III. The Mythological
Landscapes

Foreground stage and the background scenery

One moment of sight

Continuous narrative

Depicting two stages of one coherent story

Atmosphere

Visual suggestions

Pictorial statement

Two mythological panels [pls 40-46] were found in a room of which only the east and west walls are preserved. The panels faced each other, the Polyphemus panel belonging to the west wall, the Andromeda panel to the east wall. The actual light came from the large entrance in the south wall, as was the case in both the Black and the Red Rooms. [p. 38]

The Polyphemus Panel [pls. 40-43. D]
The state of preservation is not quite so good as may appear in reproductions. The surface seems to have been cleaned partly with a steel brush and in many places has been damaged. There are areas where it has disappeared completely, though a recent cleaning brought out many details that were hidden before.

At the bottom and along the left side of the panel the exact contours of the objects can no longer be ascertained, and the background scenery at middle height is ambiguous in many spots. Still the principal elements of the composition are clear: a rock island or promontory in the foreground, a towering crag with a large tree on the vertical axis, the sea around it, mountains in the background. The shore at the bottom of the panel cannot be traced with certainty. To the left there is a rock, perhaps isolated in the water, perhaps joining the central stage that juts out into the sea.

To the right there is water and a stretch of shoreland which is connected by a large rock in the form of a natural bridge with the island or promontory. On the shore, a short column, decorated with fillets, serves as base for a statue of a goddess whose right hand is stretched forward with open fingers and whose left arm carries a cornucopia[1]. On the head of the statue there is a meniscus [rather than a head dress or crown] like the one worm by the Priapus herm on the north wall landscape of the Red Room [see pl. 33]. At the foot of the column, along a rock, a black goat, on the 'bridge' a white goat, father to the left another white goat and a black goat lying down. On a slightly higher level of the promontory two rocks form seat and foot rest for a deeply tanned man. His face, with a single eyebrow and one central eye, identifies him as Polyphemus. He sits with his left hand resting on the stone while the right hand raises the shepherd's pipe; his left leg is stretched forward, his right leg [p. 38] bent; the pedum is at his side. Next to him, to the right, there is still another white goat [ which reappeared after the recent cleaning of the panel]. Behind him rises a tall column, probably round in spite of the sharply shaded contours. The column carries a bronze vessel on its Ionic capital. From behind the column the curved trunk of a tree grows upward, reaching a considerable height and branching out into a crown of rich foliage that must have filled large parts of the panel above the crag, for remains of the foliage are still discernible at a very high level. There is no way of telling precisely where column and tree are supposed to rise; it seems to be immediately behind the figure of Polyphemus. The crag itself appears more distant still; it is rugged and of considerable depth. In the left foreground underneath Polyphemus's feet the rocks fall steeply in sharply delineated contours [similar to the rocks in the lower left hand corner of the north wall panel of the Red Room, see p l. 34]. To the left a large dolphin, of which only the head is preserved, carries Galatea, who sits in a graceful pose steadying herself with her right hand while the left holds a thin himation so that it billows in the breeze. It is a charming though a conventional representation, repeated again and again in Hellenistic and Roman art and reflected also in poetry.[2] Galatea wears a transparent yellow chiton. Immediately above her there is some water, but no more can be made out, the entire area from here to the figure of Polyphemus, tree and column being too poorly preserved to show whether there was only the sea or more of the crag. The latter alternative is perhaps more likely. It is at any rate certain that in the left half, roughly at mid-height of the panel, background scenery appears: alongside the left frame of the panel a large screen of rocks, and, jutting out from behind it, a promontory that seems to extend as far as the tree trunk. On this promontory stands a little prostyle temple, side and front of which are seen in one plane; steps lead down from the front. Above these and the temple there is open space, that is, air

On the right side at the same level we notice a brown figure on the crag striding to the right with raised right arm and a rock in his hand, a light cloak over his shoulder. This small figure is aiming the rock at a large ship that is just disappearing to the right; we see only its stern with the pilot's cabin, armed men and a bank of oars.[3] The interpretation is obvious: a second Polyphemus, helpless and blind, vainly tries to destroy Odysseus's departing ship. Above the ship appears a narrow strip of water. The rest of the background, though poorly preserved, can still be read: a large mountain range rising diagonally from left to right in two slopes, one behind the other. Between them a waterfall must have gushed down into the sea; a few brush-strokes indicating it are still discernible.[4] The shore line of these background mountains and the ground line of the little temple to the left are at the same level, which incidentally coincides precisely with the middle height of the panel. [p. 39]

The realistic rendering of each object in contours, colors, shading, light, and perspective calls for an equally realistic reading of the setting as a whole. Yet it appears impossible to define the landscape in terms of measurable spatial extension. No unequivocal scale can be established. Polyphemus is a giant and his exact size is unknown. Galatea may be a woman of human size, but then the dolphin would be enormous. The volume of rocks and columns is therefore indeterminable as well. Consequently the distances between the column at the right and the seat of Polyphemus remain uncertain. Dolphin and Galatea are in the sea; how far from shore and crag it is impossible to say. Polyphemus's seat is part of the rocks that rise up from the foreground. Is it also a part of the crag? There seems to be a distinction between the two formations, and there is no direct intermediary. Yet tree trunk and central column, very close together, seem to rise from the crag, and the foliage spreads out above it. The distance between the entire foreground stage and the background scenery is undefined. Each object in the foreground is depicted as three-dimensional, shaded and with receding contours. Yet no one eye level determines the view of all details. The temple is seen at eye level, but so is everything else: both columns and both figures. The level of the spectator's eye changes continuously, and the landscape he sees, he cannot define because he cannot determine the scale. Still the realistic representation of each detail, as well as the general impression of the whole composition, suggests a real view of a real setting, i.e. neither a merely symbolic construction or recognizable objects nor a map-like landscape in bird's eye view. Each object seems real and each seems to have its place within a setting that suggests real depth.

Such a strange combination of apparent opposites, reminiscent of the landscapes in the Red Room but more complex, may also be detected in the colors. The scheme is very simple. There are only three basic colors: terra verde, yellow and red. All shades of bluish green are produced by mixing terra verde with black or white, the various shades of deep brownish or light greyish purple are mixtures of red. The greens are used for sea and sky, the reddish shades for rocks, yellow for Galatea's dress, and mixtures of yellow and red for the two Polyphemus figures, Galatea's hair, and accents in the foliage of the tree. The intensity of color decreases with the distance suggested; there is a very distinct gradation from foreground rocks to central crag to background mountains. It is this shading that intensifies the suggestion of depth, which, on the other hand, is effectively counteracted by the vast area of the bluish green which connotes both sky and sea. The sea is painted in intermittent strips of darker and lighter shades; the same seems to be true for the sky, but there is no continuous gradation from dark to light, hence no suggestion of spatial extension. It is significant that the color range for both sea and sky is identical. Air and water are indistinguishable. They are, as it were, not two elements but one, and this one element dominates the entire painting. Out of this one element the landscape emerges, familiar and easily understandable in each detail but strange and incomprehensible as an actual setting. We are forced to see the painting as a suggestion rather than as a representation, as apparition rather than as appearance.

Out of elements that have the appearance of realistic renderings of real things to [p. 40] be recognized and indeed easily recognizable, the painter has built up an entirely unreal world; yet this world evokes the mirage of a landscape that has not lost its affinity to settings which we have seen and as we have seen them.[5] Thus he produces a miraculous landscape, into which we may enter, bemused by a strange enchantment. Just as in wandering through a real landscape we enjoy continuously changing vistas; so being led into the magic world of this painting our perceptions and interpretations continuously change their relations and values. Thus the painting establishes a very novel form of realistic art. By not permitting the beholder to read the setting as the image of a landscape rendered from one point of view and hence fixed in place and time, the painter succeeds in evoking the sensation of experiencing the various aspects of a large landscape as actually explored by someone walking through it. Through this sort of "magic realism" the particular character of the setting vividly impresses itself upon the beholder. The harsh and romantic beauty of a true fairyland emerges enchantingly and convincingly.

Thus the tale of Polyphemus, the monstrous lover, and Galatea, the delicate nymph, is transformed. It is no longer the illustration of a story that did happen or at least could have happened, but the pictorial evocation of a particular psychological arrangement: the brutish simpleton craving for the alluring elegant woman. Both shepherd and nymph are creatures of nature and have their proper places; thus their relationship can best be shown in a landscape setting that depicts Galatea's dominion as well as the rocks and woods of Polyphemus and his flock. But the scene is not idyllic, the love affair not a happy one. Polyphemus's love is unrequited and his future dark; he is an ill-fated lover. The background scene alludes to Polyphemus's future. The identity of the stone-throwing figure is recognized at once, not only thematically because we know the story, but also visually because of color and shape. We immediately identify the ship as that of Odysseus. The thematic interpretation is easy, but the formal interpretation is difficult and complex. A modern interpreter, acquainted with 'continuous narrative' is in danger of underrating the boldness of the scene and therefore, of misinterpreting it. The ancient spectator was familiar with sequences of panels each of which pictured a distinct episode of a continuous story; he also knew friezes in which the same persons reappeared within a continuous setting--he had never before seen a single panel composition in which one person was shown twice without the same setting.[6] In this panel he noticed first [p. 41] Polyphemus sitting in the foreground in front of a crag, and then he saw at some distance, but on the very same crag, Polyphemus again. This must have struck him as impossible, just as it would strike a na•ve spectator of today. It would indeed be impossible if the setting were what the representation of all details pretends to be, the realistic rendering of a fixed view of a defined landscape. We have seen that such is not the case. The setting is neither defined nor definable--it is ambiguous; we do not see it from one point of view nor do we see it in one moment of sight. There are many views of an indeterminate landscape in which, for instance, a crag can be seen differently, nearby as well as in the distance--it is the identical crag actually but it is not the same visually. Such a way of suggesting one setting in different views permits the repeated appearance of the identical person. The person too is suggested rather than represented, he too is seen shifting, changing his appearance. Our acquaintance with the numerous instances of 'continuous narrative' in works of Roman art from the first century A.D. onwards might persuade us to read the panel as one such representation of continuous narrative[7], that is, as depicting two stages of one coherent story. Such a reading, however, would miss the point entirely. Polyphemus's love and his adventure with Odysseus are separate events. Still they happened to the identical person and therefore reflect upon his life and his character. It is for this reason that the background scene is included. The beholder after having contemplated the huge, uncouth cyclops on his rocky seat wooing little Galatea, who does not look at her suitor but at the spectator, after having taken in the funny and pitiable incongruity between the two persons, will then be reminded of Polyphemus's eventual fate and will recall how brutish he was and how cruelly he was punished.

At this point we realize the close relation between the painting and the classical description of Polyphemus and Galatea, Theocritos' Eleventh Idyll.[8] There we find a similar setting, we hear of the flock that comes to the lonely seat of Polyphemus who "seated on some high rock, would gaze seaward"[9], wooing, "white Galatea"[10] whom he implores to leave "the green sea".[11] There is Polyphemus's ugly face with a single eyebrow over the single eye [line 33], there is his pipe, which distinguishes him from his brothers. There are the "bays of his land and slender cypresses" [line 45], there is even the "cold water that wooded Etna puts forth . . . a divine draught" [line 47.f] --the painter's waterfall in the background. Theocritos makes [line 60ff] Polyphemus sigh that he would even learn to swim so that he might know Galatea's "pleasure to dwell in the water" if "but some stranger sail hither in his ship"[12]. The reader could not fail to appreciate the tragic irony of this wish: the stranger that came, deceived and blinded him. There can hardly be any doubt that the background scene is the pictorial adaptation of this line of Theocritos. Scene and verse are included for the same reasons. Neither is narrative, both intend a shock of recognition and both deepen and change the impact of the legend. The poem does so only by the slightest allusion, the painting does it emphatically. It suggests that what seemed to be merely an idyll, is a fairy tale with a meaning, set in a fairyland, familiar and strange, simple and complex.

Upon entering the small room the ancient visitor noticed at his left a large and rather dark panel in bluish green. As he approached it there emerged as though from the deep sea the mirage of a romantic landscape inhabited by two familiar figures from a charming fairy tale. The beholder lets his glance wander into this pretty country that seemed so like what he had seen and loved in nature. But soon he found himself in a different world where nothing happened but everything seemed possible. Released from the rules of his own experience he followed the signposts of a new order. So guided he did not lose his way but willingly and confidently entered a dreamland, an enchanted world, himself enchanted and dreaming. As he turned away, he may well have smiled at such magic, but he had experienced something which no previous work of art had led him to experience--no moral message had been conveyed, but one no less meaningful about the natural incongruity of love and lust, of nature's unconcern and nature's beauty, of the vastness of our world and of the smallness and futility of our life, of the power of art to console us, to enchant us, and to make us dream. [p. 43]

The Andromeda Panel [pls. 44-46]
A rocky shore, a towering crag, and the sea are the principal elements of this panel as well. But there are differences between the Andromeda picture and the Polyphemus picture.

The lower left hand corner is occupied by an enormous sea monster. Near the shore the ketos, his snake-like body coiled to a full circle, splashes in the water, his scaled or feathered neck raised, the head with gigantic open jaws and frightful teeth turned up to spout fire towards Andromeda. She stands with outstretched arms in the center of the panel, one hand chained to the crag, the other elegantly placed on the rocks. The condition of the panel prevents an exact description of the shore line: solid land seems to begin on the left side, though not immediately at the left hand corner, but in a very shallow strip underneath the monster's neck. The cliffs rise steeply in a large curve around the head of the monster. The crag reaches a considerable height, its top being about level with the roofs of the distant buildings to the right. The lower right hand corner seems to be entirely solid rock. To the right [p. 43] of a seated woman there may be a small stretch of water indicating a little bay, but the surface is so damaged that this is uncertain. There is surely solid land above it, stretching up to the level of the Andromeda's feet. This part of the mainland does not merge into the crag which rises in clear outlines directly beside the seated woman. With respect to spatial extension the ketos must be closest, the seated woman farther behind, Andromeda still more distant. But such an impression of gradual distant depths is counteracted by the relation between the ketos and Andromeda. Obviously the ketos is there to threaten her, but instead of confronting her, is drawn in profile. Whatever distance the setting suggests, the scene itself seems to negate. The scale of the setting, however, appears unambiguous, both Andromeda and the seated woman are small and thus make the shore appear large and the crag very high--particularly in the comparison with the Polyphemus picture. Andromeda, slender, beautifully dressed in purple and yellow, in elegant repose between crown and jewel-casket, is entirely unconcerned with the threatening monster, as though she knew of her imminent rescue. Perseus is indeed approaching. He is flying in from the left, harpe in one hand, the gorgoneion in the other, winged shoes on his feet and a windblown cloak over his shoulder. His scale suggests that he is still some distance from the crag. The mournful seated woman may be Cassiopeia[13], or she may be just a local nymph. Her left arm rests on what appears to be, but cannot be, her left thigh, a mistake in drawing that seems strange.[14] In the right background we see Perseus once more, identically dressed, being greeted by a king, Kepheus, Andromeda's father, who has left his palace with a large retinue. The scene suggests the happy ending of the tale, the marriage of hero and princess. Behind the group, still father away, there are more buildings above the palace. There is architecture also, at the same level, on the left side of the panel. As far as can be determined, all these buildings repeat the conventional architecture of bucolic landscapes. The top part, about a fifth of the panel, is restored; it cannot have contained more representational details.

The entire composition is much simpler in this panel than in its counterpart. The shore is of one piece, the crag carries no column and no tree, there are no mountains in the background. Sea and sky actually merge into one uninterrupted area of bluish green without horizon line--or are we to read the entire area as representing the sea throughout? In either case the palace scene floats or hovers unconnected with the foreground setting and so do the buildings on a still higher level. These are additions which are not incorporated in the main composition, unlike the analogous elements in the Polyphemus panel. Thematically the palace scene is superfluous, for the beholder who understands the main scene also knows the ending. It does not add to or qualify the impact of the legend like the incursion of the Odysseus event, which indeed altered the meaning of the love scene. All this tends to make the Andromeda panel inferior to the Polyphemus panel. It is also far less good in execution. Close examination of the originals makes it almost certain that [p. 44] the Andromeda panel is by a different hand. A comparison of the crags is particularly illuminating. Bold, sure brush strokes in the Polyphemus panel produce lively, articulated rock formations; in the Andromeda panel, timid and pedantic strokes try to imitate the model. The two Perseus figures seem inferior to the two Polyphemus figures. Only the ketos is magnificently rendered, --it betrays the master's own hand. The master himself certainly determined the general composition after having established the pattern in the Polyphemus panel and he reserved for himself the one new detail that interested him, the ketos. Most of the general execution, however, was left to an apprentice, who had to adapt the Andromeda painting to the master's Polyphemus painting as best he could. Though not without some skill, he produced what amounts to a vulgarization of his master's style. Not capable of understanding, even less of adapting, the intricate pattern of shifting views and changing scales, of subtly interrelating foreground and background scenes, and of creating a suggestive universe, he merely imitated the most obvious means by which such a universe was made to appear unified, namely, the overall bluish green of the background. Yet if the Polyphemus panel were lost and only the Andromeda panel were preserved, we should still be able to catch something of the fairyland atmosphere. This still exists, though it is less suggestive. So powerful is the combination of realistic details and incoherent perspective, of the transformation of a narrative into the decorative assembly of persons and objects, and of background scenes suspended in mid-air or mid-sea! This, too, is a dream world.

The choice of the Polyphemus theme is an eminently suitable one for the representation of a fairyland and a dream world. The Andromeda theme is not. It had to be adapted. But why was it then chosen? The answer appears simple. Among the more popular Greek legends the Andromeda tale alone [with its parallel, the liberation of Hesione, which was probably fashioned after the Andromeda model] calls for a setting similar to that of the Polyphemus story. There would be a crag and the sea as well, there would also be a beast in the waves, the ketos instead of Galatea's dolphin. These are the obvious and direct parallels, but there are subtler, reciprocal relations: on one panel a monstrous giant is seated on rocks gazing at a delicate woman who arrives on a friendly dolphin in the sea, on the other a delicate woman fettered to a rock gazing at a gigantic monster that splashes in the waves. A bucolic but sad love affair, ending very badly, is contrasted with a dramatically threatened love affair, ending happily. All these relations were well brought out in the compositions which faced each other. Both protagonists were turned slightly towards the spectator as he entered the room. On the sides nearer the entrance we find more rock formations, on the Polyphemus panel the high rock screen to the left, in the Andromeda panel rocks behind Cassiopeia to the right. Conversely on the farther side the open sea appears; in the Polyphemus picture there is Odysseus' ship just escaping, in the Andromeda picture simply empty sea.[15]