Book contents
- Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art
- Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations and Translations
- Chapter One Rhetoric, Innovation, and the Courts
- Chapter Two Narrative in the Telephos Frieze
- Chapter Three Personification in the Archelaos Relief
- Chapter Four Ekphrasis in Sosos’s Unswept Room Mosaic
- Chapter Five Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Chapter Three - Personification in the Archelaos Relief
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2020
- Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art
- Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations and Translations
- Chapter One Rhetoric, Innovation, and the Courts
- Chapter Two Narrative in the Telephos Frieze
- Chapter Three Personification in the Archelaos Relief
- Chapter Four Ekphrasis in Sosos’s Unswept Room Mosaic
- Chapter Five Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Summary
When the modern spectator tries to work out the imagery on the Archelaos Relief (Fig. 3.1), she quickly realizes that it thwarts a straightforward interpretation. Consisting of a lower interior scene surmounted by an upper mountainous landscape, the Archelaos Relief produces a constructed space that looks quite different from most ancient representations of the real world. The relief’s directed composition, moreover, draws the spectator’s eye up and down through its many levels, zigzag or boustrophedon fashion. And, what is more, the relief explicitly announces its rhetorical technique. For not only does it name an artist, Archelaos of Priene, it also glosses the figures in its bottom scene: personifications of abstract concepts.
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- Rhetoric and Innovation in Hellenistic Art , pp. 67 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020