The mythopoetics of Helios in iconography: to the formulation of the problem

Abstract

В первой части статьи представлен гомеровский Гелиос — образ, создававший, безусловно, основу представлений античных греков о Солнце. Во второй части статьи эту картину дополняют произведения V в. до н.э., когда, по утверждению французского исследователя Леона Лакруа, возрастает интерес к вазовым и скульптурным изображениям световых божеств. Наконец, третья часть статьи посвящена иконографии Гелиоса, демонстрируя связь сохранившихся произведений (в том числе, гомеровского гимна к Гелиосу) со сформировавшимися иконографическими типами изображения солнечного божества. The first part of the article presents the Homeric Helios — an image that certainly created the basis for the ideas of the ancient Greeks. In the second part, this picture is supplemented by works of the 5th century BC, when, according to Leon Lacroix, interest in vase and sculptural images of light deities increases in parallel. The third part is mainly devoted to the iconography of Helios, demonstrating the connection between the surviving works (including the Homeric hymn to Helios) and the formed iconographic types of Helios. The solar deity, which occupies a rather modest place in the ancient Greek pantheon, has several basic iconographic characteristics, the main of which is luminosity, which is reflected in different ways on different types of iconographic monuments. Comparison of iconographic monuments with literary ones shows a certain continuity in the transmission of mythological ideas about Helios, the absence of contradictions in interpretations. Thus, the main mythopoetic ideas about the Sun, which were formed back in the Homeric era and actively expanded in the 5th century BC, with the growth of natural science knowledge and philosophical ideas about this deity, continue to exist during the centuries of development of the ancient world.