ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter revisits the questions posed in the Introduction regarding the vitality of pictorialism and offers answers based on the visual evidence. One such question is whether the embrace of the muse means that the organized study of the past is still averse to the forces of modernity. An additional question is whether pictorial illustration continues to provide broad visual access to antiquity as it did in the past. Such questions touch on broader issues of scholarly identity as boundaries between specialist and popular interests become blurred by television programming, film, streamed media and web-based content. It is argued that ideas about antiquity are stimulated by these diverse formats. Also promising is the proliferation of community-based archaeology projects open to amateur participation, and the continuing popularity of metal detecting. Overall, new forms of visual media and new portals for participation generate new pictorial spaces.
