§ 3. The Influence of Tragedy on Painting.
Our knowledge of Greek painting is entirely literary. No vestige of this art has survived that one may study the real monuments. The wall paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum are, however, a sort of recompense for this loss, and with these and the assistance of Pliny and a few other writers one can get some notion of certain masterpieces of ancient painting. But the records are at the most very scant, and the student has, after all, to allow his imagination to fill in many gaps.
1. On Greek Painting.
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.
2. The Wall Paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The Pompeian wall paintings, representing scenes from tragedy, are largely reminiscences of earlier paintings, and many famous works that have already been referred to are doubtless preserved in more or less exact copies in these invaluable monuments. Besides the Medeia and Andromeda, which have been noticed above, there is a series of paintings based on the Hippolytos-Phaidra casualty[[78]], and another representing the sacrifice of Iphigeneia[[79]]. The latter exhibit a marked similarity to the work of Timanthes and the final scene in Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis. Several important paintings represent the meeting of Orestes and Iphigeneia in the Tauric sanctuary, and there can be no question regarding the decided dramatic colouring here[[80]]. Two pictures are based on the Telephos legend, and remind one again of the Pergamon frieze and the relation of this to Euripides and Sophokles[[81]]. Daidalos with his wooden cow before Pasiphaë was another favourite Euripidean story told at Pompeii[[82]]. The excavations in 1895 brought to light an unusual number of priceless treasures in the casa dei Vettii. Among the paintings was one showing the death of Pentheus[[83]]. The maenads are hurling stones at him and thrusting him through with their thyrsoi; the wildness of the locality and the tone of the whole work make it highly probable that Euripides’ Bakchai was the artist’s inspiration. Mention may be made lastly of the punishment of Dirke, told in several paintings[[84]]. After what has been said touching the Farnese Bull, it is not necessary to point out again the part played in the Dirke monuments by Euripides’ Antiope.
A glance at this brief sketch of ancient paintings on tragic subjects cannot but impress one with the permanent and far-reaching influence of the tragic poet over the painter. The striking fact that stands out prominently before all others is the firm hold exercised by Euripides. Note the following subjects—Andromeda, Dirke, Hippolytos, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Medeia. Each of these characters has stamped upon it the form given by this poet. Others after him adapted and translated his work, but the ultimate authority remains none the less the Greek tragedian, and neither the ancient nor the modern world accepts any other than the Euripidean Andromeda, Hippolytos, or Medeia[[85]].
§ 4. Tragic Elements on the Etruscan Mirrors.
The engravers of the mirrors were less inventive than were the sculptors of the ash-urns, and they moved in a much narrower sphere. Their work is for the most part that of the ordinary mechanic whose hand is none too sure. The compositions taken from tragedy are common with those already met with on the Etruscan sarcophagi. There are Orestes and Pylades at the temple of the Tauric Artemis[[86]]; the Kalydonian Hunt, following the Μελέαγρος[[87]]; Daidalos constructing the wooden cow[[88]]; Polyxena taking her farewell of Hekabe[[89]]; three scenes from the Telephos legend[[90]]; the parting scene between Alkestis and Admetos[[91]]; and Prometheus chained to the Caucasus[[92]]. These instances at least may be adduced to emphasize the fact of the wide-spread familiarity of the Etruscans with tragedy. There is no doubt whatever that in these common everyday articles, as well as on their sarcophagi, the Etruscans had illustrations of the tragic poetry that may have been brought to them by troops of ‘Dionysiac artists’[[93]].