DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0220
200
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
chap.
Spartan home, in the simple Doric chiton open at the side:
the visibility of the breasts is only according to the custom of
painting at the time. The unpleasant suggestion of Euripides,
which is repeated in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, is probably
only a sensual misreading of a painted scene such as that on the
vase by the Athenian "man of the street." But if so, the source
of the mistake could not be a mere vase-painting; there must
have been at Athens a noted painting of which the vase-painting
is only a reflection: such a painting must surely have been one
of the great mural pictures of Polygnotus or one of his contem-
poraries, which thus represented the interposing of Aphrodite
between injured husband and recovered wife. It is to be ob-
served that according to another version of the myth, it was in
the temple of Aphrodite that the pair came to terms.
The conjecture just set forth may be regarded as definitely
justified by the fact that a closely similar group of four fig-
ures, Helen, Aphrodite, Eros, and Menelaus, with a statue of
Athena, is repeated on a pair of metopes of the Parthenon, un-
fortunately very much defaced (Fig. 54 b). As the group is
not confined to one metope, but runs over into two, it cannot
Fig. 54 6. — Metopes of Parthenon.
have been originally designed for the place it occupies: it must
be almost certainly taken over from some well-known work of
Athenian art; and the close relation which held between Phei-
dias and Polygnotus would make us look for the original of a
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART
chap.
Spartan home, in the simple Doric chiton open at the side:
the visibility of the breasts is only according to the custom of
painting at the time. The unpleasant suggestion of Euripides,
which is repeated in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, is probably
only a sensual misreading of a painted scene such as that on the
vase by the Athenian "man of the street." But if so, the source
of the mistake could not be a mere vase-painting; there must
have been at Athens a noted painting of which the vase-painting
is only a reflection: such a painting must surely have been one
of the great mural pictures of Polygnotus or one of his contem-
poraries, which thus represented the interposing of Aphrodite
between injured husband and recovered wife. It is to be ob-
served that according to another version of the myth, it was in
the temple of Aphrodite that the pair came to terms.
The conjecture just set forth may be regarded as definitely
justified by the fact that a closely similar group of four fig-
ures, Helen, Aphrodite, Eros, and Menelaus, with a statue of
Athena, is repeated on a pair of metopes of the Parthenon, un-
fortunately very much defaced (Fig. 54 b). As the group is
not confined to one metope, but runs over into two, it cannot
Fig. 54 6. — Metopes of Parthenon.
have been originally designed for the place it occupies: it must
be almost certainly taken over from some well-known work of
Athenian art; and the close relation which held between Phei-
dias and Polygnotus would make us look for the original of a