Art And Myth In Ancient Greece (World Of Art)

Art and Myth in Ancient Greece (World of Art)

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 illustrationsFrom the Back CoverHere is the first comprehensive survey of the treatment of myth by Greek artists. With its copious illustrations, it forms an indispensable and unrivaled reference work for everybody interested in the art, drama, poetry, anthropology or religion of ancient Greece.About the AuthorT. H. Carpenter is a distinguished professor emeritus at Ohio University, where he has taught since 1997. His other books include Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens and Mythology: Greek and Roman.