Luca Giuliani is the Rector of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin and professor of classical archaeology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Joseph O'Donnell is a professional translator based in Berlin.
Three clear virtues set Luca Giuliani's book apart. First, it sets the discussion of scenes related to myth in Greek art into the wider context of discussion of the relationship between art and text. Second, it has both important methodological and important substantive theses to argue--that pictures may relate to stories as a whole rather than only illustrating the words of a particular text, and that a marked change from relating to stories to relating to texts occurred at the end of the fifth century. Third, Giuliani takes seriously the importance of other images in shaping an artist's choice of presentation and reads images in series. Image and Myth, now sensitively translated, puts German scholarship back at the center of the argument about art and text. All future study of the subject will have to begin from the pleasures of Giuliani's text. --Robin Osborne, University of Cambridge