Image of the artist in archaic and classical Greece : art, poetry, and subjectivity, The
Vase-painting, Greek Greek poetry Art and literature Subjectivity in art Subjectivity in literature Arts, Greek Greece
Cambridge University Press
2016
EISBN 1316455254
Introduction: "I am Odysseus".
1. Smikros and Euphronios : pictorial alter ego.
2. Archilochos, the fictional creator-protagonist, and Odysseus.
3. Hipponax and his make-believe artists.
4. Hephaistos in epic : analog of Odysseus and antithesis to Thersites.
5. Pictorial subjectivity and the Shield of Achilles on the Francois vase.
6. Frontality, self-reference, and social hierarchy : three Archaic vase-paintings.
7. Writing and invention in the vase-painting of Euphronios and his circle.
Epilogue: Persuasion, deception, and artistry on a red-figure cup.
This book explores the persona of the artist in Archaic and Classical Greek art and literature. Guy Hedreen argues that artistic subjectivity, first expressed in Athenian vase-painting of the sixth century BCE and intensively explored by Euphronios, developed alongside a self-consciously constructed persona of the poet. He explains how poets like Archilochos and Hipponax identified with the wily Homeric character of Odysseus as a prototype of the successful narrator, and how the lame yet resourceful artist-god Hephaistos is emulated by Archaic vase-painters such as Kleitias. In lyric poetry and pictorial art, Hedreen traces a widespread conception of the artist or poet as socially marginal, sometimes physically imperfect, but rhetorically clever, technically peerless, and a master of fiction. Bringing together in a sustained analysis the roots of subjectivity across media, this book offers a new way of studying the relationship between poetry and art in ancient Greece.
1. Smikros and Euphronios : pictorial alter ego.
2. Archilochos, the fictional creator-protagonist, and Odysseus.
3. Hipponax and his make-believe artists.
4. Hephaistos in epic : analog of Odysseus and antithesis to Thersites.
5. Pictorial subjectivity and the Shield of Achilles on the Francois vase.
6. Frontality, self-reference, and social hierarchy : three Archaic vase-paintings.
7. Writing and invention in the vase-painting of Euphronios and his circle.
Epilogue: Persuasion, deception, and artistry on a red-figure cup.
This book explores the persona of the artist in Archaic and Classical Greek art and literature. Guy Hedreen argues that artistic subjectivity, first expressed in Athenian vase-painting of the sixth century BCE and intensively explored by Euphronios, developed alongside a self-consciously constructed persona of the poet. He explains how poets like Archilochos and Hipponax identified with the wily Homeric character of Odysseus as a prototype of the successful narrator, and how the lame yet resourceful artist-god Hephaistos is emulated by Archaic vase-painters such as Kleitias. In lyric poetry and pictorial art, Hedreen traces a widespread conception of the artist or poet as socially marginal, sometimes physically imperfect, but rhetorically clever, technically peerless, and a master of fiction. Bringing together in a sustained analysis the roots of subjectivity across media, this book offers a new way of studying the relationship between poetry and art in ancient Greece.
