Hector and Andromache on a Red-Figured Vase

1888 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Percy Gardner

The vase which is the subject of the present paper is no new find. It has been for many years in the British Museum (Cat. No. 810), and was mentioned by Overbeck in his Heroische Bildwerke in 1851. It has not however hitherto been figured, and it may be well to take advantage of its publication in these pages to make a few observations on the general subject of vase-paintings which are connected with the myths of the Iliad.The present vase is an amphora from Vulci, height nineteen inches. The form and decoration are given in the woodcut. On one side is a warrior standing to the left, clad in a chlamys, and armed with helmet, spear, and shield adorned with serpent. On the other side is a lady to the left, clad in Ionian chiton and overdress, her head enveloped in a kerchief; she raises her right hand; in her left hand is a baby boy, who turns and stretches his hands to the right. The main outlines of the figures are traced in black, but the folds of the Ionian chiton with light red; there are three incised circles on the warrior's shield. Under each figure runs a line of maeander pattern; an anthemion adorns the bottoms of both handles.

1914 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 76-88
Author(s):  
W. R. Lethaby

The Square Pedestals.—In some notes on the sculpture from the Artemision at the British Museum, printed in the last volume of this Journal (p. 87), I suggested that the fragment No. 1201 most probably belonged to a relief representing either Herakles in the Garden of the Hesperides or Herakles and the Hydra. Subsequent examination and the attempt to make a restoration from the given data have made me sure that the former was the subject of the sculpture. Only this would account for the quiet action of the left hand of Herakles and for the closely associated female figure. If this were indeed the subject, how could its normal elements be arranged so as to suit the conditions of the square pedestal having a vertical joint in the centre, and making proper use of the existing fragment of which Fig. 1 is a rough sketch? This question I have tried to answer. The fragment is now fixed in the side of a built-up pedestal close to its left-hand angle, but there is nothing which settles this position and it is a practically impossible one, for there is not room left in which to complete the figure of Herakles. If, however, we shift the piece to the right hand half of the pedestal, and sketch in the completion of the two figures, we at once see how perfectly the tree and serpent would occupy the centre of the composition and leave the left-hand space for the two other watching maidens—the whole making a symmetrical group.


1946 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 8-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Ashmole

An Attic cup of Siana shape, said to come from excavations in Rhodes, was presented to the British Museum in 1906 by Sir Henry Howorth (Pl. II). The lip is decorated with a wreath—interrupted above the handles—of alternate purple and black ivy-leaves set in two rows, one point-upwards, the other point-downwards, on a central horizontal stem. The reserved band on which the figures and handles are set comes immediately below the lip, save for a narrow black stripe; the rest of the bowl is black, but divided by a horizontal band of tongue-pattern; the tongues, pointing upwards, are alternately black and purple, except in two places where two blacks accidentally come together. Black underlies the purple and the white everywhere, except under the purple tongues, but the white, used only for women's flesh, has almost entirely disappeared. The interior is plain black. The date will be before 560 B.C.Let us look at the two scenes which appear one on each side of the cup: they are roughly drawn, but vigorous and interesting: begin with that which, as I hope to show, comes first in time (Pl IIIa). On the left, a woman is seated to right on a stool: she is dressed in purple; her hair is loose and she holds her left hand to her head in an attitude of grief, with which the gesture of the open right hand well consorts. On the right of the scene, another woman stands to left beside a naming altar (Pl IIIe). Her dress is a black peplos. She wears a broad belt, the upper band of which consists of a repeating Ѕ pattern; her hair is gathered into a small knot on the nape of the neck, and in her hands she holds out by its handles a liknoh, from the front end of which three corn-stalks project. Within are shown other objects; the scale is so small and the drawing so poor that it is not possible to identify them all: some are probably fruits, the central one almost certainly a phallus.


1987 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-94
Author(s):  
J. Bruyn

AbstractOf the nine interpretations proposed for Rembraradt's history Painting of 1626 now at Leiden, none is really convincing. Il seems attractive to think of palamedes Condemned by Agamemncm as the subject because of its political significance in the year after the publication of Voredel's tragecty Palamedcs or Innocence Murdered, which denounced the execution of the Remonstrant leader Johan van Oldenbarnevelt in 1619. γet the scene depicted does not fit any episode frorn the Palamedes story. It appears rather to represent three young men appearing before a crowned figure who makes a pronouncement, probably one of magnanimity or clemency. It is conceivable that the subject was taken from Q. Curtius Rufus's Historiae Alexandri Magni Macedonis, ofwhich several editions, including translations into the vernacular, were published in Holland in the first decades of the 17th century. The episode in question was known to the young Rubens, but does not seem to have been illustrated by any other artist. At the beginning of the seventh book it is described how Alexander summoned before. him in the presence of the army two oj three brothers, who had been close friends of Philotas, a former, friend of his who had been executed for plotting against his life. The youngest brother, Poleinon, had panicked and fled but was caught and brought back at the very moment when Alexander had accused the brothers and the eldest, Amyntas, after having been released from his bonds and given a spear which he held in his left hand, had embarked on his szzccess ful defence. The appearance of Polemon infuriated the soldiers, but when he took the blame on himself and prrifessed his brothers' innocence, they were moved to tears. So too was Alexander who, prompted by their cries, absolved the brothers. This anecdote does at least explain some of the features of Rembrandt's scene. The young man standing on the right with his right hand raised as if swearing an oath would be the eloquent Amyntas with a spear in his left hand. Hidden behind him kneels the second brother, Simias, while Polemon, 'a young man just come to maturity and in the first bloom of his youth', has fallen on one knee in the foreground, underlining his emotional words with his right hand bressed to his heart. Alexander raises his sceptre in token of his absolution and some men in the background wave and shout from a socle they have climbed. Interpreted in this way, the scene coralains not a topical political allegory but, as would seem usual with history paintings, a message of a more general nature: the magnanimity of Alexander as an 'exemblum virtutis'.


2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 729-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Woytowicz ◽  
Kelly P. Westlake ◽  
Jill Whitall ◽  
Robert L. Sainburg

Two contrasting views of handedness can be described as 1) complementary dominance, in which each hemisphere is specialized for different aspects of motor control, and 2) global dominance, in which the hemisphere contralateral to the dominant arm is specialized for all aspects of motor control. The present study sought to determine which motor lateralization hypothesis best predicts motor performance during common bilateral task of stabilizing an object (e.g., bread) with one hand while applying forces to the object (e.g., slicing) using the other hand. We designed an experimental equivalent of this task, performed in a virtual environment with the unseen arms supported by frictionless air-sleds. The hands were connected by a spring, and the task was to maintain the position of one hand while moving the other hand to a target. Thus the reaching hand was required to take account of the spring load to make smooth and accurate trajectories, while the stabilizer hand was required to impede the spring load to keep a constant position. Right-handed subjects performed two task sessions (right-hand reach and left-hand stabilize; left-hand reach and right-hand stabilize) with the order of the sessions counterbalanced between groups. Our results indicate a hand by task-component interaction such that the right hand showed straighter reaching performance whereas the left hand showed more stable holding performance. These findings provide support for the complementary dominance hypothesis and suggest that the specializations of each cerebral hemisphere for impedance and dynamic control mechanisms are expressed during bilateral interactive tasks. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We provide evidence for interlimb differences in bilateral coordination of reaching and stabilizing functions, demonstrating an advantage for the dominant and nondominant arms for distinct features of control. These results provide the first evidence for complementary specializations of each limb-hemisphere system for different aspects of control within the context of a complementary bilateral task.


Tempo ◽  
1991 ◽  
pp. 18-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Montague

In the early 1920s and 30s a strange electronic instrument found its way from Russia into some of the more fashionable ballrooms, night clubs, and concert halls in Europe and America. This exotic new invention, called the ‘theremin’ or ‘thereminvox’, caused a considerable stir. Part of the interest was its unusual sound (like a musical saw mated with a light soprano), but its most dramatic feature was that the performer never actually touched the instrument. He or she simply waved graceful hands near the two antennae (one set vertically, the other looped horizontally) to coax out seamless, melifluous melodies. The proximity of the right hand to the vertical antenna changed the ultrasonic electromagnetic field, thus changing the pitch over about a six-octave range. The left hand (or sometimes a foot pedal) controlled the volume. By gently shaking the right hand at the antenna a vibrato could be achieved, giving performances a little more musical (not to mention choreographic) interest. Fashionable women dressed in long gowns seemed to be favourite photographic subjects of the period as performers, as well as the inventor himself, poised ‘playing the rods’ in full dress tails, arms outstretched like a great conductor–or perhaps sorcerer.


1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Guiard

An experiment compared the ability of classical pianists to sing, during keyboard performance, the right- and the left-hand part of the score being played. Upon instructions requiring them to "sing" one or the other voice of the score, the subjects spontaneously chose to sing and name the notes simultaneously, in keeping with the French traditional way of reading music, thus producing a two- dimensional tonal and verbal vocal act in response to each visual stimulus. Singing the right-hand part of the music, whether in unison with or in place of the right hand, while concurrently playing the left-hand part was judged easy by all subjects, and performance, typically, was correct in all respects. The other task, consisting of singing the left-hand part of the music, was judged more difficult by all subjects, and performance, more often than not, was poor. Careful inspection of the many errors that were recorded in the latter task revealed a few clear-cut regularities. Failures were vocal, but not manual. More specifically, vocal failures took place on the tonal dimension of the vocal response, but not on its verbal dimension: The song, but not the naming of the notes, was prone to fail, with either a loss of the pitch, or a systematic trend toward singing unduly—albeit accurately—the notes of the right-hand part. A number of subjects were found to display this intriguing tonal/verbal dissociation—naming a note at a pitch corresponding to another note—in a continuous regime. It is emphasized that this phenomenon amounts to the spontaneous production of musical events that belong to the Stroop category.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 491-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinya Fujii ◽  
Masaya Hirashima ◽  
Kazutoshi Kudo ◽  
Tatsuyuki Ohtsuki ◽  
Yoshihiko Nakamura ◽  
...  

the present study examined the synchronization error (SE) of drum kit playing by professional drummers with an auditory metronome, focusing on the effects of motor effectors and tempi. Fifteen professional drummers attempted to synchronize a basic drumming pattern with a metronome as precisely as possible at tempi of 60, 120, and 200 beats per minute (bpm). In the 60 and 120 bpm conditions, the right hand (high-hat cymbals) showed small mean SE (∼2 ms), whereas the left hand (snare drum) and right foot (bass drum) preceded the metronome by about 10 ms. In the 200 bpm condition, the right hand was delayed by about 10 ms relative to the metronome, whereas the left hand and right foot showed small SE (∼1 ms). The absolute values of SE were smaller than those reported in previous tapping studies. In addition, the time series of SE were significantly correlated across the motor effectors, suggesting that each limb synchronized in relation to the other limbs rather than independently with the metronome.


1936 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-236
Author(s):  
A. D. Trendall

Of the recent acquisitions to the Classical Collection of the Otago Museum (Dunedin, New Zealand) the most noteworthy is a particularly fine Attic white ground lekythos of about the middle of the fifth century (Plate XIV). It stands 38 cm. high and is in an excellent state of preservation, having been most carefully repaired with a minimum of repainting, which has affected only the breast of the woman, the right hand of the warrior, and some details of the small figure on top of the stele.The design represents a stele scene of the sort so popular with lekythos artists of this period. To the left stands a woman wearing a sleeved chiton, so thin that it clearly allows her bowed legs to be seen through it; with her left hand she points downward to the base of the stele, which is adorned with a fillet and a wreath. On the other side stands a hoplite with his shield and spear;


Perception ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (9) ◽  
pp. 1153-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Lewin Altschuler

I have noticed a striking effect that vision can have on movement: when a person makes circular motions with both hands, clockwise with the left hand, counterclockwise with the right hand, while watching the reflection of one hand in a parasagitally placed mirror, if one arm makes a vertical excursion, the other arm tends to make the same vertical excursion, but not typically if the excursing arm is viewed in plain vision. This observation may help in understanding how visual feedback via a mirror may be beneficial for rehabilitation of some patients with movement deficits secondary to certain neurologic conditions, and illustrates that the traditional division of neural processes into sensory input and motor output is somewhat arbitrary.


1983 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 81-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Mendleson

It is with great pleasure that I dedicate this short piece to Dr. Barnett. It was his original article, entitled “Monkey Business”, that led to this attempt to find out a little more about monkeys in ancient Mesopotamia.In the collection of terracottas from Ur now in the British Museum there appear three types of moulded relief plaque depicting a man with monkeys. As far as I am aware, except for one plaque without a provenance, all the known examples come from Ur.All the plaques clearly show a man with either one or two monkeys.Type 1 (Pl. XXIVa) shows a bearded man facing right. He wears a close-fitting cap with a wide band and a wraparound skirt down to the calf, with a fringed side edge and a belt. He is bare-chested. In his left hand he holds a lead which is attached to the neckrings of two monkeys, one on his shoulder, the other seated in front of him playing a flute. In his bent right hand the man holds a folded-over object, perhaps another musical instrument (?clappers), possibly to be played by the second monkey which sits on the man's shoulder clutching his cap with its head snuggling down on the head of the man. Both monkeys are long-tailed.There are three examples of this type of plaque in the museum, one almost complete and two fragmentary.


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