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Poet and painter in eighth-century Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

A.M. Snodgrass
A.M. Snodgrass
Affiliation:
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge
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Extract

The relationship between poetry and the visual arts is seldom close and never simple. But special difficulties attend the study of it in the eighth century before Christ in Greece, when evidence is not only in excessively short supply but, when it does come, is almost by definition ambiguous. On the whole question of the interpretation of Late Geometric vase-painting and other eighth-century art, there are well-established opposing positions: each new discovery finds a different interpretation on the part of what may be called the optimists – those who seek for correspondences between the Homeric epics and the visual arts – and of the sceptics, who habitually argue that there is no evidence for anything of the kind. Each party appears to have found an outlet for the promulgation of its view, inasmuch as many general or semi-popular accounts of Geometric and other early Greek art present it as having a major mythological content derived from epic poetry; while many closer scholarly studies, deploying an array of iconographical learning and strict logic, nowadays reach the opposite conclusion, that there is little or no narrative content of any kind, mythological or otherwise, and no significant contact with epic, until the end of the Geometric period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 25 , 1979 , pp. 118 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

NOTES

1. For example, Schefold, K., Myth and legend in early Greek art (1966) (original German edition 1964) 21–8Google Scholar; Schweitzer, B., Greek Geometric art (1971) (original German edition 1969) 56–7Google Scholar.

2. For example, Himmelmann-Wildschütz, N., ‘Erzählung und Figur in der archäischen Kunst’, AAWM 1967, 2. 73–101, esp. 83, 87Google Scholar; Fittschen, K., Untersuchungen zum Beginn der Sagendarstellungen bei den Griechen (1969)Google Scholar; Carter, J.M., ‘The beginnings of narrative art in the Greek Geometric period’, ABSA 67 (1972) 25–58, esp. 38-9Google Scholar.

3. ABSA 50 (1955) 38–50Google Scholar.

4. Coldstream, J.N., Geometric Greece (1977) 113, fig. 33bCrossRefGoogle Scholar; quotation, Gnomon 46 (1974) 395.Google Scholar

5. Two famous vases in the Vatican will serve as examples of each: respectively, the red-figure cup showing Jason disgorged by the dragon, Beazley, J.D., ARV ed. 2(1963)437.116Google Scholar; and the black-figure amphora with Achilles and Ajax playing dice, Beazley, , ABV (1956) 145.13Google Scholar.

6. Kirk, G.S., Myth, its meaning and functions in ancient and other cultures (1970) 238–41Google Scholar; cf. id.The nature of Greek myths (1974) 97–8.

7. The count is rendered approximate by the need to estimate the degree of conviction on the author's part. But rightly or wrongly I have included Fittschen's M 4, 7-8 (pp.68-75); L 32-3, 42 (76-88); SB 1-18 (111-28, esp. 126); GS 1 (129-31); SB 27-31, 35 (147-50); SB 39-44 (152-7); SB 55-7 (157-61); SB 63-5 (166-8); SB 72, 74, 80, 82-3, 88-90, 93-4, 98-107, 111-13, 115 (169-94); SB 118 (197-8). One might add that, even if one extended the period down to as late as 600, Fittschen's lists make clear that the strictly ‘Homeric’ scenes would still account for no more than 10% of the total.

8. These are SB 72, 83, 88-90, 93-4, 98-107.

9. ‘The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer’, JHS 98 (1978) 38–53, esp. n.9Google Scholar

10. Cf. Kirk, , The nature of Greek myth 180, 182.Google Scholar

11. Discussed by Kirk, , The songs of Homer (1962) 326–8, 348Google Scholar.

12. I am referring to Fittschen's (n.2) M 4 and M 8 (pp.72, 75).

13. The evidence is assembled most accessibly in Karageorghis, V., Salamis in Cyprus, Homeric, Hellenistic and Roman (1969) 26-8, 31-2, 70–2Google Scholar; 92, 94.

14. I am most grateful to Mr. A.F. Garvie of the University of Glasgow for first pointing this out to me; discussions can be found in Reinhardt, K., Die Ilias und ihr Dichter (1961) 349–77Google Scholar; and more briefly Willcock, M.M., ‘The funeral games of Patroclus’, BICS 20 (1973) 1–11Google Scholar, esp. 5.

15. See Coldstream, J.N., ‘Hero-cults in the age of Homer’, JHS 96 (1976) 8–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 10 for the anonymous inscription.

16. See respectively Cook, J.M., ‘Mycenae 1939-52: Part III, The Agamemnoneion’, ABSA 48 (1953) 30–68Google Scholar; Catling, H.W. in AR 22 (1975–1976) 14Google Scholar; 23 (1976-7) 35-42; Papadimitriou, J., ‘Anaskaphai en Braurôni’ PAAH 1955, 119Google Scholar; 1956, 76-7; 1957, 44-5; Picard, Ch., ‘L'hérôon de Phrontis au Sunion’, RA (6e série) 16 (juillet-septembre 1940) 5–28Google Scholar.

17. Hesiod, , The Works and Days, ed. West, M.L. (1977), Excursus I, 370–3Google Scholar; cf. 186 ad l. 141.

18. See Jeffery, L.H., The local scripts of Archaic Greece (1961) 68, 76 no.1Google Scholar; 235-6, 239, no.1; and 230, 233, no.1, respectively.

19. Cf. Webster, T.B.L., From Mycenae to Homer (1958) 145, 152Google Scholar.

20. Fittschen (n.2) 75, M 4, 7-8 and more vaguely M 5-6. His 71, n.375 gives useful references to earlier sceptical views.

21. Cook, R.M., The Greeks till Alexander (1961) 48Google Scholar.

22. Fragmenta Hesiodea, edd. Merkelbach, R. and West, M.L. (1967), fr. 17(a)Google Scholar.

23. Fittschen (n.2) 72 on M 7.

24. Uncharacteristically, Fittschen (n.2) 68, 70 on M 2 misses this vital detail.

25. A classic example would be the dinos Acropolis 606 (Beazley ABV 81.1 and The development of Attic black-figure (1951) pl.13, 1–2Google Scholar).

26. See Ahlberg, G., Prothesis and ekphora in Greek Geometric art (1971)Google Scholar.

27. Fittschen (n.2) 36-9 marshals their arguments with typical clarity.

28. Compare Ahlberg's candid remark in her Fighting on land and sea in Greek Geometric art (1971) 65Google Scholar.

29. See, for example, the krater fragment Paris A 517: Coldstream (n.4) 110, fig. 33a; Schweitzer (n.1) pl.36.

30. To appear in MDAI(A) 95 (1980)Google Scholar

31. See Guida, P. Cassola, Le arme difensive dei Micenei nelle figurazioni (Incunabula Graeca 56, 1974) 38–44Google Scholar.

32. Cypriot bowl, Otterlo inv. 50V: see most recently van Vloten, M. and Zadoks-Josephus-Jitta, A.N. in BABesch 48 (1973) 101Google Scholar, where possible but less obvious analogies in mainland Greek Geometric vase-painting are mentioned; Karageorghis, V. and des Gagniers, J., La céramique chypriote de style figuré: Âge du Fer (1974) Texte, 27Google Scholar.

33. Four quartets: Burnt Norton 44-5.