Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus

"The Shield of Achilles"

William Diebold
September 7, 2005

I. Terms

Dipylon Master
amphora
meander ("Greek key")
formal analysis
iconography (Gr.: icon "image" + graphe, "writing")
ekphrasis (pl. ekphraseis)

II. Objects

III. Texts

a)
My painting is based on the fact that only what you can see there is there. All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion. What you see is what you see. (Frank Stella cited from “Questions to Stella and Judd,” an interview with B. Glaser edited by L. Lippard in Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. G. Battcock [New York, 1968], 158).
b)
Iconography is that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form. (Panofsky, 26)
c)
. . . two cities of mortal
men. And there were marriages in one, and festivals.
They were leading the brides along from their maiden chambers
under the flaring of torches, and the loud bride song was arising.
The young men followed the circles of the dance, and among them
the flutes and lyres kept up their clamour as in the meantime
the women standing each at the door of her court admired them. (Iliad 18.490-96)
d)
These shields are patently symbolic and allegoric creations of the poetic mind. However, one cannot be altogether sure that we are dealing entirely with exclusively poetic fiction. (Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Shield [Baltimore, 1983], 116)
e)
He made on it a great vineyard heavy with clusters,
lovely and in gold, but the grapes upon it were darkened
and the vines themselves stood out through poles of silver. About them
he made a field-ditch of dark metal, and drove all around this
a fence of tin; . . . (Iliad 18.561-65)
f)
The earth darkened behind them and looked like earth that has been ploughed
though it was gold. Such was the wonder of the shield's forging.
(Iliad 18.548-49)
g)
But the other army, as soon as they heard the uproar arising
from the cattle, as they sat in councils, suddenly mounted
behind their light-foot horses, and went after, and soon overtook them.
(Iliad 18.530-32)
h)
Armor is a warrior’s clothing and thus essential to his identity as a social being. (Hubbard, 22)
i)
. . . on their understanding feet they would run very lightly.
as when a potter crouching makes trial of his wheel, holding
it close in his hands, to see if it will run smooth. (Iliad 18.598-600)
j)
When a poet (oral or otherwise) describes an imaginary work of art at length, it is reasonable to suspect that he may be less interested in visual art than in alluding to his own poetic task: he is being self-reflexive, he is dissembling. (Hurwit, 46)
k)
The art historian will have to check what he thinks is the intrinsic meaning of the work, or group of works, to which he devotes his attention, against what he thinks is the intrinsic meaning of as many other documents of civilization historically related to that work or group of works, as he can master: of documents bearing witness to the political, poetical, religious, philosophical, and social tendencies of the personality, period or country under investigation. Needless to say that, conversely, the historian of political life, poetry, religion, philosophy, and social situations should make analogous use of works of art. It is in the search for intrinsic meanings or content that the various humanistic disciplines meet on a common plane instead of serving as handmaidens to each other. (Panofsky, 39)

IV. Bibliography

Thomas K. Hubbard, “Nature and Art in the Shield of Achilles,” Arion 3rd series 2 (1992), 16-41

Jeffrey M. Hurwit, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C.. Ithaca, 1985

Gotthold E. Lessing, Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, trans. E. A. McCormick. Baltimore, 1984; first published in German in 1766

T. S. W. Lewis, "Homeric Epic and the Greek Vase," The Greek Vase, ed. S. L. Hyatt. Latham, NY, no date; 81-102

Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy. The Technologizing of the Word. London, 1982

Erwin Panofsky, “Introductory” to his Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, New York, 1939, 3-31 (reprinted as: “Iconography and Iconology: an Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art” in his Meaning in the Visual Arts, Garden City, 1955, 26-54)

Anthony Snodgrass, Homer and the Artists. Text and picture in early Greek art. Cambridge, 1998

Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell, “Reading Pictorial Narrative: the Law Court Scene of the Shield of Achilles,” The Ages of Homer. A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule, ed. J. Carter and S. Morris. Austin, 1995, 315-334

Carol Thomas, “Greek Geometric Narrative Art and Orality,” Art History 12 (1989), pp. 257-67