Presence of the Homeric Hero in the François Vase

Abstract

Based on the cultural identity theory in art or art theory as a cultural system, the article presents a mythical-literary analysis of multiple and thematically related scenes depicted on the complex and controversial François Vase. In it, it is suggested that they should be studied as a “whole” and in relation to the form of the piece upon which they were painted, and not as isolated myths, the argument being that the vase in question has a preconceived iconographic and formal unity, whose paradigm or thread is the Homeric hero and the most significant themes related to him.