2011._The_Birth_of_an_Image._The_Paintin.pdf

The content of this essay has been presented in a series of public lectures given between 2006 and 2007 at various institutions, including the Institute of Fine Arts–NYU, Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University.

1. Vases in vase paintings: H. Gericke, Gefässdarstellungen auf griechischen Vasen (Berlin: Hessling, 1970); W. Oenbrink, “Ein Bild im Bild-Phänomen. Zur Darstellung figürlich dekorierter Vasen auf bemalten attischen Tongefässen,” Hephaistos 14 (1996):81–134; F. Lissarrague, Greek Vases. The Athenians and their Images, trans. K. Allen (New York: Riverside, 2001), p. 30; J. Neils, “Vases on Vases,” in Greek Vase Painting: Form, Figure, and Narrative, ed. P. G. Warden (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2004), pp. 28–34. Statues on vases: K. Schefold, “Statuen auf Vansebildern,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 52 (1937):30–75; B. Alroth, “Changing Modes in the Representation of the Cult Images,” in The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Periods, ed. R. Hägg (Athènes and Liège: Centre d’Etude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 1992), pp. 9–45; M. De Cesare, Le statue in immagine (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 1997); W. Oenbrink, Das Bild im Bilde. Zur Darstellung von Götterstatuen und Kultbildern auf griechischen Vasen (Frankfurt and New York: P. Lang, 1997).

2. See, for example, M. Kaimio et al., “Metatheatricality in the Greek Satyr-play,” Arctos 35 (2001):35–78.

3. For current discussions of the viewer in scholarship on ancient art see esp. the work of Jas Elsner (for example, J. Elsner, Roman Eyes [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007]); and Paul Zanker (for example, P. Zanker, “Bild-Räume und Betrachter im kaiserzeitlichen Rom,” in Klassische Archäologie: Eine Einführung, eds. A. H. Borbein, T. Hölscher, and P. Zanker [Berlin: Reimer, 2000], pp. 205–226).

4. New York, MMA 50.11.4: The krater, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in May 1950, was first published by Dietrich von Bothmer in 1951.

The painting of a statue of Herakles and theories of representation in ancient Greek culture

CLEMENTE MARCONI

One of the most fascinating aspects of ancient Greek art is its continuous drive towards self-reference and quotation. From the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, vases are often depicted in vase paintings, statues on sculptures, vases on sculptures, and statues in vase paintings. This tendency towards self-reference and quotation has been the focus of increasing attention in recent years. The phenomenon of mise en abyme in vase painting has been discussed, among others, by François Lissarrague and Jenifer Neils, while the representation of statues in vase paintings is the subject of two monographs published in the same year, one by Werner Oenbrink and the other by Monica De Cesare.1 We are still far, however, from a general interpretation of this aspect of Greek visual culture. This is in strident contrast with the field of Greek literature, where the self-referentiality of comedy and satyr-plays, and its tendency towards meta-theatricality and quotation have long been subject to investigation.2

My hope is that in the future this aspect of Greek visual culture will receive the attention it deserves. Self-references in Greek art, however humorous they can sometimes be, are always significant statements made by the artists about the nature, intention, and function of their own craft. In addition, quotations between artistic genres illuminate the response and reception of works of art at a time close to their production.3 Our discourse on Greek art would greatly benefit from both, even more since this discourse is still consistently based on the art criticism of the Roman period and on the testimony of authors centuries away from the works of art to which they refer. These authors, such as Pliny the Elder and the Philostrati, provide essential evidence for the later reception of Greek art. But their status as documents for the response and reception of Greek art at the time of its production and for the ideas of its producers is questionable. We should try to take advantage of the hermeneutic potential of self-reference and intertextuality in Greek art to rethink its history: That is to say, to investigate the reception and response to Greek art and the ideas of its producers through Greek art.

In this essay I would like to focus on one of the masterpieces of the art of self-reference and quotation in Greek visual culture: the Apulian column krater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which shows an encaustic painter working on a statue of Herakles in the presence of the hero-god himself (figs. 1–2).4 Dating to the second quarter of the fourth century, this krater features a unique scene within the context of South Italian vases, where

The birth of an image

146 RES 59/60 SPRING/AUTUMN 2011

Figure 1. Apulian red-figure column krater. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1950 (50.11.4). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Marconi: The birth of an image 147

Journal of Archaeology 73 [1969]:423–433; p. 425). In keeping with that conclusion, in 1978 Cambitoglou and Trendall dated the krater to the Middle Apulian phase, noticing its stylistic association with some of the later vases of the Ariadne Painter, and also with the Painter of Boston 00.348 (A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-figured Vases of Apulia, 3 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1978–1982], vol. I, pp. 266f., num. 47; A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, Second Supplement to the Red-figured Vases of Apulia [London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1991], p. 61). Finally, in 1989, Trendall situated the krater in close association with the Judgment Painter, one of the main representatives of the next generation of “Plain” style painters coming after the Tarporley Painter and his immediate successors, and active in the years between 380 and 360 b.c. (A. D. Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily [London: Thames & Hudson, 1989], p. 78). This remains the most plausible dating of the vase. The krater is dated to 380–370 by Schneider-Herrmann (G. Schneider-Herrmann, “Kultstatue im Tempel auf italischen Vasenbildern,” Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 47 [1972]:31–42, p. 40); to 375–350 by Stenico and De Cesare (A. Stenico, “Statua, Pittore della,” Enciclopedia dell’arte antica, classica e orientale VII [1966]):484; M. De Cesare, “Una statua di Eracle tra mito ed escatologia: per una lettura unitaria del cratere apulo di New York MMA 50.11.4,” RendLinc s. 9, 5 [1994]:247–258, p. 248; De Cesare 1997 [see note 1], p. 254 no. 177); to 360–350 by Palagia (O. Palagia, “C. Classical Greek/Roman,” in “Herakles,” ed. J. Boardman Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae IV [1988]:738–790, p. 745, no.

5. The vase was dated by von Bothmer to the early fourth century b.c. and linked to the work of the Ariadne Painter, a late contemporary and follower of the Sisyphus Painter, belonging to the Early Apulian phase. Two years later, G. M. A. Richter in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Handbook of the Greek Collection (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 117, attributed the krater to the very hands of the Ariadne Painter. In 1961, Cambitoglou and Trendall listed the vase in connection with the Painter of Boston 00.348, a “somewhat inferior contemporary” of the Ariadne Painter, belonging to the Ariadne Group (A. Cambitoglou and A. D. Trendall. Apulian Red-Figured Vase-Painters of the Plain Style [n.p.: Archaeological Institute of America, 1961], p. 19, no. i). In 1969, the two scholars determined the author of our krater to be much nearer to the Judgment Painter and to the Berkeley Painter, and thus working in the period just before the middle of the fourth century (A. Cambitoglou and A. D. Trendall, “Addenda to Apulian Red-Figure Vase-Painters of the Plain Style,” American

representation of crafts are rare.5 Even more unique, however, is the coexistence in the vase painting of representation and represented, the latter watching closely the finishing process of his own image.

I will start my analysis of the scene with the statue of Herakles (fig. 2). The statue, slightly larger than life size, represents a youthful Herakles with relatively long

Figure 2. Alternate view of figure 1.


scultura e nella pittura: il divino, l’eroico, il quotidiano,” in Civiltà del Mezzogiorno, ed. S. Moscati (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 1984), pp. 84–127, p. 93; Trendall (see note 5), p. 266.

9. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 158.10. Ph. Williams Lehmann, Statues on Coins of Southern Italy and

Sicily in the Classical Period (New York: Bittner, 1946), p. 53; Palagia (see note 5), p. 745, no. 281; Todisco (see note 7), pp. 945ff.; F. D. Van Keuren, The Coinage of Heraclea Lucaniae (Rome: Bretschneider, 1994), pp. 31ff., 73ff. (Group E, stater types 79–86); S. Kansteiner, Herakles: die Darstellungen in der Grossplastik der Antike (Köln: Böhlau, 2000), 132 no. Pi 15.

271); to ca. 350 by Schefold, Jung, Oenbrink, Berns, and Brinkmann (K. Schefold and F. Jung, Die Urkönige, Perseus, Bellerophon, Herakles und Theseus in der klassischen und hellenistischen Kunst [München: Hirmer. 1988], p. 228; Oenbrink 1997 [see note 1], p. 390, no. G3; C. Berns, “Bilder vom Rand der Welt,” in Die griechische Klassik: Idee oder Wirklichkeit, ed. W.-D. Heilmeyer. Exh. cat. [Mainz: von Zabern; Berlin: Antikensammlung Berlin, 2002], pp. 105–110; p. 107, no. 13; V. Brinkmann, Die Polychromie der archaischen und frühklassischen Skulptur [München: Biering & Brinkmann, 2003], p. 25, note 105).

6. D. von Bothmer, “Enkaustes Agalmaton.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 9 (1951):156–161, p. 156.

7. Richter (see note 5), p. 116; Schneider-Herrmann (see note 5), p. 40; M. Schmidt, “Some Remarks on the Subjects of South Italian Vases,” in The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia, ed. M. E. Mayo and K. Hamma, Exh. cat. (Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), pp. 23–36, p. 35; Palagia (see note 5), p. 745 no. 271; Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228; L. Todisco, “Eracle, la statua, l’artefice sul cratere apulo di New York MMA 50.11.4,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Antiquité 102 (1990):901–957, p. 925; De Cesare 1994 (see note 5), p. 249; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 151; Berns (see note 5), p. 107, no. 13.

8. P. Reuterswärd, Studien zur Polychromie der Plastik (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Svenska, 1980), p. 97, note 215; P. Moreno, Lisippo (Bari: Dedalo, 1974), p. 7; P. Moreno, “L’immagine dell’uomo nella

In his publication of the krater, von Bothmer took the differences between the statue of Herakles and the living Herakles as evidence of the fact that the vase painter was inspired by a real work of art.9 In his search for this lost original, von Bothmer pointed to the fourth-century silver staters of Herakleia in Lucania, featuring on the two sides Herakles and the head of Athena (fig. 3).10 The standing Herakles on the reverse appears very similar to the statue on our vase, in both the stance and the attributes of the hero-god.

A few years before the publication of our vase by von Bothmer, Phyllis Williams Lehmann had analyzed the representation of Herakles on the coins of Herakleia. By

hair and no beard, standing with his weight on the right leg and with the left leg free and slightly advanced to the side. The head is turned to the left, in the direction of the free leg, while the rest of the body is almost frontal. Herakles is holding a bow terminating in birds’ heads with the left hand, and clasping the club in the outstretched right hand. The figure is nude, except for the lion skin covering his left arm and shoulder. The sculpture is set on a tall base, rising on two steps and crowned by a molding bearing a pattern, while a separate base—a curious solution—supports the club.

The statue of Herakles is painted in white, except for the lion skin and the bow. Some details, such as the hair and elements of the anatomy, are added in diluted yellow. The fact that the base is not painted in white implies that the statue and its support are not made of the same material. Von Bothmer first suggested that the material of the statue is marble, based on the bright white color that covers most of the surface of the sculpture, and on the fact that this is being painted in the encaustic technique.6 Further support for this suggestion comes from the fact that the white and diluted yellow used on the statue are quite different from the uniform, dark yellow used for the brazier, the phiale, the bowl with the color, and the finial of Zeus’s scepter, all meant to be of bronze. This last observation is critical for establishing that the statue is of marble, as generally assumed in the literature.7 The alternative identification of the material with bronze must be rejected.8

Figure 3. Herakles. Silver stater of Herakleia in Lucania. From Williams Lehmann, Statues on Coins of Southern Italy and Sicily in the Classical Period (New York: Bittner, 1946), pl. 12.1.


11. Williams Lehmann (ibid.), pp. 53ff. On the Herakles Albertini/Pitti see Palagia (see note 5), pp. 745f.; A. Linfert, “Die Schule des Polyklet,” in Polyklet. Der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik, exh. cat., Frankfurt am Main, Liebieghaus, Museum alter Plastik (Mainz: von Zabern, 1990), pp. 240–297, esp. pp. 281f.; Kansteiner (ibid.), pp. 46 ff., 129ff.

12. Von Bothmer (see note 6), pp. 159f.; see also Moreno 1984 (see note 8), p. 94.

13. Palagia (see note 5), pp. 745f., 792.14. Todisco (see note 7), pp. 943ff. Todisco is followed by De

Cesare 1994 (see note 5), p. 254, note 30, and De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103, note 105.

as suggested by the struts on the Roman replicas of the Albertini/Pitti Herakles type. There are also differences between the figure of Herakles on our vase and on the coins of Herakleia that should not be ignored. One concerns some of the attributes: the Herakles on the vase is missing his baldric and quiver, and his left hand is not holding an arrow together with the bow, but only the bow. This difference may not be particularly relevant, given that baldric, quiver, and arrow are not featured on the earliest coins of Herakleia. A second difference,

associating this representation with a series of statues, which she dated to the fourth century, Williams Lehmann suggested that the coins of Herakleia featured a bronze statue set up in this South Italian city. In Lehmann’s view, this statue served as the archetype for a sculptural type of Herakles documented by Roman copies and known as Albertini/Pitti Herakles (fig. 4).11 Building on Lehmann’s ideas, von Bothmer suggested that the statue on our vase could perhaps be another illustration of that lost original, in which case, that original would have been made of marble, not of bronze, and its date should be pushed back to the first half of the fourth century.12

In more recent years, Olga Palagia further developed the suggestions by Lehmann and von Bothmer. Following the association of the statue on our vase with the Albertini/Pitti Herakles type, Palagia suggested that the sculptural prototype of the Albertini/Pitti Herakles was created around 385 b.c., and that it was most probably set up in South Italy, based on our krater and the staters from Herakleia. In addition, according to Palagia, a series of reliefs from Athens would indicate the existence of an early variant of the same type in Attica.13

Palagia’s suggestions were the basis for the attempt by Luigi Todisco to reconstruct the historical context of both the original sculpture and the scene on our krater. Following the association of the Herakles on the staters with the statue of the hero-god on our krater, taken as illustrations of the same original, Todisco suggested that this statue was created around 379 b.c., when Tarentum took the leadership of the Italiote League, moving its headquarters to Herakleia. On this occasion, a new statue of Herakles would have been dedicated in this city, under the initiative of Tarentum, celebrating its new leadership of the Italiote League.14

Todisco’s suggestion is problematic and difficult to maintain. The first problem concerns the material of the statue(s). While the statue of Herakles on our krater is of marble, the original this painted statue is supposed to reproduce, according to Todisco, was made of bronze,

Figure 4. Replica of the Albertini/Pitti Herakles type. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano 29. Photo by the author.


works with the expression “so-and-so painted it,” but rather with the expression “so-and-so burned it in.”

While featuring the first step of encaustic painting, our scene also alludes to the next stage. The painter bends towards the statue and applies the paste with a spatula held in the right hand, while the left hand holds a small bowl with the color (a box behind the painter probably serves as a container for the different wax paints). The application of the paste concerns the mane of the lion’s skin hanging from Herakles’ left arm, whose basic drawing has already been executed. While the painter is still engaged in the first step of the encaustic process, an assistant to his left prepares the tools for the next stage, by placing rods in a charcoal metal brazier. These rods will soon be ready for the full encaustic process.18

18. It is hard to tell how much of our statue of Herakles has already been painted, and in what colors. According to von Bothmer, since the artist is working at the mane of Herakles’ lion skin, and since the lion skin is differentiated from the rest of the statue by not being white, “one may perhaps deduce that the lion skin . . . has already been painted and that the color now in the paint pot is a darker hue, intended for the mane” (von Bothmer [see note 6], p. 158). The question remains, however, as to whether our statue was meant to display a full or only partial polychromy. This question has been answered in two opposite

15. Kansteiner (see note 10), p. 47, note 336.16. On encaustic painting see, more recently, N. J. Koch, Techne

und Erfindung in der klassischen Malerei (München: Biering und Brinkmann, 2000), pp. 41ff.; V. Brinkmann, “Colors and Painting Techniques,” in Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity, ed. S. Ebbinghaus. Exh. cat., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Munich: Stiftung Archäologie Glyptothek, 2007):210–215; p. 213; I. Kakoulli, Greek Painting Techniques and Materials from the Fourth to the First Century b.c. (London: Archetype, 2009), pp. 11f., 35f.

17. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 3.149.

however, constitutes a more serious problem. The left arm of the statue on our vase, rather than being moved emphatically to the side, as seen on the coins, is kept in front of the body, with some consequence on the arrangement of the lion skin. This second difference runs against the idea that our vase painting and the coins of Herakleia would illustrate the same lost original, a possibility that has been more recently discounted by Sascha Kansteiner within the context of a new systematic discussion of the Albertini/Pitti Herakles type.15

Chronology also speaks against Todisco’s suggestion. The staters of Herakleia have been generally dated to shortly after the middle of the fourth century b.c. More recently, van Keuren has further lowered this date, by linking the issuing of these coins with the intervention of Alexander the Molossian in the war between Tarentum and the Lucanians in 334 b.c. Be that as it may, our vase dates to about 380–360 b.c. and depicts a marble statue of Herakles, while the coins of Herakleia, issued some ten to thirty years later, if showing the archetype of the Albertini/Pitti Herakles, would feature a similar statue, but made of bronze. The safest conclusion to be drawn from all of this would be that our krater alludes to some sculptural type of Herakles that served as the model for the statue set up in Herakleia a few decades later.

Von Bothmer, in first publishing the krater, immediately recognized that our scene concerns the painting of the statue of Herakles in encaustic technique (figs. 5, 6).16 The application of encaustic paint was a two-step process. In the first step, the pigment was mixed with wax, which had been previously purified and bleached. The resulting paste was applied with a special tool that Pliny17 calls cestrum, a kind of spatula. In the second step, the paste applied to the statue was melted, with the artist going over it with a red-hot iron rod. This procedure, which was essential for making the wax color look even, was particularly difficult and required considerable skill, which is the reason why its technical name gave the name to the whole process, and why artists painting in encaustic technique did not sign their

Figure 5. Close-up of figure 2.


alternative identification with a sculptor, first suggested by Cagiano de Azevedo.20 This proposition is difficult to accept, given that carving tools are not featured in the painting. Still, this alternative identification has exerted some influence. A case in point is Todisco, who hints at the possibility that our craftsman would be both painter and sculptor.21 Along similar lines, Schefold and Jung have identified our painter with Hephaistos, suggesting that the god is putting his last touches on a marble statue of Herakles set up in the Olympus on the occasion of the apotheosis of this hero.22 This last proposal is inspired by images of Hephaistos at work in which the dress and posture of the god are similar to those of our statue painter.23 To these representations one may add images of the god wearing a headgear similar to the felt cap worn by our figure.24 However, as convincingly argued by Todisco, the proposal by Schefold and Jung does not take into account the fact that representations of Hephaistos are inspired by representations of artisans. Contradicting the identification of our craftsman with Hephaistos is also the fact that the god is never represented working at marble statues or painting—understandably so, since his expertise lies in metalwork—nor being assisted by a slave boy with realistic features like the one on our vase, but, rather, by satyrs.25

This leads us to the figure to the left: an African boy with tightly curled hair and a flattish nose, who is taking care of the heating apparatus by bending forward and holding a rod with the right hand. Von Bothmer has defined this figure as both assistant and

The painter in our scene is portrayed as a mature man with a long beard, wearing a felt cap and a loincloth, two attributes which are characteristic of craftsmen. Von Bothmer was the first to identify our figure with a statue painter, and his interpretation has generally been followed by later literature.19 There is, however, an

20. M. Cagiano De Azevedo, Bollettino dell’Istituto centrale del restauro, 5–6 (1951):107. See also F. Chamoux, “L’«Héraclès d’Anticythère»,” Revue Archéologique (1968):161–170; p. 169; Moreno 1974 (see note 8), p. 7; B. B. Shefton, “The Krater from Basky,” in The Eye of Greece: Studies in the Art of Athens, ed. D. Kurtz and B. Sparkes (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 149–181, p. 175, note 104; Moreno 1984 (see note 8), p. 93.

21. Todisco (see note 7), p. 930.22. Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228.23. Cp. e.g. the neck amphora (480) Boston, MFA 13.188:

ARV2 306, no. 2 (Dutuit P.); Para 357; Add 105; A. Hermary and A. Jacquemin, “Hephaistos,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae IV (1988):627–654, p. 631, no. 4. On the iconography of Hephaistos, see in general F. Brommer, Hephaistos (Mainz: von Zabern, 1978); Hermary and Jacquemin (ibid.).

24. Cp. e.g. the terracotta bust from Herakleia (ca. 300) in Policoro, Museo Nazionale della Siritide: Brommer (ibid.), p. 216, no. 5; S. Bianco and M. Tagliente. Il Museo Nazionale della Siritide di Policoro (Roma: Laterza, 1985), p. 85; Hermary and Jacquemin (ibid.), p. 637 num. 101.

25. Todisco (see note 7), p. 931f. For a detailed list of the works attributed to Hephaistos see Brommer (ibid.), pp. 138ff.

ways, which are reflective of two different ways of understanding the role of polychromy in ancient Greek sculpture. Some, in fact, have thought that the painter is working only at smaller details of the statue, namely parts of the lion skin (Schmidt [see note 7], p. 35; De Cesare 1994 [see note 5], p. 249 and note 8; De Cesare 1997 [see note 1], p. 103 and note 104), while others have suggested that the statue is, or will be, fully painted. Among the proponents of this second idea, Brinkmann has suggested that the white applied to our statue would allude to the brilliance of the full polychromy of the sculpture (see Brinkmann [note 5], p. 25): however, as noted above, the white refers more likely to the material of our statue, marble.

19. Von Bothmer (ibid.), p. 156. See also Richter (see note 5), p. 116; Cambitoglou and Trendall 1961 (see note 5), 19; M. Borda, Ceramiche apule (Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1966), p. 40; K. Hamma in The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia, (see note 7), p. 96; Schmidt [see note 7], p. 35; M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (London: Cambridge University Press), p. 485; De Cesare 1994 (ibid.), p. 249; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 389, no. G3; Berns (see note 5), p. 107, no. 13; Brinkmann (see note 5), p. 25.



hanging between the gods watching mortals from the Olympus.32 Relevant to our case, however, is the frequent association of libation bowls with bucrania and altars.33 Both associations are a clear indication of the sacredness of the setting: either an open-air sanctuary or a temple.

Since the publication by von Bothmer, these last two possibilities have both been considered in the interpretation of the setting of our scene, which has consequently been interpreted as taking place outdoors in a temenos, or indoors and within a shrine.34 This second possibility, favored in recent years, is far from certain. Of course, in South Italian vase painting isolated columns and hanging bowls can serve as indications of an indoor setting. However, on Apulian vases there are also several outdoor scenes that come close to our image. One may mention a pelike in Taranto (370–360 b.c.) showing Dionysos with phiale and thyrsus seated on an altar between two women.35 This scene is taking place in the open air, and to the left one sees an Ionic column similar to the one featured on our krater.

The painting of our statue of Herakles, then, is taking place in a sanctuary, and possibly outdoors. Other proposals concerning the identification of the setting cannot be maintained. This is true of arguments locating the scene in the artist’s workshop,36 but also of those placing it on the Olympus.37 That our vase

apprentice.26 However, as first pointed out by Robertson, his status is rather that of a slave boy.27 More recently, Todisco has noted that slave boys are not uncommon in representations of workshops in Archaic and Classical art and persuasively suggested that the presence of the slave boy in our scene would be an indication of the high status of the statue painter.28

The painting of the statue of Herakles is taking place in a sanctuary, as indicated by two elements close to the left limit of the field. One is a tall, unfluted column, resting on a square base and crowned by an Ionic capital. The other is a phiale, hanging on the background to the right of the capital.

Isolated columns are often depicted on South Italian vases. They generally serve as supports for statues, tripods, or other kinds of votive offerings. There are instances, however, in which isolated columns do not serve as supports, nothing being shown above their capital. In these instances, isolated columns seem to function as visual abbreviations for buildings, as is often the case on Athenian vases.29 This synecdochical use of columns is particularly suitable for small vases, which do not allow sufficient space for the display of entire buildings, but it is also seen on larger vases. In some instances, it is evident that isolated columns belong to a sacred setting, but this is not always so. What makes our column an allusion to a sacred space, however, is its combination with a phiale.

Libation bowls hanging on the background are often featured on South Italian vases and in a variety of contexts: hanging behind statues inside naiskoi in scenes of the cult of the dead;30 hanging together with other paraphernalia in symposium scenes and in representations of Dionsysos and his retinue;31 or

32. Cp. calyx krater, Berlin F 3297: Trendall and Cambitoglou (ibid.), p. 423 no. 49 (Berlin Ganymede Group).

33. Bucrania: cp. bell krater, Berne, private collection: Trendall and Cambitoglou (ibid.), p. 246 num. 165 (Schlaepfer P.). Altars: cp. oinochoe, Florence, private collection: Trendall and Cambitoglou (ibid.), p. 427, no. 68 (Group of B.M. F 308).

34. Temenos: Borda (see note 19), pp. 107ff.; K. Hamma in Mayo and Hamma (see note 19), p. 96; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 150; Berns (see note 5), p. 107, no. 13. Shrine: von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156; Todisco (see note 7), pp. 925ff.; De Cesare 1994 (see note 5), p. 250; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103, note 107; pp. 104, 175. Cp. also Berns (ibid.).

35. Taranto 117503: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 262, no. 18 (Judgment P.).

36. Cagiano de Azevedo 1951, 107; Moreno 1974 (see note 8), p. 7; Chamoux (see note 20), pp. 168ff.; Schmidt (see note 7), p. 35.

37. Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228; De Cesare 1994 (see note 5), pp. 250ff.; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 105 and note 108, p. 175f. De Cesare has suggested a thematic link between the two sides of our vase. On the other side, our krater features Athena seated in the center in conversation with one of the Dioskouroi, identified by his dress and the star near his head. On the upper left, Hermes is turning away from his son Pan to take part in the conversation. Below, Eros is chasing a goose without being involved in the conversation. The scene is difficult to interpret. For von Bothmer, the Dioskouros “is either ready to leave or reporting from a journey” (von Bothmer [see

26. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156; see also K. Hamma in Mayo and Hamma (see note 19), p. 96; Moreno 1984 (see note 8), p. 93; De Cesare 1994 (see note 5), p. 250; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103.

27. Robertson (see note 19), p. 485; see also Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228.

28. Todisco (see note 7), pp. 933ff. On slave boys cp. N. Himmelmann, Archäologisches zum Problem der griechischen Sklaverei (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur; Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1971), pp. 21ff.; for depictions of workshops, see M. Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro lieve (Padova: Imprimitur, 2002).

29. Cp. more recently B. Brandes-Druba, Architekturdarstellungen in der unteritalischen Keramik (Frankfurt and New York: Lang, 1994), pp. 113ff.

30. Cp. volute krater, British Museum F 283: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 193, no. 7 (Iliupersis P.).

31. Cp. calyx krater, New York, MMA L.63.21.6: Trendall and Cambitoglou (ibid.), p. 212, no. 152 (P. of Athens 1714).


cannot represent the finishing of the statue of Herakles on the Olympus consequent to the hero’s apotheosis is indicated by the identity of the artisan, a mortal, rather than the god Hephaistos.

Framing the statue from above are the figures of Zeus and Nike, on the upper register (figs. 7, 8). Zeus wears the himation and a crown of leaves, and holds a long scepter. The wings of Nike are wide spread, but the goddess—wearing a peplos—is not moving, and has both hands at rest. Both gods are seated with their bodies towards the sides, while turning their heads towards the center, and looking at the head of the statue of Herakles. As pointed out by von Bothmer and Todisco, the contrast between the position of the body and the turn of the head indicates the fact that the statue has caught the attention of the gods, transforming them into onlookers.38

Thus far, the presence of Zeus and Nike has been explained by referring to the representations of assemblies of divinities often featured in the upper register of Apulian vases.39 These assemblies of divinities are meant to take place on the Olympus, from where the gods assist the events unfolding in the lower register. Accordingly, the Zeus and Nike on our vase have been regarded as looking at the painting of the statue from some distance.40 It may be added, however, that statues of Herakles were commonly dedicated in sanctuaries of Zeus. Several are mentioned by Pausanias at Olympia, like the Herakles made by Onatas for the Thasians: a large bronze statue representing the hero-god holding a club and a bow.41 We cannot thus exclude that the scene on our vase is taking place in a sanctuary of Zeus.

Nike has her body turned towards the living Herakles and her head turned to the statue, and, in addition, she is positioned between the two of them. This is reminiscent of several representations of Nike crowning Herakles on South Italian and Sicilian red-figure vases,

note 6], p. 160). Hamma has suggested that the scene may represent Polydeukes talking to Athena and Hermes after the death of Kastor at the hands of the sons of Aphareus (K. Hamma in Mayo and Hamma [note 19, p. 99], followed by Schefold and Jung [ibid.], p. 32). De Cesare has suggested that the obverse of our vase would represent the apotheosis of Herakles on the Olympus, and the reverse the scene of Iolaos or a Dioskouros informing Athena about the establishment of a cult of Herakles in one of her sanctuaries. This last suggestion is very intriguing, also in consideration of the potential funerary destination of our krater. However, a thematic link between the two sides of our vase is not readily apparent.

38. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156; Todisco (see note 7), pp. 928ff.39. See in general Trendall (note 5), pp. 255f.40. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156; Todisco (note 7), pp. 928ff.41. Pausanias 5.25.12–13.




the club, whereas the right hand is raised with the index finger pointed towards the mouth.

The posture of Herakles and his location within the field have been taken by von Bothmer as an indication of the fact that Herakles is descending from the world of the gods to take a closer look at the statue. Herakles would be approaching “stepping softly, so as not to disturb the artist.”43 Rather than “stepping softly,” however, Herakles may be described as in a “walking stance,” an expression used in reference to the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, to define the ambiguity of the posture of this statue, which is not clearly identifiable as one of walking or standing still.44 The same combination of weight leg and free leg positioned well to the rear, so characteristic of Polykleitos and his school, is also seen on our figure of Herakles. It is a stance often used on Apulian vases, in scenes where it remains unclear whether the characters are walking or standing still.45 This explains Todisco’s alternative suggestion that on our vase Herakles would be represented in the moment of arresting himself on his way to the sanctuary.46 This is indeed the most plausible reading of the stance of Herakles on our vase. In fact, there is no question that Herakles is making a sudden appearance on scene, in a sort of epiphany in the sanctuary.47 This is indicated not only by the location of Herakles next to the right limit of the field, but also by the gesture of his right hand, raised, and with the index finger pointing towards the mouth.

This gesture, which together with the goggling eyes depicts the response of Herakles to his own portrait, has thus far been generally misunderstood. Von Bothmer has commented on the facial expression and gesture of Herakles by stating that they “reveal something of the attitude of an art critic at an exhibition.”48 Along the

an iconography that was rather popular, and not limited to vase painting.42 One may consider the staters of Herakleia, in which Nike is often depicted holding a wreath for Herakles. With this iconography in mind, one wonders whether on our vase the goddess is not distracting her view from the real Herakles and looking at the statue of the hero. If this interpretation were correct, Nike would be anticipating the reaction of the living Herakles to his own portrait.

The living Herakles is located at the right end of the field, to the right of Nike (fig. 9). He has the same attributes of his statue: the lion skin, which covers his head, the bow with birds’ ends, and the club. He is also young and unbearded. The posture and the gestures, however, are very different. The living Herakles rests his weight on the left leg, while the right leg, free, is bent and brought to the back, the heel raised off the ground. The left arm is bent at the elbow and the hand is grasping

43. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156; cp. also D. von Bothmer, “Greek Vase Painting. An Introduction,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 31 (1972):3–68, no. 27; Borda (see note 19), p. 108; Shefton (see note 20), p. 175, note 104; Moreno 1984 (see note 8), p. 93.

44. Cp. R. Tobin, “The Pose of the Doryphoros,” in Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition, ed. W. G. Moon (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), pp. 52–64; A. H. Borbein, “Polykleitos,” in Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture, ed. O. Palagia and J. J. Pollitt (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 66–90: pp. 70ff.

45. Cp., e.g., bell krater, Sydney 54.04: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 47, no. 13 (Tarporley P.).

46. Todisco (see note 7), p. 937.47. Todisco also suggests that our scene would be influenced from

satyr drama, in which sudden appearances, surprises, and images played a significant role. This connection is hard to prove, considering the absence of satyrs on our vase (see ibid., p. 937ff).

48. Von Bothmer 1972 (see note 43), no. 27.

42. See K. Schauenburg, “Herakles unter Göttern.” Gymnasium 70 (1963):113–133, pp. 113ff.; R. Vollkommer, Herakles in the Art of Classical Greece (Oxford: University Committee for Archaeology, 1988), pp. 49f.; J. Boardman et al., “Herakles,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae V (1988–1990):728–838; V (1990):1–192; 177ff.



On this vase one sees Apollo purifying Orestes by shaking a piglet above his head. Orestes is seated on the altar, leaning on the omphalos, and still holding the sword used to kill Clytemnestra. To the right of Apollo is Artemis, and at the left limit of the field is the ghost of Clytemnestra trying to wake two Furies who are still asleep, while a third Fury appears on the lower left. On this vase, the gesture of the index finger pointed towards the mouth appears twice, in the figures of Orestes and of the third Fury, who are also exchanging glances. The two are reacting to their reciprocal, sudden appearances at the same time as they are also pondering their next step. Likewise, on our vase the living Herakles is reacting with wonder at the sudden appearance of his own statue.

As I have already noted, there is a strong resemblance between the statue of Herakles and the living hero. Thus far, this resemblance has strongly conditioned the interpretation of the relation between the artist, Herakles, and the statue on our vase. Thus, both von Bothmer and Todisco have framed that relation in terms of an artist and model relationship. In particular, von Bothmer57 has evoked the panel by Rogier van der Weyden at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, showing Saint Luke drawing the Virgin (fig. 11) as a parallel for our vase.58 Todisco, instead, has pointed to a famous poem in the Anthologia Graeca by a poet named Plato, in which Aphrodite is described coming to Knidos wishing to see her own image. Having looked at the statue made by Praxiteles, the goddess cries: “Where did Praxiteles see me naked?”59

However, framing the relation between the painter, Herakles, and his statue in terms of an artist-model relationship is problematic, and precisely the comparison between our scene and the panel by van der Weyden should make this point clear. On the painting by van der Weyden, Saint Luke is face to face with the Virgin and looking at her, but on our vase the statue-painter is literally turning his back to the real Herakles and ignoring him. In the case of our vase, one can hardly speak of a relationship between the artist and his model. After all, that could not be the case in ancient Greek and Roman culture, where the representation of the gods belonged to the realm of imagination, and not of mimesis. As especially pointed out by Gordon and Vernant, the making of religious images in the

same lines, Schmidt has written of Herakles as “giving an expert opinion on his own portrait,”49 whereas Hamma has described the hero-god evaluating “the progress on his cult image with a distracted look of curiosity and mild amusement.”50 Other scholars have described Herakles as “admiring” or “marveling” at his own portrait.51 There is no question, however, that the response by Herakles can be better described as one of wonder, as pointed out by Schneider-Hermann, Moreno, and Oenbrink.52 The gesture of the hand raised with the index finger pointed towards the mouth can, in fact, be regarded as a variant of the more common gesture of bringing the hand to the chin or plucking at the beard. This gesture, generally used to denote perplexity, first appears in the Early Classical period, but it becomes more frequent during the fourth century in both sculpture and vase painting.53 In South Italian and Sicilian red-figure vase painting, this gesture is often used to denote the wonder and the puzzlement of a character facing the unexpected. As for the wonder, one may recall a calyx krater in Taranto (400–390 b.c.), on which a hesitant Amphitryon is approaching the altar and the pyre of Alkmene, as the falling thunderbolt of Zeus separates the two.54 As for the puzzlement, one may recall the Oedipus listening to the messenger from Corinth on the fragment of a calyx krater from Syracuse (340 b.c.).55

The best comparison for the gesture on our vase, however, comes from the bell krater in Paris (390–380 b.c.), featuring the purification of Orestes at Delphi (fig. 10).56

57. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 156.58. Boston, MFA 93.153.59. Anthologia Graeca 16.160 (translation by J. J. Pollitt): Todisco

(see note 7), p. 941f; A. Corso, Prassitele (Rome: De Luca, 1988–1991), vol. I, pp. 42f.

49. Schmidt (see note 7), p. 35.50. K. Hamma in Mayo and Hamma (see note 19), p. 96.51. Admiration: Robertson (see note 19), p. 485; Shefton (see note

20), p. 175, note 104; Todisco (see note 7), p. 937; De Cesare 1994 (see note 5), p. 250; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 103. Marvel: Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228.

52. Schneider-Herrmann (see note 5), p. 40; Moreno 1984 (see note 8), p. 94; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 150.

53. See in general G. Neumann, Gesten und Gebärden in der griechischen Kunst (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965), pp. 109ff.

54. Taranto 4600: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 36, no. 11 (P. of the Birth of Dionysos); O. Taplin, Pots and Plays (J. Paul Getty Museum: Getty Trust Publications, 2007), p. 171, no. 57.

55. Syracuse 66557: A. D. Trendall, The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily. Third Supplement (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1983), p. 276, no. 98a (Gibil Gabib Group); Taplin (ibid.), p. 90ff., no. 22.

56. Paris, Louvre K 710: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 97, no. 229 (Eumenides P.); A. Kossatz-Deissmann, Dramen des Aischylos auf westgriechischen Vasen (Mainz: von Zabern, 1978), 105, no. K 41, 107f.; H. Sarian, “Erinys,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae III (1986):825–843, p. 833, no. 63; Taplin (ibid.), p. 62ff., no. 8.


63. Von Bothmer (see note 6), p. 158; Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 183.

64. Richter (see note 5), p. 116.65. See esp. T. B. L. Webster, “Plato and Aristotle as Critics of Greek

Art,” SymbOslo 29 (1952):8–23. p. 18f.

60. R. L. Gordon, “The Real and the Imaginary. Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World,” Art History II.1 (1979):1–34; pp. 11ff.; J.-P. Vernant, Mortals and Immortals, ed. F. I. Zeitlin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 151ff.

61. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.72: “. . . Herculem, qui est Lindi, talem a se pictum, qualem saepe in quiete vidisset” (translation by J. J. Pollitt); cp. also Athenaeus 12.543F. See Robertson (see note 19), p. 485, and Schefold and Jung (see note 5), p. 228.

62. Pausanias 8.42.7: see Gordon (see note 60), p. 15; J. Tanner, The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 50.

It should be pointed out that although on our vase there are significant similarities between the statue of Herakles and the living Herakles, there are also deliberate differences, mentioned in the past, but never fully discussed.63 One difference concerns the attributes, which are the same, but are handled in different ways. For example, on the statue the lion skin is removed from the head and allows for a full display of the flowing hair, while the club is moved from the side to a full view in the front. A similar opposition concerns posture and attitude: The living Herakles is casual in his posture and emotional in his gesturing, whereas his statue is self-confident in displaying the nudity and the beauty of his body. To use Richter’s words, the living Herakles is “not nearly so heroic a figure as his statue.”64

This explicit differentiation between the living figure and his statue seems to reflect developments in fourth-century art.65 One is reminded of the painter, sculptor,

ancient Greek and Roman world was a component in the process of realizing the imaginary. By making the invisible visible, by making the powers from the world beyond present in the world below, images of gods were true illusions, pictures of a world that we cannot know.60

For these reasons, much more appropriate is the reference by Robertson, in relation to the interpretation of our vase, to Parrhasios’s alleged claim that his picture of Herakles in Lindos “was painted to make the hero look just as he did when Parrhasios often saw him in his dreams.”61 This connection between artists and images, and visions of gods in dreams, is also documented by Pausanias’s account of the horse-headed agalma of Black Demeter made by Onatas near Phigaleia.62

Figure 10. Purification of Orestes at Delphi. Apulian red-figure bell krater, attributed to the Eumenides Painter (name-vase), ca. 380–370 b.c. Paris, Louvre, K 710. Reproduced from A. Furtwängler and K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei. 3 vols. (München: Bruckmann, 1904–1932), pl. 120.3.


68. Dio Chrysostom 37.43.69. Aristotle, Poetics, 1454b, 9–11.70. Theophrastus, Characters 2.12.

66. Pliny, Naturalis Historia 35.128: J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1974), pp. 347ff.; O. Palagia, Euphranor (Leiden: Brill, 1980), p. 9; N. Himmelmann, Der ausruhende Herakles (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2009), pp. 181ff.

67. Pliny (ibid.), 35.129.

was not lame.68 This interest of fourth century artists in the representation of grandeur and high moral character extended from heroes and gods to portraiture. For Aristotle, the good portrait painters are those who while reproducing the distinctive form of the original, make a likeness that is true to life and yet more beautiful.69 It is within this context that Theophrastus’s flatterer tells his patron that his portrait is like him.70

The differentiation between a living hero-god and his image seen in our scene does not come as a surprise

and art theorist Euphranor, who according to Pliny, was the first to express the dignity of heroes (dignitates heroum), in explicit contrast with previous generations of artists.66 Thus, according to the same source, Euphranor explicitly contrasted his own “meat-fed” Theseus with Parrhasios’s “roses-fed Theseus.”67 Along similar lines, Dio Chrysostom tells us that Euphranor’s Hephaistos

Figure 11. Rogier van der Weyden. Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, ca. 1435–1440. Oil and tempera on panel, 137.5 x 110.8 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lee Higginson 93.153. Photograph © 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.


1993), pp. 88–129; O. Paoletti, “Kassandra I,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae VII (1994):956–970; De Cesare 1997 (note 1), pp. 87ff., 123ff.; Oenbrink (ibid.), pp. 34ff.; M. Mangold, Kassandra in Athen (Berlin: D. Reimer, 2000), pp. 34ff.; Hölscher (ibid.), pp. 113ff.

73. Iliad 6.297–311.

71. Schefold (see note 1), p. 41; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), pp. 79ff.; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), pp. 340ff.; F. Hölscher, “Gods and Statues: An Approach to Archaistic Images in the Fifth Century BCE,” in Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. J. Mylonopoulos (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 105–120, p. 113.

72. See esp. Schefold (ibid.), pp. 41ff.; J.-M. Moret, L’Ilioupersis dans la céramique italiote (Rome: Istituto Svizzero, 1975), pp. 9ff.; O. Touchefeu, “Aias II,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae I (1981):336–351; Alroth (note 1), pp. 12ff.; J. B. Connelly, “Narrative and Image in Attic Vase Painting,” in Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, ed. Peter J. Holliday (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

representations of this myth (fig. 12), between the second and the third quarters of the sixth century, we see the goddess herself intervening in defense of Kassandra, as if the prophetess were not seeking protection next to the statue of Athena, but next to Athena herself. This same statue of Athena is the focus of a famous episode described in Iliad VI, in which Homer introduces the Trojan women supplicating Athena to stop Diomedes from ravaging the Trojans any further.73 The women reach the temple of Athena on the peak of the citadel, and once the priestess Theano has opened the doors for them, they lift their hands to Athena with a wailing cry, as if facing the goddess herself, and not her image. Theano then lays on the knees of the statue a robe, presented as a votive offering to Athena, and supplicates her to stop Diomedes and to have pity on the Trojans, promising rich sacrifices in exchange. “She spoke in prayer—concludes Homer—but Pallas Athena turned her

once we consider the long history of representations of statues on Greek vases that precedes our krater. A closer look at this tradition is now necessary, since it is within this framework that one can better understand the larger implications of our image.

In Archaic art, the particular emphasis on the identity between the divinity and its image finds expression in representations that make manifest that the represented is not just in the image, but that the represented is the image.71 This is best seen in images of the rape of Kassandra, which illustrate the moment in which Ajax is trying to separate the Trojan prophetess from the statue of Athena in her temple at Troy.72 In the earliest

Figure 12. Rape of Kassandra. Athenian black-figure amphora, ca. 550 b.c. Reproduced from E. Gerhard, Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder (Berlin: Reimer, 1847), vol. 3, pl. 228, no. 1.


78. De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), pp. 87ff.; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), pp. 346f.

79. De Cesare (ibid.), pp. 179ff.80. Cp., e.g., Aeschylus, Agamemnon 416–417: M. Stieber,

“Aeschylus’ Theoroi and Realism in Greek Art,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 124 (1994):85–119, pp. 104ff.; W. A. P. Childs, “Platon, les images et l’art grec du IVe siècle avant J.-C,” Revue Archéologique (1994):33–56; pp. 35f.; D. Steiner, Images in Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 49f.

74. Ibid., 6.311 (translation by R. Lattimore); A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 44; S. Bettinetti, La statua di culto nella pratica rituale greca (Bari: Levante, 2001), pp. 26f.

75. Gordon (see note 60), pp. 7ff.; A. A. Donohue, “The Greek Images of the Gods: Considerations on Terminology and Methodology,” Hephaistos 15 (1997):31–45, p. 37; Bettinetti (ibid.), pp. 25ff.

76. I. B. Romano, “Early Greek Cult Images,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Pennsylvania, 1980), pp. 255ff.; Bettinetti (ibid.), p. 21.

77. Gordon (see note 60), pp. 7f.

in Greek vase painting.78 In addition, during the Late Archaic period representations of sculptors working on statues inside their workshops are introduced on vases.79 With the transition into the fifth century, literary sources confirm this heightened appreciation of the “factural” rather than living quality of statues, along with the perception of the gap between them and the reality they represent.80 The representation of Athena as a statue in

head from her.”74 What is remarkable about this Homeric passage is the absence of an explicit reference to a statue of the goddess. The poet keeps referring to “Athena,” meaning both the goddess and her image, and this identification between representation and represented makes it impossible to decide, in the case of the last line, whether it is the statue of the goddess or the goddess herself who is denying support to the Trojans by the turn of her head. In the depictions of the rape of Kassandra that I have just mentioned, the same identification between representation and represented applies to the image of Athena protecting the prophetess, the very same image featured in the passage of the Iliad : like in the text of Homer, this image is simply “Athena,” meaning both the goddess and her statue. This “failure” to distinguish god and statue at the linguistic level is not confined to Homer, but is typical of Greek and Roman culture.75 The use of the name of the divinity, or the term “divinity” in reference to its statue, is first of all documented in inscriptions, such as those from the Sanctuary of Hera at Samos, which refer to the images of the goddess in the temple as he theos, “the divinity.”76 The same use is also documented by literary sources, first of all Pausanias, who, in reference to statues of gods, sometimes uses the expression agalma followed by the name of the divinity in the genitive, and sometimes simply the divinity’s name.77

In the iconography of the rape of Kassandra, a change takes place during the Late Archaic period, when “Athena” is now clearly represented in the form of a statue, instead of a living person (fig. 13). The goddess is set on a tall base, and is smaller than the living characters. Still, this goddess in the form of a statue appears to retain the same energy of the living goddess of previous iconography, judging from the way it confronts Ajax in its effort to protect Kassandra. This transformation in the iconography of the rape of Kassandra is not fortuitous. In fact, during these same years, representations of statues make their appearance

Figure 13. Rape of Kassandra. Athenian black-figure neck amphora, attributed to the Painter of the Montauban Centaurs, ca. 490 b.c. Art Market. Reproduced from Christie’s Manson and Woods sale catalogue: 5.5.1979, pl. 22, no. 63.


84. Diels and Kranz (ibid.), p. 68 B 195; Stewart (see note 74), p. 45; Steiner (ibid.), pp. 122ff.

85. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), p. 182.

86. Porphyry, de Abstinentia, 2.18 (translation by A. Stewart): C. H. Hallett, “The Origins of the Classical Style in Sculpture,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 106 (1986):71–84, p. 79; A. Borbein, “Kanon und Ideal. Kritische Aspekte der Hochklassik,” Athenische Mitteilungen 100 (1985):253–270; p. 260; Stewart (see note 74), pp. 134f.; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 79. For a different take on this passage cp. Hölscher (see note 71), pp. 106ff.

81. De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), pp. 87ff.; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), pp. 344ff.

82. See esp. De Cesare (ibid.), pp. 77f., 87f., 180ff. Contra Hölscher (see note 71), pp. 119f.

83. H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 7th ed. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1954–1956), p. 22 B 5 (G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983], p. 209); W. Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. J. Raffan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 91–92; Steiner (see note 80), pp. 121f.; Tanner (see note 62), p. 53f.

and “conspicuous in their dress and ornament for the viewing, but empty of heart,” to quote a famous remark by Demokritos.84 This line of interpretation is problematic since it tends to overestimate the influence of iconoclasts on contemporary culture. As noted long ago by Dodds, “thinkers like Xenophanes and Herakleitos give the impression of being isolated figures even in Ionia, and it was a long time before their ideas found any echo on the Mainland,” probably only by the time of Euripides.85 A famous passage of Porphyry reporting a remark by Aischylos on the new Early Classical style suggests a different interpretation for the transformation of statues of gods on vases during this period. According to Aischylos, “the old statues, though simply made, are thought divine; while the new, though superbly wrought, have less of the divine in them.”86 As noted by several commentators, this remark by Aischylos emphasizes the inherent danger attached to the strengthening of the illusion of life achieved by Early Classical sculptors. By bringing the images of the gods closer to the living world, sculptors ended up sacrificing some of the mysterious and supernatural powers of archaic statues.

the Late Archaic iconography of the rape of Kassandra shows that this heightened appreciation of the factural quality of statues was being extended to images of gods.

In Late Archaic vase painting the living divinities and their statues are portrayed very similarly, but by the beginning of the Early Classical period artists tend to differentiate them (fig. 14). In representations of statues in sanctuaries or temples, this attitude often translates as showing the statues of the divinities as in an earlier style, and distancing them from the narrative by turning their body frontally to the viewer—unlike the living figures, who are featured with their bodies and heads in profile—or by setting them on top of a tall support.81 It has been suggested that this transformation would reflect a changing attitude towards the images of gods, as a consequence of a decline in religious belief in the increasing secular society of fifth-century Athens.82 Under the attacks on idolatry by philosophers like Herakelitos (500 b.c.), who once remarked that talking to statues of gods was equivalent to conversing with houses,83 the Greeks would have started thinking of their images of gods as deprived of their magical power,

Figure 14. Ilioupersis. Athenian red-figure calyx krater, attributed to the Altamura Painter, ca. 470–460 b.c. Ceramic, h. 48 cm; d. 49 cm. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, William Francis Warden Fund, 1959, 59.178. Photograph © 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.


91. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College: ARV2 1058, no. 114 (Group of Polygnotos); Add2 323; De Cesare 1997 (ibid.), p. 232, no. 39; Oenbrink (ibid.), p. 369, no. A23.

92. See esp. A. Schnapp, “Why Did the Greeks Need Images?” In Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery, ed. J. Christiansen and T. Melander (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet; Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; Thorvaldsens Museum, 1988), pp. 568–574, pp. 569f.; Stewart (see note 74), p. 45.

93. Cp. more recently De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 89.94. Herodotus 1.131; 4.59.95. Schnapp (see note 92), pp. 569f.96. Herodotus 5.80–81, 8.64, 83–84.

87. Vernant (see note 60), pp. 153ff.; Bettinetti (see note 74), pp. 20ff.; cp. the case of Samos: Romano (see note 76), pp. 255ff.

88. Borbein (see note 86), pp. 260ff.; Stewart (see note 74), pp. 44f.89. De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), pp. 89ff.; Oenbrink 1997 (see

note 1), pp. 347f.; Hölscher (see note 71), pp. 116f.90. De Cesare 1997 (ibid.), pp. 145ff.; Oenbrink (ibid.), pp. 65ff.

Cp. in particular the amphora Stockholm, Medelhavsmuseum 1963.1: ARV2 1643, no. 33bis (Tyskiewicz P.), 1708; Add2 210; De Cesare 1997 (ibid.), p. 237, no. 72; Oenbrink (ibid.), p. 367, no. A10.

Representations of the rape of Kassandra are once again very useful, since this iconography offers the best examples of this new transformation. Thus, on a neck amphora in Cambridge (450 b.c.), one sees Athena standing behind her own statue, which Kassandra is grasping with both hands (fig. 15).91 In these scenes, the fact that the statue of Athena is turned frontally to the viewer makes the handling of the spear by the idol totally ineffective for the purpose of protecting the Trojan prophetess. However, the living goddess, by raising her right hand in a protective gesture, compensates for that ineffectiveness. Vases like this are revealing about the process of separation between representation and represented taking place in Greek culture of the High Classical period in relation to statues of gods. Statues of gods are no longer the living gods, but rather inanimate images that nonetheless retain the power to materialize the divine presence, and making present the living gods.92

It is a misunderstanding of Greek piety to believe that this separation between images and imaged that one sees on the vases would indicate that the statues of the gods had not only lost their life, but also their power of connecting mortals and immortals.93 According to this line of interpretation, under the attacks on idolatry by iconoclasts and now also by atheists like Anaxagoras, statues of gods would have become not a bridge, but rather a barrier between this world below and the world beyond. This line of interpretation does not seem to take into account the fact that for this generation of Greeks (one may quote Herodotus)94 the use of images of gods, along with temples and altars, had now become a prerequisite of civilization and a crucial element for the definition of its cultural and ethnic identity.95 Nor does it account for the fact that this generation of Greeks (one may again quote Herodotus)96 strongly believed in cult statues as embodiments of the power of the sacred, and in the close connection between the possession of cult statues, command of the power of

That this interpretation of the remark by Aischylos is correct seems to be indicated by the presence in many Greek sanctuaries of the Classical and later periods of two statues of the same divinity inside the temple: the Archaic idol, primitive in form but credited with supernatural qualities and thus regularly involved in ritual actions outside the temple, and the new image, the statue that exteriorizes the presence of the god in the intimacy of the temple where it is contained.87 This coexistence came as a sort of compromise in an attempt to restore the balance between old magic and modern illusion, but in the end it proved to be the most effective solution. It was a solution certainly more effective than that of producing pseudo-archaic or archaistic statues, one of the two alternatives left to the sculptors attempting to restore the distance between the statues of gods and their worshippers; the other alternative being the production of a whole new generation of magnificent and spectacular images, such as the chryselephantine statues by Pheidias.88 It is within this framework that we can better interpret the tendency of vase painters of the Early Classical period to both differentiate the statues of gods from the living gods, making them look earlier in style and to separate them from the narrative actions to which they belong. In the Early Classical period, the difference between old and new images of the gods had become an issue, and it is this issue that one sees reflected, either consciously or at the subliminal level, in the work of the vase painters: statues of gods, if divine, are simply made.

Around the middle of the fifth century, the representation of statues on vases and the relationship between statues of gods and living gods takes on a whole new dimension. Representation and represented are separated, and the image of the divinity is doubled, becoming both the living god and its representation, standing near to each other.89 This separation is anticipated in some early-fifth-century representations of the theft of the Palladion, where the statue is represented along with the goddess Athena,90 but it is only towards the middle of the century that this doubling of the image of the divinity becomes standard.


99. Basilea, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig 70; Trendall (see note 55), p. 6, no. 33a (Pisticci P.); Trendall (see note 5), p. 19; Alroth (see note 1), pp. 20f.; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 228, no. 11; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 386, no. D13.

97. Tanner (see note 62), p. 41ff.98. Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, 2.39; Schnapp (see note 92),

p. 573; P. C. Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 28ff.; J. Elsner, “Image and Ritual: Reflections on the Religious Appreciation of Classical Art,” Classical Quarterly 46 (1996):515–531, p. 516; Donohue (see note 75), p. 36.

This basic principle is reasserted by representations of divinities associated with their statues in the late fifth and early fourth century, especially those on South Italian vases. In South Italian vase painting, the earliest occurrence of the separation of representation and represented is on a bell krater at Basilea (430 b.c.), featuring the myth of Laokoon (fig. 16).99 On one side of this vase, one sees at the left limit the statue of Apollo with serpents entwined round its body and the severed limbs of Laokoon’s son at his feet. At the right limit of the scene, the living Apollo turns his head in the direction of his own statue and looks at the woman intervening along with Laokoon against the serpents. Here the painter is playing with the fact that although the statue and the living god have the same attributes, a bow and a stalk of laurel, they are stylistically different, as regards both their posture and hairstyle: The statue of Apollo reminds us of a Late Archaic kouros, while the living Apollo has a decidedly Classical look. This contrast becomes

the sacred and political autonomy.97 In addition, this line of interpretation does not seem to take into account the fact that as late as in the second century c.e., to Artemidorus of Daldis, statues of gods seen in dreams had the same meaning as the gods themselves from the point of view of the dream interpreter.98 To this, one may add that this line of interpretation seems to miss what the vases do actually represent: the divinity next to its image. By showing the divinity in close proximity to its statue, these vases are emphasizing the fact that statues of gods translate in a visible way the invisible presence of the gods, acting as symbolic manifestations of their presence, and that statues of gods are powerful catalysts for the divine presence. Statues of gods, far from being a barrier between mortals and immortals, are a crucial bridge. They can be inanimate and they can only stand for a living god: however, next to a statue of a god stands a living god.

Figure 15. Rape of Kassandra. Athenian red-figure neck amphora, attributed to the Group of Polygnotos, ca. 450 b.c. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College. Reproduced from W. Froehner, Collection de M. Albert B[arre] (Paris, 1878), pl. 6, no. 330.


101. Here I follow the distinction between image and idol suggested by Vernant (see note 60), pp. 153ff.

102. Cp., e.g., the Palladion on the Parthenon metopes, on which see K. A. Schwab, “The Palladion and Its Multiple Functions in the Parthenon North Metopes,” in Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer, ed. A. J. Clark and J. Gaunt (Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum, 2002), pp. 293–296.

103. Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di Spina 3033: ARV 2 1171, no. 1 (Polion), 1685; Para 459; Add 2 338; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 240, no. 88.

100. Amsterdam 2579: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 36, no. 10 (P. of the Birth of Dionysos); Trendall (ibid.), p. 28; Alroth (ibid.), p. 39; De Cesare 1997 (ibid.), no. 9; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 385, no. D7.

with their Archaic idols.101 In these years, archaic idols were also represented in sculpture, which would indicate a general surge of interest in these early forms of representation of divinities.102 The display of the living divinities along with their archaic idols is first seen on a volute krater in Ferrara (420 b.c.), featuring the myth of Thamyris and the Muses.103 On this vase, the living Muses are accompanied by their archaic idols above the altar. These idols, although primitive in their forms, are powerful enough to stir a reaction of surprise on the part of Argiope, the mother of Thamyris. Representations of

more pronounced on the fragments of a calyx krater in Amsterdam (400–385 b.c.; fig. 17).100 These fragments show a temple of Apollo, with the doors open and a colossal bronze statue of the god inside. To the right of the temple is the living Apollo, playing the lyre. Here again the statue and the living god are differentiated: The statue is an Early Classical figure, close in style to works such as the Kassel Apollo, while the living god is a High Classical figure.

This process of differentiation between the statue and the living god is the more striking because the living god is juxtaposed with a highly mimetic image. However, that juxtaposition could take more extreme forms. In fact, since the second half of the fifth century, vase painters also display the living divinities along

Figure 16. Laokoon. Lucanian red-figure bell-krater, attributed to the Pisticci Painter, ca. 430 b.c. Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig 70. Image © Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig, Basel.


attribute as the living goddess, a bow. As pointed out by De Cesare, here the separation between representation and represented and the configuration of the statue in an archaic, primitive form are suggestive of the antiquity of the sanctuary and the local worship of the divinity. This brings us back to the general interpretation of this series of vases featuring living gods along with their images. By showing the divinity in more or less close proximity to its statue, the vases are both saying that the image of a god is lifeless, and that by approaching it you are coming closer to a god.

Seen against this tradition of representations of gods near to their own images, the peculiarities of the scene on our vase stand out more clearly. Like never before, the god is not just near to his image, or generically looking into its direction, but is clearly intent at recognizing it. And like never before, the statue is not just of a different material and shape than the god, but is still being finished by color, caught in the moment before it will start serving its function in ritual practice and deceive the worshippers with its illusion. The vase painter, by juxtaposing a living god staring at a god in progress who happens to be himself, a better version of himself, appears here to be carrying to their

living divinities along with their archaic idols become more frequent in fourth-century vase painting. On a volute krater in Naples (400 b.c.), which opens the series, a primitive figure of Dionysos stands behind the altar in a sanctuary of the god, while Dionsyos himself is watching the performance of a sacrifice in his honor from the upper register.104 The juxtaposition of the living divinity and her archaic idol is standard in representations of the story of Iphigenia in Tauris, not surprisingly, considering that Euripides wrote a whole play centered on the bretas of Taurian Artemis fallen from the sky, capable of turning away from its place and moving its eyes.105 The earliest occurrence of Artemis and her archaic idol is on a fragment in Heidelberg (400–390 b.c.).106 The idol, which serves as the statue of Taurian Artemis, holds the same

104. Neaples 82922: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 35, no. 8 (P. of the Birth of Dionysos); Alroth (see note 1), p. 39; De Cesare 1997 (ibid.), p. 253, no. 174.

105. Euripides, Iphigeneia among the Taurians, 1165–1167: Stewart (see note 74), p. 45; Steiner (see note 80), p. 159.

106. Heidelberg 25.04: Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–1982 (see note 5), vol. I, p. 41, no. 28 (connected with the P. of the Birth of Dionysos); De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 229, no. 15.

Figure 17. Apollo. Fragments of an Apulian red-figure calyx krater attributed to the Painter of the Birth of Dionysos, ca. 400–385 b.c. Courtesy of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam.


of Herakles and the living Herakles, who has the same red flesh, which is the mark of the other living figures. This opposition is not an accident, since in a few years it becomes central to this production.

Immediately after the production of our krater, in the years between 370 and 330 b.c., statues enter in fact in large numbers in the repertoire of Apulian vases, in scenes related to the cult of the dead, where they are found both within naiskoi and as free-standing figures on a plinth (fig. 18). On these vases, the statues serve both as idealized images of the dead, surrounded by the community of mourners, and as expressions of their social standing, expressed through types such as the young warrior or the mistress accompanied by her maid.110 The main characteristic of these statues is that

extreme limits both the notion that the statue of a god is inanimate and the notion that the statue makes the living god present.107

One is reminded here of a famous passage concerning the statues of the gods in Plato’s Laws, placed in the context of a discussion of the honors and dishonors paid to parents: “[T]he ancient laws of all men concerning the gods are two-fold: some of the gods [the stars] whom we honor we see clearly; but of others we set up statues as images, and we believe that when we worship these, lifeless though they be, the living gods beyond feel great good-will towards us and gratitude.”108 On our vase, as in Plato, the statue of a god (agalma) is an inanimate (apsychos) image (eikon) that makes the living (empsychos) god present.

This new status of the statue of the god is strongly dependent on the new status of the image at the turn from the fifth to the fourth century b.c. As pointed out by Jean Pierre Vernant, in these years, under the influence of the theory of mimesis, the turn is completed in Greek culture that leads from the “presentification,” the making present, of the invisible to the imitation of appearance. It is at this time that the category of figural representation emerges in its specific features and that the representation “is now transformed into an image that is the product of an expert imitation, which, as a result of skilful technique and illusionist procedures, enters into the general category of the ‘fictitious’—that which we call art.”109

On Apulian vases, the entrance of the statue into the general category of the “fictitious” is marked by the use of color to distinguish it from the living figures. On Apulian vases, beginning with the fragmentary krater in Amsterdam, statues of gods, and statues in general, are no longer of the same color as the living figures, the red of clay, but are instead painted white to indicate their nature as artifacts, whether of marble or bronze. This is what one sees on our vase, where it is the color, the shining white with diluted yellow, that marks the sharpest visual contrast between the statue

110. Schmidt, Trendall, and Cambitoglou 1976, 20ff.; H. Lohmann, Grabmäler auf unteritalischen Vasen (Berlin: Mann, 1979), pp. 25ff.; L. Massei, “Schemi statuari nella ceramica apula,” in Aparchai. Nuove

107. It is generally assumed that the moment represented on our vase is the one after the sculptor has finished his work and the statue is set up on its base ready to be finished by the painter: see esp. von Bothmer (note 6), p. 156; Cambitoglou and Trendall 1961 (see note 5), p. 19; Schneider-Herrmann (see note 5), p. 40; K. Hamma in Mayo and Hamma (see note 19), p. 96.

108. Plato, Laws 11.931a (translation by R. G. Bury); Schnapp (see note 92), p. 571; Stewart (see note 74), p. 45; Childs (see note 80), p. 42.

109. Vernant (see note 60), p. 152.

Figure 18. Apulian red-figure loutrophoros, attributed to the Metope Painter, 370–350 b.c. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Bernard and Audrey Aronson Charitable Trust Gift, in memory of her beloved husband, Bernard Aronson, 1995 (1995.45.1). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.


For a long time, this passage has been dismissed as marginal or digressive, but recent scholarship on mimesis, in particular the work of Stephen Halliwell, has done justice to it.115 In this passage, Aristotle is providing an explanation of the origins and causes of poetry and of mimetic art in general, and defining the very nature of the psychology of mimetic art. In so doing, he clearly distinguishes between the cognitively grounded pleasure derived from recognizing the representational significance of a mimetic object and the pleasures that, though linked to the experience of a mimetic work, are potentially independent of its representational character and linked to its being the product of skilful technique: like the pleasure in the execution (apergasia) and in the coloring (chroia).

Although Plato was not interested in the pleasure aroused by a work of art in the way Aristotle was, there is a similar emphasis in his work on the response to works of visual arts as the products of both mimesis and techne. Thus, in a passage of the Laws where Plato defines the necessary prerequisites for literary and art criticism, the philosopher argues that the judicious critic must know first what the subject of the painting or sculpture is; and then, he must know the proportions and the composition and the colors and the shapes. To sum up his argument, the Athenian states: “In regard, then, to every representation—whether in painting, music or any other art—must not the judicious critic possess these three requisites: first, a knowledge of the nature of the original; next, a knowledge of the correctness of the copy; and thirdly, a knowledge of the excellence with which the copy is executed?”116

To come back to the quoted passage of Aristotle’s Poetics on our krater, the posture and gesture of the living Herakles seem to illustrate the first response to mimetic art: the pleasure of recognition, of reasoning that the statue represents himself. At the same time, the situation represented, of the gaze at a statue being painted, alludes to the pleasure provided by the statue as an artifact, because of its craftsmanship and color.

Today, we are in a better position to understand Aristotle’s reference to this pleasure that comes from color. A revolution in the study of ancient polychromy is revealing to us a new face of ancient sculpture, one fully

they are usually painted in added white, to simulate the marble or the stuccoed limestone of the originals that they are supposed to represent.111

The practice of painting statues on vases in white, in order to distinguish them from the living figures, goes back to the High Classical period, and is first found on the bell krater in Bonn (420 b.c.) showing the finding of the egg from which Helen was born.112 However, it is only on Apulian vases of the fourth century that this use becomes canonical, in step with the new theory of mimesis developing at the transition from the fifth to the fourth century b.c.113

Where this innovation was heading, in the fourth century, is best revealed by a very important passage of Poetics 4, where Aristotle identifies two features of human nature that he takes to explain the existence of poetry. In many ways, this passage represents one of the best commentaries on our image of Herakles wondering at his own portrait being painted:

Poetry in general can be seen to owe its existence to two causes, and these are rooted in nature. First, there is man’s natural propensity, from childhood onwards, to engage in mimetic activity (and this distinguishes man from other creatures, that he is thoroughly mimetic and through mimesis takes his first steps in understanding). Second, there is the pleasure which all men take in mimetic objects.

An indication of the latter can be observed in practice: for we take pleasure in contemplating the most precise images of things whose sight in itself causes us pain—such as the appearance of the basest animals, or of corpses. Here too the explanation lies in the fact that great pleasure is derived from exercising the understanding, not just for philosophers but in the same way for all men, though their capacity for it may be limited. It is for this reason that men enjoy looking at images, because what happens is that, as they contemplate them, they apply their understanding and reasoning to each element (identifying this as an image of such-and-such a man, for instance). Since, if it happens that one has no previous familiarity with the sight, then the object will not give pleasure qua mimetic object but because of its craftmanship, or colour, or for some other such reason.114

115. S. Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 177ff.; see also Webster (see note 65), pp. 13ff.

116. Laws 669a–b (translation by R. G. Bury): Webster (see note 65), pp. 12f.; M. L. Catoni, Schemata: comunicazione non verbale nella Grecia antica (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2005), pp. 318ff.

ricerche e studi sulla Magna Grecia e la Sicilia antica in onore di Paolo Enrico Arias (Pisa, 1982), pp. 483–500, 483ff.; Trendall (see note 5), pp. 266ff.

111. Reuterswärd (see note 8), pp. 92ff.; Todisco (see note 7), p. 912ff; Brinkmann (see note 5), p. 25.

112. Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 78: ARV 2 1171, no. 4 (Polion); Para 459; Add 2 339; Alroth (see note 1), pp. 21ff.; De Cesare 1997 (see note 1), p. 260, no. 211; Oenbrink 1997 (see note 1), p. 387, no. E1.

113. On white for statues on vases see esp. Schefold (see note 1), p. 66; Oenbrink (ibid.), pp. 201ff.

114. Aristotle, Poetics 1448b4–19 (translation by S. Halliwell).


wood, five drachmas for the sculptor (Aristothales), five drachmas for the encaustic painter (Deinomenes), and finally six drachmas and four obols for the kosmesis of the statue, the adornment that prepared the image for its use in ritual.122 This document not only confirms that sculptor and painter were two separate figures, but it also shows that equal sums were paid to them, indicating an equal level of prestige and social recognition.123 This would explain why in our vase the sculptor is absent and the painter takes center stage.

I began this essay by evoking the strong tendency of Greek vase painting towards self-reference, and Apulian vases are no exception. It is within this context of self-reference and self-promotion that I would like to frame the celebration of painting on our krater: A celebration that went so far as to show Nike seated right above the painter, with the same spirit of pride in achievement—as first pointed out by Schmidt124—that is expressed on the well-known Athenian red-figure hydria in Milan, featuring a vase workshop visited by Athena and Nikai, crowning some of the artists at work.125 The fact that the goddess holds no crown in her hand seems to me to be a deliberate act of omission by the vase painter, identifying himself with the statue painter, and worried by the idea of going as far as committing hybris. If Nike held the crown, in fact, the viewer would remain undecided as to whether the goddess of victory is making her epiphany in the sanctuary to crown the living Herakles, the statue of Herakles, or its painter.

covered by vivid colors.117 The cooperation of painters and sculptors began in the Archaic period, but it was only in the fourth century, when the “fictitious,” not “presentational” nature of statues has become central to their discussion, that we find significant references to it. This is the case of the passage by Aristotle, as well as a passage in the Republic of Plato, which is all about the response to the painting of statues: “It is as if we were coloring a statue”—writes Plato—“and someone approached and censured us, saying that we did not apply the most beautiful pigments to the most beautiful parts of the image, since the eyes, which are the most beautiful part, have not been painted with purple but with black. We should think it a reasonable justification to reply, ‘Don’t expect us, quaint friend, to paint the eyes so fine that they will not be like eyes at all, nor the other parts. But observe whether by assigning what is proper to each we render the whole beautiful.’”118

It is within this context that one can frame references in literary sources to the collaboration of fourth-century sculptors and painters, like Pliny’s remark that Praxiteles most valued those of his statues to which the painter Nikias had put his hand.119

This passage is often mentioned in discussions of our vase,120 in spite of the fact that our scene shows a rather different situation. Unlike Praxiteles, the sculptor is not present on the scene to express his appreciation for the work of the painter. An explanation for this omission may come from the inventories of the Delian temples, which show that in the early third century the sculptor and the painter had achieved the same level of prestige and social recognition. A case in point is offered by the inventories of the year 279 b.c. In Delos, every year, a new wooden agalma was commissioned for the festival of Dionysos in the month of Galaxion.121 This agalma consisted of a phallus in the form of a bird, brought in procession in a cart. The inventories detail the cost of the new statue, mentioning twenty-four drachmas for the

122. IG XI 2, 161 A, ll. 89–91: Nouveau choix d’inscriptions de Délos, ed. C. Prêtre (Athènes: EFA, 2002), pp. 59ff. For the agalma cp. Romano (see note 76), pp. 190ff. For the kosmesis see also J. Marcadé, Au musée de Délos (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1969), pp. 98ff. In general, on artisans in Delian inscriptions see C. Feyel in Prêtre (ibid.), pp. 264ff. and C. Feyel, Les artisans dans les sanctuaires grecs aux époques classique et hellénistique (Athens and Paris: École française d’Athènes, 2006).

123. As especially pointed out by Richter (see note 118), p. 131.124. Schmidt (see note 7), p. 35.125. Milan, Banca Intesa: ARV 2 571 num. 73 (Leningrad P.),

1659; Para 390; Add 2 261; Vidale (see note 28), pp. 277ff. Todisco has read the position of Nike right above the artist as if the goddess were waiting for the statue to be finished, in order then to glorify him with a crown (Todisco [see note 7], pp. 928, 930). Todisco adds the suggestion (followed by De Cesare 1994 [see note 5], p. 250) that Nike may be holding a crown, or another attribute of victory, in her right hand, an attribute that would have been rendered by added color, and which would have now vanished. This last suggestion, however, is very unlikely, since the position of the right hand is one of rest on the ground, with the palm open, and not clenched, as one would expect from a figure holding an attribute. Cp., e.g., among the Apulian Painters of the Plain Style, the left hand of the seated Herakles on the bell krater Madrid 32658 (Cambitoglou and Trendall 1961 [see note 5]; Bendis P., 59 no. i).

117. Ebbinghaus (see note 16).118. Plato, Republic 4.420c–d (translation by P. Shorey): G. M.

A. Richter, The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 4th ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), p. 132; V. Manzelli, La policromia nella statuaria greca arcaica (Rome: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider, 1994), pp. 93f.; Catoni (see note 116), pp. 318ff.

119. Cp. more recently, P. Jockey, “Praxitèle et Nicias, le débat sur la polychromie de la statuaire antique,” in Praxitèle, ed. A. Pasquier and J.-L. Martinez (Paris: Musée du Louvre and Somogy, 2007), pp. 62–81.

120. See, for example, Richter (note 5), p. 117.121. For the Delian Dionysia and the agalma see P. Bruneau,

Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l’époque hellénistique et à l’époque impériale (Paris: Boccard, 1970), pp. 312ff.

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