Exekias

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Exekias

• The greatest black figure master of all time?

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Proscribed Vases Exekias Belly Amphora Side A
Achilles Ajax
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Proscribed Vases Exekias Belly Amphora Side B
Return of Castor Pollux
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Proscribed Vases Exekias eye kylix dionysus
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Exekias Belly Amphora

• Vase Belly Amphora
• Potter Painter Exekias signed
• Date 550 - 540 B.C.
• Height 61 cm
• Subject
• Side A Achilles Ajax
• Side B Return of the Dioskouri

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Exekias Side A

• Exekias signed both as potter and painter. His
  masterpiece is the belly amphora in Vatican,
  dated to c.540-530. Its detailed representation,
  especially the patterns on garments and armours,
  cannot be found any other painter's works.

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The myth Side A

• Achilles was the brave Greek hero in Homer's
  Iliad. When Achilles was a baby his mother Thetis
  dipped him into the river Styx. The magic water
  protected his body, except for his heel, which
  his mother was holding. Achilles was killed in
  the Trojan War when Paris arrow struck him on
  the heel.

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The Tragedy of Ajax

• Ajax recovered Achilles body when Paris shot
  Achilles.
• Athene gave achilles armour to Odysseus so he
  boasted he did not need the gods help
• Athene drove him mad and he killed cattle in the
  belief they were the enemy.
• Ajax committed suicide due to the shame

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Subject side A A game

• This vase shows Ajax and Achilles two Greek
  heroes playing a game similar to backgammon.
• Herodotus, the 5th century Greek historian
  believed board games came from Asia Minor.
  Counters, dice and game pieces made of stone,
  bone and clay have been found.

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Composition Side A

• The painter made viewer's eyes concentrate on the
  board at the centre led by the heroes' eyes,
  hands and spears.

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Composition Side A

• Also the spears lead our eyes to the handles.

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Composition Side A

• Although the figures are symmetrically arranged,
  Exekias differenciate both figures in every
  detail.
• list the differences you can see

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Composition Side A

• It is also noticeable that depth is represented
  by overlapping spear, board, legs and mantles.

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Composition Side A

• The composition complements the form of the vase.
  
• Figures are bent toward game and curve of their
  backs echoes curve of vase.

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Composition Side A

• Their spears lead the eye up toward the handles.

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Composition Side A

• The shields continue the vertical line of the
  bottom of the handle.

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Composition Side A

• Each man is shown with a helmet.

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Treatment of the figure

• Archaic frontal eye in profile head
• Note the large eyeball and elongated whites of
  eyes.

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Leather corset

• Leather corset with plates at waist for
  protection and ease of movement
• Worn with chiton underneath

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Greaves and thigh guards

• Greaves are like cricketers knee pads.
• Fastened behind knee using thongs
• Usually metal bronze or iron
• Note circled areas on the vase

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Crest

• Made from horse hair to distinguish fighters and
  make leaders more visible to their men
• Achilles is wearing his to make him the larger
  figure.
• Note the flopply crest and the tail trailing down
  the side of helmet

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Treatment of the figure

• Achilles Clothing
• Label these items on your pictures in your books.
  
• NB there is no 6

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Side B Return of the dioskouroi

• Kyllaros, the horse tamed by Castor, dominates
  the scene. Behind is Castor. On the left side
  welcoming her sons is Leda and Polydeuces patting
  the hound. On the right is Tyndaros king of
  Sparta and servant boy carrying blankets/ cloacks
  and arabollos filled with oil or perfume for the
  travellers.

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Da Vincis Leda
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Leda and the swan dali
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The Myth in brief

• Leda was the Spartan queen, wife of Tyndareus and
  mother of the double sets of twins, Castor and
  Polydeuces and Clytemnestra and Helen.
• The best known story is that Zeus disguised
  himself as a swan and seduced Leda. Thus Leda's
  children hatched from two eggs that she produced.
  
• It appeared that on a single night Zeus, in the
  guise of a swan, lay with Leda, who conceived
  Polydeuces (Pollux) and Helen "of Troy. Later
  the same night her mortal husband, Tyndareus,
  king of Sparta, lay with his wife too, and she
  conceived Castor and Clytemnestra.
• Thus one set of twins were wholly mortal Castor
  and Clytemnestra, the other set half-immortal
  Polydeuces and Helen "of Troy" .

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Castor and Polydeuces

• In Greek mythology, Castor (or Kastor) and
  Polydeuces (sometimes called Pollux) were the
  twin sons of Leda
• They are called the Dioscuri (dios kouroi),
  meaning the "Sons of Zeus",
• They are known as the Gemini, Latin for twins.
• Polydeuces was a powerful boxer, and Castor a
  great horseman.
• Castor and Polydeuces abducted and married Phoebe
  and Hilaeira, the daughters of Leucippus. In
  return, Idas and Lynceus, nephews of Leucippus
  (or rival suitors), killed Castor.
• Polydeuces was granted immortality by Zeus, and
  persuaded Zeus to share his gift with Castor.
  Accordingly, the two spend alternate days as gods
  on Olympus and as deceased mortals in Hades.

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Exekias Kylix

• Vase Kylix
• Potter Painter Exekias signed
• Date 535 B.C.
• Diameter 30.5 cm
• Subjects
• Interior Dionysus
• Exterior pair of apotropaic eyes
• Exterior under handles
• Hoplites fight over bodies of fallen.
• Foot signed by Exekias

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Exekias Kylix

• It was found in the Etruscan city of Vulci in
  Italy and is thus part of the abundant evidence
  of lively trade in the ancient Mediterranean.
• It is now in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen of
  the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für
  Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst in Munich. It
  is known as munich 2044

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Signing vases

• We know the names of some potters and painters of
  Greek vases because they signed their work.
  Generally a painter signed his name followed by
  some form of the verb 'painted',
• While a potter (or perhaps the painter writing
  for him) signed his name with 'made'.
• Sometimes the same person might both pot and
  paint Exekias for example, sign as both potter
  and painter.
• At other times potter and painter were different
  people and one or both of them signed. Like the
  francois vase
• However, not all painters or potters signed all
  their work . Some seem never to have signed their
  vases, unless by chance signed pieces by these
  craftsmen have not survived.

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Inscriptions

• It is signed by Exekias, a potter and painter
  working in Athens in about 530 BC,
• .On foot of opposite side see CH pg 30
• ECHSEKIAS EPOESE ("Exekias made it")

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Shape

• Cup for wine drinking
• Exekias introduced new shape is so called A
  type which has a shallow bowl with plain lip and
  a splaying foot offset from the bowl.

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Interior decoration

• The tondo has Dionysos lying on his ship
  surrounded by dolphins. Exekias filled around the
  tondo with coral red, though this technique was
  rarely followed.

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Decoration Interior

• Dionysos in a ship, sailing amongst dolphins.

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Decoration Interior

• Dionysos reclines like a symposiast in his ship,
  holding a keras or rhyton (drinking horn) in his
  right hand and leaning back on his left arm.

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Decoration Interior

• The white sail of the ship spreads above him, and
  climbing the mast of the ship, a grapevine with
  clusters of grapes fills the field of the cup.

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Decoration Interior

• The prow of the ship is decorated with eyes the
  body of the ship with two leaping dolphins and
  the stern post bends up into a swan's head.

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A random modern version of myth without Dionysus
but a bear instead?
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The Myth

• Based on Homers Hymn to Dionysos
• Dionysus was kidnapped on the way to Greece by
  pirates.
• He revealed his divine persona by turning the
  mast into a vine which grow vines which produced
  grapes, as Dionysus is the god of wine.
• The terrified pirates jumped overboard and turned
  into dolphins.

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Exterior decoration

• On both sides A and B, large apotropaic eyes like
  those on East Greek cups, with eyebrows and
  diminutive noses.

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Exterior decoration

• Beneath and on either sides of the handles,
  battles over fallen heroes (fight for the body of
  Patroklos?).

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Exterior decoration

• The warrior has already been stripped of his
  armor. Armour is the prize of the victors

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Exterior decoration

• On this side, he is armed.

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Development of Black figure

• In Athens, in the Archaic period, potters made
  clay pots with mythological scenes on them.
• Gradually the scenes grew and took over more of
  the pot, and the geometric decoration took up
  less and less space.
• At the same time, a new painting technique
  developed.  Instead of painting figures of people
  in outline, the Athenian potters began to paint
  people in silhouette this is called
  black-figure, because the people are all black.

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Making and decorating Athenian black figure vases

• The first stage in making a pot is to dig the
  clay out of the ground. Pieces of grit or plant
  matter must be removed before the clay can be
  used. This was done in ancient times, as it is
  today, by mixing the clay with water and letting
  the heavier impurities sink to the bottom. This
  process could be carried out as many times as
  necessary. When judged to be sufficiently fine,
  the clay was left to dry out to the required
  consistency.

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Making a pot

• To make a vase the potter kneaded a lump of clay
  of suitable size and placed it centrally on the
  flat surface of the wheel. As the wheel revolved,
  the potter drew the clay up into the required
  shape with his hands.

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Making a pot

• Scenes on the vases themselves show that potters'
  wheels were discs, presumably made of wood, clay
  or stone, about two feet in diameter, with
  socketed bases fitting over low, fixed pivots. It
  seems to have been usual to have a boy,
  presumably an apprentice potter, to turn the
  wheel by hand.

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Making a pot

• Particularly large vases were thrown in sections,
  and in the case of shapes such as cups, the foot
  would be thrown separately from the body. The
  handles of most shapes were hand-made. When all
  the components had been allowed to dry for about
  twelve hours, they were glued together with clay
  slip.

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Firing a pot

• Black figure is done all with one type of clay.
  The clay found near Athens has a lot of iron in
  it, so it looks black when it is wet. But if you
  fire it in an oven where there is plenty of air
  getting in, the clay rusts, and turns red. This
  is because the iron mixes with the oxygen in the
  air. If you fire it in an oven with no air
  getting in, the iron can't mix with oxygen, and
  the pot stays black. So you can have either red
  or black pots.

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Firing a pot

• So how do you get a picture? You make a pot the
  regular way, and let it dry a little
  ("leather-dry"). Then you mix a little of the wet
  clay with a lot of water, to make a kind of paint
  (called the slip), which you use to make the
  black part of the picture. (You can't see it now,
  because it is all the same color). And you let
  the whole thing dry.

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Firing a pot

• When it is dry, you fire it in a kiln. First you
  give it a lot of air, so the whole pot turns red,
  slip and all. Then you shut off the air supply,
  but just for a little while right at the end of
  the firing. When the air runs out, the fire sucks
  oxygen right out of the clay of the pot. But the
  places where there is slip, the slip is thinner
  and easier to suck air out of. So the slip turns
  black (the color of iron with no oxygen in it)
  faster than the rest of the pot (which is red,
  the color of iron with oxygen in it).

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Firing Athenian black- and red figure vases

• A distinctive red and black colour scheme
  characterises most of the painted pottery of
  sixth- and fifth-century Athens. The colours
  result from the skilful exploitation of the high
  iron content of Athenian clay by an ingenious
  process of differential firing. The black areas
  of a black or red-figured pot were coated in a
  fine solution of the same clay that was used for
  the body of the vase. Before the vase was placed
  in the kiln, it would have been orange-red in
  colour, with the coated areas slightly deeper in
  tone. D. Williams, Greek vases (London, The
  British Museum Press, 1999)

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Firing step 1

• Once the kiln had been loaded, the a three-stage
  firing took place. In the first, oxidising, phase
  plenty of air was allowed into the kiln, and the
  temperature was gradually made to rise to around
  800º C. At this point, the vase turned a bright
  orange-red, as the oxygen in the atmosphere
  combined with the iron in the clay to produce
  (red) ferric oxide. D. Williams, Greek vases
  (London, The British Museum Press, 1999)

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Firing step 2

• When the potter judged that the required
  temperature had been reached, he stopped up the
  air vents and perhaps introduced damp material in
  the form of green wood or even bowls of water.
  This produced a reducing (oxygen-poor) atmosphere
  in the kiln and the red ferric oxide was
  converted to (black) ferrous oxide, so that the
  entire pot turned black. The temperature in the
  kiln continued to rise to around 945º C. The
  intense heat caused the fine particles of the
  clay of the coated areas of the pot to 'sinter',
  that is, to fuse together to form a hard, smooth,
  almost glassy surface. D. Williams, Greek vases
  (London, The British Museum Press, 1999)

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Firing step 3

• In the third and final stage, the temperature was
  allowed to drop, and at about 900º C the
  ventilation holes were opened up, oxygen returned
  to the atmosphere of the kiln, and the ferrous
  oxide of the uncoated areas converted back to
  ferric oxide, so that as the kiln cooled down
  these parts turned orange-red again. The sealed
  surface of the sintered areas was impervious to
  the presence of the oxygen and so remained black.
  
• D. Williams, Greek vases (London, The British
  Museum Press, 1999)