Epistemic Impressions

Making and Mediating Classical Art and Text

Verity Platt (Cornell University)

$282.95

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press
20 November 2025

Theory of art; History of art: ancient & classical art; Ancient history: to c 500 CE

Series: Classics in Theory Series

Epistemic Impressions advances a new history of image-making and art-text relations in classical antiquity. Moving away from a focus on imitation (mim=esis), it looks instead to the concept of the seal-impression (typos), which played a vital role in ancient philosophies of mind: seals were 'epistemic objects' in that they informed complex thinking about the relationship between form, matter, and medium. As an indexically produced image, the typos offered Greek thinkers a model of sense perception and knowledge transmission grounded in material processes of engraving and stamping, which were closely related to those of sculptural moulding and casting (plastik=e). In turn, these had a profound influence on concepts of truth, representation, and replication, offering a materially embedded ontology of the image that has far-reaching implications for our understanding of Graeco-Roman aesthetics.

Drawing on theories of media, Verity Platt explores how the concept of impressing (typ=osis) was especially significant for literary engagements with artworks, informing Greek models of intermediality from archaic poetry to imperial Greek prose and early Christian exegesis. Advancing an 'object-oriented' approach that dislodges the trope of ekphrasisin favour of embodied processes of making, the book focuses on Hellenistic epigram, an especially medium-conscious genre, offering new readings of poems by the third-century BCE poet Posidippus, who drew on practices of engraving, stamping, and casting in his epigrams on precious gems (Lithika) and bronze statuary (Andriantopoiika). Posidippus' sophisticated engagement with materiality is set within the longer history of intermedial relations in ancient epigram, as these unfold through the Greek Anthologyin dialogue with shifting approaches to image-making and transmission under the Roman Empire and in early Byzantium. As a prehistory of analogue modes of reproduction (and thus the concept of 'type'), Epistemic Impressions demonstrates how, just as many ancient concerns with the visual may seem surprisingly modern, so many modern preoccupations are in fact more ancient than we might presume.

By: Verity Platt (Cornell University)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 180mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 1.013kg
ISBN: 9780192846587
ISBN 10: 0192846582
Series: Classics in Theory Series
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 20 November 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: A Genealogy of the Impression 1: The Seal of Polycrates 2: The Stones of Posidippus I: Beyond Mim=esis 3: The Stones of Posidippus II: Elemental Media 4: Bold Hand! Posidippus and the Moulds of Lysippus 5: The Greek Anthology: From Typos to Archetypon 6: Sponge, Foam, and the Chance Impression Epilogue: Impressing Angels

Verity Platt studied Classics at Christ Church, Oxford and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Following a Junior Research Fellowship at University College, Oxford, she taught at the University of Chicago and then Cornell University, where she is now a professor of Classics and History of Art and co-curator of the university's plaster cast collection. She is the author of Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion (CUP, 2011) and co-editor of The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History (2017) and The Embodied Object in Classical Antiquity (CUP, 2018).