A good view of the vase:
Euphronios and Homer
Vase-painting was one of the most important areas of artistic activity in ancient Greece. Working either with black or red figures, Greek artists produced two-colored scenes that suggested a far more colorful and complex set of events in ancient myth or daily life.
Euphronios, "greatest master of the early red-figure style," (Shapiro 23) was one of the few Greek artists to portray the death of Sarpedon in Book 16 of the Iliad. The vase he painted dates to 520-510 B.C.E.. In this book, Achilles' friend Patroclus, dismayed at the Trojan successes in Books 10-15, has returned to the fight, wearing Achilles' armor. After killing many of the enemy he confronts and kills Sarpedon, son of Zeus, and Zeus sends Apollo to rescue and clean the corpse, aided by the twin minor gods Hypnos and Thanatos (Sleep and Death).
Note how Sarpedon is portrayed here: he is massive, a head taller than the others, like an oak or poplar or pine (16.482-3). His wounds have not been cleansed, although the Iliad said that they were (16.711). Sleep and death have wings: they are "husky, mature hoplites with delicate wings grafted on," a pair of "incongruous hybrids." (Shapiro 25)
Euphronius introduces one new figure: the god Hermes, unmentioned in Homer's account. As the messenger of Zeus and intermediary between the worlds of the living and the dead, he is as appropriate as Apollo.
Although Homer portrayed Sarpedon as a commander, Euphronios gives him the appearance of a youth, with beard just beginning. This is what an Athenian audience of the period 520-510 might expect, since the heroic ideal of that period was a young man at the entrance to adulthood, an ephebe. He resembles the contemporary statues of kouroi, longhaired and beardless aristocratic youths:
http://www.culture.gr/2/21/214/21405m/00/lm05m022.jpgThe Gods on the Vase
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Hermes is famous as the "conductor": of people, of souls, of practically everything. Normal L. Brown's first book was "Hermes the Thief," a discussion of the connections between Hermes, merchants, and thieves. He is famously clever, and as an infant stole the cattle of Apollo--then out-argued him in a confrontation (Homeric Hymn to Hermes). Here we see him as mediator between the living and the dead, conducting the hero's body back to Lycia.
Sleep and Death are twin brothers (Hesiod, Theogony, line 574). While Hermes, Apollo and others have relatively rounded characters, these are single-function deities as their names imply. They have a long tradition in western poetry, from Hesiod through Shelley and Wallace Stevens.
Composition
The visual rhythm of this picture is captivating and complex. Of the three upright figures, the two soldiers on the outside are static, while Hermes gestures with his hand and want (caduceus), as if in some sort of dance or ritual. Between these characters, Sleep and Death bend over to hoist the body, the huge size of which dominates the frame. The tension created by the balanced stationary and moving figures is increased by other signs of motion, particularly the streams of blood from Sarpedon's huge body and the sprawling limbs. Note Hermes' feet and winged sandals: he is clearly "conducting" this corpse, though from the waist up this is less clear. The strong parallel lines--of the flowing blood, the various limbs (Sleep's right leg, Death's left, Sarpedon's right) and Hermes' body--focus on the action in the picture, contrasting with its surface calm.
More than ten limbs cross in some way in this picture: it has the
quality of a fine work of sculpture, a frieze of some sort. The crossing
limbs give the illusion of depth to this two-dimensional drawing.
