SKENOGRAPHIA IN THE FIFTH CENTURY BC
This fragment of a vase painting is an indication
of what the skene or stage-building looked like. In the fifth
and first three quarters of the fourth century BC, the various elements
of the architectural façade you see here were just images painted
on a flat panel called skenographia (‘scene-painting'). Aristotle
credits Sophocles with the introduction of scene painting. In the
fifth and most of the fourth century scene painting was never a depiction
of natural landscape but represented with perspective the façade
of a palace with columns and side porches with doors, as you see here.
These paintings were mounted on wooden frames, which were placed in fron
of the stage-building. Scene painting was not replaced with
a real architectural façade until the last quarter of 4th century.
Here
is a drawing reconstructing the whole vase painting. In comedy, however,
the scene painting could represent more lowly private dwellings like the
house of Strepsiades and the Thinkery in Aristophanes' Clouds.
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