Greek Vase Painting: Form, Figure, and Narrative

At the heart of this study of the relationship between Greek vases and their decoration - and between the decoration and the function of the vase - is a very well presented catalogue of 43 Greek and Etruscan vases exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. Each entry comprises at least one colour photograph of the vase accompanied by a full description and discussion of the form of the vase, its function, date and historical context, and the design and meaning of its decoration. Arranged chronologically, the vases date from c.850 to the end of the 4th century BC and demonstrate continuities and change in iconography as the influence of Greek potters spread further afield and interacted with local Italian cultures. The catalogue is preceded by five essays which include an introduction to Greek vases by Karl Kilinski II. The other essays discuss: depictions of vases on vases (Jenifer Neils) ; new appraches to Greek vases: repetition, aesthetics and meaning (Ann Steiner) ; myth and reality on Greek vases (Sarah Peirce) ; men, beasts and monsters: pattern and narrative in Etruscan art (P Gregory Warden) . There is also a discussion of the history of the Madrid collection by Paloma Cabrera, the chief curator of the Roman and Greek Antiquities Department.

PALOMA CABRERA has been the Chief Curator of the Roman and Greek Antiquities Department at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid since 1992. She is a specialist in Greek ceramics and has published numerous works related to the colonization and commerce of the Greeks in Spain. Recently, her research has been

centered in studying the iconography of vases from Magna Graecia.

KARL KILINSKI II, Professor of Art History at Southern Methodist University, teaches classes on Greek and Egyptian art. He holds degrees in Anthropology and Classical Art History & Archaeology and is currently researching and writing a monograph entitled The Presence of the Past: Greek Myth in Western Art.

JENIFER NEILS , Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History and Classics at Case Western Reserve University, is most recently the author of The Parthenon Frieze (Cambridge 2001) and co-author of the exhibition catalogue Coming of Age in Ancient Greece (Yale 2003).

SARAH PEIRCE, Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Language at Fordham University, studies the representation of Greek religion in classical vase-painting. Her forthcoming book on the Lenaia Vases will be published by Cambridge University Press.

ANN STEINER, Shirley Watkins Steinman Professor of Classics at Franklin & Marshall College, specializes in the study of Greek vases in their social context. She is Director of Research for the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project excavations at Poggio Colla. Her forthcoming book, Reading Greek Vases, will be published by Cambridge University Press.