Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Visual Humour

This richly illustrated book is a comprehensive study of visual humour in ancient Greece, emphasising works created in Athens and Boeotia.

Alexandre G. Mitchell (Author)

9780521513708, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 August 2009

398 pages, 144 b/w illus. 12 tables
26 x 18.6 x 2.5 cm, 1.02 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This broad survey of scenes of visual humor will serve as a valuable starting point for further research. The extensive lists and citations will make the book an aid for further work on humor and should encourage more synthesis and refinement of theoretical approaches to visual humor.' American Journal of Archaeology

This book is a comprehensive study of visual humour in ancient Greece, with special emphasis on works created in Athens and Boeotia. Alexandre G. Mitchell brings an interdisciplinary approach to this topic, combining theories and methods of art history, archaeology and classics with the anthropology of humour, and thereby establishing new ways of looking at art and visual humour in particular. Understanding what visual humour was to the ancients and how it functioned as a tool of social cohesion is only one facet of this study. Mitchell also focuses on the social truths that his study of humour unveils: democracy and freedom of expression; politics and religion; Greek vases and trends in fashion; market-driven production; proper and improper behaviour; popular versus elite culture; carnival in situ; and the place of women, foreigners, workers and labourers within the Greek city. Richly illustrated with more than 140 drawings and photographs, this study amply documents the comic representations that formed an important part of ancient Greek visual language from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC.

1. Introduction
2. Humour in the city: the world of men, women and animals
3. Humour in the city: gods, heroes and myth
4. Satyrs and comic parody
5. Caricatures in Athens and at the Kabirion sanctuary in Boeotia
6. Conclusion: vases, humour and society.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG], History of art / art & design styles [AC]