Aison (vase painter)

Bowl of Aison, Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional: Theseus, Athena and the Minotaur

Aison ( ancient Greek Αἴσων ) was a vase painter of the Attic red-figure style . Its approximately 60 traditional vessels date from the time between 435 and 415 BC. Chr.

He spent his career in several pottery workshops, where he was in contact with various other well-known vase painters. He created his first works, Ephebe pictures , in the same workshop as the Kodros painter . The first signed splendid bowl with motifs from the Thesis legend , which is now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid , was created in the same workshop in which the Penthesilea painter worked and Aristophanes was his successor. In the third workshop he worked with the Shuvalov painter and the Eretria painter . Here he mainly painted closed vessels. All three artists were obviously in the tradition of Polygnotus . His second showpiece, a belly lecthosis in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples , also dates from this period . Motif is a tradition here in the Parthenos Shield standing Amazonenschlacht .

Two other lekyths (today in the Louvre and in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens ) apparently show the painter's turn to the Adonis cult. His style already begins to approach the rich style here , which his pupil, the Meidias painter, was to continue later. As at the beginning of his career with the Kodros painter, the boundaries between the representation with the Meidias painter become blurred over time and it is sometimes difficult to clearly assign the work. It is particularly difficult with Choenkannen with Dionysian motifs. In science it is therefore also included in the Meidias circle.

What is striking is the different quality of his work, which is primarily attributed to the unsteady way of life that is evident in the frequent changes of workshop. However, Aison does not do justice to a disdain for the complete works that is often shown in science.

literature

John Boardman : Red-Figure Vases from Athens. The classical time (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 48). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1262-8 .
Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter : Aison [2] , in Der Neue Pauly Volume 1 (1996), Col. 358

Web links

Commons : Aison - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Aison
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Greek vase painter
DATE OF BIRTH	5th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	5th century BC BC or 4th century BC Chr.