Читать книгу Greek Tragedy in the Light of Vase Paintings - John H. Huddilston - Страница 13

The first probable point of contact between tragedy and painting is in the time of Polygnotos. The series of paintings mentioned by Pausanias as being in the Propylaia may be brought under the name of the great painter, since it is expressly stated that two of the ten were from his hand^[62]. Among the subjects were Odysseus fetching Philoktetes from Lemnos; Orestes slaying Aigisthos; Polyxena on the point of being sacrificed at Achilles’ tomb. The question arises, have these works any connexion with the drama? If Polygnotos was the author of all the paintings, the period of his activity excludes both Sophoklean and Euripidean influence in the Philoktetes scene. The Philoktetes of Sophokles is known to have been produced in 409 B.C., and the same play by Euripides appeared in the trilogy with the Medeia in 431 B.C. This leaves Aischylos’ tragedy, which could have served Polygnotos’ purpose. Orestes killing Aigisthos seems also a possible product of the Oresteia, but Pylades engaging the sons of Nauplios who came to the usurper’s assistance renders the Aischylean source improbable. Polyxena’s sacrifice is described by Euripides in the Hekabe^[63], and was the subject of Sophokles’ Polyxene^[64]. Nothing, however, can be made out of the few fragments belonging to the latter. The character of this picture, in which πάθος excluded ἦθος, led Robert to assign it to the fourth century and base it upon Euripides^[65]. All these subjects are from the Trojan Cycle, and agree well with what is known of Polygnotos’ taste in selecting his legends. One has but to recall the painting in the Lesche of the Knidians at Delphi—τὸ μὲν σύμπαν τὸ ἐν δεξιᾷ τῆς γραφῆς Ἴλιός τέ ἐστιν ἑαλωκυῖα καὶ ἀπόπλους ὁ Ἑλλήνων^[66]—to learn that the drama was not essential to inspire Polygnotos. On the other hand, a closer examination of the Philoktetes-Orestes legend reveals the fact that the crafty Ithacan’s part in bringing Philoktetes from Lemnos was an invention of the Attic drama^[67]. The tragedians placed Odysseus in the room occupied by Diomede in the Trojan Cycle. It is absolutely necessary therefore to place this painting under the influence of tragedy, whether it was by Polygnotos and inspired by Aischylos or by a later artist and inspired by one or more of the three tragedies. If the Polygnotos authorship be rejected (and as it is based on pure conjecture there is nothing to forbid placing it aside), one is at liberty to point out a relation between these works and later tragic literature, as has already been done in the case of the Polyxena scene.

In the latter half of the fifth century B.C. painting appears to have reflected pronounced tendencies of the drama. The legends of the heroic time when tried in the crucible of the dramatic poet appealed more strongly to the imagination of the artist who had been accustomed to epic severeness and calmness. The conventionality and regulation types gave way, and the tragic drama remained thereafter the vital force in shaping the character of paintings occupied with heroic legends. At this time we learn of a Telephos by Parrhasios, which one naturally associates with Euripides or Aischylos^[68]. The Iphigeneia of Timanthes was a work that was scarcely possible but for the fresh interest awakened in the story by the three tragedians^[69]. It is highly probable again that Euripides was the inspiration for the Andromeda of Nikias^[70] and the Medeia of Timomachus^[71]. These were both works of great renown. Apollodoros’ painting representing the Herakleidai can with some certainty be referred to Euripides’ tragedy^[72]. Theorus, a Samian, painted Orestes slaying Aigisthos and Klytaimestra, and could hardly have worked independent of Aischylos^[73]. The fate of Pentheus and Lykurgos was painted in the younger of the two temples in the Dionysiac precinct south of the Acropolis^[74]. The date of this temple has been fixed at approximately 400 B.C.^[75] The punishment of Pentheus was particularly popular with the tragedians, and the dependence of this painting on the play of Aischylos or Euripides is all but certain. The former’s Lykurgeia was the source of the numerous vase paintings of Lower Italy representing the madness of the Thracian king^[76], and one may infer that this painting mentioned by Pausanias was essentially the Aischylean Lykurgos. In the same place were two other scenes from the career of Dionysos. Ariadne was represented as being forsaken by Theseus and rescued by the god, and in another place Dionysos was conducting Hephaistos to Olympos. Euripides’ Theseus handled the love episode in the first of the two latter, and this play was probably not without its effect upon the popularity of the story which was of frequent occurrence, particularly in Pompeii^[77]. This poet’s power in dealing with love exploits and depicting the sad case of unrequited love and the attending calamities, was a new force in literature and a never-failing spring from which the painter could draw. These compositions are one and all connected with Dionysos, while three of them are parallel with subjects handled in tragedy. Such scenes were possible only after the drama had popularized the subjects and prepared the way, so to speak, for the reception of the same in art. Even though one does not go so far as to contend that these paintings were an outgrowth of tragedy, they must be accepted as signs of the increasing interest in Dionysos and his worship—and this was primarily the Greater Dionysia, where the first editions of Greek tragedies were published. This was the period of Zeuxis and Parrhasios—the time when Euripidean πάθος was shaping artistic conceptions.