Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art

This is a study of the works of art from early Greece that have long been presented as "illustrations to Homer," but that are argued here to be nothing of the kind. Early Greek artists showed no preference for Homeric subjects and, when their interests did coincide with Homer's, treated his account as, at best, one of the possible variants. Close descriptive analysis of texts and pictures and of the artists' aims, together with statistical evidence, provide the basis for the argument.