The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

had made a success of that as well, the birds would inevitably have been afraid of
it.” (NH 35.65-35.66) [156]
The story recorded in this passage indicates that ancient art indeed aimed at deceiving
viewers by presenting them with highly effective lifelike images. Scholars like
Gombrich, Pollitt, and Froma Zeitlin, among others, for example, argue in favor of this
interpretation. 125 Furthermore, W. J. T. Mitchell incorporates Pliny’s story into his
discussion of artistic illusion and deception, and their effects on animal and human
viewers respectively. 126 Of interest is his view of illusion and deception as exclusively
human faculties that are “deeply interwoven with structures of power,” and of animals as
succumbing to these powers. 127 Regarding the difference in judgment between non-
human and human viewers, it resides, he says, in that the birds are “taken in” by the
visible, man-made lure—the grapes—whereas Zeuxis “takes himself in” by what remains
hidden behind the curtain—also a man-made lure. In other words, animals respond only
to something they can see, as if it were real, whereas humans are consciously drawn to
125 See Rusnak, “The Active Spectator” 119, n. 310, who cites Gombrich, Art and Illusion 11; Pollitt,
Ancient View 63-64, F. J. Zeitlin, “The Artful Eye: Vision, Ecphrasis and Spectacle in Euripidean Theatre,”
in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne, eds., Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge and New York,
1994) 151-152, and also J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan
World to Christianity (Cambridge and New York, 1995) 47, and C. Mango, “Antique Statuary and the
Byzantine Beholder,” DOP 17 (1963) 64.
126 W. J. T. Mitchell, “Illusion: Looking at Animals Looking,” in W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays
on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago and London, 1994) 335.
127 Quotation: Mitchell, “Illusion” 333; also 334, where he explains that: “Th[e] moment [when the animal
is caught in the act of looking at man-made illusions and responding to them as if it were alive and natural]
provides humanity with a double revelation and reassurance—that human representations are true, accurate,
and natural (the animals “agree” and “comprehend” them of their own accord), and that human power over
others is secured by mastery of representations (the animals are forced to agree, not of their own accord,
but automatically).” It has been a commonplace of animal cognitive studies, nowadays, that the ability to
imitate and deceive is not exclusively human. Parrots can imitate arbitrary sounds and language, for
example, and adult ostriches and killdeer plovers employ the “broken wing display,” as if injured and sick,
in order to lure predators away from their nests and protect their offspring. For a discussion of these
examples, see V. Morell, “Minds of Their Own: Animals Are Smarter Than You Think,” National
Geographic (March, 2008) 44-45, and M. Bright, Intelligence in Animals (London, 1994; second ed., 1997)
90-91. Animal behavior of this type was not unknown in antiquity, but rather the subject of meticulous
observation and analysis. For an indication of the ancient Greek knowledge of animals’ deceptive
behavior, see M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, tr. J. Lloyd, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and
Society (Hassocks, Sussex and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1978).
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