Framing and Liminality in the Antioch Court (Zachary Bahar, ARP Phase III)
When I first visited the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) with the Antioch Recovery Project (ARP), I was drawn to a Geometric Panel from the House of the Boat of Psyches. I couldn’t describe what made this image stand out compared to other items in the corpus, but I sought to understand what drew me in. I suspected it was the nature of the 3D maze-like design in the panel’s center.
Geometric Panel, from the House of the Boat of Psyches. 3rd century CE. Cut stones and lime mortar. Baltimore Museum of Art 1937.131
With my love of mathematical patterns and drawing inspiration from Alex Klein’s ARP Phase I “Twisted Ribbon Geometry and Design,” I hoped to gain insight into this panel and the broader corpus of non-figural and geometric mosaics. In my initial proposal, I suggested considering the unit cells of repeated mosaics and the cultural impact that motifs — such as labyrinths — may have had.
While my research returned to labyrinths, it (very fittingly) took several detours, most notably into linked data. While I quickly recognized that learning how to create and implement linked data for even a limited set of ARP-relevant material was far beyond the scope of half a semester, it is a skill that I eventually hope to add to my tool kit.
What follows, while not exactly what I sought to create, is a summary of my investigations which orbit around two key topics: frames and liminality. For my purposes, frames “serve to articulate boundaries: they apportion space, at once marking out a realm for representation and zoning that realm in relation to a larger visual or topographical sphere” (Platt and Squire 12). Drawing upon the work done by Verity Platt and Michael Squire in their superb volume The Frame in Classical Art, I began examining the roles of frames within the Antioch Court corpus.
In the words of Jacques Derrida, “frames do not just circumscribe their contents, but actively mediate between the ‘inside’ and ‘outside:’ as permeable sites of communication, frames establish the conditions according to which the work is experienced” (ibid 49). Thus, while frames are generally imposed on a piece of art, they serve a vital role in dialogue with it. While not a wholly novel idea — I had seriously considered framing within the museum context when I was fortunate enough to visit Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, and found an artistic experience unlike any I had ever experienced — it took time to build the correct frame of mind to consider the mosaic corpus.
A key observation is that frames are not just a means of articulating boundaries within a piece of art. How museum patrons engage with a piece imposes a frame on it; different display methods will produce drastically different effects. So to do the conceptual models that a viewer introduces to a piece. For example, once I began considering frames, they became more apparent.
From Top to Bottom: Swastika Meander Enclosing Squares, Stepped Pyramids, Two Strand Twist, Wave Crest, Ribbon Twist. All images from the BMA collection: Atrium House, Procession of Sea Gods, Hall of Philia.
At the same time, mosaic framing is distinct from the frames found in European style painting as frames are embedded into the panel with the same tools and techniques and by the same group of artists who created the entire piece. (This is complicated by the existence of emblemata — mosaic panels which were inserted into preexisting floors. See Leatherbury 550). In all cases, representational dimensions of focused and unfocused regions are created.
In Roman mosaics, geometric patterns often serve as frames. These patterns include rainbow stripes, swastika (perspective) meanders, diamonds, stepped pyramids (crowstep), two- and three-stranded ropes, vines, waves, and ribbons. A fairly comprehensive listing of non-figural borders is found in Sheila Cambell’s The Mosaics of Antioch. Before the recent renovation, a BMA placard described these patterns as:
“fram[ing] the central image of a mosaic or connect[ing] one mosaic panel to another so that both become part of a single thematic scheme… Many Antioch mosaics combine two or three different borders on a single pane” (Klein 3).
This is precisely the backwards-turning harmony that frames create. They simultaneously separate distinct compositions and unify disparate pieces into a whole.
An excellent example of this is found in the Atrium House’s Triclinium which features five figural mosaics surrounded by a four-part border. Despite the diverse myths and variety of themes expressed in the pieces, they are framed in a way that places them in dialogue with one another as a “subject for debate and moralizing” (Becker and Kondoleon 29). In particular, they seem to display a unified notion of the humility humans must have before the gods.
L. Reconstruction of the Atrium House Triclinium created by Lawrence Becker and Christine Kondoleon in The Arts of Antioch. R. Reconstruction of the House of the Boat of Psyches created by Christine Kondoleon in Antioch: The Lost Ancient City.
More examples of this in the BMA corpus are the geometric panels — including my initial panel — surrounding the Europa and the Bull mosaic in the House of the Boat of Psyches. Here, rather than borders, we see entire geometric mosaics framing the central figural mosaic.
For a digression: Labyrinthine Mosaics
As mentioned, I was interested in learning more about labyrinth mosaics. There are labyrinth-like motifs (e.g. swastika/perspective meander borders) found in the frames of many Antioch mosaics including the Atrium House, the House of the Boat of Psyches, and the Villa at Yakto. The labyrinth is found in mosaics across the Roman world, however, no Antioch mosaics are true labyrinths. All 46 well-preserved Roman mosaics are unicursal, meaning that there are no false paths (Phillips 531). Furthermore, these mosaics can all be broken into 25 distinct topological types formed from combinations of seven elementary submazes (ibid.). When I learned this fact, I was very confused by the importance of Ariadne’s thread in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur — which is seen as a red band on several labyrinth mosaics.
Without research, I hypothesize that the thread imagery predates the shift to a unicursal design. I suspect this would make a good direction for inquiry.
Mosaic of Theseus and Ariadne, 4th c CE. Marble and limestone cut tesserae. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
In her paper “Labyrinth Mosaics and the Experience of Motion,” Rebecca Moholt argued that maze motifs possessed staying power in the Roman world due to their gamelike aspects, apotropaic nature, possibility for infinite extension, mythic ramifications, and reflection of cultural status (Moholt 288). Of these, I find the game-like aspect and mythic ramifications to be the most intriguing. Sitting in a bath or at dinner and running your eyes back and forth across the floor would be a mesmerizing experience, all the more so if you are standing, gazing down upon it. This lived experience is key to not just labyrinths, but all Roman mosaics. While there is no full-room labyrinth mosaic from Antioch, the swastika/perspective meander appeals to the same desire for play. A bored guest of the Atrium House may have darted her eyes through the weaving lines of the floor while children jumped around them. When it comes to the mythic ramifications of the labyrinth, a cursory investigation of the Antioch corpus available in the Artstor database suggests that all identifiable figural mosaics surrounded by swastika/perspective meanders or similar maze-like patterns are mythic. While this is a limited corpus of 15 figures, including two undefined figures (including a figure from Villa at Yakto), it offers qualitative evidence in favor of a deeper connection between these border patterns and the figures they frame. Campbell’s book lists seem to feature several more unidentified figures. I highly encourage future researchers to dig into this hypothesis and/or to attempt similar analyses of other borders.
At this point, I want to introduce the second key notion in my project: liminality. From the Latin limen (“threshold”), a liminal state or experience is a transition from one space to another. Liminal spaces are “characterized by their uncharacterizability” (Heft 7). They are “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial” (ibid 7). Seeing as liminal spaces exist in border spaces, frames — which create borders — induce liminality. At the same time, when artifacts are brought through the liminal, they are “reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew… is reconstituted into the social body under a different set of norms” (ibid 7).
With these two notions in mind, let us turn to the Antioch Court.
In ancient Antioch, mosaics did not hang statically on walls, they were walked on and lived on. They facilitated dinner parties and conversations, they were part of family homes for generations, and they allowed Roman citizens to express their personalities, their identities, and their beliefs. None of these are still interactions, the mosaics lived vibrant lives. As Becker and Kondoleon note: “mosaics may well have operated for their audiences in ways familiar to them but now largely lost to us — in other words, in a realm of discourse only hinted at in texts and educational manuals” (29). Earlier in the semester we heard Dr. Felipe Rojas Silva discuss the interactions between performance and mosaics depicting performance, highlighting this exact reality. As pieces of art that induced conversations, mosaics were both framed and were frames. They prompted discussions and were impacted by the conversations that occurred around them. As frame and object framed, front and center and sitting on the sidelines, there is an inherent liminality to these mosaics, they exist and must be wrestled with on multiple levels simultaneously. Further, in intimate lived environments, you don’t cross the same mosaic twice; repeated interactions with a mosaic imbue it with meaning (cf. Platts 391, Kaczmarek 370). While beyond the scope of this paper, it is precisely to study these interactions that Object Biographical approaches were developed.
A fragment from the Hall of Philia in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Antioch Court. Photo courtesy of the Author.
In the museum afterlife, this inherent liminality remains and has been enhanced. Not only have mosaics been shipped across the world to places removed from their initial context, but they have often been displayed in liminal spaces. In the BMA, the Antioch Court — once a highlight of the BMA’s collection and a pride of Baltimore — slowly dwindled in importance as the collection became more modern. As Dr. Kevin Tervala shared with us, the mosaics are a significant yet overlooked portion of the collection. Thus, the sun-soaked court has become little more than a large hallway with wall decor. This is all the more so for the Narcissus Mosaic which is hidden behind an inaccessible staircase. This was the extent of my interactions with the mosaics before this semester. Similar hallway placements are seen at Dumbarton Oaks and the University of Oklahoma’s Sam Nobel Museum.
Furthermore, the Byzantine period as a whole is often overlooked as a period of transition between the ancient and medieval worlds (note: that European Painting long curated the BMA mosaics). All the more so for a city like Antioch which has oscillated between prominence and obscurity throughout its history. These are the narratives that Asa Eger and Andrea de Giorgi are seeking to dispel in Antioch: A History.
Fragment of Narcissus above fragment with Ram’s heads on the wall of a stairwell, Baltimore Museum of Art. Stone and glass tesserae. Photo courtesy of the Author.
While there are similarities between these displays, there are key differences. Most notably the continued life of the Dumbarton Oaks mosaics which are walked on daily in contrast to the more removed nature of many other mosaics. Being able to walk, sit on, and touch the mosaics gives a direct connection to the past that I have felt with very few other pieces of art. While still existing amid liminality, this intimate frame is drastically different from the inches of rebar and concrete mounted in the BMA. Even at Princeton or Richmond where mosaics are or will be inset into the floor, there is a layer of disconnect between the viewer and the piece.
ARP Phase III looking at Dumbarton Oak’s Floor Mosaic with Bust of Apolausis. Photograph courtest of Jennifer Stager.
However, in other ways, the BMA mosaics are being used in their intended fashion — albeit twisted. As ARP has experienced twice this semester, the Antioch Court serves as a venue for weddings and museum events (prominently displayed on the BMA website). Just as in the ancient world, people gather for drinks and conversation around these pieces.
They are not the same, yet through some long, strange trip, the Antioch Court mosaics still perform some of their initial purpose on the opposite side of the world. I did not expect to end this ARP phase noting that the mosaics still live, when I first viewed them as dead. Yet, so it goes. May my thoughts be entangled with them as pass into the next phase of their being.
—Zachary Bahar
Cite as: Bahar, Zachary, "Framing and Liminality in the Antioch Court.” The Antioch Recovery Project (blog). 18 December 2023. www.antiochrecoveryproject.org/modeling-and-mapping/framing-and-liminality-in-the-antioch-court-zachary-bahar-arp-phase-iii
Works Cited
Becker, Lawrence., and Christine. Kondoleon. The Arts of Antioch : Art Historical and Scientific Approaches to Roman Mosaics and a Catalogue of the Worcester Art Museum Antioch Collection. Worcester, Mass: Worcester Art Museum, 2005.
Campbell, Sheila D. The Mosaics of Antioch. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988.
Heft, Peter. “Betwixt and Between: Zones as Liminal and Deterritorialized Spaces.” Pulse: the Journal of Science and Culture, vol. 8 (2021): 1-20.
https://www.pulse-journal.org/files/ugd/b096b2_d32b5e138ccd477db53363a52e0838f7.pdf
Kaczmarek, Crysta. “Living in the Liminal: Lares Compitales Shrines, Freedmen and Identity in Delos.” Chapter. In Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches, edited by J. A. Baird and April Pudsey, 354–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. doi:10.1017/9781108954983.012.
Klein, Alex. “Twisted Ribbon Geometry and Design.” Antioch Recovery Project, Phase I (2020): 1-27.https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6216e1f674e6485e93e3d4a5/t/62434ce9498a9 550366f219e/1648577772382/Twisted-Ribbon-Geometry-and-Design-1.pdf
Leatherbury, Sean V. “Writing, Reading and Seeing Between the Lines: Framing Late-Antique Inscriptions as Texts and Images.” Chapter. In The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History, edited by Verity Platt and Michael Squire, 544–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. doi:10.1017/9781316677155.017.
Molholt, Rebecca. “Roman Labyrinth Mosaics and the Experience of Motion.” The Art Bulletin 93, no. 3 (2011): 287–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23046578.
Phillips, Anthony. “The Topology of Roman Mosaic Mazes.” Leonardo 25, no. 3/4 (1992): 321–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/1575858.
Platt, Verity, and Michael Squire. “Framing the Visual in Greek and Roman Antiquity: An Introduction.” Chapter. In The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History, edited by Verity Platt and Michael Squire, 3–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. doi:10.1017/9781316677155.002.
Platts, Hannah. “Experiencing Sense, Place and Space in the Roman Villa.” Chapter. In Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches, edited by J. A. Baird and April Pudsey, 381–411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. doi:10.1017/9781108954983.013.
Squire, Michael. “Framing the Roman ‘Still Life’: Campanian Wall-Painting and the Frames of Mural Make-Believe.” Chapter. In The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History, edited by Verity Platt and Michael Squire, 188–254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. doi:10.1017/9781316677155.006.