The Greek myths are so much part of our culture that we tend to forget how they entered it in the first place. Visual sources vase paintings, engraved gems and sculpture in bronze and stone often pre-date references to the myths in literature, or offer alternative, unfamiliar tellings. In some cases visual art provides our only evidence, as there is no surviving account in ancient Greek literature of such important stories as the Fall of Troy, or Theseus and the Minotaur. T. H. Carpenters book is the first comprehensive, scholarly yet succinct survey of myth as it appears in Greek art. Copiously illustrated, it is an essential reference work for everybody interested in the art, drama, poetry or religion of ancient Greece. With this handbook as a guide, readers will be able to identify scenes from myth across the full breadth of archaic and classical Greek art.

This richly illustrated book examines the legacy of Greek mythology in Western art from the classical era to the present. Tracing the emergence, survival, and transformation of key mythological figures and motifs from ancient Greece through the modern era, it explores the enduring importance of such myths for artists and viewers in their own time and over the millennia that followed.

About the representation of Greek mythology in ancient Greek art.

Myth into Art is a comparative study of mythological narrative in Greek poetry and the visual arts. Thirty of the major myths are surveyed, focusing on Homer, lyric poetry and Attic tragedy. On the artistic side, the emphasis is on Athenian and South Italian vases. The book offers undergraduate students an introduction both to mythology and to the use of visual sources in the study of Greek myth.

A study of the relationship between architectural sculpture and myth in Classical Greece.

"Ancient Greece is one of the wellsprings of Western civilization. It transformed and has continued to refresh our architecture, drama, literature, art, philosophy, and politics. Life, Myth, and Art in Ancient Greece is a richly illustrated guide to this heritage and to its roots in the beliefs, rituals, and artistic achievements of an extraordinary culture." "This book covers themes that have long inspired the imagination, including myths of the gods and goddesses who intervened in-human affairs ; the voyages and conflicts of the heroes, from Herakles to Odysseus ; the many columned temples that studded the Greek empire from Athens to Sicily and Asia Minor ; the Dionysian rites of revelry and inebriation ; the Eleusinian mysteries, so secret that even today we can only speculate about what they involved ; major sites such as the Acropolis and the complex formed around the oracle at Delphi ; and the original Olympic games."