Arkesilas painter

Name vase of the Arkesilas painter, around 565/60 BC Chr.

The Arkesilas painter was a laconic vase painter whose works date back to around 560 BC. To be dated. He is considered one of the five great vase painters in Sparta .

Name vase, detail with the main picture

The Arkesilas painter got its emergency name from a bowl that is now in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris . On this so-called Arkesilas bowl , which was found in Vulci , the artist shows the Cyrenian King Arkesilaos II , who watches his subjects packing and weighing goods. It is a unique representation in ancient art. This and another representation by the artist, which showed the nymph Cyrene wrestling with a lion, initially made the archaeologists think of the painter's origins in North Africa, which, however, turned out to be wrong after excavations in Laconia. On another bowl he shows women who are characterized by opaque white. This technique, which is typical of Corinthian and Attic vases, is not otherwise found in laconic works. A similar picture is shown on another bowl, on which Heracles is possibly fighting two Amazons. The legs cannot be seen, the faces are partly white.

The Arkesilas painter mainly decorated bowls. He mainly showed symposium scenes and mythical images. The latter are dominated by images from the Heraklian saga, the Amazons , Atlas and Prometheus . Atlas and Prometheus can be found together on another vase by the painter. What is striking here is that both titans are shown in the immediate vicinity, although one was in the west and the other in the Caucasus . In addition to the figuratively decorated works, the Arkesilas painter is also attributed only ornamentally painted works. His way of drawing is precise and lively. The painter was recognized by Arthur Lane as one of the first laconic vase artists in 1934 . He assigned his early work to the Hephaestus Painter , who was later identified as the Boreading Painter .

literature

John Boardman : Early Greek Vase Painting. 11th to 6th Century BC. A handbook. Thames and Hudson, London 1998 (World of Art), ISBN 0-500-20309-1 , pp. 185-188.
Thomas Mannack : Greek vase painting. An introduction . Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1743-2 , pp. 125-128 ,.
Matthias Steinhart : Arkesilas painter. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Sp. 8.
Conrad M. Stibbe : The other Sparta . von Zabern, Mainz 1996 ( cultural history of the ancient world , vol. 65), ISBN 3-8053-1804-9 , pp. 163-203.

Web links

Commons : Arkesilas Painter - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

↑ On the bowl in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco in the Vatican Musee , inventory number 16592, found in Cerveteri , see Stibbe pp. 171–172.

personal data
SURNAME	Arkesilas painter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	laconic vase painter
DATE OF BIRTH	6th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	6th century BC Chr.

[1] On the bowl in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco in the Vatican Musee , inventory number 16592, found in Cerveteri , see Stibbe pp. 171–172.