Greek Painting: From Myth to Image

(4 Credits)

From the house frescoes of Bronze Age Thera to the tomb paintings of Macedonia, from Minoan painted pottery to Athenian red-figured vases, Greek painting was a powerful aesthetic and narrative force within Greek art and culture. This course traces developments in monumental wall painting and the decoration of vases, with special emphasis on production, exchange, technique, style, authorship, narrative, context, function, and meanings. Issues of representation and signification will be examined within the frameworks of a variety of critical approaches, including semiotics, structuralism, and formal analysis. Special emphasis will be placed on issues of reception from the Eighteenth century on, particularly the impact of connoisseurship and the art market on values ascribed to ancient vases.