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The Achilles Painter
John H. Oakley,
The College of William and Mary in Virginia
5. Red Figure: Middle Phase
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The majority of the red-figure masterpieces come from the beginning of the
Middle phase (450-445 B.C.) and are found on large shapes, particularly
calyx-krater. A
recently published
calyx-krater in the
J. Paul Getty Museum
(Malibu 77.AE.44.1)
[11] is perhaps the finest, although its fragmentary
state detracts from one's first impression of it. As on many of his most
exquisite vases, the subject matter is unique. Athena is shown in the center
of the obverse giving Herakles' arms to Philoktetes on the left, while
Herakles looks on from the right. Breathtaking in execution are the details,
such as Athena's griffin diadem and earring, and the figures' hands. Compare
Athena's eye and ear to Achilles on the namepiece in the Vatican. The
individual delineation of some of the strands of her hair and the added clay
bits for part of Herakles' hair are details found on other of the painter's
masterpieces.
During his Middle phase (450-435 B.C.) the Achilles Painter started to
develop several new stock themes that he continued to use into his Late
phase (435-420s B.C.). One of his favorites is Oedipus's confrontation with
the Sphinx. On the obverse of a
Nolan amphora
in Boston
(Boston 06.2447;
Illustration 11;no. 51)
[12]the Sphinx sits atop a column at the left looking
at Oedipus whose hand gesture indicates he is in the process of solving the
riddle.
Dressed as a youthful traveller, he wears a chlamys over a chitoniskos,
holds a spear in his left hand, and has a petasos hanging from his neck and
a sword in scabbard at his side. Simple, balanced, two-figure compositions
like this are the hallmark of the later Achilles Painter and one of the reasons
he is considered the most "classical" of all vase-painters.
The mantled youth holding a staff on the reverse of this Nolan amphora is a
stock figure that is repeated with variations on many of the reverses of the
painter's vases. Because these figures were quickly drawn and used repeatedly
by painters, they are one of the most useful details for attributing vases to
an artist. [13] Compare this figure to the ones on
the back of a Nolan amphora in Japan
[14] and a pelike in London (London E 385
).
[15] A bearded man is shown instead of a youth on the
latter, but this is just one of several variations to the stock type. The
pose of the figures and delineation of the mantle -- note particularly the
manner of
rendering the overfold -- are identical. These figures are
so repetitious that it is easy to see why fragments, such as one in North
Carolina,
[16] can be securely attributed to the artist.
[11] GVGetMus 2 (1985) 213-15, figs.
35a-c.
[12] ARV2, 989, 26;
Beazley Addenda 2, 311;
Caskey & Beazley, I, pl. 23 and Suppl. pl. 2, 33.
[13] J. D. Beazley, "The Master of the Achilles
Amphora in the Vatican," JHS 34 (1914) 184-5, fig. 5.
[14] E. Simon, The Kurashiki Ninagawa
Museum. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities (Mainz 1982) 99-101
.
[15] ARV2, 990, 50 and 1676.
[16]
Chapel Hill, William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center 77.6.8 [H. Immerwahr].
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