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  • Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250
  • Christopher H. Hallett
Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250. By John R. Clarke (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007) 322 pp. $55.00

Handbooks of Roman art generally present the Romans as humorless. Good imperialists, soldiers, and builders, no doubt, but not funny (at least not intentionally). Clarke manages to overturn this stereotype by collecting a surprisingly rich array of examples of “subversive visual humor” and arguing that witty invective, vulgar parody, and burlesque played an important role in Roman visual culture. In two previous books Clarke devoted substantial sections to visual humor—Looking at Lovemaking (Berkeley, 1998), 212–240, and Art in the Lives or Ordinary Romans (Berkeley, 2003), 160–180—but in this one, he presents a more systematic treatment.

The book opens with a general discussion of modern theories of humor (3–11), in which Clarke identifies three basic approaches: the psychological—laughter as stress release; the sociological—humor as a mechanism for easing social tension and a strategy for social survival; and the philosophical—humor as an important element within the broader framework of human thought and feeling. Clarke’s discussions of specific artworks make use of all three perspectives. But conscious of the tightly controlled hierarchy of imperial Roman society, Clarke is chiefly interested in the social function of his examples of visual humor. Partly for this reason, he sees Bakhtin’s notion of “carnival”—the inversion of hierarchies and the world turned upside down—as the most useful key for understanding the coarse and aggressive humor that he finds in much of his Roman material.1 Previous studies (based mostly on literature) have portrayed Roman humor as reinforcing social norms. Interestingly, Clarke comes to precisely the opposite conclusion about Roman visual humor, viewing much of the material that he treats as genuinely subversive (8).

One of the greatest strengths of the book is the astonishing variety of the visual representations that Clarke patiently assembles and addresses—rich and rewarding material for students of many disciplines. Art historians interested in provocative combinations of texts and images will find numerous case studies of pictures equipped with subversive captions; Clarke provides thoughtful and imaginative analysis of how the two work together. Social historians straining to hear the (usually all but inaudible) voice of nonelite Romans will find a detailed and respectful treatment of tavern paintings (109–132), and even crude scrawled graffiti (44–49). The many ribald depictions of pygmies and “Aethiopians” from Roman bourgeois homes might appeal to those looking for ancient examples of racial stereotyping (87–107). Also in abundant evidence are playful representations of the sexual act, from the routine and commercial [End Page 564] to the bizarre and exotic (191–227), and lampoons of the Roman gods (133–146; 165–89), as well as the coarse (but salubrious) apotropaic laughter of the crowd (63–81).

Not everyone will find these pictures funny, or be convinced by Clarke’s (sometimes labored) explanations of the jokes. But no one is doing more to enrich our picture of Roman visual culture, or to encourage a more imaginative and open-minded approach to it—especially to the little known nonelite imagery. For this contribution alone, the author and his book are to be greatly commended.

Christopher H. Hallett
University of California, Berkeley

Footnotes

1. Mikhail Bakhtin (trans. Helene Iswolsky), Rabelais and His World (Cambridge, Mass., 1984).

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