Jaś Elsner. The Art of the Roman Empire, AD 100-450. Second Edition. OUP 2018.

This book is an entry in the "Oxford History of Art" series, aiming to provide a broad overview of art in a particular time and place. This entry looks at art in the mid to late Roman empire, making the central argument that there is meaningful continuity between the pagan high empire & the Christian late empire, and that indeed continuity itself is a key feature of Roman culture (“its ability to reinvent itself while preserving a rhetoric of continuity” 3). 

I'm not sure that 'continuity' and 'reinterpreting the past' is a distinctive feature of Roman culture, and I'm not sure that Elsner really means it. He tends to want it both ways: actual continuity & rhetorical rupture when it suits him, and alternatively rhetorical continuity & actual rupture. For example: he offers actual continuity with rhetorical rupture for relics (similar relic movement for Baal and Christians, pp. 215-6), but rhetorical continuity and actual rupture for naturalism of art (imperial art vs. Byzantine apse mosaic, 252-3). Basically if you compare two things at two different times, there's always going to be some things that are similar and some that are different.

Plus, Elsner's bias for continuity (part of his affiliation with second sophistic & late antique studies) doesn’t leave much space for a genuine break with the past and true novelty. Here he's helped by his choice of dates. Basically nobody would deny a lot of continuity between the high and late empires down to 450. The question is murkier in the periods after 450.

Other than this very high level argument, it's tough to provide detailed generalization of the book. Other tendencies:

• Kneejerk rejection of traditional/simple narrative: e.g. he questions/rejects/problematizes a move from naturalistic -> non-naturalistic art during this period, though ultimately he’s wishy-washy on this (primarily because it's obvious and irrefutable). He rejects the narrative in ch. 1, but then admits increased non-naturalistic art (p. 129 where moves to center from periphery, p. 253 on the byzantine apse mosaic)
• Generally Elener is keen on image/text and iconography, less attentive to style
• Generally elite, imperial, intellectual, sophisticated (a true Oxford don)
• Early chapters make a lot of hay out of identity, sometimes in non particularly convincing ways (e.g. the famous circus funerary relief; originally claims that tit expresses man’s identity, late on p. 86 admits that the relationship between the man and the image is obscure)

Elsner's approach is maybe most effective in the chapter on classicism (“Art and the Past: Antiquarian Eclecticism”). Partly it’s where Elsner’s heart is: his comparison of the relief panel of Perseus & Andromeda with an ecphrasis of a similar piece in Achilles Tatius (pp. 168-171) is particularly nice in showing the voyeuristic & scholarly joys in these pieces. Partly art about the past will inevitably be a story about continuity and change (fitting the book's theme): but Elsner’s period is genuinely big about thinking about the past, so it works.

Ultimately the 'continuity and change' argument of the book (the title of more than one chapter section) is just a frame for discussion of individual pieces: an effort to bring some kind of analytical focus to a large, varied array of material. I learned about a lot of objects & appreciated his intelligent discussions. In particular:

• full frontal, isolated depictions of emperors (arch of constantine, obelisk base of Theodosius I)
• coins of elagabalus bring baal to rome
• that the oldest illuminated codex is of the old testament (Quedlinburg Itala)
• the enormous, dynamic, classicizing Farense bull from the baths of Caracella (punishment of Dirce)
• late pagan mosaics with christian influences, like the floor mosaic with a baby dionsyus on mother’s lap = virgin & child from nea paphos on cyprus