Читать книгу Greek Tragedy in the Light of Vase Paintings онлайн

21 страница из 26

In the latter half of the fifth century B.C. painting appears to have reflected pronounced tendencies of the drama. The legends of the heroic time when tried in the crucible of the dramatic poet appealed more strongly to the imagination of the artist who had been accustomed to epic severeness and calmness. The conventionality and regulation types gave way, and the tragic drama remained thereafter the vital force in shaping the character of paintings occupied with heroic legends. At this time we learn of a Telephos by Parrhasios, which one naturally associates with Euripides or Aischylos^[68]. The Iphigeneia of Timanthes was a work that was scarcely possible but for the fresh interest awakened in the story by the three tragedians^[69]. It is highly probable again that Euripides was the inspiration for the Andromeda of Nikias^[70] and the Medeia of Timomachus^[71]. These were both works of great renown. Apollodoros’ painting representing the Herakleidai can with some certainty be referred to Euripides’ tragedy^[72]. Theorus, a Samian, painted Orestes slaying Aigisthos and Klytaimestra, and could hardly have worked independent of Aischylos^[73]. The fate of Pentheus and Lykurgos was painted in the younger of the two temples in the Dionysiac precinct south of the Acropolis^[74]. The date of this temple has been fixed at approximately 400 B.C.^[75] The punishment of Pentheus was particularly popular with the tragedians, and the dependence of this painting on the play of Aischylos or Euripides is all but certain. The former’s Lykurgeia was the source of the numerous vase paintings of Lower Italy representing the madness of the Thracian king^[76], and one may infer that this painting mentioned by Pausanias was essentially the Aischylean Lykurgos. In the same place were two other scenes from the career of Dionysos. Ariadne was represented as being forsaken by Theseus and rescued by the god, and in another place Dionysos was conducting Hephaistos to Olympos. Euripides’ Theseus handled the love episode in the first of the two latter, and this play was probably not without its effect upon the popularity of the story which was of frequent occurrence, particularly in Pompeii^[77]. This poet’s power in dealing with love exploits and depicting the sad case of unrequited love and the attending calamities, was a new force in literature and a never-failing spring from which the painter could draw. These compositions are one and all connected with Dionysos, while three of them are parallel with subjects handled in tragedy. Such scenes were possible only after the drama had popularized the subjects and prepared the way, so to speak, for the reception of the same in art. Even though one does not go so far as to contend that these paintings were an outgrowth of tragedy, they must be accepted as signs of the increasing interest in Dionysos and his worship—and this was primarily the Greater Dionysia, where the first editions of Greek tragedies were published. This was the period of Zeuxis and Parrhasios—the time when Euripidean πάθος was shaping artistic conceptions.