DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0195
156 TRANSLATION INTO MINOAN 'MINIATURE' PAINTING
spouse—a significant point of comparison with the scene on the ring—"Yea,
for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee to be son of Zeus.'*
We see here an abode rather of lieht than of darkness, and Virgil's
words2 indeed might also apply to the denizens of this Minoan After-
World :
Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo, solemque suum sua sidera norunt.
Translation ot Design into Miniature Fresco.
The highly picturesque character of this composition leads to the con-
clusion that in this, as in other cases, the Minoan engraver had taken over
his subject—much epitomized, no doubt, even in this elaborate example—from
an original design in colours on a plaster panel.3 We are led back indeed
to some masterpiece in fresco painting of the kind that once adorned the
Palace at Knossos, giving a still completer view of the abode of the
Blessed—itself perhaps an illustration of a yet earlier poetic version—much
as the celebrated painting of Odysseus in Hades by Polygnotos reflects in
the main the Homeric Nekyia.^ Of that painting, indeed, as it existed in
the Lesche at Delphi we have the very detailed description by Pausanias,5
and separate episodes are preserved in later adaptations,6 but the artistic
records do not reproduce the subject in any connected shape. In the design
on the ' Ring of Nestor', on the other hand, we obtain at least a partial
insight into the actual composition of a Minoan picture of the After-World
executed some eleven centuries earlier, and, from the elements at our
disposal, may even form a general idea of the colour scheme.
1 The Odyssey of Homer, Butcher and that vase painters freely adapted certain groups.
Lang, p. 67. The division into three zones was generally
- Aen. vi. 640 seqq. Virgil, as Malten {op. at, adopted by the earlier restorers of Polygnotos'
pp. 49, 55) has pointed out, makes Elysion picture, from Count Caylus onwards, based on
coincide with the twos eio-ejSwj' of the Orphic Pausanias' description. It thus appears in
religion (the counterpart of the tojtos ao-efidv). Watkiss Lloyd's adaptation of the restoration
3 See P. of M., i, p. 685 seqq. by Riepenhausen, published in the Mus. of
4 Though occasionally other epic sources, Classical Antiquities, vol. i (1851), p. 103
such as the Nostoi and AHnyas, were used, seqq., and Plate. The groups there are very
See F. Diimmler, Die Quellen zu Polygr.ots sporadic. Prof. Robert's better-known ar-
Nekyia {Rhein. Mus., N.F. 45 (1890), pp. rangement in Die Nekyia des Polygnot (1892),
178-202); and C. Robert, Die Nekyia des where the zone system is given up, still con-
Polygnot, p. 74 seqq. (Sechszehntes Hallisches veys a very disconnected impression. As to
Winckelmannsprogramm, 1892). the zone hypothesis, it may be observed that
5 Lib. x. c. 28. there is good evidence of arrangement in at
6 Cf. Frazer, Pausanias, vol. v, pp. 376, least two horizontal zones in the case of
377 : Prof. Robert, of. tit., p. 53, considers Minoan frescoes.
spouse—a significant point of comparison with the scene on the ring—"Yea,
for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem thee to be son of Zeus.'*
We see here an abode rather of lieht than of darkness, and Virgil's
words2 indeed might also apply to the denizens of this Minoan After-
World :
Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo, solemque suum sua sidera norunt.
Translation ot Design into Miniature Fresco.
The highly picturesque character of this composition leads to the con-
clusion that in this, as in other cases, the Minoan engraver had taken over
his subject—much epitomized, no doubt, even in this elaborate example—from
an original design in colours on a plaster panel.3 We are led back indeed
to some masterpiece in fresco painting of the kind that once adorned the
Palace at Knossos, giving a still completer view of the abode of the
Blessed—itself perhaps an illustration of a yet earlier poetic version—much
as the celebrated painting of Odysseus in Hades by Polygnotos reflects in
the main the Homeric Nekyia.^ Of that painting, indeed, as it existed in
the Lesche at Delphi we have the very detailed description by Pausanias,5
and separate episodes are preserved in later adaptations,6 but the artistic
records do not reproduce the subject in any connected shape. In the design
on the ' Ring of Nestor', on the other hand, we obtain at least a partial
insight into the actual composition of a Minoan picture of the After-World
executed some eleven centuries earlier, and, from the elements at our
disposal, may even form a general idea of the colour scheme.
1 The Odyssey of Homer, Butcher and that vase painters freely adapted certain groups.
Lang, p. 67. The division into three zones was generally
- Aen. vi. 640 seqq. Virgil, as Malten {op. at, adopted by the earlier restorers of Polygnotos'
pp. 49, 55) has pointed out, makes Elysion picture, from Count Caylus onwards, based on
coincide with the twos eio-ejSwj' of the Orphic Pausanias' description. It thus appears in
religion (the counterpart of the tojtos ao-efidv). Watkiss Lloyd's adaptation of the restoration
3 See P. of M., i, p. 685 seqq. by Riepenhausen, published in the Mus. of
4 Though occasionally other epic sources, Classical Antiquities, vol. i (1851), p. 103
such as the Nostoi and AHnyas, were used, seqq., and Plate. The groups there are very
See F. Diimmler, Die Quellen zu Polygr.ots sporadic. Prof. Robert's better-known ar-
Nekyia {Rhein. Mus., N.F. 45 (1890), pp. rangement in Die Nekyia des Polygnot (1892),
178-202); and C. Robert, Die Nekyia des where the zone system is given up, still con-
Polygnot, p. 74 seqq. (Sechszehntes Hallisches veys a very disconnected impression. As to
Winckelmannsprogramm, 1892). the zone hypothesis, it may be observed that
5 Lib. x. c. 28. there is good evidence of arrangement in at
6 Cf. Frazer, Pausanias, vol. v, pp. 376, least two horizontal zones in the case of
377 : Prof. Robert, of. tit., p. 53, considers Minoan frescoes.