Directing the Gaze in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries
Directing the Gaze in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries
This chapter discusses a handicap possessed by narrative images—that of being incapable of structuring the process of their reception as a temporal sequence. As opposed to storytelling by means of words, where the listener has no option but to allow the narrator to lead him or her through the plot and place them in a state of suspense, it is very difficult for an image to evoke such suspense in its beholders. In the late sixth century , however, Attic vase painters began developing strategies to compensate for this handicap. The problem that presents itself here concerns the relationship of images to time—although, as will be shown later in this chapter, the focus of the artists themselves was on the dramatic quality of the scene rather than the temporal aspect.
Keywords: narrative images, temporal sequence, storytelling, suspense, vase painters, dramatic quality
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