by Jon Lackman | 28 March 2007 | Ancient, Theory
In the January-March issue of Word & Image, Mary Stieber writes: “… throughout Classical antiquity, writers, poets, and thinkers were in the habit of looking to the visual arts to find ways to present and clarify various ethical and philosophical questions that modern life posed and modern literature dramatized … There is a degree of illogicality in the fact that authors such as Pliny and Pausanias are routinely cited for their historical authority on Classical art and architecture, even though they are separated by centuries from the material remains for which we cite them, while Euripides — an eyewitness — is largely overlooked.” In her conclusion, Stieber writes: “Unlike [Plato, Euripides] does not seem to have felt the same intimidation before the idea of progress in the art form, but rather appears to have taken in his stride the reality that the history of art is driven by an unplanned, irregular sequence of technical and conceptual discoveries, that each forward stride at once renders all previous history of art antiquated, changes its trajectory and, rather than diminishing or constricting the nature of our relationship with the visible world, challenges it, offering an impetus to reassess the way we view that world and its occupants.”
