Chapter 27
Poikilia
Adeline Grand-Clément,
Adeline Grand-Clément
Search for more papers by this authorAdeline Grand-Clément,
Adeline Grand-Clément
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
Poikilia (“variegation”) is a protean notion, used by the Greeks to describe the visual effect produced by the assemblage of different colors and materials on an object, but also to express the ideas of variety and complexity. Its significance thus covers many fields: craftsmanship, music, poetry, rhetoric, medicine, ethics, or politics. This chapter deals with this multifariousness of poikilia and focuses mostly on literary and artistic production from the Archaic period. It aims to show that the two clusters of meaning (colorful adornment/intricacy) are deeply entwined in Greek thought. The study reveals in particular that variegated artifacts have a seductive power that appeals to the eyes but also to other senses, thus establishing that poikilia is a key notion for understanding one specific feature of ancient aesthetics: the fondness for polysensory experience, generating pleasure.
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Further Reading
- Due to its multifariousness, the concept of poikilia is mentioned in many studies, but few of them really tackle the issue. The only publication entirely devoted to it is the collection edited by Berardi, Lisi, and Micalella (2009), which provides an up-to-date bibliography on the subject. Papers written by various specialists, mainly philologists, cover several fields of inquiry (poetry, philosophy, rhetoric, politics, medicine, music), but the perspective remains mostly a literary one. The introductory remarks by Micalella offer a good starting point, with some further reading and an overview of the diverse contributions. Most of them are dedicated to one work or one author belonging to the Archaic and Classical periods (Pindar, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, to cite but a few), with a few insights into Hellenistic and Roman eras (for example, with Josephus and Proclus). They show in particular that poikilia is a key notion for understanding the arts of rhetoric and the principles at work in poetic composition, as the Greeks conceived them, from the Archaic period onwards. Rinaudo (2009) (relying on a previous and more detailed work, Rinaudo 1994) focuses on the evolution of the semantics of poikilos, from Homer to Aristotle. It provides thus a good survey, in spite of her tendency to underestimate the role played by colors in the process. Wallace (2009), who deals with the implication of poikilia in the musical sphere, may be usefully complemented by LeVen (2013), on the multisensory nature of poikilia.
- Another substantial though quite different approach to the concept of poikilia can be found in the seminal study by Detienne and Vernant (1974) about mêtis (English translation, 1991), supplemented by Frontisi-Ducroux (2000) on daidalea. Both these volumes adopt a more anthropological perspective, as does the last chapter of Grand-Clément (2011), devoted to an inquiry on the semantics of the adjective poikilos as a means of better understanding the Greek Archaic sensitivity to colors. This study, bringing together literary and archeological data, highlights the strong connection existing between objects full of poikilia and the notions of excellence, beauty, seduction, and pleasure in Archaic culture and aesthetics. As far as the field of art and craftsmanship is concerned, two recent studies shed new light on poikilia, in a different but quite complementary way: Cohen (2008) and Neer (2002). Both deal with sixth- and fifth-century Athenian vase-painting, but the first one focuses on the various techniques used to achieve variegated effects on ceramics, whereas the second establishes a link between the aesthetic values of ornamentation and aristocratic ethics in Greek cities.
