Most of my projects since 1999 have focused on the Archaeology of humour.
Projects Timeline
| (1999-2002) | (2007-2009) | 2009-2012 Political cartoons | 2011 Art Exhibition |
<-- (Past) Present Future -->
2009-2012 Political cartoons
Keywords: Reception studies; classical reception; Art, visual humour, democracy and freedom of expression; Greek art/ Roman art; classical reception; ideals and modern reception; the power of images; Punch; Victorian age; British, Australian, Canadian and American newspapers.
There is much debate, and even
outside of the “classics world” on who reads classics, if it is only of interest
to the elites of this world, if it is useful to non-specialists, and so forth. I
come from a different angle, that of visual humour, which I studied in depth in
the ancient Greek context (Greek Vase Painting and the Origins of Visual
Humour C.U.P. 2009).
The previous study, of the social and political
functions of humour within a democratic context, and based on the most popular
and cheap art form in archaic and classical
This was for ancient
There are some who
assume that only the elites had/have access to classics, but what should we make
of the many hundreds of caricatures in prominent newspapers, propaganda
leaflets, from the 19th century to today, which use classical references,
whether they are visual myths, events or statesmen, and much more, to mock
current affairs? Did everyone understand the references? Who was/is mocked? The
contemporary politician, or Herakles? More importantly, why would a cartoonist
need a reference to Herakles, Caesar or Horace to mock a 19th or 21st century
politician? Does everyone understand these references today? Newspapers: the
material is cheap, paper, it has to “please” the public, at least in its design
if not in the
There needs to be a move, stronger than ever to study “popular”
art forms, maybe part of what we call media today (theatre, films,
documentaries, comics, art, visual and verbal humour, poetics, political
rhetoric; new media such as the internet) to tap in the immense reservoir of
references to the classical world and understand better both our own categories
of thought, and our special relationship with Greek and Roman
antiquity.
| 2011 Art Exhibition |  |
L'Origine du Gag: de la Grèce ancienne à la bande dessinée moderne
Exhibition (in preparation) based in Brussels and co-organised with Didier Pasamonik, Paris, and the cooperation of the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire de Bruxelles.| Past Projects (1999-2007) |
| (2007-2009) | |
Key words: Art, visual humour, democracy and freedom of expression in the ancient world and today; Greek art/ideals and their modern reception; the power of images
My research 2007-2009 builds on
this Greek body of visual evidence, but extends to other regions, and time
spheres. It begins with the reception and the politics of visual humour in the
first democracy in Athens but also covers contemporary debates and controversies
on the power of images, the uses and abuses of visual humour, with a special
focus on the ways in which humour can test the limits of democracy and
In the current polarised state of
affairs between the conceived 'totalitarian' Middle-East and the ‘democratic’
West, the recent Prophet Cartoon affair, and the proposed Racial and Religious
Hatred Bill in the
| (1999-2002) | |
Visual humour in Ancient Greece
Key words: Greek origins of visual humour in western
culture; ancient artefacts in their ancient political, economical and
archaeological context; biases and cultural problems of interpreting
ancient art
This project which began in 1999
as a D.Phil focussed largely on comic images in ancient Greek vase-painting, a
relatively neglected subject at the time. It involved analysing images on
over 40.000 Greek vases stored in over 30 European museums, and carrying out a
reconnaissance survey in and around the Kabirion Sanctuary, Thebes (Greece). I
also carried out a systematic analysis of the entire Beazley archive and the
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. I worked at the Beazley Archive during my D.Phil and
for another year and a half as a full-time researcher for the CVA project. This
research resulted in an extensive database, the foundation of my D.Phil,
articles and a monograph. I drew many vases during that period, including over a
hundred vectorised line-drawings of vase paintings.
The Research
questions focused on identifying visual humour in ancient Greece (mainly Athens
and Boeotia), from the 6th to the 4th centuries B.C., through unchanged
mechanisms/genres (surprise, parody, caricature, situation comedy); and
comparing each comic image to a series of 'usual' or 'serious' representations.
The decorated Greek vases are found in the hundreds of thousands, and depict
minute details of everyday life and mythology. They also mock many aspects of
social and political life, as well as the religious and the mythological
spheres; they offer a humorous perspective on popular subjects such as women,
foreigners, workers, peasants, poliadic and Dionysian cult (in Attica but also
in Boeotia: a chapter of Mitchell In Press 2009 concerns the Kabirion
Sanctuary near Thebes) and democracy. The study enabled me to establish certain
patterns within painters' workshops, where certain painters seem to almost
specialise in comic scenes. A principal contention was that the products were
relatively cheap to produce and purchase, and that because they were made by
artisans for the market rather than for a patron, they exhibited a freedom of
expression which was lacking in most other patronised art forms of the 6th to
the 4th centuries B.C. Just as Aristophanic comedies provide insights into
general trends in Greek culture -- to win democratically at the yearly dramatic
competitions a playwright had to offer something to please most citizens --
Greek vases were aimed at universal appeal, or in other words, at being
purchased! Humour was a powerful marketing tool in ancient Athens just as it is
today in modern advertising .On the one hand, I interpret the comic images on
the ancient Greek vases as reflections of general public sentiments rather than
those of the intellectual elite, and on the other, I argue that the artists who
produced them enjoyed a freedom of expression which was a direct outcome of the
new democratic rule.