DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0218
198
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
CHAP.
brought by him to Athens. For example, on a beautiful cup
from Corneto, of the middle of the fifth century, on which is
represented the shooting down of the suitors of Penelope by
Odysseus, we have a composition quite of Polygnotan character.
Polygnotus is known to have painted for the pronaos of the tem-
ple of Athena Areia in Plataeae the subject of the shooting
of the suitors.1 And the relation of the vase to the great
painter is further assured by the form QAYSSC inscribed on
the vase in place of the Homeric, OSvaaev? or the Attic
'OXuTTew?, Q for O being a peculiarity of the Parian and
Thasian alphabet. (Fig. 53.) With this vase goes another
cup from Chiusi2 on one side of which is represented the wash-
ing of the feet of Odysseus, by Eurycleia, and on the other
Penelope at her loom. Here it is uncertain whether the first
letter of the inscribed name of the hero is O or CI. On another
Attic vase of the same period on which the sacrifice of an ox is
represented in a very stately and dignified style,3 we actually
find the signature of a Polygnotus, who can scarcely be the
great painter himself, but may well be a relative or dependant
whom he brought with him to Athens.
In publishing the reliefs which adorned the Lycian tomb
at Trysa, now in the Museum of Vienna, Benndorf cited the
vase of Corneto just mentioned, and found a close likeness
between its paintings and the Trysa relief which represents in a
more complete way the slaying of the suitors.4 The likeness is
indeed beyond denial, and furnishes support for Benndorf's
view that in the reliefs from Trysa we may find considerable
traces of the influence of the great group of painters at Athens.
In another example recently worked out by Professor Loewy
we may discover with still higher probability the influence on
sculpture of Polygnotan painting. Most classical scholars are
1 Pausan., IX., 1. The vase is published in Mori. d. Inst., IX., 53.
2 Mori. d. Inst., IX., 42. 3 Klein, Vasen mit Meistersig., p. 199.
4 Das Heroon von Giolbaschi-Tnjsa, pp. 102, 105.
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
CHAP.
brought by him to Athens. For example, on a beautiful cup
from Corneto, of the middle of the fifth century, on which is
represented the shooting down of the suitors of Penelope by
Odysseus, we have a composition quite of Polygnotan character.
Polygnotus is known to have painted for the pronaos of the tem-
ple of Athena Areia in Plataeae the subject of the shooting
of the suitors.1 And the relation of the vase to the great
painter is further assured by the form QAYSSC inscribed on
the vase in place of the Homeric, OSvaaev? or the Attic
'OXuTTew?, Q for O being a peculiarity of the Parian and
Thasian alphabet. (Fig. 53.) With this vase goes another
cup from Chiusi2 on one side of which is represented the wash-
ing of the feet of Odysseus, by Eurycleia, and on the other
Penelope at her loom. Here it is uncertain whether the first
letter of the inscribed name of the hero is O or CI. On another
Attic vase of the same period on which the sacrifice of an ox is
represented in a very stately and dignified style,3 we actually
find the signature of a Polygnotus, who can scarcely be the
great painter himself, but may well be a relative or dependant
whom he brought with him to Athens.
In publishing the reliefs which adorned the Lycian tomb
at Trysa, now in the Museum of Vienna, Benndorf cited the
vase of Corneto just mentioned, and found a close likeness
between its paintings and the Trysa relief which represents in a
more complete way the slaying of the suitors.4 The likeness is
indeed beyond denial, and furnishes support for Benndorf's
view that in the reliefs from Trysa we may find considerable
traces of the influence of the great group of painters at Athens.
In another example recently worked out by Professor Loewy
we may discover with still higher probability the influence on
sculpture of Polygnotan painting. Most classical scholars are
1 Pausan., IX., 1. The vase is published in Mori. d. Inst., IX., 53.
2 Mori. d. Inst., IX., 42. 3 Klein, Vasen mit Meistersig., p. 199.
4 Das Heroon von Giolbaschi-Tnjsa, pp. 102, 105.