I also admire the craftsmanship in making these. They obviously owe a lot to the originals but there is quite a
bit of interpretation involved if only because in expanding these from about one inch to ten involves a 100-fold increase in the surface
area that the artist has to define and this imposes what I think are modern ideas on ancient one.
For instance
Hadrian, the remote and imposing figure on the coin, would push you off the Tarpeian Rock personally if he suspected you were any threat to
his Imperium. Ruthlessness was a
quality the
Romans admired in their rulers. Today no leader would want to appear this way (tough, always - ruthless, no). In the coin adaptation
Hadrian is more like "Uncle
Had", the amiable unshaven bloke who sits around the house in
his undershirt with a beer in hand.
I exaggerate a
bit and I don't mean to criticize her efforts, only to point out that it is perhaps futile to really re-create the past.
In the same vein, Herakleides' androgynous
Apollo reappears to me as a female figure- kind of a modern woman with a "What's in it for me?" look in her eyes. Joe says that he finds her/him kind of "evil". But, hey, that's art. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.
Dave
Author