Today's report from the ARLT Summer School, where the weather is wonderful, the surroundings are inspiring, and the lectures are intriguing. This one was called: Why study Greek vase-painting?

Thursday 29 July 2004

Oliver Dickinson of Durham set himself a serious question and stuck at it until he arrived at a satisfactory answer. In the process he helped us to look at many Greek vases, the majority of them already familiar to those who teach Greek art, in a new context and a new light.

As a preliminary to answering the question Why study Greek vase-painting, OD asked if we are now rating vase painting too highly. Beezley, who first wrote seriously about the subject, treated vase painters as if they were renaissance Old Masters. In recent years two pots have fetched over a million dollars at auction. Lindsey Davis makes her hero Falco's father an auctioneer who has some antique vases in his warehouse worth a great deal of money. Did the Romans ever set such store by vases? There is no evidence for it.

Some Athenian vases actually have a price on their base. The biggest pots cost up to 3 drachmas, and normal ones went for fractions of an obol. For comparison, a large fish cost one or two drachmas, and best wine 2 drachmas for 6 pints. A drachma was the daily allowance for a soldier, and a juryman got half that amount. So the finest vases cost not more than a few days' wages. This was not like dealing in fine art. Vases were nowhere near as expensive as statues, or even the relief carving on the Erechtheum. Vase painters were craftsmen simply working for their living.

After these warnings against over-valuing pottery, OD warned against undervaluing it. What of the argument by Michael Vickers and others that clay pots were cheap imitations of the valuable ware, which was metal? The suggestion has been made that metal vessel makers even controlled vase painting. OD was not convinced. Few metal pots have been found, most of them cups. Certainly some clay pots imitated the shape of metal vases. The Francois vase is shaped just like an extant bronze vessel. But metal pots were decorated only on their handles, until the late fourth century; pot painters could not have been imitators of metal only. Michael Vickers suggests that the lack of metal vases in tombs was caused by a reluctance to indulge in showy display; but Etruscan tombs (in which the great majority of our Athenian painted ware was found) yielded pots of the highest quality, showing that these were valued in their own right. Did the Etruscans appreciate them so much that they treated them as works of art?

The scenes chosen by painters reflected the life and tastes of the elite, suggesting that it was the wealthy who bought them. Early Athenian vases showed mythological scenes, but scenes of daily life were added to the repertoire, and these were such activities as athletics and the symposium, recreations of the elite.

It is often said that the real Greek art was large panel painting, of which very few examples survive - hardly any from before the fourth century. OD questioned that. He showed an example of panel painting, arguing that it was nothing special enough to relegate vase paintings to second place. After all, vase painters must have had a lot of practice, and made significant advances in drawing technique, particularly of the human form.

Were vase painters appreciated as individuals? The best ones signed their work. They were thinking of themselves as artists. Perhaps rich shoppers looked for a pot by Exekias rather than by a lesser craftsman. For sure, the material they used, clay, was cheap, so the finished article was not very expensive.

The shapes of vase that were painted reinforce the connection with the elite. A few were for religious use or for funerals, but most were made to be used - and used by the elite. The aryballos was the athlete's oil-jar; many types of pot were designed for the symposium - for storing wine, cooling it, pouring it, drinking it; the pyxis was for jewellery, which the poor would not possess.

OD took us briskly through the developments in style of pot decoration, from geometric (including the huge National Museum grave marker where the painter has taken care to design the pot as a whole, and has wedded human figures with geometric style by making the figures geometric, and repeating them like a pattern) through Ionian and Corinthian styles which aimed merely to fill the surface with colourful decoration, to Athenian pottery in its varied styles, black figure, red figure and white ground.

When making grave markers the Athenians chose amphorae for females and craters for males. The horses that were often depicted were associated with the rich.

Earlier vases were normally divided horizontally into zones, each zone with its frieze of figures or other decoration. The Francois vase dated about 570 BC has zones filled with human figures that tell stories, not just decorative animals and flowers. The myths on this vase are united by the theme of tragic love. In the tale of Achilles and Polyxena, Achilles is shown in the act of jumping from ambush, his feet off the ground.

As the trend from decoration to 'art' continued, painters chose only one zone, and painted a strong scene on it. Early examples are the olive harvest and the Homeric heroes playing 'chess.' In black figure vases the incising tool was used to make a texture that was almost like a third colour. Exekias was a talented potter and painter. His scene of Ajax preparing to commit suicide shows an unusual moment in the story, before the deed. He adds just one extra line above Ajax's eyes to indicate his state of mind. Panel painting at this period was no more advanced.

The invention of the white ground technique allowed vase painters to approach nearest to the colour technique of panel painters, but white ground was only an interesting sideline. Red figure was the dominant style, though at first it was used only for amphorae and cups.

Drawing techniques advanced greatly, particularly in representing the human body in twisted poses - just like relief sculpture of the same years. One example is the vase by Euphronius of Kyknos (one of the million dollar vases); another shows Heracles wrestling with Antaeus. Bodies writhe, and thin paint is used for varied colour.

The Brygos painter shows scenes of vigorous action, like the sack of Troy, with a woman about to join the fight holding a pestle. His party scenes are equally lively, with, for instance, a fight over a woman. These scenes give the impression of photographs rather than carefully composed paintings.

The high point in vase painting was reached in 470 BC with the Berlin painter, who painted single figures on a panel with most of the vase black.

Classical red figure painting is disappointing. The painters are just as skilled, but lack the vigour of earlier painters. the commonest emotion shown is pathos. The influence of large panel painting is shown in scenes of figures at different levels. By now panel painters were outstripping vase painters. Tastes were evidently changing. Perhaps the rich could now afford metal ware. The preoccupation with elite pursuits gave way to more everyday scenes. Respectable women appear. Increasingly, pot painters rely for inspiration on other art forms, like the great shield of Athene in the Parthenon.

The last great painter, the Meidias painter, can still move us. A fragment showing Helen with a sister of hers (a little known one) strongly conveys a mood. It is real art. From then on, it is downhill. The late 4th century and the third century change from human figures to patterns, and sometimes to no painting at all, but simply shape, like a well-known black ribbed vase.

Oliver Dickinson illustrated his talk with slides, without which it is impossible to do the talk justice. I have tried to convey as much as possible by words alone.