Abstract
Abstract
This article examines interactions between Ovid's myth of Actaeon and visual representations of this myth before and after the Metamorphoses. Ovid's version is a turning point in portrayals of the myth. While Greek art focuses on Actaeon's punishment, artists depict the naked Artemis from the 1st century C.E. on. While Ovid's narrative evokes classical iconography by turning Actaeon into a spectacle, depictions of a naked Artemis show what Ovid deliberately refrained from describing. The reception of Ovid's Actaeon is a case study of the ways in which Ovid lures his readers into visualizing precisely what he did not reveal.
Publisher
University of Illinois Press