middle helladic to the late helladic i shaft graves 15 страница

discuss the Hellenistic baroque style in more detail in Chapter 14, but one can readily see that this style makes the Gigantomachy more dramatic, violent, and imposing than the other two gigan- tomachies, even though the basic storyline is similar.

narrative time and space

As we have seen, a narrative needs to suggest a sequence of actions in time and space. The place does not have to be geographically specific, but the viewer needs to understand how the figures move through space to interact with each other. This can be simple, as with two warriors on a simple ground­line, but it can also be more complex, as we saw in the classical Gigantomachy (Figure 9.3). A time sequence is more challenging. In movies or videos, time is built into the experience of the medium, so that story time and viewer time run together, although not always synchronously. For Greek artists, multiple pictures or complex compositions could provide an element of storytelling time like movies or cartoons. However, most narrative pictures are single panels, leaving an artist the choice between showing a snapshot of time and action or cheating time and space to show multiple actions or moments.

An amphora by Exekias depicting the story of the suicide of Ajax is an example of the snapshot approach, called a monoscenic narrative: action taking place at a single time and place (Figure 9.5). We have already seen on the shield band from Olympia (see Figure 8.16, page 198) a very late moment in the story, when the Greeks discover the body of Ajax impaled on his sword. In that panel, the

action is nearly finished except for the decision about what type of funeral to give Ajax. In his picture, Exekias has chosen an earlier moment when Ajax is planting his sword and patting the sand to hold it in place. The palm tree signifies a beach location, and it has been suggested that its bent form per­haps symbolizes the hero’s sorrow (Hurwit 1982, 198 and 1983; contra Madden 1983). Certainly his distinctive and unusual action leads one to recall from our knowledge of the story and other pictures that he will throw himself on the sword and die at a moment in the future.

By showing this moment, Exekias makes us think even more about events leading up to this scene. Since Ajax has already removed his armor, we know that he is not going to battle. We can then ponder the reasons for this: a dispute over who was to get the armor of the dead Achilles, Ajax’s proud anger at the award going to the eloquent Odysseus in a vote of the army, his attempt to kill the leaders of the Greeks in retaliation, and the madness brought on Ajax by Athena that caused him to kill a flock of sheep instead. We now see the moment when he has regained his senses and takes what he feels is the only honorable course of action left to him. None of these events is in the picture, but the armor cues us that he is no longer the warrior who led the Greeks in battle against the Trojans and rescued the body of Achilles, and reminds us of the prize of Achilles’s armor that he lost. Exekias’s style is not sufficiently naturalistic to suggest emotion and thought through Ajax’s facial expression, but the choice of action, gesture, pose, and objects in the picture presents a narrative that truly deserves the label tragic, even if the dramatic medium of tragedy itself had not yet been developed.

Artists can also include in a composition objects or actions that belong to different places or times to make more direct reference to the passage of narrative time. In a well-known example in the scholarly literature, a black-figure kylix in Boston shows the story of Odysseus and Kirke (Figure 9.6). As we know the story from Odyssey 10.222-385, Odysseus arrived at an island and some of his men, led by Eurylochos, went to seek hospitality at the home of Kirke. She welcomed them with a drugged drink, and then turned them into pigs with a touch of her wand. Eurylochos escaped and ran back to tell Odysseus. The hero, after eating an herb that Hermes gave him, went to the house and drank the potion, but did not turn into an animal. After threatening Kirke, he went to bed with her. Eventually, Kirke turned the sailors back into their human form and they, along with Odysseus, stayed on the island for a while before continuing the journey home.

Looking at the picture, we see in the center a nude Kirke mixing her potion in a wine cup in her left hand. In front of her is a figure with a human body and a boar’s head, a sailor who has already drunk the mixture and is transforming into an animal. Behind him are two other sailors who also have animal legs in place of arms, having drunk the potion earlier. These hybrid sailor-animals differ from the pigs in the Odyssey account, but are an effective visual cue, reminding the viewer of their metamorphosis (Davies 1986). At the far right, a completely human figure runs away, the sailor Eurylochos. On the left side of the cup we see two more hybrids, one with a lion’s head and human arms running away, and another boar-sailor behind Kirke. In between is a figure charg­ing with drawn sword, who could only be Odysseus. This, however, introduces a narrative anom­aly, in that Eurylochos has not yet got away to tell Odysseus what has happened. Thus, actions from two different times of the story are shown in the picture, a pastiche called synoptic narra­tion. This inconsistency of time and place is not unusual, and is a way for artists to compensate for the limitations of the medium and object in showing time and action. We have already seen examples of it in the Temple of Artemis at Korfu, where Medusa holds her posthumous children (see Figure 8.3, page 185), and the amphora from Eleusis in which the supposedly unconscious Polyphemos is seated with a cup still in his hand while Odysseus drives a stake into his eye (see Figure 6.15, page 144). It is much less common after the archaic period, but examples can be found in all periods.

More complex or larger-scale pictures can introduce multiple moments or places to show more of a story. In a long frieze, for example, the early stage of an action can be shown at one end and a later moment at another without having to repeat any figures. This progressive narrative type we have already discussed in the battle scene on the Chigi olpe (see Figure 6.11, page 141). Viewing the scene from left to right, we can see a call to arms, the formation of the rank, the march forward, and then finally the engagement in battle. The Parthenon frieze uses the same type of approach, with youths assembling their horses to prepare for a procession on the west side of the frieze, the cavalry riding forward in procession on the north and south sides (see Figure 1.1, page 2), and the ending presentation of the peplos to Athena on the east side (see Figure 10.15, page 250). Whether or not this is a unified subject or several, as we shall discuss in the next chap­ter, as one walked along the Parthenon the actions of the narrative would unfold in time with the viewer’s progress.

One could also arrange a frieze that showed multiple actions taking place simultaneously but in different places, a panoramic narrative. A red-figure hydria by the Kleophrades painter, for example, shows five scenes of the Iliupersis on a frieze stretching all the way around the shoulder, making it impossible to see the entire composition at once (Figure 9.7). The center scene shows Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, about to strike Priam, the king of Troy, with his sword. The king’s grandson, Astyanax, lies dead in his lap and blood flows from wounds on both. Priam sits on an altar, which would be the household altar in the palace, grasping his head in a gesture of mourning. To the left, the warrior Ajax, son of Oileus (or the lesser Ajax to distinguish him from the other, greater Ajax who committed suicide), strides to our right and grabs a nude woman clutching a statue. This is the rape of Kassandra, the daughter of Priam, who had sought refuge in the Temple of Athena. Out of sight on the left one would see Aeneas fleeing Troy with his father and son. To the right of Priam, we see a woman armed only with a pestle attacking a fully armed Greek warrior, who cowers before her attack. She is usually identified as Andromache, the wife of Hektor and mother of Astyanax, whose name literally means “man-fighter" To the far right one would see two warriors helping up a seated old woman. They are the sons of Theseus, Akamas and Damophon, rescuing their grandmother Aithra, who had been forced to serve as Helen’s slave.

All of these scenes of Troy’s fall could have occurred at the same time narratively, but they clearly took place in different locations. Turning the vase to view one scene after another, one gets a more vivid impression than in a lengthy poem of the scale and scope of the carnage in the destruction of a

city and its people. Other versions of this panoramic strategy can also be seen in the east frieze of the Siphnian Treasury, where Achilles and Memnon fight at Troy while the gods debate their fate on Mount Olympos (see Figure 8.1, page 183).

If there is sufficient room on a monument or object, one could also show multiple scenes that repeat one or more characters, with each action set at a different time (and possibly location). The interior of a mid-fifth-century cup shows six deeds of Theseus in the circular frieze, and a seventh in the central tondo (Figure 9.8). In each case Theseus is repeated, signaling that we have a new major action at a different time than the scenes on either side. Five of the scenes take place on his way to Athens, while the scene with the bull of Marathon in the bottom of the cup takes place after his arrival, as does the Minotaur episode in the tondo. Since each of his opponents is different, there is a sequence of both time and place on this cup. The figures in the scenes overlap, and this lack of visual division gives the name continuous narration to this composition. Turning to the metopes of the Athenian Treasury from the last chapter (see Figure 8.7, page 189), we find some of the same scenes, but now each composition is framed in its own panel. This approach with separate framed scenes is called cyclical narration, but features the same approach to character, time, and space as continuous narrative.

Figure 5.20 (page 119) or Figure 5.21 (page 120). In this position, one could not see the entire picture, only its upper section. Only when the cup is empty could one readily hold it up to view the picture more clearly, either before the wine is poured, while getting a refill, or after drinking. The cup held by Kirke is located at the center, where one would put one’s lips to drink from the real kylix. It is a playful irony, then, that the sailors have already turned into animals after drinking from Kirke’s cup, and we could consider the placement of Kirke’s cup to be a reminder to the drinker of the power of Dionysos’s gift, to bring euphoria but also chaos. The scene on the kylix’s other side holds a similar caution, showing Polyphemos in the center getting drunk on wine provided by Odysseus, which will lead to the hero blinding the Cyclops after he passes out.

Other guests in the room would be able to see the picture on the other side of a cup since it would be tilted when drinking, whereas only the drinker could see an interior picture, such as the Theseus scenes in Figure 9.8. Viewing them, however, would not be for long since the cup would have to be quickly leveled after sipping or risk spilling. The pictures, then, are only seen in glimpses and in motion over the course of a social occasion like the symposion. This actually makes the placement of the Minotaur scene a clever artistic choice, in that the picture would be covered with wine until drinking, when it would emerge before the viewer as Theseus emerges from the door of the dark labyrinth.

An artist can also use the three-dimensional quality of an object to emphasize a point about the narrative. In Chapter 5 we saw a skyphos that showed Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, seated in front of a loom with their son Telemachos (see Figure 5.19, page 118). Penelope’s head rests on her hand in a pose that has been interpreted as brooding or pensive. Certainly she is in a difficult situation because of the demands of dozens of suitors for her to declare Odysseus dead and to pick one of them as her new hus­band. The other side of the cup shows Odysseus dis­guised as a beggar at the door to the house, having his feet washed by an old woman who was once his nurse (Figure 9.9). She realizes that the beggar is Odysseus by a scar on his leg from a childhood boar hunt, and she looks up at him in recognition. She is ordered to keep his identity a secret, as it is part of Odysseus’s scheme to kill the suitors, who are armed and outnumber him and his son. The placement of the scenes on the skyphos means that the two scenes cannot be seen at the same time. While the viewer becomes aware that Penelope is to be reunited with Odysseus by turning the skyphos, she cannot see what is going to happen or realize that Odysseus has arrived.

These examples show that a viewer may only be able to see part of a narrative, and that its composition may be arranged to take advantage of that circumstance. We have already seen in architectural sculpture how the viewer can be engaged with the narrative by the position of the figures. On the Siphnian Treasury, the viewer is on the side of Achilles and the gods in the friezes above walking up the Sacred Way (see Figure 7.15, page 171; Figure 8.1, page 183; Figure 9.1, page 212). On the Parthenon frieze, the stages of the procession and ritual unfold as the viewer walks along the building, with both art and viewer heading toward the entrance to the naos on the east side of the building (see Figure 1.1, page 2; Figure 10.15, page 250). A viewer could also be put into the narrative itself, as is the case with the Tyrannicides set up in the Agora in 477/6 все
(see Figure 5.9, page 108). This group shows a man (Aristogeiton) and youth (Harmodios) charging out of the crowd during the Panathenaia to slay the tyrant Hipparchos in the Agora. Standing in front of the statue, which is a primary viewing point and where the inscription would be read, the viewer is put into the position of the tyrant or crowd of the Panathenaic procession, and so becomes part of a reenactment of the original event and an actor in the drama.

These examples demonstrate that the kinds of activities in which viewers engage while looking at a visual narrative vary, from drinking at a symposion to a religious procession to conducting busi­ness in the agora. To these we can add a funerary context, which would include objects buried as grave goods, the commemoration of the dead by a tomb marker, and objects left as offerings at the tomb. A specific narrative scene, such as the blinding of Polyphemos, would not necessarily have the same meaning in a funerary context as it would in a symposion. Whereas the kylix with scenes of Kirke and Polyphemos reflects upon the symposion and drinking (see Figure 9.6), the same story on the Eleusis amphora (see Figure 6.15, page 144) would have to be interpreted in light of its use either as a grave marker, likely its original purpose, or as a burial container. We then have to consider atti­tudes toward death and the triumph of heroes, whose memory is perpetuated by the narratives of their deeds, as factors for interpreting a scene (Osborne 1988). Context, then, makes each narration, that is the telling and reception of the story, potentially unique.

art and literature

In this chapter and earlier we have had to summarize stories based on literary sources like the Iliad or Odyssey in order to analyze how the artist has chosen to construct the visual narrative. This is unavoidable for us, but it does create an interpretive problem. When comparing pictures and texts, there is a tendency today to look at images as illustrations of a text, rather than as narrative works in their own right. However, it is unlikely that any artist read a complete Iliad or other poem or play, or would have consulted texts when designing a picture, at least before the fourth century. The poems and plays that we have were performed publicly and so could have been known to both artist and viewer. However, in many cases the earliest narrative picture of a story predates the earliest literary version that survives, making problematic our use of later literary sources to explain early images. Indeed, both poet and artist developed their narratives from the vast repertory of stories belonging to Greek culture from the earliest days, and then altered these to create narratives that suited their purpose, sometimes with new details or actions. This means that the “facts” of some surviving liter­ary accounts are not consistent with one another, or with the surviving pictorial narratives either. Unfortunately, the oral culture that sustained this rich narrative repertory is lost to us, so we must cautiously rely on literary sources while looking at the pictures but keep in mind that the artist did not rely on these same sources.

We can look at an example of the narrative differences between texts and images by turning to the beginning of the Iliad and the story of Briseis being taken from Achilles. To paraphrase, the Greek army is dying of a plague sent by Apollo, who is angry that the leader of the Greeks, Agamemnon, has taken as a war prize and concubine Chryseis, the daughter of the priest of Apollo. In order to save the army, he must give her back, an action that Achilles urges. Agamemnon, however, is angry at being without a war prize and so threatens to take the war prize of Achilles, Briseis. Achilles’s anger leads him first to threaten Agamemnon and then to withdraw to his encampment, vowing not to fight anymore. Later, Agamemnon sends two heralds to take Briseis away:

They [the heralds] went against their will beside the beach of the barren salt sea, and came to the shelters and the ships of the Myrmidons.

The man himself they found beside his shelter and his black ship sitting. And Achilleus took no joy at all when he saw them.... (1.327-330)

[Achilles speaks to the heralds and orders Patroklos to fetch Briseis]

He [Patroklos] led forth from the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks and gave her

to be taken away; and they walked back beside the ships of the Achaians,

and the woman all unwilling went with them still. But Achilleus

weeping went and sat in sorrow apart from his companions

beside the beach of the grey sea looking out on the infinite water. (1.346-350)

(Homer, Iliad, tr. Lattimore)

The poet creates a vivid scene that emphasizes the anger and grief of Achilles together with the reluc­tant participation of the heralds and Briseis.

The scene is rarely shown in Greek art, but appears on a red-figure kylix in the British Museum (Figure 9.10). On the left side of the picture we see the two heralds flanking Briseis and leading her away. On the other side of the cup, the trio is repeated, now reaching the tent of Agamemnon, an example of cyclical narrative with the handles dividing the scenes. This arrival scene, though, is not mentioned in the Iliad. As Briseis and the heralds exit to our left, the right half of the picture shows the tent of Achilles, with two wooden posts supporting a woven covering. Two adult men stand to either side, while inside is a beardless figure wrapped almost completely in a himation. The right hand grasps the front of the head in a gesture that is like the female mourners at a funeral pulling their hair (see Figure 4.8, page 79 and Figure 5.26, page 125).

other side is a further reference from wedding proces­sions, in which the house of the groom is the destina­tion. It is possible, given the rarity of the scene, that the artist may have been inspired by a performance of the Iliad in representing this story, but there might be other sources or reasons, whether literary or having to do with contemporary culture or circumstances. Regardless of the source of inspiration, the painter uses a visual language, in particular funerary and wed­ding imagery, that is independent of whatever textual sources were known either to the artist or to the viewer and creates an autonomous pictorial narrative. The wrath of Achilles is strong, and the atypical composi­tion of the narrative captures that point.

Although dramatic performances in Athens were a key element of fifth-century Athenian culture, they are very limited instances of the direct influence of a play on the representation of a narrative in vase paint­ing. There are, however, some vase paintings that appear to be inspired by dramas in fourth-century southern Italy. Interestingly, this was also a period and place where dramas first produced in fifth-century Athens by poets such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were revived on local stages. Some of these south Italian vases, which we will discuss more broadly in Chapter 12, seem to be related to surviving plays, although we have to consider that it is the per­formance of the play rather than the text which might be the source. For example, a Lucanian pelike attributed to the Choephoroi Painter and dated to about 350 все recalls the opening scene of Aeschylus’s play Libation Bearers (Choephoroi) (Figure 9.11). In the opening scene of the play, set at the tomb of Agamemnon, we see his son Orestes visiting the tomb with his friend Pylades. They hide when Orestes’s sister Elektra comes to bring her own offerings to the tomb. She notices that someone else has been there and discovers a lock of hair that is like hers. After this Orestes steps out and reveals himself to her, as well as his plot to avenge their father’s death.

The pelike shows a three-step tomb with a pillar on top. On the pillar is a krater and on the steps are a hydria and lekythos, for washing the tomb and leaving an offering of oil. Ribbons and an athlete’s strigil and aryballos are tied to the pillar. Earlier offerings appear to be scattered on the ground and lower steps. Elektra is in front of the tomb, but rather than standing to make an offering, she is seated on the steps with her head in her hand like Penelope (see Figure 5.19, page 118). This pose, which is found in representations of Penelope in fifth- and fourth-century art, would be well known to viewers and would evoke Elektra’s isolation and forlorn hope. This is a good visual choice for Elektra, who has to live in the household of her adulterous mother and uncle Aigisthos, lovers who murdered her father. The appearance of Orestes, as yet unknown to her, will be her deliverance. The painter has made use of three-dimensional representation of the picture space to show Orestes with a phiale, unseen behind and to the side of the tomb in the landscape background. While all of this can be related to the play, Pylades and an attendant for Elektra are missing. The male figure on the right is not Pylades but Hermes, as identified by his kerykeion and hat. Hermes does not appear in the play, although he is invoked in the opening speech of Orestes: “Hermes, lord of the dead, who watch over the powers of my fathers, be my savior and stand by my claim” (Aesch., Cho. 1-2, tr. Lattimore). Visually, the painter effectively represents the

act of making an offering while invoking a god’s help by showing Orestes holding the phiale, while Hermes, unseen by either Orestes or Elektra, offers a wreath toward the tomb of Agamemnon as if to fulfill the plea.

All of the pictures that can be associated with this scene in south Italian pottery show some degree of variation from the play and each other (Taplin 2007, 49-57). Perhaps the revival of older plays stimulated an interest in paintings showing selected scenes, making a closer connection between art and literature than is typical. But even here in the late classical period, paintings are still adaptations that draw upon motifs known to viewers through other visual narratives, like the pose of Penelope, to convey a specific sense of the narrative.

There are some pots that more self-consciously show a play as it is being performed, but these are usually comedies. For example, the krater painted by Asteas in Poseidonia/Paestum shows two actors in padded costumes, fake phalluses, and masks pulling at the legs of an old miser who clings to a chest containing his hoard (see Figure 12.21, page 310). The figures stand on an elevated platform with columns in front, like the front of a stage, and a door to the side leads off stage. This is unlike the circular orchestra of the Greek theater, like that at Epidauros (see Figure 12.3, page 291), and perhaps represents a different type of local performance setting.