Chapter 14
Greek Painting and the Challenge of Mimeİsis
Hariclia Brecoulaki,
Hariclia Brecoulaki
Search for more papers by this authorHariclia Brecoulaki,
Hariclia Brecoulaki
Search for more papers by this authorBook Editor(s):Pierre Destrée,
Penelope Murray,
Pierre Destrée
Search for more papers by this authorPenelope Murray
Search for more papers by this authorSummary
This paper deals with the objectives of pictorial mimesis in ancient Greek painting, as these can be traced out in textual sources and observed on surviving painted documents of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, in ancient Macedonia. The main questions addressed concern the meaning of chrēstographia as a quality of the famous Sicyonian school's paintings, and the preoccupation of ancient painters with representational likeness and the suggestion of moral aspects in their portraits. Information taken from ancient textual sources regarding colors and pictorial techniques are compared with analytical results deriving from the examination of ancient paintings and their materials, in order to lay stress on the practical means painters used to achieve eikastic mimesis.
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Further Reading
- A. Reinach's Receuil Milliet (Reinach 1921) remains the most comprehensive anthology of ancient texts on Greek painting. Especially valuable is the reference work by Rouveret (1989), with a dense overview of ancient painting and the first systematic attempt to associate texts with images and archaeological documentation. The most stimulating and in-depth approach to the problems of artistic mimesis in ancient Greece is provided by Halliwell's seminal work (2002) and his relevant articles on the topic (Halliwell 2000, 2001, and 2005). For Pliny the Elder and his 35th book of Natural History, see Jex-Blake and Sellers (1896) and a most up-to-date analysis by Isager (1991). Issues of verisimilitude and artistic quality as expressed in Pliny's writings are discussed by Perry (2000) and Naas (2004). The volume edited by Rouveret, Dubel and Nass (2006) addresses interesting questions as to the value and use of color in ancient painting and polychromy, based on the interpretation of Greek and Latin texts. Recent publications on the surviving painted documents of the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods in Macedonia have shed more light on the themes and styles of Greek painting (Saatsoglou-Paliadeli 2004; Tsimbidou-Avloniti 2005; Rhomiopoulou and Schmidt-Dounas 2010) and its technological aspects (for a synthetic presentation of the corpus of painting in ancient Macedonia and the function of color, see Brecoulaki 2006a). For a critical art-historical evaluation of aspects of Macedonian iconography see Cohen (2010).
