Greek vase-painting (Griechische Vasenmalerei)Buschor, Ernst
History
Greek vase-painting (Griechische Vasenmalerei)
Buschor, Ernst
Vase-painting, Greek
In the later period of the artist (about 480 B.C.) we must put along
with their congeners the kylikes with the love-name Hippodamas, the
finest of which is the Berlin school vase (Fig. 124). In the drapery of
the teachers and pupils, who are here assembled in the class-room,
nothing of archaic stiffness remains. If even the Leagros period had
made the cloak folds come to a natural end, they now bend round their
ends and pave the way for the “drapery eyes,” which in the next period
so naturally characterize the packings in the material.
The great development, which is evidenced for Duris by his many
signatures, suggests considerations. We ask whether other masters too
did not fundamentally change, and whether _e.g._ Euphronios did not
develop out of the ‘Leagros’ stage to that of the ‘Panaitios’ master and
the Perugia painter, and on his later works include the painter’s
signature in that of the potter’s firm, _i.e._ whether works like the
Munich Centauromachy (Fig. 126) do not represent a late phase of this
gifted painter, who can be proved to have lived into the ‘Glaukon’
period.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIII.
Fig. 122. HERMES AND SATYRS: FROM A PSYKTER BY DURIS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIV.
Fig. 123. DRUNKEN MAENADS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
HIERON.]
Of the other painters of this period, we must content ourselves with
naming three, the Berlin master, Makron, and the Bronze-Foundry master.
The ‘master of the Berlin amphora’ even surpasses Duris in elegance, and
is fond of introducing his slim elastic figures in ‘Nolan’ style, _i.e._
isolated on a dark background.
Makron, who painted almost all the vases on which Hieron’s signature as
potter is found, studied by choice in the Palaestra, where boys
performed gymnastics and were addressed by older men. A Berlin kylix
(Fig. 123), like several works of his hand, introduces us to Bacchic
revelry, an excited chorus of drunken and vigorously gesticulating
maenads, whose bodies are not concealed by the rustling pomp of folds:
the ‘kolpos’ or fold of the chiton drawn up through the belt, which
Brygos also is fond of, is more transparent than the upper and lower
parts of the complicated garment. These figures in which all is life,
movement and expression, should be compared with those of the Andokides
painter or even those of Euphronios, in order to realize, how in these
few decades the liberation from archaic stiffness and adherence to type
was almost tempestuously accomplished.
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