Portrayals of monsters and beasts set in long, alternate rows dominated early Greek art from 700 to about 550 BC. Lorenz Winkler-Horaek shows in detail to what extent Oriental models were adopted and how and when they were transformed by the pot painters of Corinth. In discovering the systematic structure which the painters invented to arrange monsters and beasts, Lorenz Winkler-Horaek argues for a new historical-anthropological reading: the monsters personify the fantastic dimension of the wilderness beyond the civilisation of the Greek Polis. By this rationalization of the irrational concept of the monster the pot painters created an unrivalled hallmark of the citys identity and power: in the crucial time of the shaping of the Greek polis the Corinthian imagery of monsters and beasts was both ubiquitous in the Mediterranean and very much in demand.

Lorenz Winkler-Horaek,Freie Universität Berlin.