Another interpretation sees the Euphronios inscription as linked directly to the particular scene in which it features – the revellers scene, especially the figure of the komarch next to which it appears. This would imply that Euthymides was teasing his colleague, suggesting that Euphronios never got drunk like these men, and never led komastic revels like the figure on the right. This would not, as we might assume, have been a comment on Euphronios’ sobriety, but rather on his social status. It is relevant here that the ‘potter portraits’ mentioned above often occur in the context of symposium scenes. The explicit depiction of craftspeople taking part in activities that were traditionally associated with aristocratic men is remarkable. If the scenes reflect social reality, then the implications are significant. In this case, the ‘Euphronios never did this’ inscription would be a sneer that Euphronios’ wealth and status was not yet sufficient for him to be a successful komarch. If the scenes do not reflect social reality, then they might potentially have been risqué – challenging traditional social structures and hierarchies.
A third and perhaps more likely approach argues that the scenes are designed to be satirical and humorous, and that the depictions of artists on sympotic pottery are a means of constructing comedic public personae, in much the same way as iambic poets did through sympotic poetry.35 Perhaps it was never in question whether Euphronios would have led the revels at a traditional aristocratic symposium – the idea would have been ridiculous to the point of being humorous.36 Yet this interpretation also implies a heightened social standing for potters. It assumes that potters were well known enough amongst the aristocratic guests of a symposium for them to have a recognized public persona in the first place. This would raise the status of pot painters on par with those of poets, implying that their artistic endeavours were comparable.
Whichever way we interpret the inscriptions on the amphora, they complement the figural scenes. Like the images, these texts play into a wider and ongoing joke about artists and aristocrats, status and social change. Although Euthymides’ amphora is not an artefact forged out of a firebrand social radicalism, it did engage with the political discourse of the day.
Troy, the Iliad, and the Pioneer Group
Euthymides’ choice of a Trojan, but not specifically an Iliadic, image also plays into this dynamic. While Trojan themes can be found in Attic pottery from across the archaic period, in the final years of the sixth century there is a notable increase in the number of specifically Iliadic scenes.37 The shift can be seen especially clearly in the work of the pot painter Oltos. Oltos was a slightly older contemporary of the Pioneer Group, who is best known for his ‘bilingual’ pots, which brought together black-and-red figure techniques.38 Despite painting a broad range of Trojan scenes in his earlier works, Oltos begins to show a preference for recognizably Iliadic images in the closing years of the century: for example, explicitly pairing Achilles with Briseis; or depicting Priam’s supplication of Achilles for the ransom of Hector’s body.39 A slightly younger contemporary of the Pioneer Group, the Kleophrades Painter is also known for his interest in Iliadic imagery,40 including, for example, his portrayal of the exchange of armour between Diomedes and Glaucus.41
Overlapping with both Oltos and the Kleophrades Painter, the Pioneer Group seem to have shared little of either’s enthusiasm for either the story of the Trojan War or the text of the Iliad. Of the 227 vases attributed to the Pioneer Group by the Beazley archive,42 only 18 depict scenes from the Trojan cycle.43 Trojan images therefore account for only a measly 7.9 per cent of all Pioneer Group pots – surprisingly few, given the increasing popularity of Trojan themes amongst their contemporaries.44 Furthermore, none of the scenes on these eighteen pots represent identifiable episodes from the Iliad (Figure 2.3). Instead, most portray events that occurred outside the temporal remit of the poem. Six show scenes from before the war including Peleus, Thetis, and the Judgement of Paris; five show scenes from after the death of Hector including Memnon, Troilus, and the death of Achilles.
Only seven vases depict either generic episodes or events that occur within Iliadic time. None of these, however, conform to a specifically Iliadic view. Two scenes combine characters that do not appear together in the poem – Diomedes and Patroclus on one; and Ajax, Achilles, Phoinix, Thetis, and Odysseus on the other. The remaining five seem to be ‘peri-Iliadic’, in that they suggest knowledge of the poem, while at the same time deviating from its details. We have already discussed this in the context of the Euthymides amphora, but we can see a similar play on Iliadic expectations on a krater signed by Euthymides’ erstwhile rival, Euphronios.45 The scene depicted here shows the body of Sarpedon being gently lifted by Sleep and Death, in a fashion that recalls the description of Iliad 16.676–83. Euphronios’ scene deviates from the Iliad however: on the vase it is Hermes overseeing the scene, rather than Apollo; and on the vase Sarpedon’s body is still clothed, whereas in the poem he has already been despoiled.46 The almost-but-not-quite Iliadic nature of this scene is even more remarkable when compared with an earlier pot, also painted by Euphronios and treating the same theme. In this earlier pot, the Iliadic resonances are fewer, implying a deliberate choice to introduce allusions to the poem in the later pot whilst still retaining some overtly non-Iliadic details.47 A similar peri-Iliadic image appears on a stamnos signed by Smikros.48 On this stamnos, Athena is stepping in to halt the duel between Hector and Ajax – a role that is taken by the herald Idaeus in the Iliad (7.206–82). Our final peri-Iliadic scene comes from the tondo of a cup by Sosias.49 In this scene, Achilles carefully tends to Patroclus’ wounds, demonstrating an intimacy and tenderness that is reminiscent of the Iliadic portrait of their relationship. And yet, such a scene does not itself appear in the Iliad.50
Figure 2.3 Table of Pioneer Group vases depicting scenes from the Trojan War myth.
How can we account for this apparent disinterest in depicting the Trojan War, and the more specific avoidance of Iliadic scenes? The rarity of Iliadic scenes on earlier archaic pottery has already been the subject of some scholarly discussion, with explanations ranging from ignorance of Homeric epic to deliberate disregard for it. It has recently been argued, however, that archaic pot painters did not choose to portray Homeric scenes because the Homeric epics were concerned with individual heroes and the experience of the individual, whereas archaic pot painters were more concerned with the broader condition of being human.51 With the Pioneers working at the end of the archaic period, a similar process may be at work. A likely contributing factor is the Pioneers’ thematic interests in politics, artistry, and sympotic play. The few Trojan scenes that do appear on Pioneer Group pottery are remarkable for their sobriety, paired most often with images of warriors or athletes (Figure 2.3). In contrast, their scenes of Hercules often appear alongside sympotic or Dionysiac images, and a larger number feature erotic kalos inscriptions.52 Perhaps it was simply not appropriate to make ribald and erotic jokes in the context of a Trojan theme, even for the irreverent Pioneers. It may have been still less appropriate to play games with an Iliadic scene, given that the Iliad was associated with formal public ritual.
At this point, it is worth returning once more to the amphora of Euthymides. This vase is the sole example from the Pioneers’ oeuvre that couples a Trojan War image with one that is explicitly sympotic. In this context, the peri-Iliadic nature of the scene is significant. While an overtly Iliadic image may not have lent itself to Euthymides’ playful challenging of social roles, the almost-but-not-quite Iliadic resonances of the scene would have served to heighten the social commentary.
Despite their reticence to engage in explicitly Iliadic art, the Pioneers were certainly Homeric in one sense – their self-referential interest in their own artistry.53 As we have seen in Chapter 1 of this book, one notable feature of Homeric poetry is a focus on metapoetics, the status of poetry, and the art of the poet. Euthymides and his colleagues, while they may have eschewed the Homeric in their imagery, were nonetheless Homeric in their pract
ice, as crucially focused on meta-artistry, the status of pot painting, and the art of the pot painter.
Jan: Rossetti’s vulnerable firebrand
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
W. B. Yeats, No Second Troy (1910)
The second section of this chapter focuses on a different image of a different Iliadic character from a different time: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting of Helen of Troy from 1863. Rossetti, like Euthymides, can be seen to engage in a kind of ‘peri-Iliadic’ aesthetics, making reference to the Homeric Helen but also adding contemporary layers of meaning. Like Euthymides, Rossetti made use of visual ambiguities to subvert received ideas about social roles, this time focusing on questions of femininity and power, rather than masculinity and status. I have opened this section with W. B. Yeats’ ‘No Second Troy’, a poem that ponders the elusive qualities of Helen (though the poem’s ‘she’ is never named), and uses Helen as a prism through which to explore Yeats’ own feelings for the Irish republican campaigner Maud Gonne.54 Yeats’ poem is apt because it introduces some of the key issues that will emerge from Rossetti’s painting: Helen’s long-standing reputation as a great beauty, her role in precipitating the Trojan War, and the issue of her agency.
A deep and close engagement with the ancient Greek world can be found across a range of cultural outputs in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain,55 including of course the visual arts.56 In this area, there appears to have been a particular interest in the figure of Helen. As will be discussed later in this section, a number of nineteenth-century painters engaged with Helen’s mythology, adducing the mythical queen in order to comment variously on female sensuality, victimhood, and destructive power. From Moreau and his Helen on the Ramparts (c. 1880) to Leighton’s Helen of Troy (1865), the Spartan queen beguiled artists working in various artistic movements. Of primary concern in the discussion that follows, however, is the Helen of Troy (1863) created by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a major figure in the Pre-Raphaelite movement,57 which he founded in 1848, together with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais.58
In the discussion that follows, I begin with an examination of Rossetti’s characterization of Helen as a passion-inducing liminal and destructive force – a figure with ambiguous responsibility for the horrors of the Trojan War. The analysis then moves on to consider wider developments in British art during the 1860s, focusing on other depictions of the Spartan queen. It will be argued that the dominant portrayal of Helen at this time related to a broader interest with dangerous and subversive women, which itself must be considered in the historical context of emerging women’s movements and rapidly changing social roles. Finally, I will show that while Rossetti’s Helen conforms in some respects to the dominant view of Helen at the time, it also challenges them, subverting the idea that Helen’s power lay solely in her physical desirability. This, it will be argued, is where Rossetti’s Helen is distinctively Iliadic. By offering Helen agency and a voice, Rossetti was questioning expectations of female social roles in contemporary society.
Dangerous desirability
The lavish depiction of Fanny Cornforth in the 1859 painting Bocca Baciata signifies an important turning point in the career of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.59 As Spencer-Longhurst observes, the painting prefigures the single figure format that would dominate Rossetti’s work in the 1860s – a point that Rossetti himself, albeit implicitly, privately acknowledged.60 Alongside its study of a single female figure,61 another striking feature of this painting is Rossetti’s inclusion of a Boccacian couplet on the reverse side: ‘Bocca baciata non perda ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna’ (The kissed mouth does not lose its freshness, but renews itself like the moon). Rossetti’s intensive focus on a single eroticized figure, coupled with the inclusion of a short, yet evocative, poetic fragment in effect encourages the viewer to explore the confluences between image and text.62
Figure 2.4 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Helen of Troy (Hamburg, Kunsthalle Inv. 2469).
Such an approach recurs just a few years later in Rossetti’s 1863 oil painting Helen of Troy (Figure 2.4).63 This portrait depicts the model Annie Miller (whom Rossetti also painted in a separate watercolour in 1863, Woman in Yellow),64 as Helen, looking skewwhiff towards the direction of the viewer, though failing to meet the viewer’s eye. Meanwhile, a conflagration rages in the rear – a potent representation of the newly ransacked city of Troy. She is portrayed in aurulent shades, swathed in a luxurious, richly ornamented robe,65 while clutching a beaded necklace with a central locket that depicts a flaming torch, and possessing bounteous amounts of undulating golden hair (the Homeric poems repeatedly refer to Helen’s ‘lovely hair’; e.g., Il. 3.329; 9.339; 13.766; Od. 15.58; 15.123).66 It is a painting that undoubtedly attempts to encapsulate Helen’s Marlowian status as ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’,67 even if some commentators and critics have been less than impressed by Rossetti’s Hel(l)enic beauty.68 This golden Helen, nevertheless, was clearly imagined as being desirable.
As much as Rossetti focuses on Helen’s desirability, this is no straightforwardly laudatory image. Indeed, there are various elements of the painting that point critically to the queen of Sparta as a destructive, culpable force. First, although Helen sits poised, her vacuous and indirect stare fails to meet the audience’s eye; the resulting figure is a contemplative individual, ostensibly unaware of the viewer, immersed in her own interior life.69 This self-reflexivity reinforces the notion of a singular Helen, who, unlike her adoptive Trojan kinsmen, is physically unscathed by the tragic events at Troy (as exemplified by her highly refined attire). As the analysis below demonstrates, this is in keeping with other broadly contemporary depictions of Helen, which combine to suggest univocally a selfish figure, unperturbed by the extreme repercussions of her actions. Moreover, Rossetti’s depiction of her inattentiveness distances Helen from the viewer, who gazes not only on her face but also on precisely these repercussions in the form of the conflagration behind her. Indeed, while Helen stares absent-mindedly, a city scorches behind, swept up in a surge of flames (the very same Troy that burns in the Yeatsian poem that opened this section).70 The ascription of Troy is unmistakable in this instance, not only because of Helen’s long-standing connections with the city, but also because of Rossetti’s own correspondence with his mother, in which he wrote:
Dear Mamma,
Would you give Baker the photograph of ‘Old Cairo’71 which hangs in your parlour; and, if there are any stereoscopic pictures, either in the instrument or elsewhere, which represent general views of cities, would you send them too, or anything of a fleet of ships? I want to use them in painting Troy at the back of my Helen, and will return them soon.
Rossetti c. February 1863, in Fredeman 2003, 39
Rossetti’s letter makes it unquestionable that the city burning behind Helen is Troy, while dark-prowed ships sail away to the left and right of the queen. Her self-absorption in the face of a city’s annihilation stresses her culpability (and even the outright cruelty of her actions!), but it also strengthens her status as an abstraction of beauty rather than her ontological reality. Her isolated stance thus impresses upon the viewer the multiple, irreconcilable (and very Iliadic) themes of Helen’s power, her passivity, her absence, and her agency.
In addition to these points, perhaps the clearest indication of Helen’s culpability is Rossetti’s inclusion of an Aeschyle
an phrase on the reverse of the painting, which labels Helen as a thoroughly destructive force. The text runs: ‘Helen of Troy ἑλέναυς, ἑλανδρος, ἑλέπτολις destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities’.72 This arresting line, which is a hybrid of ancient Greek and English, ultimately derives from the Agamemnon, wherein the Chorus sings of some invisible being (684) who created an utterly fitting name for Helen, since she proved indeed to be ἐλέναυς, ἐλανδρος, ἑλέπτολις – a play on the first syllable of her name, ‘Hel’. Helen, the poet suggests, is a synecdoche for wholesale destruction.73 In combination with these other ambivalences, Helen is characterized in a decidedly negative light; she is not the sympathetic, veiled Iliadic figure (Il. 3.419) who speaks warmly of the Trojan hero Hector at his funeral games in Book 24 of Iliad, but rather the individual that elsewhere in the Iliad describes herself as dog-faced (Il. 3.180; 4.145–6; cf. 6.354–55; Od. 4.145) and hateful (Il. 3.404).74
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