DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8176#0038
32
Oenone, no apple, no Eris. Oenone and the apple are Alexandrian additions—the apple as the conventional love-apple,
Oenone to heighten the pathos of what has become a love-story. Eris and the wedding feast of Peleus came in when the
" Judgment " was linked to the Trojan war, with which it had primarily nothing to do. All this is matter of literary and
mythological interest; and only concerns us incidentally, as helping to get back to the original art type. What had Hieron to
go upon ? A glance at Plate XX. will show our earliest known art form—a form that occurs on upwards of a hundred black-
figured vases. There is, in fact, no commoner type. Hermes, holding his herald's staff, advances in front of the three
goddesses. Only one of them is characterised at all, and that the middle one (as Athene). In the Judgment of Paris, Paris
is absent. Now the early vase-painter was a story-teller before all things ; if he had wanted a fourth figure, he could easily
have drawn him., LAs he does not, one thing is clear—he is taking over a type made for another story. That type is the very
common one of Hermes leading the three Charites, or Graces. In this type, just to avoid monotony, the middle one of the
three Graces is often distinguished by pose and dress ; so here, in a fashion otherwise quite irrational, the middle one is
characterised. That she is characterised as Athene is merely due to the local pride of the vase-painter. In hunting out the
primitive art type, we come on the primitive meaning of the Judgment myth, which helps to account for the initial absence of
Paris. The Charites were gift-givers ; the three goddesses gift-givers at strife. Their contest was not a koKXio-tuov, a beauty
contest, but a contest of o-^eia, typical gifts, or tokens, just such a contest as took place between Poseidon and Athene. Later
this rivalry in gift-giving became a KaXkiariiov, a beauty contest, under the influence probably of the contests about beauty
among mortal Lesbian women.
It was no doubt owing to the influence of epic poetry that the figure of Paris was added, that the Judgment became the
Judgment of Paris ; but, even here, art borrowed an old type, the procession of worshippers approaching the seated god was
ready to hand. Everywhere an economy of artistic motives that makes one type serve two or more stories.
This economy might be traced in countless instances : the wrestling scheme of Peleus and Thetis (Plate XXIII.) is used
for Herakles and Nereus; the ambush scheme of Troilos and Achilles comes in for Peleus lurking to catch Thetis; the type of
the sleeping figure surprised serves (as in Plate XXXVI.) for a Maenad surprised by a Satyr, as well as for Ariadne deserted
by Theseus (Plate XXXV.) ; and, more surprising still, for the giant Alkyoneus surprised and slain by Herakles. Once a
type well established, it is surprising how it is kept up, with a reverence for the most trivial detail—e.g., in the Herakles and
Triton vase of Plate V., we note that Herakles is astride of the Triton, and that Herakles wears a quiver, the lid of which
falls back open, and shows the arrows. These two details appear in precisely the same way on a black-figured hydria in
Berlin. But, for all that, there is no trace or thought of copying. The artists, having a perfectly different space to fill,
compose their figures quite differently. They show their originality, not in innovating about petty details, but in boldly coiling
and twisting the Triton's tail into new patterns. The charge of plagiarism is unheard. Rarely indeed did an artist of the
fine period start clear with his myth or his genre scene, for richer for poorer he was bound to the typography behind him.
The greatest artists are not above clinging to black-figured traditions ; this has been already seen in the case of Euphronios and
Hieron (pp. 17 and 32). Spite of a life, a vigour, an originality that is almost effervescent, they are always and everywhere,
in genre as in mythology, "so careful of the type."
J. E. H.
Oenone, no apple, no Eris. Oenone and the apple are Alexandrian additions—the apple as the conventional love-apple,
Oenone to heighten the pathos of what has become a love-story. Eris and the wedding feast of Peleus came in when the
" Judgment " was linked to the Trojan war, with which it had primarily nothing to do. All this is matter of literary and
mythological interest; and only concerns us incidentally, as helping to get back to the original art type. What had Hieron to
go upon ? A glance at Plate XX. will show our earliest known art form—a form that occurs on upwards of a hundred black-
figured vases. There is, in fact, no commoner type. Hermes, holding his herald's staff, advances in front of the three
goddesses. Only one of them is characterised at all, and that the middle one (as Athene). In the Judgment of Paris, Paris
is absent. Now the early vase-painter was a story-teller before all things ; if he had wanted a fourth figure, he could easily
have drawn him., LAs he does not, one thing is clear—he is taking over a type made for another story. That type is the very
common one of Hermes leading the three Charites, or Graces. In this type, just to avoid monotony, the middle one of the
three Graces is often distinguished by pose and dress ; so here, in a fashion otherwise quite irrational, the middle one is
characterised. That she is characterised as Athene is merely due to the local pride of the vase-painter. In hunting out the
primitive art type, we come on the primitive meaning of the Judgment myth, which helps to account for the initial absence of
Paris. The Charites were gift-givers ; the three goddesses gift-givers at strife. Their contest was not a koKXio-tuov, a beauty
contest, but a contest of o-^eia, typical gifts, or tokens, just such a contest as took place between Poseidon and Athene. Later
this rivalry in gift-giving became a KaXkiariiov, a beauty contest, under the influence probably of the contests about beauty
among mortal Lesbian women.
It was no doubt owing to the influence of epic poetry that the figure of Paris was added, that the Judgment became the
Judgment of Paris ; but, even here, art borrowed an old type, the procession of worshippers approaching the seated god was
ready to hand. Everywhere an economy of artistic motives that makes one type serve two or more stories.
This economy might be traced in countless instances : the wrestling scheme of Peleus and Thetis (Plate XXIII.) is used
for Herakles and Nereus; the ambush scheme of Troilos and Achilles comes in for Peleus lurking to catch Thetis; the type of
the sleeping figure surprised serves (as in Plate XXXVI.) for a Maenad surprised by a Satyr, as well as for Ariadne deserted
by Theseus (Plate XXXV.) ; and, more surprising still, for the giant Alkyoneus surprised and slain by Herakles. Once a
type well established, it is surprising how it is kept up, with a reverence for the most trivial detail—e.g., in the Herakles and
Triton vase of Plate V., we note that Herakles is astride of the Triton, and that Herakles wears a quiver, the lid of which
falls back open, and shows the arrows. These two details appear in precisely the same way on a black-figured hydria in
Berlin. But, for all that, there is no trace or thought of copying. The artists, having a perfectly different space to fill,
compose their figures quite differently. They show their originality, not in innovating about petty details, but in boldly coiling
and twisting the Triton's tail into new patterns. The charge of plagiarism is unheard. Rarely indeed did an artist of the
fine period start clear with his myth or his genre scene, for richer for poorer he was bound to the typography behind him.
The greatest artists are not above clinging to black-figured traditions ; this has been already seen in the case of Euphronios and
Hieron (pp. 17 and 32). Spite of a life, a vigour, an originality that is almost effervescent, they are always and everywhere,
in genre as in mythology, "so careful of the type."
J. E. H.