Perseus

Question 1

What figure is the vase?

Answer 1

Red figure

Question 2

What year is it?

Answer 2

420 BCE

Question 3

Who does the vase depict?

Answer 3

Perseus with the head of Medusa, dancing or possibly pretending to fly. Two audience members/ judges sitting in what we can assume is the front row. Could be two judges, the priest of Dionysus and another priest, Dionysus and Ariadne, the choregos and the playwright

Question 4

Significance

Answer 4

The only attic vase to show a stage, and the only Greek painting to portray a theatre audience

Question 5

What is shows about costume

Answer 5

Lines around right wrist and feet mark the end of his body-suit, so in the scene he is ‘stage-naked’. Doesn’t seem to have a mask on but clearly has a phallus attatched between his legs.

Question 6

What does it show about the theatre?

Answer 6

Artist dispensed of the orchestra, sitting on elegant wooden chairs called klismoi, such chairs formed a model for the seating in the prohedria at the Lycurgan theatre of Dionysus