Art and Myth in Ancient Greece

World of Art

by Thomas H. Carpenter

The Greek Myths are so much of our visual and literary culture that we tend to forget how they entered it in the first place. Here is the first scholarly, comprehensive and succinct survey of the treatment of myth by the artists of ancient Greece. With its copious illustrations, it forms an indispensable and unrivaled reference work for everybody interested in art, drama, poetry, anthropology or religion.

There is no surviving account in ancient Greek literature of of stories as important as the fall of Troy or Theseus and the Minotaur. It is to visual sources that we have to turn for much of our knowledge of the myths. Vase paintings, engraved gems and sculpture in bronze and and stone often pre-date reference to the myths in literature or offer alternative versions to the familiar accounts; always they throw light on the way the Greeks understood the stories of gods and heroes. 370 black-and-white illustrations

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History, Mythology, Art History, Classical Studies, Ancient History

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1991

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable book but it sets out its limited scope in the preface: it is about identifying myths, not explaining them or theorising about them. I must admit this was a bit disappointing – it would have been so interesting to have something deeper than just identification, description, and art. But, of course, this would have been a completely different (and much bigger) kind of book.

The really fascinating discovery for me was to realise just how much we don’t know because of gaps in the surviving literature. An example would be Jason and the Golden Fleece: there are many depictions of a dragon swallowing Jason and then vomiting him up again. These are all definitely Jason the Argonaut (Carpenter points out the obvious iconographical clues which show why) but none of the literary descriptions we have say anything about the vomiting dragon, whose role in the myth therefore remain mysterious and unknown. There are many other examples, and many pictorial representations which we assume represent myths which have been lost, but must have once been familiar to those who produced them and saw them. This is all intriguing stuff. (And why is that some myths became hugely popular at certain times and places, only to fall out of popularity later and be replaced by others? What is it that caused these changes in fashion? This too raises many interesting questions, not explored here).

Nevertheless, within its limitations, this is an excellent book and as handsomely produced and illustrated as everything produced by the estimable Thames & Hudson.

[Gavin White · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this ages ago and have occasionally come back to it to explore certain chapters. The author takes various myths or heroes and explores them from an artistic and literary perspective. For me the real value of this book is that it shows that written myths and ancient art often don't correspond with each other. Greek artworks often show that there were alternative versions of myths known in ancient times with different protagonists or events. Sometimes one icon, for instance Pegasus and Medusa, can even have different interpretations applied to it. The book really helped me to start thinking about myths in very pictorial terms; and to concentrate on this as the central proposition conveyed by the text.

[Linniegayl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a class project. It was an interesting summary of the depiction of key Greek myths and mythological characters on ancient art and architecture.

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

'The visual representations of the myth of Herakles (the ninth task) appear nearly two centuries before the earliest surviving literary source and depict a story different from those sources in significant ways' (Carpenter: 173)

This is a book about myths in Ancient Greek Art. The book tells you which myths/episodes were depicted in Ancient Greek Art, or when they were depicted for the first time in Ancient Greek Art.

Unfortunately the book is just a collection of facts and figures. The author hardly ever tries to explain what made a myth so popular to be depicted. When he does though, the reasons have to do with a painting or a play, which do not always work. The author leaves many ideas incomplete in my opinion, like why certain Herakles labours aren't depicted in South Italian vases, or why Athena often wears a helmet and aegis after the middle of the 6th century.

I like how the pictures are in full colour and so close to the text that refers to them. But I wish information on the current location of the vases was in the description text instead of the appendix.

The book defends the importance of vases for knowing about Greek ancient myths and how these vases can sometimes be a more valuable source of information than written texts. The book is good at describing the different ways in which a mythical character/scene can be portrayed in ancient Greek Art, including regional differences. But to me the book remains unambitious and just descriptive.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Art and Myth in Ancient Greece" (1991) by Professor Emeritus at Ohio University Thomas H. Carpenter.

With chapters with the themes of:
1. Introduction
2. A Demonstration of Method: The Return of Hephaistos; Troilos and Achilles
3. Portraits of the Gods
4. The Ascendancy of the Olympians
5. Perseus; Bellerophon
6. Herakles
7. Theseus
8. Argonauts; Calydonian Boar Hunt
9. The Trojan War
10. The Aftermath of the War



Confusing how the book is set up. In each chapter it's structured by around 15 pages of only text followed everytime by several pages with lots of reference pictures to the connected chapter. To understand fully what is written about, you have to flip pages constantly to have any idea about what Carpenter is writing about. Would rather have the reference near the text, so you don't have to constantly search for answers.

Carpenter delivers what the title of the book is, greek mythology in ancient greek art. You get a feel for the myths and the art pieces, but if you want more information about the different topics and art pieces, you have to read about that somewhere else especially for analysis purposes.

A different layout and more in depth descriptions, and it would have gotten a higher rating.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As per the introduction, this book gives a very topical, general gist of Greek myths and their respective depictions. The book is good for its purposes. You would have to look elsewhere for further analysis of any particular myth/artwork.

[Valéria]

I believe this book could have been much more enjoyable if the writer had diverted from constantly addressing what was supposed to be an exploration of Art and Myth in Ancient Greece as a catalog of dates and places were the pottery was originated.

To be honest I couldn’t see the words ‘red figured’ or ‘black figured pottery’ after reading this without some sort of disdain out of the sheer quantity of times they were repeated again and again when, at certain moments, it was clearly unnecessary.

Notable but nothing too groundbreaking to anyone that has studied Ancient Greek Art previously.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

While narrow in scope, Carpenter's little volume will be greatly interesting to anyone researching Greek myth, or the history of art. He walks us through several classic myths and details how they are portrayed on pottery or sculptures of antiquity; including (intriguingly but frustratingly enough), quite a few stories which we only have suggestions of based on visuals, but for which no written documentation had survived.

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Information dump followed by an image dump in all chapters. Not particularly fluid and not a great writing style. Overall, some good choices of images and some good info. Will come in useful for later referencing.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Information dump that manages to be both incredibly banal and confusing simultaneously

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not the easiest to follow due to it's images set in clumps that one has to refer back to in order to understand the text. It would benefit much from having the image right next to the text. Someone reading this would need to have a clear knowledge of the myth behind the artwork to fully grasp the meanings of the readings. This would be a good book to pull images and text from for an in-class shared experience for the students.

[Molly Ringle]

I didn't read every word of all chapters; I skimmed some. But this was an interesting and different angle from which to come at Greek mythology, as well as serving as a useful bit of ancient art history. At least I now can use terms like "red-figure" and "black-figure," and have a better idea of why the scenes are often all jumbled together with lots of action seemingly happening at once. (Answer: because they didn't know about comic-book-style frames yet to separate one scene from another.)

[Maccabee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to exactly that which it claims: Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. Text and illustrations are sufficient to fan the flames of a lifelong passion for all things Greek. Consider yourself warned.

[Seda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use this book for a art history class and it is very beneficial. Great pictures of the Ancient Greek arts and neatly captioned and very explanatory. If you are majoring in art, or interested in Ancient Greek art I highly recommend this book.

[Manuel Vega · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best are the pictures, grouped in myths. Really extensive. Unfortunately, the author avoids entirely other discussion than the artistic.

[Inez Beall]

Love Medusa.