题 目：Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern / 十二凯撒：从古代到现代的权力图像

作 者：Mary Beard

出 版：Princeton University Press，2023

装 帧：平装，392页

语 种：英语

尺 寸：15.2*22.8 cm

权力的面孔是什么样子的？谁会在艺术中得到纪念？我们如何应对我们痛恨的政治家雕像？在这本书中——以今天的“雕塑战争”为背景——玛丽·比尔德讲述了两千多年来西方世界的富人、权贵和名人的肖像是如何被罗马皇帝的形象塑造的，尤其是“十二凯撒”，从无情的尤利乌斯·凯撒到折磨苍蝇的图密善。十二凯撒问为什么这些凶残的独裁者从古代和文艺复兴时期到今天在艺术中如此突出，当不幸的领导人仍然被讽刺为罗马燃烧时尼罗斯摆弄。

从帝国肖像在罗马政治中的重要性开始，这本图文并茂的书回顾了2000年的艺术和文化历史，重新审视了从梅姆林和曼特尼亚到19世纪美国雕塑家埃德蒙尼亚·刘易斯的艺术家以及几代织布工、橱柜匠、银匠、印刷工和陶艺家的作品。《十二凯撒》不是一个简单重复稳定、温和保守的帝国男女形象的故事，而是一个意想不到的故事，讲述了身份的变化、无知或故意的错误识别、伪造以及通常矛盾的权威表现。

从比尔德对提香非凡的失落的皇帝房间的重建到她对亨利八世著名的凯撒挂毯的重新诠释，《十二凯撒》包括了引人入胜的侦探作品，并提供了一个扣人心弦的故事，讲述了一些有史以来最具挑战性和令人不安的权力肖像。

与华盛顿特区国家美术馆视觉艺术高级研究中心联合出版

What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book—against a background of today’s “sculpture wars”—Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the “Twelve Caesars,” from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian. Twelve Caesars asks why these murderous autocrats have loomed so large in art from antiquity and the Renaissance to today, when hapless leaders are still caricatured as Neros fiddling while Rome burns.

Beginning with the importance of imperial portraits in Roman politics, this richly illustrated book offers a tour through 2,000 years of art and cultural history, presenting a fresh look at works by artists from Memling and Mantegna to the nineteenth-century American sculptor Edmonia Lewis, as well as by generations of weavers, cabinetmakers, silversmiths, printers, and ceramicists. Rather than a story of a simple repetition of stable, blandly conservative images of imperial men and women, Twelve Caesars is an unexpected tale of changing identities, clueless or deliberate misidentifications, fakes, and often ambivalent representations of authority.

From Beard’s reconstruction of Titian’s extraordinary lost Room of the Emperors to her reinterpretation of Henry VIII’s famous Caesarian tapestries, Twelve Caesars includes fascinating detective work and offers a gripping story of some of the most challenging and disturbing portraits of power ever created.

Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC