Author Description

English summary: How should I approach a work of art? What should I have to pay attention to if I gaze at a picture? What do I need to know in order to be able to fully appreciate and enjoy a painting? To these and similar questions, the Greek celebrity orator and art critic Philostratus (3rd cent. AD) gives answers in his Eikones, where he--according to the fiction of the text--interprets a number of panel paintings for the benefit of an audience of knowledge-hungry young people in a private museum on the Bay of Naples. In a commentary on six selected interpretations, the author explores the way in which he trains his audience to read paintings by way of insightful observations and fascinating rhetorical stratagems. The first interpretation deals with a depiction of a cultic ceremony in honour of the love goddess Aphrodite. The second focuses on a picture representing the fate of the chaste Hippolytus who is being dragged to death by his own team of horses. The murder of Cassandra, Trojan princess and concubine of Agamemnon, at the hands of the king's jealous wife Clytaemnestra is also among the paintings discussed, as is the wrestling match between the demigod Heracles and the giant Antaeus who, as the son of the earth, commands secret powers. The author also examines two interpretations where Poseidon, god of the deep sea, appears first powerfully wielding his trident, then kindly overlooking little Palaemon being rescued by a dolphin. The exceptional and enduring appeal of Philostratus' interpretations of paintings lies not merely in their charming and inventive explanations of individual paintings, but also in their engagement of the reader in the discovery of the effects of the visual arts on their observers, both ancient and modern. German description: Wie nahere ich mich einem Kunstwerk? Worauf muss ich achten, wenn ich ein Bild betrachte? Was muss ich wissen, um ein Gemalde verstehen und genieaen zu konnen? Auf diese und weitere Frage