Art and Text in Greek Antiquity

Graduate / Professional

One of the prominent traits of ancient Greek visual culture, starting from the rise of the Greek city-state (ca. 750 BCE), is the complex relationship between art and text witnessed in images related to mythological subjects, in written descriptions of works of art, and in combining inscribed texts with pictorial representations in various media and contexts. The seminar examines the relationship between word and image and between the visual and the literary in Greek antiquity. Taking Lessing’s Laokoon of 1776 as a point of departure, the seminar considers several related themes including the notion of pictorial narratives, the literary genre of ekphrasis , and the significance of inscriptions in Greek artistic representations. M 4pm-5:55pm