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  • Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Visual Humour
  • J. M. Hemelrijk
Alexandre G. Mitchell. Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Visual Humour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xxv, 371. $95.00. ISBN 978-0-521-51370-8.

The appearance of this book is very welcome: its subject is delightful and has so far not been treated in a solid book. I have always wondered how that could be, for Greek literature and painting abound in witty fancies. It is a very serious and extensive study of the material and of the countless theories that have been proposed since the earliest Greeks down to modern times. It deals with all kind of aspects, and ventures even into the subtle relationship between humor and democracy. Its main aim is “to penetrate one step further into the Greek psyche” (xvii–xviii). The material discussed is vast, as can be gleaned by leafing through the indexes. Astonishingly extensive is the general index in which the subjects that are discussed are enumerated: it occupies no less than fourteen two-column pages. To give an example: the entries for satyrs alone contain sixty-four different themes! There are, moreover, thirteen Tables in which the comical scenes are arranged under various headings. Table 1 lists different kinds of laughter (e.g., non-euphoric, euphoric), while table 2 lists the various theories and the anthropological approach to humor and laughter. Tables 3 and 4 list the shapes of the vases with comic scenes. Table 5 gives the various types of humour and the number of vases on which they appear. Tables 6a–c contain the painters of the comic vases and the scenes in question, with the number of vases cited. Mentioned often, for example, are the return of Hephaestus and Heracles frightening Eurystheus into the pithos. In tables 7–10, we find the scenes [End Page 265] with satyrs in parodies of everyday life and myths. Types of comic scenes enumerated in these tables include gluttony, caricature, scatology, and satyrs as wine makers or as warriors in mock-heroic poses. We must be grateful for the completeness with which Greek (mainly Attic) humorous vases have been collected and discussed.

Greek humor is mainly explained as referring to τὸ γελοῖον (it is one of the flaws of the book that Greek expressions are quoted in nearly impossible Latin transcriptions, e.g., 67). However, humour is so vague a word that it cannot be summed up in a definition: it obviously lacks a clear-cut meaning, because it denotes all situations in which we are amused, or pleasantly tickled to smiles, to chuckles, or even to outright laughter. The urge to analyze these psychological reactions and proffer definitions may be philosophically interesting but makes most books on humour duller than the subject warrants. Fortunately, however, this is not the case with the present book: it contains a wealth of information and is rich in interest. The illustrations, however, which should have been similar in quality and a joy for the eye, are downright shocking, both the photographs and the drawings (vectorized, see xviii).

Apart from this disappointing defect, one or two other slight criticisms may perhaps be proffered. More emphasis might have been laid on the light-hearted playfulness of some painters, their whim to add tiny details to arouse a faint smile, for example when the Euergides Painter depicts a dog that scratches its neck energetically while clearly enjoying the satisfaction of it (ARV2 96.136; there is a distinct smile on its face). Or the way in which the Andokides Painter makes light of the deeds of Heracles when he shows him crouching to approach Cerberus with soothing sounds, smiling so as to put the monster at ease, and then suddenly applying the chain (Cerberus looks baffled, not knowing what to do: ARV2 4.11), or when Heracles hoists the Nemean lion over his head in what is known as the “flying mare,” a trick of the wrestling school that is effective but perfectly harmless for the opponent (ARV2 4.8). Such details, which are truly innumerable on Greek vases, do not, I believe, belong to the realm of τὸ γελοῖον, but to...

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