- Helen Nagy –
combined with the increased use of foreshortening in the depictions of fi gures coincide
with a decline in the use of landscape elements, such as trees.
By the end of the fi fth century bc the Etruscan artist, perhaps inspired by Greek
innovations in perspective, especially the technique of skiagraphia (depicting shadows),
begins to lose interest in “landscape” in favor of creating three-dimensional forms. A
good example is the Tomb of Orcus II (Figs 56.8 and 56.9), where foreshortening and
shading and highlighting are skillfully employed to populate the world of Hades. The few
“landscape” elements, the rocks of the entrance to the Underworld inhabited by Theseus
and Sisyphus, serve as locators. These paintings are not blown-up vase decorations, but
refl ect contemporary large-scale Greek paintings.^27 The purely Etruscan elements here
are the demons, Tuchulcha, Charun and probably a Vanth who have invaded the Greek
underworld in the tomb of the famous Spurinna family.^28
These late paintings do not carry on the earlier Etruscan tradition of painting landscape
elements teeming with life on the walls of their dark tombs. The torch or lamp light of
a visitor to the Tomb of Orcus II (Figs 56.8–9) would have illuminated intimidating,
large, seemingly three dimensional forms, as opposed to the earlier tombs where glimpses
of trees, birds, dolphins over waves provided the setting for the human activities taking
place on the walls.
Figure 56.7 Tarquinia, Tomb of the Ship. Right wall. Image courtesy of the Soprintendenza per i Beni
Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale.Figure 56.8 Tarquinia, Tomb of Orcus II, right wall (right). Image courtesy of Stephan Steingräber.
(Photograph: Steingräber-Schwanke).