A brief skim of a campus newspaper, a cable television news channel, or even traffic signs show how dependent we are in our daily lives on visual modes of communication. A closer look shows how many of those instances combine words and images to create meaning for the modern viewer. While this makes sense for us as members of a highly literate society, it is rather surprising that the easy exchange between text and art holds true for the ancient Greek world as well. This talk focuses on the complex relationship between word and image, two modes of expression consciously woven together by ancient Greek painters, potters, and poets. It examines the role of scratched and painted words on decorated pots from around the time of Homer; it asks why the classical tragedian Euripides described letter shapes in detail in one of his plays; it considers a chorus of women who act out the Greek alphabet in a late-5th-century comedy; and it notes the 3rd-century invention of Greek pattern poetry, where the words of a poem create a shaped image on the page. These topics will guide us chronologically through the evolving relationship between ancient Greek art and text, two media that work closely together in fascinating ways to create meaning for their audience, ancient and modern.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Ancient Studies and Archaeology and the Salem Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.