- Ingrid Krauskopf –
Figure 25.14 Bronze statuette, Florence, Mus. Arch. 547, so-called Jason.Figure 25.15 Bronze coin, (incuse) = LIMC VII Poseidon/Nethuns 17. After plaster cast.for example, death, a concrete form. In one case, this could have been the animal form,
in another, the human form, or both forms could have been developed in parallel. The
Etruscans’ image-shaping imagination, which otherwise receded behind the overwhelming
infl uence of Greek art, also expressed itself in details. Many death-demons have huge,
staring eyes, as in a vulture-demon on a red fi gure vase (Fig. 25.16);^49 in the Tomba della
Quadriga infernale,^50 this eye is emphasized by being shown en face, while all of the eyes
of humans there are shown, as is usual in the stylistic convention of the time, in profi le.
Every animal, and human beings as well, fi nds it an unpleasant experience when someone
stares at them; one involuntarily has the feeling that it cannot mean anything good. It
must have been much more eerie when two eyes suddenly become visible in the dark (Fig.
25.17); they constituted a very real, lethal menace.