Reflections on the subject of Antiquity and the future

In the history of art we find many recurrences of Antiquity, since it is a source of instruction and a model for subsequent aesthetic developments. In his studies of Neoclassical and Romantic aesthetics and poetics, Rosario Assunto illustrated that Antiquity itself can be experienced as the future.1 It can be said that memory underpins all innovation and gives authenticity to new and, at times, shocking forms. Antiquity is present in artworks in the play of fantastic forms we find in masterpieces. This presence entails the reinterpretation of images from the Classicism of the Romans to that of the age of Charlemagne, from Humanism to the Enlightenment, from the Renaissance of the modern era to the Renaissance of postmodern era.