Do you like the legendary superstars Helen and Paris of Troy? Or, action-adventures like Hektor battling Achilles, or Amazon women battling Herakles? Then you have a good eye for the classical Greek—at least better than that of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, who got blinded by Odysseus. These are but a few characters from ancient myths starring in an exquisite exhibition of ancient Greek artworks now on view at the San Diego Museum of Art.

"Helen and Menelaos at the Sack of Troy/Youth

Departing"; Attic red figure bell-krater; 440-430

BCE. Attribited to the Persephone Painter. Height:

32.5cm. Collection of the Toledo, Ohio Museum of Art.

^{Image courtesy of the Toledo, Ohio Museum of Art and SDMA.}

More than an collection of dusty old relics, the exhibition Heroes: Mortals and Myths of Ancient Greece is a showcase depicting the characters and legends from myths such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, portrayed on the artworks made in Greece and Italy from 700 BCE into the Roman era. Depicting the eroticism, mayhem and violence of the era, the works are borrowed from some of the finest museums in the world. Excellent examples of painted pottery and small sculpture fill two galleries at the Balboa Park museum.

Both oenophiles and winos might enjoy a two-handled wine storage jar painted with red figures on a black background. It features a scene of Paris of Troy enthroned and being served libations by the love goddess Aphrodite. While Paris gazes at his beloved Helen, little god Eros flies overhead. Called a Pelike, the medium-sized storage jar is attributed to the Laodameia Painter from Southeastern Italy and dates from the 4^th century BCE. Just as complicated as the scene is how the vessel was made. It took at least three different firings to add and reduce oxygen into the kiln to oxidize the iron-rich slip that forms the vessel’s distinctive red and black design.

This exhibition was organized by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and focuses on the mythology from the ancient Greece. A large punchbowl-like krater used for mixing wine and water, attributed to the workshop of the 4^th century BCE Persephone Painter from Athens, humorously features the sexual innuendo of Menelaos loosing his sword while chasing his wife Helen during the sack of Troy. As she flees from her husband, Helen’s garment becomes undone to give Menelaos a tempting view of what he has lost. The exhibition catalog and museum support materials focus on the mythic imagery and the purposes that the objects were used for.

Unfortunately, little attention is given to the quality of the finely crafted vessels and their painted surfaces. Much of the work on display is superb. An elegant clay kylix—think of a very low, wide martini glass with handles used to drink wine—attributed to Hieron (the potter) and Makon (the painter) gracefully merge curved form with curved painted fugures. The vessel’s shape has a delicate silhouette and is painted on the outside with four men courting four hetairai—prostitute/courtesans—who all wear garments rendered with graceful flowing lines. On the inside of the drinking vessel, a circular image features a woman making a sacrifice to the gods. The woman is elegantly dressed in delicately rendered curvilinear lines that describe her gown and festival mantle. The vessel’s form and decoration are a perfect unification of both physical and painted rhythmic curves.

Another refined drinking cup from the 5^th century BCE is slightly bawdy. It is called a mastos and is in the shape of a woman’s breast with handles. Instead of a foot, the cup’s bottom is in the shape of a nipple so that the cup cannot be set down without spilling any wine inside. At a symposium—an orgy-like dinner party—it must be perpetually held and drunk from. Its exterior decoration features a complex design of interlocking black figure male warriors battling, which makes the cup’s combination of female shape and male decoration sophisticated and ribald fun.

Also featured in the exhibit are a bronze Greek battle helmet and bronze shin guards that will surprise the viewer because of their size. The exhibition also has some handsome marble reliefs, small scale sculpture, and jewelry. As there is no San Diego museum that permanently houses artworks from the ancient Greek period, this exhibition is a rare opportunity to view this type of artwork locally. Don’t let this great odyssey of an exhibit sail away without seeing it.