Grave of the fighting animals
The grave of the fighting animals is probably the grave of a boy. It dates from around 340 BC. And was found in the Andriuolo necropolis near Paestum (grave 66). His remains are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum .
The grave slabs
Only three of the four limestone slabs that formed the burial chamber could be recovered during excavations. Their dimensions - 84 × 77 cm on the narrow sides and 81 × 132 cm on the long side of the grave - suggest that a child was buried in it. The original arrangement of the plates was only made clear during the preparation of an exhibition in Germany in 2007, when the burial chamber was reassembled in the form of a sarcophagus. In Paestum, the painted panels from the necropolis are only shown individually because their heavy weight does not allow any other form of presentation. According to the current state of research, the eponymous plate, on which an animal fight is depicted, was on the narrow side at the eastern end of the grave, where the head of the deceased rested. A panther female with red-colored eyes is fighting here against a lion griffin . Brownish wash stripes accompany part of the outlines of the griffin and highlight the muscles on the left hind leg. The color of the fur of the big cat and part of the feathers of the griffin wings are also made clear by wash painting. A pomegranate is shown above the two animals as a symbol of fertility.
The plate at the opposite end of the grave is decorated with a bush, a palmette motif and a jumping female sphinx . This also has an internal drawing. All three panels have a base strip that takes up about a third of their height and is separated from the image field by a lower black and an upper red line. The base strip is not colored differently than the image background. At the top, the picture fields are limited by a branch with opposite leaves, above is a black line with a black and red egg stick painted over it. The plate obtained from one of the long sides shows no further traces of painting. Bernard Andreae explains why further pictorial representations were not necessary: “The world is animated by plants that grow, pass and arise again with the seasons. The sparsely painted grave, which at first glance appears so empty, is full of references that could give the parents of the deceased child a hopeful consolation in their helplessness. "
literature
- Angela Pontrandolfo, Agnès Rouveret: Le tombe dipinte di Paestum. Panini, Modena 1992, ISBN 88-7686-202-1
- Bernard Andreae et al. a .: painting for eternity. The tombs of Paestum. Exhibition Bucerius Kunst Forum Hamburg, October 13, 2007 to January 20, 2008. Hirmer, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7774-3745-3 , pp. 76–81 and updates (loose sheet)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paestum, Museo Archeologio Nazionale Inv.-No. 21649-21649
- ↑ Bernard Andreae uses these strips in addition to the other interior painting to date the grave and assigns them a stylistic novelty value that only belongs to the second half of the fourth century BC and enables the representation of light and shadow and thus greater plasticity in painting, cf. . Bernhard Andreae u. a .: painting for eternity. The tombs of Paestum. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7774-3745-3 , p. 81. It should be noted, however, that the grave of the returning knight , which Andreae dug about 30 years earlier than the grave of the fighting animals, also had the brown brushstroke, which accompanies the outline (even if applied more impasto).
- ↑ Bernhard Andreae u. a .: painting for eternity. The tombs of Paestum. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7774-3745-3 , p. 76