An example of visual humour on a Romano-African mosaic : Putting images in their context

In the Maison à la Mosaique de Vénus at Volubilis, a room was decorated with a large mosaic panel representing the Rape of Hylas by the Nymphs. Until now, there has been a tendency to focus on the mosaic with the scene of the rape as entirely extracted from its architectural and social context. However, this emblema is accompanied by two smaller panels on either side showing scenes of Erotes punished for their offence (all mosaics are dated to the late 2nd-mid -3rd century A.D.). As decorative panels set in the middle of an ornamental pattern within the same room, the three mosaics would have appeared as a whole to the viewers and would have been conceived as complements to one another. The paper shows that the reconstruction of the context in terms of space, culture, and society, as well as the analysis of the thematic relation of these three adjoined mosaic panels, may suggest the way ancient viewers looked at these images. On the basis of modern theories of laughter, the paper argues that all three mosaics formed a whole and served as an example of visual humour. (Excerpt from the author’s abstract.)