Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art

Description

This is a book about Homer, myth and art. The Iliad and Odyssey so dominate our view of ancient Greece that our natural reaction on viewing certain works of early Greek art is to identify them as 'scenes from Homer'. However, Anthony Snodgrass argues that, so far from 'illustrating' the Homeric poems, these works very rarely show signs of acquaintance with the Iliad or Odyssey, seldom even choosing their subject-matter from them. When the subjects do overlap, the artists occasionally give positive signs of preferring a non-Homeric version of the episode. He then attempts to explain why this should be so: despite Homer's unique standing in antiquity, the artists inhabited an independent world, where their own inspirations and concerns dominated their production. It is only the traditional dominance of the literary study of antiquity which has hidden this from us.

'Snodgrass's bid for the independence and artistic quality of the Geometric painter is closely argued and outlined with a scholarly eye for detail and a characteristic clarity of expression which makes it comprehensible to expert and non-expert alike ... undoubtedly a radical reinterpretation, he has valuably opened up the discussion of this difficult but vital period in Greek art.' Art History