Posted: Oct 27, 2017 2:20 am
proudfootz wrote:It seems like an early form of a cartoon - separate images implying or illustrating action over time.
Here's a drawing made upon the discovery c.1930's, by one of the archaeologists.
The original mural was found at Dura Europos and is generally dated to the early to mid 3rd century.
Again Jesus at the top commands. The up-and-walking paralytic on the LHS is presented a second time as bedridden on the RHS.
That's an interesting comment about it being similar to a cartoon - or at least an abbreviated rendition of two separate scenes. But if that were the case I'd expect the bedridden paralytic to be on the LHS (at the start, reading left to right) and the walking dude to be on the RHS, coinciding with the direction and hand signals of the figure above (assumed by many modern biblical scholars to be Jesus).
I checked the history of cartoons and cant see much before the 16th century. Caricatures OTOH in antiquity have been discussed here before, such as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito
But in this the one figure does not appear twice, as is claimed in the interpretation of the Dura "Jesus healing the paralytic" mural. If their interpretation is correct then I'd guess its a type of composite drawing showing the BEFORE and AFTER situations at the same time. I guess today it could be called two frames of a story being superimposed, even if it looks back the front. I have never heard of such an art form anywhere in antiquity, and even wonder what on earth it could possibly be classified or even described as.