INTRODUCTION

Although crossover in the language of various visual genres has received some treatment in the case of Attic art, less attention has been paid to its regional manifestations. In this chapter I discuss characteristic cases of ‘dialogue’ between visual genres in Classical Boiotia. As a guiding thread, we shall employ scenes refl ecting social identities and gender roles on media comprised of local and imported figured vases, sculptures, and coroplasty. This discussion also includes some metal objects manufactured and imported from elsewhere, either because they refl ect Boiotian infl uence or because they were adopted and incorporated into Boiotia's visual culture.

Attika's northern neighbor, Boiotia, has a distinct regional character of its own in the Archaic and Classical periods. Various workshops operating within the confederacy produced artifacts in a variety of media from early on and under the infl uence of Corinth, Attika, and East Greece. Findspots include sanctuaries, but are mostly the necropoleis of Tanagra, Thebes, Rhitsona, Thespiae, and Akraiphia, where individual tombs were replete with ceramics and terracottas and often marked with stelai, which, unfortunately, were dispersed around the area. A combined study of pictures in all media offers a panoramic view of the epichoric ways of visual expression.

BRIDAL IMAGERY: POLYXENA AND HER SISTERS ON THE BRINK OF MARRIAGE

One cannot start a study across visual genres without mentioning cases where one medium provides visual references for another, but also where modern interpretations affect the understanding of both. The most characteristic example of such crossover in Boiotia is the grave stele of Polyxena, of local limestone and dating to the last decades of the fifth century BC (Fig. 16.1). A maiden in an unbelted peplos with overfold drawn up over the back of her head like a veil stands frontally,5 holding a statuette of a peplophoros. The statuette renders in stone a common type of Boiotian terracotta depicting a girl with loose, curly hair and high polos with a raised back terminating in three projections. The type's copious presence and seriation in fifth-century BC Boiotia suggests wide use and adherence to a sanctioned tradition (Fig. 16.2). Yet, its identification has remained debatable for a long time due to the interpretation of its peculiar polos as a divine attribute (see Chapter 15).