This innovative look at ancient Greek painting combines the most complete survey to date of the painted monuments of classical antiquity with an in-depth exploration of the ways in which the people of Ancient Greece appreciated this demanding art.

Plantzos looks at techniques, styles, themes and masters as well as their admirers, clients, and critics. At the same time, he discusses recent breakthroughs in archaeology, cultural studies, and art history. The book is unique in its reflections of new, multidisciplinary approaches to the material record which it combines with a more traditional, art-historical exploration; it draws on a wide range of ancient authorities – from Plato and Xenophon to Cicero, Pliny, Lucian, and Philostratus.

The book covers painting in Bronze-Age Greece (Cyclades, Crete, Santorini, Mycenaean Greece); painting of the Archaic, the Classical, and the Hellenistic periods, and ends with a study of Graeco-Roman painting in the 2nd-3rd c. AD.

Dimitris Plantzos is the author of Greek Art and Archaeology, 1200-30 BC (Kapon Editions, 2016).