Theseus By Greek Penny Small Summary
In abstraction, Artists during the classical era portrayed events in their art and narratives out of their sequential order. In this article, Jocelyn identifies two common patterns of narrative: hierarchy and spatial time. In classical art, figures are arranged according to their significance and role in the narrative, which is their social hierarchy. Later in classical art, placement of figures and events is solely based on where it took place because time in classical antiquity art was not measured in duration, but thought to be a movement through space. Therefore, to show that time had elapsed, classical artists had to change the setting or the location of the scene. The author, Jocelyn Penny Small, supports her argument about time sequencing in classical art by incorporating the discussion of stories and how they’re portrayed in the works of art. The story of Theseus is heavily discussed in the article. Instead of ordering events chronologically, artists ordered events as they were related by Bacchylides. Considering this, Jocelyn argues that the first event in the story must be the one that occurs in the farthest southerlyn location, so that Theseus can make
…show more content…
To focus on one example used, the black figure-kylikes, to keep in contrast with the above example of the red-figure, the events were organized at random by their importance to the artist. Therefore, in the Circle cup, Attic black-figure cup by the Painter of the Boston Polyphemoas, there are many inconsistencies in the sequence of events. Circe is placed in the center/ left of the piece and she has just taken form of a boar. True events are portrayed but no matter what Circe is doing she stakes the center “stage” because she is the protagonist and the most significant to the artist. Therefore, all the events revolve around her as the center, whether she was victorious or
To focus on one example used, the black figure-kylikes, to keep in contrast with the above example of the red-figure, the events were organized at random by their importance to the artist. Therefore, in the Circle cup, Attic black-figure cup by the Painter of the Boston Polyphemoas, there are many inconsistencies in the sequence of events. Circe is placed in the center/ left of the piece and she has just taken form of a boar. True events are portrayed but no matter what Circe is doing she stakes the center “stage” because she is the protagonist and the most significant to the artist. Therefore, all the events revolve around her as the center, whether she was victorious or