Login
Not a CAA member?
Read about the benefits.
March 24, 2010
Elizabeth C. Mansfield Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, and Mimesis Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 240 pp.; 58 b/w ills. Paper $25.00 (9780816647491)
Thumbnail

 
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2010.31

Sign In or become a member to see the full review

Classical mimesis, the privileged aesthetic model for antiquity, involved a combination of imitation, invention, and idealization. To paint the ideal beauty of Helen of Troy, for example, the fourth-century BCE Greek artist Zeuxis copied and combined the best features of five live female models. In Too Beautiful to Picture: Zeuxis, Myth, and Mimesis, Elizabeth C. Mansfield argues that the myth of Zeuxis selecting models is “about” classical mimesis itself, and the fundamental contradiction between its...