Three - Painting with Music

Summary

Chapter three turns to scenes of Apollo Kitharoidos, the god most associated in contemporary scholarship with musical performance. In order to analyze how the surviving representations make visible Apollo’s music to the ancient viewer and how the god’s music is shown to have an effect on both his human and divine audience, Laferrière examines black- and red-figure vase-paintings that depict the god playing his lyre. Apollo’s powerfully affective music informs the scene’s composition, whether it is through the physical position of the figures, who direct their attention to the god’s music, or through the repetition of similar lines and forms among Apollo, his instrument, his audience, and the plants and animals that accompany him. She argues that the formal aspects of the composition can be discussed in terms of rhythmoi, symmetria, and harmonia, which are all integral concepts within ancient discussions of music and art theory. In making the sounds of Apollo’s music visible in this way, Laferrière shows that Apollo’s music has a unifying and harmonizing effect on those who listen to it, so that the music he plays both embodies and creates the harmonia with which he is associated.