Approaching the Ancient Artifact

Amalia Avramidou, Denise Demetriou

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9783110308730
• eBook ISBN: 9783110382921
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Architecture General

This volume consists consists of forty contributions written by an internationally renowned selection of scholars. The authors adopt an interdisciplinary methodology, examining both literary and archaeological sources, and a comparative perspective that transgresses national, chronological, and cultural boundaries, in order to investigate the nature of the links between text and image. This multifaceted approach to the study of ancient artifacts enables the authors to treat art and artistic production as activities that do not merely mirror social or cultural relationships but rather, and more significantly, as activities that create social and cultural relationships. The essays in this book are motivated by their authors' belief that there is no simple direct link between art and myths, art and text, or art and ritual, and that art should not be delegated to the role of a by-product of a literate culture. Instead, the contextual and symbolic analyses of artifacts and representations offered in this volume elucidate how art actively shaped myth, how it changed texts, how it transformed ritual, and how it altered the course of local, regional, and Mediterranean histories.

Color Plates

Fig. 1: Embassy for Helen: Menelaos, Odysseus, and Talthybios on steps of altar at Troy. Detail of Late Corinthian I krater (560 BCE), name vase of Astarita Painter. Once Astarita Collection 565, Naples; Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 35525. Photo: Vatican Museums.

Fig. 2: Embassy for Helen: Theano, Dia, Malo, and Trophos receiving Greek envoys at Troy. Detail of Late Corinthian I krater (560 BCE), name vase of Astarita Painter. Once Astarita Collection 565, Naples; Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 35525. Photo: Vatican Museums.

Fig. 3: Achilles at the fountainhouse pursuing Troilos, and Polyxena, Athenian black-figure overlap Siana cup, attributed to the C Painter, ca. 575 BCE (side A). New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, 1901 (01.8.6). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Fig. 4: Tyrrhenian amphora, attributed to the Guglielmi Painter. Obverse: Herakles battling the Keryneian Hind, watched by Zeus and Athena and approached by Apollo and Artemis. Princeton University Art Museum, Carl Otto von Kienbusch, Jr., Memorial Collection Fund, 2001–218.

Fig. 5: Terracotta arula from Sicily, 550–540 BCE: Herakles and Triton crossing the sea. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © bpk, Paris v RMN-Grand Palais.

Fig. 6: Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. no. 253129. Kylix by the Sabouroff Painter, from Bettolle (formerly Passerini Collection): tondo. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana.

Fig. 7: Bronze krater: an assistant and a hero. Photo: Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei.

Fig. 8: Priam, from a Ransom of Hektor, fragment of a red-figure calyx krater attributed to the Black Fury Painter, Apulian, ca. 400–380 BCE. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920, 1920.195. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY.

Figs. 9–12: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Antikensammlungen V.I. 3209, fragmentary Attic red-figure loutrophoros from Athens attributed to the Manner of the Talos Painter, ca. 440–400 BCE. Photos: Johannes Laurentius. © bpk – Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin.

Fig. 13: Red-figure loutrophoros by the Painter of Bologna 228, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1170 (470–460 BCE). Photo: author. © Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Fig. 14: Metropolitan garland sarcophagus with Medea’s escape on Helios’ chariot. Toledo Museum of Art 2005.320.

Fig. 15: Fragment of the front long side of a Metropolitan ‘Meerwesen’ sarcophagus. Indiana University Art Museum 66.27.

Figs. 16–18: Metropolitan child’s circus sarcophagus, once Rome, Palazzo Barberini, then lost, and now Toledo 2008.129: Fig 16: front side; Fig. 17: left short side; Fig. 18: right short side.

Fig. 19: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1870a, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 20: Athens, Acropolis Museum 551a. Photo: author.

Fig. 21: Athens, Acropolis Museum 552. Photo: author.

Fig. 22: Athens, Acropolis Museum 556. Photo: author.

Fig. 23: Athens, Acropolis Museum 555. Photo: author.

Fig. 24: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1979, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 25: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1882a, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 26: Athens, Acropolis Museum 554. Photo: author.

Fig. 27: Athens, Acropolis Museum 553. Photo: author.

Fig. 28a–b: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 661, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 29: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1860a, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 30a–b: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1934a, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 31a–b: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 1871a, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 32: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 2068, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 33: Athens, NA 1957 Aa 2195, from the sanctuary of the Nymph. Photo: author.

Fig. 34: Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire R 258, side A. Photo: Museum.

Fig. 35: Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire R 258, side B. Photo: Museum.

Fig. 36: Eros capturing a hare. Attic red-figure pelike attributed to the Tyszkiewicz Painter, ca. 470. Reproduced with permission from the Wilcox Classical Museum, The University of Kansas. Photo: Author.

Fig. 37: Man walking his dog. Reverse of fig. 36. Photo: author.

Fig. 38: Cat. No. 25, Side A, Apollo and Artemis with Poseidon and Hermes. Bryn Mawr College Art and Artifact Collections, 2011.17.2. Gift of Doreen Canaday Spitzer, Class of 1936. Photo Bryn Mawr College Art & Artifact Collections.

Fig. 39: Cat. No. 25. Side B. Pederastic courting Type γ. As color fig. 38.

Fig. 40: Attic red-figure pelike of the Meidian circle, private collection. Adonis and Aphrodite with her retinue. Photo: owner.

Fig. 41: Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209: the François Vase. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali della Toscana.

Fig. 42: Châtillon sur Seine, Collections du Musée du Pays Châtillonais – Trésor de Vix: the Vix Krater. Photo: Museum.

Fig. 43: Attic red-figure skyphos attributed to the Penelope Painter, ca. 440 BCE. Paris, Musée du Louvre G372. Architects and sacred olive tree. Photo: Hervé Lewan...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• H. Alan Shapiro: Bibliography
• Myth into Art
• Iconography of Mourning
• Art and Cult
• Courtship Scenes
• Narrative Strategies
• Bibliography
• Index
• Color Plates