The Image of the Artist in Archaic and Classical Greece: Art, Poetry, and Subjectivity

This book explores the persona of the artist in Archaic and Classical Greek art and literature. Guy Hedreen argues that artistic subjectivity, first expressed in Athenian vase-painting of the sixth century BCE and intensively explored by Euphronios, developed alongside a self-consciously constructed persona of the poet. He explains how poets like Archilochos and Hipponax identified with the wily Homeric character of Odysseus as a prototype of the successful narrator, and how the lame yet resourceful artist-god Hephaistos is emulated by Archaic vase-painters such as Kleitias. In lyric poetry and pictorial art, Hedreen traces a widespread conception of the artist or poet as socially marginal, sometimes physically imperfect, but rhetorically clever, technically peerless, and a master of fiction. Bringing together in a sustained analysis the roots of subjectivity across media, this book offers a new way of studying the relationship between poetry and art in ancient Greece. INDICE: Introduction: 'I am Odysseus'; 1. Smikros and Euphronios: pictorial alter ego; 2. Archilochos, the fictional creator-protagonist, and Odysseus; 3. Hipponax and his make-believe artists; 4. Hephaistos in epic: analog of Odysseus and antithesis to Thersites; 5. Pictorial subjectivity and the Shield of Achilles on the François vase; 6. Frontality, self-reference, and social hierarchy: three Archaic vase-paintings; 7. Writing and invention in the vase-painting of Euphronios and his circle; Epilogue: persuasion, deception, and artistry on a red-figure cup.

• ISBN:
• Editorial: Cambridge University Press
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 408
• Fecha Publicación: 26/11/2015
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés