Art & Myth in Ancient Greece, ch 3: Portraits of the Gods, 1st half

The Francois vase and an Attic vase by Sophilos both have similar processions of the gods to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Carpenter looks at each god in order in these processions and briefly summarizes their depictions in archaic and classical art. In the first half of this chapter (all I read so far), he looks at:

the gods walking on foot: Iris, Hestia, Demeter, Leto, Dionysus, nymphs, Horai, Hebe

the gods in chariots: Zeus and Hera, Poseidon and Amphitrite (and more later)

1) I am not enjoying this book and might give up on it. It's a really boring catalogue of images without any real analysis of the images or situating of the images in ancient culture or even art history. I think the book best works as a reference work if you want something shorter than LIMC.

If I do quit, I'll try to find something else on epic & ancient visual culture -- I would like to know more about it and presumably there's interesting work out there.

2) Some interesting details:

In 6th and 5th century art, Demeter almost exclusively only appears in Athenian art. Reminiscent of hDem's strongly Athenian focus.

Hera often appears seated with Zeus, including on the east frieze of the Parthenon. (image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/amthomson/4834909593)


3) Some recent high quality images of the procession on the Francois vase from flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/50233462973/in/photostream/












a lot of lovely stuff in these images. some thoughts and questions (which I would have hoped Carpenter would address):
  • again we have architecture (here the house of Peleus) bookending the horizontal register. Peleus' house has columns (outermost long and straight, inner ones tapering) and what appear to be metopes and triglyphs. Looks a bit like a temple -- but maybe that's a coincidence? and what's inside the house, past the open door?
  • both artistic signatures are found in this register (the most significant?)
  • with the exception of Dionysus, the male gods have plain black clothing with decorative edges; the goddesses and Dionysus have checkerboard like decoration across their clothing
  • why these gods? why this order? the movement from pedestrians to chariot-riders feels significant somehow -- like less significant to more significant
  • wedding of Peleus and Thetis another one of these stories that has great appeal, appearing in a range of media (lyric, images); but more or less absent from epic.





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