Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

Chapter 16 - Etruscan Art

From: Brendel, Otto F. Etruscan Art. New York: Penquin Books. 1978.




- - - - - N o t e s - - - - -

1. P. Ducati, La pitture della tombe della Leonese e dei Vasi Dipeinti [Rome, 1937], 1-9, plates A-B, 1-3; Pallottino, 43-8.

2. The reprersenatations of athletic contests were not altogether discontinued; but from now on they become less frequent. Cf. the discussion of Etruscan funerary iconography above, pp. 182-3, and Banti, 108-12.

3. R. Joffroy, 'La Tombe de Vix', Monuments Piot, XLVIII [1954], 6-18, plates 1-15.

4. Ducati, op. cit., 7-8. The drawing style reminds one of early red-figured Greek vases such as the Nicosthenic amphora painted by Oltos, Paris, Louvre G.2: P. E. Arias and M. Hirmer, A History of Greek Vase Painting [London, 1962], 321, no. 99, plate 99.

5. P. Romanelli, Le pitture della tomba della 'Caccia e Pesca' [Rome, 1938]; Pallottino, 49-52; R. Ross Holloway, 'Conventions of Etruscan Painting in the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing in Targuinia'', A.J.A., LXIX [1964], 34 1-7.

6. On the whole this arrangement corresponds to the wall decoration classified above as Style Two. The majority of the Archaic tombs at Tarquinia fall into this category. I name the following examples, in the order of their likely date of origin.

About 530-520: 1. Tomb of the Olympic games, discovered 1958 by C. M. Lerici: R. Bartoccini, C. M. Lerici, M. Moretti, La Tomba delle Olimpiadi [Milan, 1959]; M. Moretti, Nuovi Monumenti della pittura etrusca [Milan, 1966], 106-20. 2. Tomb of the dead Man: F. Weegee, Etruskische Malerei [Halle, 1921], plates 44-6.

About 520-510: 3. Tomb of the Bacchants, ibid., plates 41-3.

About 510-500: 4. Tomb of the Baron, above pp. 192-4, below, Note 11.

Characteristic of all these decorative schemes is the broad upper zone of parallel, diversely coloured stripes taking the place of an entablature. Other details may vary; the matter requires further investigation. Throughout the entire group one sees a degree of indecision regarding the architectural function of the figured frieze, which may occupy the upper section of the wall as if to decorate an imaginary entablature, or be defined as a wall frieze proper, placed between a low dado and the striped architcrave. Among the monuments of Style Two the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing constitutes an exception in so far as in the decoration of the second chamber the dado itself has become a part of the painted scenery, thereby losing its original architectural function, while the striped zone above has been retained.


7. H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient [Pelican History of Art] [Harmondsworth, 1954], plates 100-7.

8. Cf. for instance, the Litte Master Cup, eastern Greek, in the Louvre, G.M.A. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art, 4th ed. [London, 1965], 300, figure 419.

9. Hunting and fishing on the Nile, with the hunters standing on boats, were standard subjects in Eygptian art. Cf. for example a relief of Ti hunting the hippopotamus, from Sakkara: H. SchÉfer and W. Andrae, Die Kunst des alten Orients [PropylÉen Kunstgeschichte, 111] [Berlin, 1925], 247.

10. As in other instances mentioned previously, the Phoenician bowls may have contributed details of iconography. Certainly the type of the hunter on the rock could have been derived from them. Disquised as the Hunter-King in the story of the ape-man, he appears on two bowls still preserved, one of them from the Baernadini Tomb at Praeneste: see above, Chapter 12, Note 15.

11. Weege, op. cit., 106-8; Pallottino, 55-8.

12. In Greek vase paintings overlapping groups of this kind have a continuous history extending from the Amasis amphora in Paris [Arias and Hirmer, op. cit., plates XV and 57] to the amphora in Berlin by the Berlin Painting [ibid., plate 151]. The latter vase, c. 490, shows a groups of satyr and Hermes overlapping as closely as, later still, the famous monument of the Athenian Tyrannicides probably presented itself to the observer. The group in the Tomb of the Baron finds its place in this evolutional series near to, but somewhat before, the work of the Berlin Painter.

13. T. Dohrn, Die schwarzfigurigen etrskeischen Vasen aus der zweiten Hälfte des sechsten Jahrhunderts [Berlin, 1967], 89-128; Beazley, 11-24.

[Brendel, Otto F. Etruscan Art. New York: Penquin Books. 1978.]





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