4. The Transitional Period

The Transitional Period

The Andokides Painter and The Lysippides Painter

The technical revolution by which red-figure decoration came to replace black-figure decoration as the most common way of painting Athenian pots has to be understood in the context of the desire to forge a more intimate relationship between the viewer and the scene viewed manifest in sculpture.

The coincidence between the invention of the red-figure technique and the arrival of scenes whose primary reference was to life rather than myth and particularly the gymnastic and partying life of the wealthy, encourages belief that the new technique was pioneered not out of technical restlessness or simply in emulation of the appearance of other works of art, but in order to meet new marketable and socially desirable icongraphical ends.

The Invention of Red-Figure

Exekias had created masterpieces in the black-figure technique. The extraordinary quality of his work must have set a daunting precedent for his more ambitious followers.

The Andokides Painter made other experiments as well, but this, his invention of the red-figure technique around 530 BC, was the one that held most promise. It was soon developed and exploited by a number of gifted painters.

Many of the more gifted were reluctant simply to carry on in the shadow of the master and eager to try something different.

Some painters who worked with the potter Andokides began to explore the possibilities of a new technique; the man we call 'the Andokides Painter' has a good claim to have been the first.

At first glance the red-figure technique may seem little more than a simple reversal of black-figure, but in fact there are some fundamental differences, the wider implications of which became apparent in time.

The reversal of the traditional colour-scheme was revolutionary and remarkably successful. Though the figures were now red on a black ground, the principle of strong contrast that was so important for the effectiveness of paintings on vases had been preserved.

His innovation can be appreciated if we compare the decoration on two sides of a one-piece amphora.

The new look in vase painting had something familiar about it, for the backgrounds of contemporary relief sculptures which were used either to decorate architecture or to commemorate the dead were also regularly painted a dark colour to contrast with the paler figures that protruded from them.

Black figures are articulated by incision, whereas the internal marking of the red figures could be painted with a brush.

On one side, the Andokides Painter (or his colleague the Lysippides Painter - opinions differ as to the authorship of this panel) drew a normal black-figure picture showing Herakles driving a bull to sacrifice.

However sensitive incision may be, it can never attain the fluency of a brush. The use of a more flexible instrument invited artists to evolve a more flowing style.

Black figures look like flat shadows, whereas red figures give an impression of greater roundness, which encouraged artists to develop suggestions of mass and three-dimensionality.

On the other side of the vase, the Andokides Painter drew much the same picture, but instead of painting the figures black, he left them in the natural colour of the clay and painted the background black instead.

Black-figure can be used to produce complex decorative patterns; red-figure can be just as effective, but with fewer elements, for the shiny black background itself can replace many of the filling ornaments which often seem necessary to balance the design of the black-figure.

Andokides' version

Lysippides' version

The different qualities inherent in black-figures and red-figure are perceptively developed on another 'bilingual' vase, that is, one decorated in black-figure on one side and red-figure on the other.

Both scenes show Herakles (or Dionysus) feasting, attended by Athena. In the black-figure version, believed by some scholars to be the work of Lysippides, two more figures are added: Hermes to the left and a servant boy to the right beside the dinos on a stand.

Lysippides and Andokides Painters, Herakles Feasting in the Presence of Athena, Ampora, 530-515BC, Attic

The red-figure scene has fewer, larger figures, more sense of physical mass and less decorative patterning.

There seems to be a conscious effort to suggest depth, or at least layers of space. The little table us now shown clearly in front of the couch; one of Herakles'/Dionysus' legs is unmistakably behind the other; the hand that grasps his knee is further back still.

The black figures, the vine laden with large bunches of grapes the little table laid with loaves of bread, long hanging slices of meat and a spare cup are spread over the field so that the whole panel is covered with interesting dark accents and there are few blank spaces.

"The red-figure technique is about embodiment, about refinement." (Robin Osborne)

There is also an attempt to portray the figure's torso in a three-quarter view - notice the asymmetry of the collarbones. The figure is so large that his head overlaps the border; the artist has tried to make him correspondingly massive.

The use of colour is more restrained. Purplish-red is used only for the hanging slices of meat and the leaves on the vine; white has been eliminated entirely.

The softness of cloth is suggested by the fluent painting of the folds, particularly those that fall from Herakles' arm and those at the bottom of Athena's skirt.

The play of pattern evenly covers the whole panel, the bold figures being finely balanced by the delicate filling ornament provided by the vine with its leaves and fruit and the table which so neatly decorates the space beneath the couch.

Great stripes of purplish-red enliven the drapery of the three clothed figures and white paint was originally used to colour Athena's flesh and pick out some parts of the furniture, though most of it has now flaked off.

In the black-figure version, the vine with its grape clusters provides some welcome decoration. In the red-figure version the slender vine with its purplish-red leaves and barely perceptible black bunches of grapes seems crowded; the shiny black background was sufficient in itself to set off the figures pleasingly.