I. Terms

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

II. Objects

Dipylon amphora, attributed to the Dipylon Master; Athens, circa 750 B.C.; found in the Dipylon cemetery, Athens (now Athens, National Museum 804)

Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch; American, 1959 (New York, private collection)

III. Texts

a) . . . 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)

b) 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)

c) 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)

d) 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)

e) . . . 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)

f) 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, p. 46)

g) weaving a great web,
a red folding robe, and working into it the numerous struggles
of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armored Achaians (Iliad 3.125-28)

h) like a musician, like a harper, when
with quiet hand upon his instrument
he draws between his thumb and forefinger
a sweet new string upon a peg (Odyssey 21.405-09)

IV. Bibliography

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