The matter of the past: Modes of antiquarian representation

This essay traces the ways that artists engaged with the materiality of the past from the early modern period to the end of the nineteenth century. It begins with representations of monuments and ruins in early modern maps and book illustrations, often produced as part of colonial processes. Following this, it examines the emergence of three modes of visual representation. These include the picturesque mode, with its emphasis on the aesthetically pleasing ruin in the landscape; the scientific mode, demonstrated in the almost surgical precision of illustrations in scholarly books and drawings; and the patriotic mode, in which images and icons of the past were used to signal ideas of national identity and affiliation.