DionysosBirthANCIENT

DionysosBirthANCIENT_Boston

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Ovid Met.

Alkimachos Painter, The Birth of Dionysus, Attic red-figure lekythos ca. 460 BC, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Ancient Greek lekythos depicting two figures, one seated and one standing with a staff, against a black background

ML p. 304: “[The artist’s depiction] conveys the moment of the birth of this powerful god with stillness and a strangely detached curiosity on the part of Zeus and Hermes.”

The funeray use of the lekythos is likely reflected in the mythological scene: birth into new life after death.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.