Greek vase painter

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A vase painter decorates a bowl; fragmented Attic red-figure bowl by the antiphon painter , around 480 BC Chr .; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston , inventory number 01.8073

Greek vase painters were active artisans from the Minoan - Mycenaean period to the Hellenistic period . They reached the peak of their work with the Attic vase painting of the black-figure and red-figure style from the 6th to the 4th century BC. BC, but also with the black-figure vases of Corinth in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. BC and the red-figure styles of Lower Italy and Sicily in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Chr.

Unlike for potters, there are no written testimonials about the social status of vase painters. There is also no written record of the structural composition of the workshops. Thus, the scientific findings come primarily from archaeological research and can usually only be clarified to some extent for the well-studied Attic ceramists. By the 5th century BC BC, vase painters and potters seem to have been identical in many cases. With the great success of Attic ceramics in the Mediterranean region, the structures in the pottery factories had to be reorganized for increasing exports. Since potters worked faster than vase painters, the workshops now needed more vase painters. Younger employees, apprentices or temporary employees seem to have taken on this part of the job. The operator and owner of the workshop was the potter.

Work structure

The work in pottery was divided into different work steps. After the potter had created the vessels, the still unfired vessels were generally decorated by the vase painters in the respective style after a drying phase. In some styles - such as the Six technique , Gnathia or western slope ceramics - the decorations were only applied after the firing and were accordingly less durable. The highlight of the process was the burning.

A vase painter decorates a head vase ; Attic red-figure bowl by the Ambrosios painter , around 510 BC Chr .; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inventory number 68.292

The owner of the workshop was the potter. In an average workshop organized as a family business, around five to eight craftsmen worked together. During the times of the greatest Attic ceramic production, large companies with a far-reaching division of labor cannot be ruled out. Often times the potter will also have worked as a vase painter himself. However, since turning and shaping was much faster by hand than painting a vessel, a workshop had to employ more vase painters than potters with the appropriate production. Vase painters could be people of different origins, whereby all workers were probably involved in all the work despite their specialization. The task of painting was possibly taken over by the sons of the master potter or younger employees in a workshop. In addition, there were freelance vase painters who joined forces with the potters for a certain period of time to cope with assignments. But longer alliances were apparently also possible, for example between Klitias and Ergotimos , Lydos and Kolkhoz , Python and Duris or Makron and Hieron . Other vase painters worked for different potters. Euphronios painted vessels for around six different potters in this way. Later he took over a workshop and afterwards no longer appeared as a vase painter himself, but offered work to various vase painters himself. A potter could also work with various painters in the course of his career, who in turn were only employed by him or else worked with different potters. In the case of the potter Nikosthenes , who specialized in exporting to Etruria , around twenty different painters of the black and red-figure styles can be traced . The emerging image of strong interdependencies between different working groups and workshops through the "exchange" of vase painters seems to have been valid above all for the period of strongly increasing exports in the early 5th century BC, while the connections between Python and Duris or between Makron and Hieron established themselves in the time of the consolidated export business. In any case, the vase painter was dependent on the potter, because potters could do without a vase painter, but not the other way around.

Since many craftsmen, mainly known as vase painters, also showed a few pottery signatures, such as Epiktet , Phintias or Duris, which can be found mainly on smaller formats, it is possible that they could also be active as potters for the secondary production. A plate consecrated to Epictetus on the Acropolis also suggests that the vase painters at least had the knowledge and skills to make pottery.

Social position

The names of painters are usually only known through inscriptions on vases. Out of around 70,000 known Attic vases, however, only around 900 bore signatures. Of these, two thirds fall on the signatures of potters who drew with “he has created” ( Greek  ἐποίησεν epoíēsen , verb form in the aorist ) or “he created me” ( μ'ἐποίησεν m'epoíēsen ) and especially on vessels of the black-figure style dominate. Painters signed “he painted” ( ἔγραψεν égrapsen ). It is controversial whether “he made it” was used solely for works by potters - the context is often important here for the meaning. In any case, "he created [it]" could include painting when the potter and vase painter were identical. The formula “he created it” was used from the late 8th century BC onwards. Signed, while painter's signatures only from the early 6th century BC. Chr., E.g. B. with Sophilos , are detectable and the majority of the corresponding signatures from the few decades between 530 BC. BC and 480 BC BC. Vessels were signed for different reasons. They were able to express their pride in a successful job and so Exekias drew, for example, with both formulas, because he wanted both activities to be valued equally. Very rarely, however, were vessels signed by potter and painter at the same time. Sometimes signatures, for example with the potter Nikosthenes, were used for marketing reasons or, as with most of the black-figure signatures on Kleinmeister bowls, they formed part of the decoration. Some signatures have additions that identify the signers as citizens of Athens and even show family relationships. Other signatures such as those of Mys (Mysier) , Lydon (Lydier) or Skythes (Skythe) suggest an indication of origin. It is unclear whether they were slaves or metics . Names like Onesimos (the useful one) also suggest a slave. A second painter named Lydon signed a kyathos with the express addition of his slave status: Lydos the slave . Phintias signed several times, but mostly incorrectly. So one must assume that he was actually ignorant of the writing. There seems to have been no signature privilege or the preference of certain people. One can only speculate as to why certain vases were signed and not others. It is possible that painters have signed newly designed themes or compositions that were perceived as particularly successful. In the case of potters, for example, signatures can be found on new and difficult shapes such as drinking bowls. They were also a sign of artistic rather than economic competition. Euthymides makes it clear in a caption that his work was of outstanding quality: "Euthymides, son of Polias, drew it like never Euphronios". The names of young vase painters at the same time appear several times in the Kalos inscriptions . Timagoras, for example, praises Andokides , and the potters Tleson , Aeschines and the painter Smikros are mentioned in such favorite inscriptions. Phintias shows Euthymides as a music student on a vase and also mentions him in a Kalos inscription. It is no longer possible to find out whether these were all genuine sympathies or teasing. It was probably possible that the different professions also mixed. Relationships between potters and vase painters are known, in the case of Onesimo it was probably the case that the son of a musician went to apprentice to a potter with him.

Vase painter decorates a skyphos ; Attic red-figure bowl, Berlin Antikensammlung F 2542

Sometimes the processes in the workshop are also shown on vase pictures. The Pentheskouphia pinakes primarily show the working world of potters. Especially on red-figure vases, especially on bowls , vase painters have been shown at work several times. There is also a representation of a vase painter. In addition, the pioneers of the red-figure style sometimes appear in social contexts. Euthymides, Euphronios and Smikros will be shown at the symposium , there are also pictures with inscriptions showing vase painters as athletes in the palaestra . A picture by the antiphon painter also shows a vase painter who reveals himself to be a citizen through a walking stick leaning against the wall and an athlete through Strigilis and Aryballos on the wall. To what extent this was a dream in aristocratic spheres or corresponded to reality is unclear. The social position of the vase painter was probably still below that of the potter, insofar as a differentiation is possible here. Because as a craftsman, every vase painter was also a trained potter. While Homer still refers to them as demiourgoi , “ those working for the common good”, the Attic sources from old and middle comedy allow a rather disdainful look at the banahmi (literally: “stove stool”). However, these traditions are in most cases determined by wealthy aristocrats, so that there was obviously a discrepancy in self-image and the perception by the elite, if a changed view of the commoners did not lead to the different assessments. Was the vase painter full citizens of Athens, so he was as Demiourgos the tax bracket of Theten to, in the rare cases of both existing, modest land ownership tax bracket of zeugitae . The increasing role of the money economy during the 6th century BC BC and the economic successes of Attic potters, especially towards the end of it, led, if not to growing social recognition, then at least to growing self-confidence of the potters and vase painters. This was reflected in a series of consecration gifts donated by potters to the Athens Acropolis , including the potter and vase painter Euphronios, who calls himself kerameus ("potter") in the inscription that has survived . Vase painters also donated particularly finely decorated ceramic vessels to the Acropolis.

Outside of Attica, assessing these questions is even more difficult. In Laconia, for example, the vase painters were probably Periöks or craftsmen who had moved there. The ceramists in Boeotia were apparently somewhat more respected than in Athens. It is also difficult to make assessments for craftsmen from the pre-Homer era, as there are no written evidence and there are hardly any archaeological finds that would allow such conclusions to be drawn. Probably still in Homeric times and, analogously, in earlier times, potters, who were also vase painters at the time, were traveling craftsmen who offered their services in different places. In Athens, as in Corinth, pottery quarters may already have emerged in Geometric times - the Athenian Kerameikos is famous , who also remained a cemetery and thus an important buyer of grave vases up to the classical period. The potters 'and thus the vase painters' workplaces were on the outskirts or outside the cities, where the danger of starting fires from the kilns was much lower.

Today's view of vase painters as artists corresponds to modern viewing habits and values. In the 6th and 5th centuries BC However, this concept of the artist did not yet exist; no distinction was made between high art and handicrafts. The "artists" were technites . The ancient vase painters therefore saw themselves as artisans who worked under the protection of Athena Ergane . Your current classification as an artisan is therefore the most appropriate.

designation

Name vase of the painter of the Berlin dancer ; Apulian red-figure bell crater , around 440/30 BC Chr., Antikensammlung Berlin, F 2400

Through his research, John D. Beazley created a complex system of relationships within the potters and painters of Attic ceramics. He examined 30,000 works and assigned them to 1,500 different artisans. In addition to clear attributions to artist personalities, attributions are made within artist groups such as “master”, “pupil”, “workshop”, “circle”, “in the way” or “related”. Building on the studies of Giovanni Morelli , Beazley examined the pictures for peculiarities that can be assigned to different artist personalities. In doing so, he ensured that today more than 2000 artist personalities can be distinguished , of whom one does not even know the name. If the names are no longer known, they are named using a system of so-called emergency names . These mostly refer to a specific vase, the so-called name vase . Names can be given very differently here, for example:

Sometimes, as with the painter of the Berlin dancer , several aspects (here the individual vase, the storage location and the motif) give the name. Names such as BMN painter also refer to several things, such as the British Museum here as a modern repository and the potter Nikosthenes as the creator. In addition, there are names such as the qualitative judgment of Worst Painter or, in the case of Mycenaean painting, the allocation of numbers such as painter 20 . The group E ( E for Exekias ) about leans to the painter Exekias to the group R ( R for Reed , Reed ) refers to the Reed-painter .

Motifs

The motifs apparently had little influence on the sale of vases, especially in Etruria, vases seemed to have been bought regardless of the subject. Nevertheless, certain vase shapes, such as loutrophores or white-ground cylinder lekythoi , were tied to certain themes that had to do with the use of such vessels at weddings, funerals or in grave cults. Also Panathenaic prize amphorae were tied to a particular decorative scheme and allowed only a few individual deviations. In addition, the painters seem to have been quite free in their choice of subjects. Some preferred mythological themes, others everyday life, depictions of war or other themes. At the same time, the choice of motif was also subject to changes in fashion and the zeitgeist.

literature

General
Attic vase painters
  • John D. Beazley : Attic Black-figure Vase-painters . Oxford 1956 [ = ABV ].
  • John D. Beazley: Attic red-figure vase-painters . 2nd ed. Oxford 1963 [= ARV² ].
  • John D. Beazley: Paralipomena. Additions to Attic black-figure vase-painters and to Attic red-figure vase-painters . Oxford 1971.
  • John Boardman: Black-Figure Vases from Athens. A handbook (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 1). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1977, ISBN 3-8053-0233-9 .
  • John Boardman: Red-Figure Vases from Athens. The archaic time (= cultural history of the ancient world. Vol. 4). 4th edition. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1994, ISBN 3-8053-0234-7 .
  • 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 .
Corinthian vase painters
Lower Italian vase painters
  • Arthur Dale Trendall : The red-figured vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily . Oxford 1967
  • Arthur Dale Trendall: The red-figured vases of Apulia , 1-2, Oxford 1978-1982.
  • Arthur Dale Trendall: The red-figured vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily. Third supplement. Consolidate . London 1983.
  • Arthur Dale Trendall, Alexander Cambitoglou : First supplement to the red-figured vases of Apulia . London 1983.
  • Arthur Dale Trendall: The red-figured vases of Paestum . Rome 1987
  • Arthur Dale Trendall, Alexander Cambitoglou: Second supplement to the red-figured vases of Apulia Vol. 1-3. London 1991-92.
  • Arthur Dale Trendall: red-figure vases from southern Italy and Sicily. A manual. von Zabern, Mainz 1991 (= cultural history of the ancient world , vol. 47), ISBN 3-8053-1111-7 .

Web links

Commons : Greek Vase Painter  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Single receipts

  1. ^ Ingeborg Scheibler: Forms of cooperation in Attic pottery of the 6th and 5th centuries. v. Chr. In: Hansjörg Kalcyk (Hrsg.): Studies on ancient history. Festschrift Siegfried Lauffer for his 70th birthday. Bretschneider, Rome 1983, pp. 788-804.
  2. ^ Homer, Iliad 18:604.
  3. ^ Ingeborg Scheibler: Greek artist motifs of the archaic period. In: Munich Yearbook of Fine Arts. Vol. 30, 1979, pp. 16f.