Boscotrecase - Mythological Landscapes
Blanchkenhagen, Peter H. v . and Christine Alexander. The Paintings from Boscotrecase. With an Appendix by Georges Papadopulos. Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle Verlag. 1962.
1. The cornucopia is the only attribute carried in this fashion, compare the Yellow Frieze, Rostovtzeff 20. It is certainly not a pedum nor a torch.
2. For instance in Anth. Pal. 7, 214, 5f.
3. The pilot's cabin characterizes the part of the ship as a stern; it cannot be the prow, and the angle of the oars emphasizes the direction.
4. Very similar: the waterfall in the landscape of Satyr and Maenad in the Villa Imperiale, unpublishied. There are many more in various Pompeian mythological landscapes.
5. Towering crags rising on promontories are frequently mentioned in Longus' Pastoralia [Daphnis and Chloë]. One passage [2, 26] may be quoted: ... [Greek Text . . . ] Here it is Pan's pipe that is heard from the crag on the promontory, but it could have been equally well that of Polyphemus.
6. For the phenomena of continuous narrative see the symposium on Narration in AJA. 61, 1957 by Messrs. Hanfmann and Weitzmann and myself with literature cited there, E. Bielefeld, AA. 1956, 29ff. and most recently Beyen II 298ff. with a list of selected literature. Beyen does not distinguish between pre-realistic and realistic art nor between friezes and panels. He misses, therefore, the most significant points in the discussion generally as well as specifically with respect to the Odyssey Frieze and the Polyphemus Panel in which he finds [p. 340] "eine starke Nachwirkung" of the Odyssey Frieze. It seems unnecessary to discuss here his theories on Odyssey cycles of which, among others, the Polyphemus Panels of the Third Style are supposed to be reflecltions [p. 339ff. 442ff.].
7. Dawson 100f. 154f. speaks of a "contamination"; Della Corte's idea of a play [Sumbolae Litt. J. de Petra 216ff.] as the source of the painting need not he refuted explicitly. See also the preceding note.
8. Text and translation quoted from A.S. F. Gow's edition [1952].
9. Theocrit. 11, 17f.: [Greek text . . . . ]
10. Theocrit. 11, 19f.: [Greek text . . . . ]
11. Theocrit. 11, 43f.: [Greek text . . . . ]
12. Theocrit. 11, 61: [Greek text . . . . ]
13. As suggested by Della Corte and Dawson 100.
14. D. v. Bothmer called my attention to this irregularity.
15. We noticed the identical distribution of open and closed space in the east and west wall landscapes of the Red Room.
16. For a different interpretation of the combination of Polyphemus and Andromeda as well as of these with other mythological landscapes see Schefold, PM. 109, 188. A moralistic or generally philosophical interpretation of Roman paintings may be correct at times; the Boscotrecase panels do not seem to call for such, at least not to me. I cannot see in Perseus the image of the "hero" and even less in any Polyphemus the image of the "sinner".
17. For the original colors of the Odyssey Frieze, which has been overpainted and thereby utterly changed by the restorer of the 19th century, see the color plate of the newly found unrestored fragment in Bd'A. 4, 1956, 289ff., which has the same colors as the two sections that were recently cleaned in the Vatican but are not yet published.
18. Dawson 95f. no. 33 did not know that it belonged to a Second Style wall and erroneously included the panel in his list of Third and Fourth Style mythological landscapes. For the possible existence of an earlier Aktaeon Panel see above p. 25 No. 11.
19. Rizzo, Casa di Livia fig. 25-29. Beyen II 341.
20. The closest parallel would be a fresco in the Villa of Diomedes [Beyen I fig. 153] but the differences are greater than the similarities.
21. Rizzo I. c. fig. 18. Beyen II fig. 229.
22. In addition to Dawson nos. 2. 6. 15. 16. 26. 40. 42. 51. 53. 62. 64 the following: Helbig 1042, Schefold, WP. 122. -Helbig 1047, Schefold, WP. 97. -Sogliano 474. Schefold, WP. 8 -Pompei VIII 5, 37: Schefold, WP. 228. -Pompei VI 16, 32: Schefold, WP. 159. See also D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements I [1947] 25ff.
23. Twelve landscapes depicting the Liberation of Andromeda are known to me; they are: Dawson nos. 10. 25. 38. 41. 52. 54. 60. 69 which also are counted by F. Brommer, MarbWPr. 1955 who adds as his no. 6 Pompei I 8 and his no. 10 Pompei IX 12, 1-2, Schefold, WP. has all these, except Pompei I 8, plus one p. 75 in Pompei V 2. The twelfth is Helbig 1185, AdI. 7, 1835, 183.
24. Compare the publication of the house in Maiui, Le pitture delle case di 'M. Fabius Amandio' etc. 3ff.
25. The actual size of the protagonists in these adaptations is almost identical with the actual slize of their models. Copying the actual size of persons and reducing the size of the composition characterizes the tendency in which the later painter dealt with his sources.
26. For a different interpretation of this room see again Schefold, PM. 108f.
27. See above p. 30f. and note 36.
28. For instance in Pompei IX 7, 16: Dawson 83 no. 6. Schefold, WP. 268 locates the painting in IX 7, 12.
29. I may add that an examination of Odyssey Frieze and panels such as the Icarus panel in the unpublished Villa Imperiale [Schefold, WP. 290ff. with literature] led me to the tentative conclusion that a Hellenistic landscape painting of Polyphemus and Galatea did not exist, but that there was one representing Perseus and Andromeda, an adaptation of which may be recognized in a picture in Pompei IX 7, 16: Dawson no. 10. Schefold, WP. 268. The entire problem of Hellenistic versus Roman landscape painting, as regards both the Odyssey Frieze and mythological landscape panels will be discussed in a paper in preparation; a summary of the evidence and of my conclusions may be found in AJA. 61, 1957, 78ff. For Beyen's recent attempt to interprete the Odyssey Frieze and to reconstruct Hellenistic mythological landscape paintings see not 36.
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