Bert Smith Painting Lecture_03

8/2/2019 Bert Smith Painting Lecture_03

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Greek and Roman WallpaintingR.R.R. Smith

Lecture 3

Zeuxis, Vergina, and the fourth-century

pictorial revolution


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SOME ANCIENT PAINTING TERMS

sknographia : stage-painting, scene-painting, eventually, perspective

skiagraphia : shadow painting, shading

phthora kai apochrsis skias : the fading out and building up of shadow(that is, lightening and darkening of colours, shading)

lumen umbrarumque ratio: system of light(s) and shadow(s)

splendor (Greek = aug) : highlights (literally: shine)

tonos: in music = pitch; in painting = the tone or contrast between lightand shade(?)

harmog : juncture, juxtaposition of colours, transition from one colour toanother


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Colour terms

color simplex: simple / plain / unmixed colour(s) (Polygnotan)

colores floridi: brilliant / brilliant colours ( = bright reds, blues, purples, greens)

colores austeri: plain / sombre / austere colours

= the other colours (NH35.30) = earth reds, yellows, browns, greys?)

quattuor colores: four colours= black, white, red, and yellow


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Prestige of painters and of panel-pictures (pinakes, tabulae)


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Street musicians, Pompeii, mosaic, 1st c BC, signed byDioskourides of Samos (Naples)

Dionysian flogging ritual. Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii, c. 50 BC.

[Nicias] lumen et umbras custodiit atque ut eminerent e tabulis FIGURAE (instead of picturae)maxime curavit.

[Nikias of Athens] paid close attention to light and shadow and took great care that his figures

should stand out from their panels, Pliny, NH35.131.


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Laying out of dead (prothesis).Huge WG lekythos.

Athenian, c. 400 (Berlin)


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hatching

Talos and Dioskouroi on Crete. RF volute

krater. Athenian, c.400 BC (Ruvo)


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Amazon sarcophagus from Tarquinia, c. 350 BC (Florence)


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White-ground lekythos, Group R, c. 410 BC (Athens, National Museum)


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Phaon & Aphrodite under bower,RF hydria by Meidias Painter,from Populonia (BM)

Meidias Painter, c. 420-400 BC


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Ivory veneer, from Kul-Oba (Crimea),Late 5th c (Hermitage, St Petersburg)

Centaur. Painted marble panel, Herculaneum, 1st c (Naples)

Niobe and her daughters playingknucklebones. Painted marble panel.

From Herculaneum, 1st c BC/AD (Naples)


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Pliny, NH 35.135: Nikias of Athensalso painted some large pictures, among them aCalypso, an Io and an Andromeda

H. Dioscuri, Pompeii Palaestra, Herculaneum

Perseus & Andromeda


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House of Dioskouroi, PompeiiHouse of Achilles, Pompeii

Pliny, NH35.134:Athenion of Maroneia painted an Achilles disguised in a girls dress being caught by Odysseus

Achilles on Skyros


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Pentheus: House of Vettii, Pompeii, 1st c AD.After picture of c. 400 BC.

Late classical picture in Roman version?


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Bella

Eurydice Tomb

Great Tumulus

PAINTING IN MACEDONIA

Zeuxis at the court of Archelaos


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Tomb of Eurydice, c. 340 BC

TECHNIQUE


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TECHNIQUEPigments applied directly onto the marble,possibly over a thin layer of gum Arabic.

Egyptian blue

Malachite

Cinnabar

A reddish lake

Yellow ochre

Lead white Bone white

Carbon black

Gold leaf for gilded parts


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Throne back: Hades and Persephone


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Incised outlines

Paint applied directly onto the marble

Tempera technique, with Arabic gum as medium

Form and volume achieved by tonal variation insingle colours

Lead white used pure (background, highlights)

or mixed with other pigments


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Persephone and Hades on a chariot

Colours: white, black, yellow and red


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Aigai, Tomb of Persephone


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East wall

Demeter(?)


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South wall: Three Fates(?)


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South Wall


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North Wall


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Hades


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Nikomachos of Thebes:

He painted a Rape of Persephone,a picture which was formerly in the

Temple of Minerva on the Capitol No artist surpassed him in rapidity ofexecution.

pinxit raptum Propserpinae, quaetabula fuit in Capitolio in Minervaedelubro nec fuit alius in ea artevelocior. Pliny, NH35.108-9


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Nikomachos of Thebes:

He painted a Rape of Persephone,a picture which was formerly in the

Temple of Minerva on the Capitol No artist surpassed him in rapidity ofexecution.

Pliny, NH35.108-9

Mosaic, 2nd c AD (Rome, Conservatori)


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Hermes


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Persephone


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Documents

Bert Smith Painting Lecture_03