This is the case, above all, with reliefs and vase-paintings.

In them we often find representations which do not merely illustrate ancient literature, but supplement and modify the information we derive from classical writers.

The point of view of the artist is often not the same as that of the poet or historian, and it is frequently nearer to that of the people, and therefore a help in any attempt to understand popular beliefs.

The representations of the gods which we find in such works do not often embody any lofty ideals or subtle characterisation; but they show us the traditional and easily recognisable figures in which the gods usually occurred to the imagination of the Greek people.
The association of acts of worship with certain specially sacred objects or places lies at the basis of much religious art, though very often art has little or nothing to do with such objects in a primitive stage of religious development.

Stocks and stones--the latter often reputed to have fallen from heaven, the former sometimes in the shape of a growing tree, sometimes of a mere unwrought log--were to be found as the centres of religious cult in many of the shrines of Greece.