Greek Skoptic Epigram, Ecphrasis, and the Visual Arts

Abstract

Chapter 18 explores the interaction of skoptic epigram with the ecphrastic subgenre and the visual arts. It argues that skoptic epigram satirizes unskilled artists or the subject of their works of art, reversing ecphrastic topoi; sometimes motifs and devices closely tied with specific works of art or iconographic motifs are adapted, altering the role that they hold in ecphrastic models. In spite of its jocular character, skoptic epigram thus elicits the same kind of response prompted by an actual ecphrastic epigram, since it implicitly requests its audience to supplement the poet’s words with mental images of specific iconographic models. Such a visualisation serves the purpose of enhancing the effect of the joke.