue, the traditional description of the images limits the comprehension of the artistic expression.
The development of the discipline of numismatics has had an effect on the way in which all coins are described, and the description in turn influences the way in which a viewer interprets the images on the coins. The purpose of early numismatic texts was to aid in the classification and attribution of coins, and books were produced that used a standard form of description that was accompanied by engravings . Numismatic books made early use of photographs when they became available as they provided greater accuracy than the engravings. The legacy of both the engravings and photographs were that the coins were depicted as two-dimensional objects and the focus of the research was upon the dating, identification of images and attribution to states and mints. The use of stylistic features as a classification tool for dating was rejected in the middle of the twentieth century as it relied upon unquantifiable value judgments, exemplified in such statements as ‘Period of Finest Art’, or ‘Period of Decline ’ The result was that in general the study of stylistic features has been left to the art historians, and that numismatics has limited its study of coins as three-dimensional objects with a form that could assist and stimulate an artistic function.
Celtic coins have been studied in two ways, first as derivatives from superior Greek and Roman models, and second as examples of highly patterned and stylized products. It is evident that the Celts did use Graeco-Roman models when they began minting their own coinage . The transformation of the naturalistic Greek and Roman originals to the stylized Celtic forms and the obvious stylistic differences between the rendering of images has been accounted for by the incompetence of the Celtic die engravers or the tendency of images to change through the process of copying and recopying . The viewer who examines Celtic coins should recognize that Celtic craftsmen did not necessarily wish to produce images that were faithful renderings of the natural world; neither did they necessarily expect their viewers to examine their handiwork from a single preferred viewpoint. The material and spiritual world could be combined in one artistic expression, and the artist could provide the viewer with the power to transform the appearance of the image through his own actions.
Coins were but one expression of the craft of the metal smiths. Celtic culture has a tradition of fine metalwork that flourished in the La Tène period from the fifth century B.C. The craftsmen of this period produced metal artifacts that were designed to seen and appreciated from a number of different viewpoints. The evidence for this can be seen from the hidden faces and forms that are revealed as the objects are freely rotated in space. Authors refer to these effects as shape changing, and the appearance of ‘hidden faces’ are termed the Cheshire Cat and Mickey Mouse effects by Megaw . These are often ephemeral effects that rely on the three-dimensional nature of the artifact; thus the viewer sees changes captured when the light is reflected from the various planes of the sculptured material as the object is freely rotated. Those viewers who are focused on their own cultural artistic interpretive keys often find it very difficult to see or understand the fanciful faces that appear in Celtic art. The static photographic image cannot reproduce the dramatic moment of change that is revealed to the viewer freely handling and rotating the artifact. Patterning was developed to achieve specific optical illusions on numerous Celtic artifacts, including coins. If the Celts were accustomed to examine metal objects from more than one viewpoint it is likely that they would have regarded the Graeco-Roman coins that were introduced into their society in the same way. It is possible to deduce from two examples of coins how a Celtic viewer might have interpreted a Greek original. Figure 3a shows the obverse of a coin of Philip II of Macedonia . The image is that of Zeus, with his profile facing right. The die engraver produced an image that is a realistic rendition of a human profile. However, if the viewer chooses to rotate the coin clockwise, the hair at the back of the neck can be placed in a “profile” position that had been occupied by the features of Zeus. An imaginative viewer might interpret this as the head of a lion in profile with its tongue extended. (Figure 3 b). A Danubian Celtic coin that was minted using the Macedonian coin as a model incorporates a similar treatment of the hair at the back of the neck (Figure 4 a) . In this case when the coin is rotated clockwise the lion’s head motif is more apparent (Figure 4 b). If the coin is further manipulated and turned on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle, the transformation is even more striking (Figure 4 c).
There is strong evidence that the Celtic viewer regarded coins from a number of vantage points. In order to focus the discussion I will limit my observations on the illusion of image transformation to the rotation of coins on their axes, and I will only describe the obverse images of coins with depictions of human profiles. I will use as examples coins minted by Celtic tribes of Northwestern France in the region of Armorica.
The Corisolitae tribe of Armorica minted coins prolifically. The coins are characterized by the depiction of a human profile, often angular or stylized in appearance, with the hair rendered as thick bands, or rolls, curving from the top of the head to the cheekbone. Sometimes there are wild stylized curls at the top of the head. The eyes are generally large with the eyeball placed unnaturally in the center of the eye. There are often symbols or strings of beads in front of the profile (Figure 5 a). The viewpoint can be described as frontal, and the image that the viewer sees is the same that would be observed if the coin were to be resting in the palm of the hand: this is also the image that is illustrated and described in numismatic texts. From this viewpoint, the coin appears as a two-dimensional object.
If the coin is rotated on its axis, with the coin held between the thumb and finger of the viewer, the distorted facial features observable from the frontal viewpoint gradually take on a more natural appearance when seen from an oblique angle, because of the effects of foreshortening (Figure 5 b). The right eye is interpreted as more frontal and natural, the strings of beads that appear to emanate from the mouth in an upward and downward direction can be interpreted as the outline of the left cheek and left half of the chin of a figure seen from a three-quarter view. The strange hook-like symbol in front of the profile seen from the frontal vantage point can be interpreted as the left eye when the coin is viewed from an oblique angle. The viewer has the power to choose to see the image as an abstracted figure or as a more realistic figure when he actually looks at the image in the eye from the oblique angle. This created image, or optical illustion, would be more in keeping with other images that were created by Celtic artists, such as the wooden carving of a woman with a neck-ring from Source-de-la-Roche, Chamaliers, Puy de Dome, France. The hair thickly rolled and parted above the forehead of a face with high cheek bones and large eyes is characteristic of both the carving and the image on the coin as it is seen from the oblique angle.
The lines that emanate downwards from the mouths of the Celtic profiles on coins are generally signifiers of the chin. When viewed obliquely these lines provide an apparent three-dimensional image giving substance to the lower part of the face. Examples of these characteristics are visible on coins of the Coriosolitae (Figures 6 and 7). The lines that proceed downwards from the mouth in both these examples appear to be the left side of the chin when the coin is viewed from an oblique angle. Both of these images appear to depict bearded males.
Even coins without the elements in front of the face can be transformed to appear as three-dimensional images when viewed from the oblique. Figure 8 shows how the contouring of the engraving in front of the profile acts as the mark of the left side of the face when the coin is viewed from an oblique angle (Figure 8 b). The mass of stylized hair that appears to be arranged in ornate ridges and curls when seen frontally is visually transformed through foreshortening into a neat roll, or even the crest of a helmet, at the top of the head when seen from the oblique. The two downward curving lines that indicate the lips (Figure 8 a) can be interpreted as a more natural mouth when seen from the oblique. This oblique image is remarkably similar to a handle-mount on the so-called Aylesford bucket produced in Britain at the end of the first century BC .
Many Celtic coins feature symbols in front of the profile that at times seem quite bizarre, such as a coin minted by the Osismi tribe in Armorica that appears to show a human profile with strings of beads emanating from its mouth, each string is terminated by a small head in profile (Figure 9 a). Whether this image has any mythological interpretation is not known, because although the Celts at this period had an oral tradition for the transmission of their myths, they did not have a written record of their history or religion . If the viewer rotates the coin on its axis, the string of beads can be interpreted as lines of the face around the mouth and forehead. The small head can be interpreted as the left eye of a face now seen almost full-faced. The protruding upper lip of the profile (figure 9 a) is transformed into a nose, whilst the lower lip that was dragged out into a string of beads is transformed into the upper and lower lips of a mouth seen slightly agape (figure 9 b). What appears to be the hair of the lower small head on strings is transformed into an eyebrow for the left eye that is in accordance with the rendition of the right eyebrow. On the forehead of the image (figure 9 b) are seen two bulbous symbols or decorative elements. These are similar to the ornaments found on many Celtic carvings .
Conclusion
There are a further two issues that remain to be addressed and these are part of my ongoing research. Firstly, did other cultures share this awareness of the transformation of images on coins if they were rotated on their axes? At this early stage of investigation I believe that this might be the case in some cultures. Sassanian coins do seen to indicate that such a transformation might have been anticipated. Images of Shapur I on coins depict the ruler with protruding eyes and an awkwardly rendered headdress (Figure 10a). When the coin is viewed from an oblique angle the features are handsome and the headdress is more natural in appearance (Figure 10b). Coins from South Arabia in the pre-Islamic period are often highly stylized and some coins are scyphate in shape (Figure II a). These coins when rotated on their axes show an increase in the naturalism of the image and the scyphate form appears to perform an artistic function is emphasizing the foreshortening of the image (Figure 11b).
Secondly, although the evidence of image transformation when Celtic coins are rotated on their axes is extensive, it is not universal. I need to examine a far greater sample of coins from other Celtic tribes. It would appear at this stage in my investigation that there is a propensity on behalf of the die engraver to allow the viewer to have the freedom to reinterpret the image from various vantage points. The viewer could interact with the artifact and had the power to transform the image at will. The question is invariably asked: Why would they do this? Although answers can be drawn from the mystique of the Celtic spiritual beliefs, or from a pragmatic view that such a feature would be a form of authentication of genuine coins , my personal view is that the Celts saw that coinage was an expression of wealth, and if the object was valuable it should do something to show its worth. A lump of silver was a lump of silver, but a silver coin had images that could be controlled at will.
METHODOLOGY The results of this preliminary investigation were compelling. Of the nearly 1,000 coins I examined, those that had been damaged through wear or corrosion often did not exhibit any visual change when rotated. There were fewer than 30 coins in good condition that did not exhibit the effect at all. The remaining coins all exhibited the effect to a greater or lesser extent, usually dependent upon the condition of the coin, that is the better the state of preservation of the coin the more compelling the effect.
When the institutions permitted the coins were photographed without flash, using a Nikon Coolpix 5000 digital camera, from both a standard frontal viewpoint and from an oblique viewpoint after the coin had been placed on a plexiglass stand and rotated. The problems of photographing the coins are far from being resolved. It is necessary to produce results that can be verified by other scholars, and this is best achieved by establishing a documented technique. However, the nature of the coins is that they are not uniform in size, shape or thickness. There is no standard degree of rotation, since the optical illusion occurs at various angles according to the coin’s design. The focal point on the oblique angle at which the coins were photographed is difficult to capture. For the purposes of this paper the images of the coins have been enlarged to a standard size for ease of comparison and the oblique images have been enlarged slightly more to facilitate the interpretation of the optical effects.
My thanks to the following institutions and individuals for permission to examine their collections and to reproduce the images of the coins in this paper: The Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary; the British Museum, London; The Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and private collections in the Calgary area, especially that of Mr. Garth Wright.
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 Reverse of a denarius of Severus Alexander, 231 AD (NAM # 1991.1.41), showing Victory standing facing left with her shield resting on a seated captive facing left.
Figure 2 Reverse of denarius of the emperor Trajan, 112 – 117 AD (NAM # 2003.3.5) depicting Trajan’s Column with traces of the narrative bas-relief encircling the column.
For the following coins, please download the images as follows:
Figure 3a Obverse of a silver tetradrachm of Philip II of Macedonia depicting the head of Zeus facing right, minted ca. 340 BC. (NAM # 1992.2.305). (3b) Obverse of the same coin rotated clockwise.
Figure 4 Obverse of a silver tetradrachm of the Eastern Danubian Celts, about third century BC (NAM # 1993.5.40) (4b) Obverse of the same coin rotated clockwise. (4c) Obverse of the same coin rotated clockwise.and also rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 5 a Obverse of coin of the Corisolite tribe of northwest France, showing a human profile facing right. (Private collection of Garth Wright). 5b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 6 Obverse of coin of the Corisolite tribe of northwest France, showing a human profile facing right. (Ashmolean Mueum, Oxford). 6 b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 7 a Obverse of coin of the Corisolite tribe of northwest France, showing a human profile facing right. Figure 3 b shows the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle. (The Nickle Arts Museum). 7 b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 8a Obverse of coin of the Corisolite tribe of northwest France, showing a human profile facing right. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, # 6611). 8 b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 9a Obverse of a coin of the Osismi tribe of northwest France, showing a human profile facing right. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, # 6567). 9 b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 10 a Obverse of a Sassanian coin depicting the bust of King Shapur I (Private collection of Paul de Groot) 10b Obverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
Figure 11a Reverse of a South Arabian scyphate shaped coin depicting a male head, dated ca. 1st century BC.(NAM # 2001.6.7) 11b. Reverse of the same coin rotated on its axis and viewed from an oblique angle.
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