Attic Vase Painting During The Persian Wars

Extract

The Persian wars is a vague term. I use it to cover the A period between the battle of Marathon (490 B.c.) and the peace of Callias (448 B.c.): I use it merely as a label, and do not wish to imply that the Persian wars were the cause of the change which takes place in Greek art during that period. This change can be seen in all the arts: in sculpture the landmarks are the west pediment of the temple of Aphaia at Aegina, the east pediment of the same temple, the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the east pediment of the same temple: in literature the change is perhaps more easily traced in the works of Pindar than elsewhere. In the early odes, e.g. Pythian X (498 B.c.), the connexion of the myth with the rest is purely external, for it is linked on by the one word ΥΠερβορέων, in the later odes the whole is often subordinated to the moral which Pindar wishes to point: in Pythian IV (462 B.c.) the moral is ‘Do not banish good men’, and the myth of Pelias and Jason gives a disastrous instance. The earlier ode is composed of beautiful parts loosely joined together, the later is an organic unity with a moral purpose running through the whole. This same change can be traced in Greek vases. Here we have a large number of works of art which can be dated with considerable accuracy and assigned to particular painters. The criteria for dating need not be considered here: the attribution to painters is largely the work of J. D. Beazley and rests ultimately on stylistic grounds. In some cases we have signatures and can call the painter by his name, e.g. Euphronios, Euthymides, but more often none of the vases are signed and the names are conventional, e.g. Berlin painter, Niobid painter. I shall consider in turn subjects, composition of the whole picture, and composition of the single figure,2 during two periods, the ‘ripe archaic’ and the ‘early classical’, which are bounded on the one side by the ‘early ripe archaic’, on the other by the ‘classical’: the late works of Euphronios and Euthymides (early ripe archaic) with the early works of the Berlin painter and his fellows (ripe archaic) are to be dated in the decade 500–490 B.c., the ripe works of the Berlin painter and his fellows from 490 to 480 B.c., the late works of these painters 480 to 470: then come the ‘early classical’ painters, the Penthesilea painter, the Niobid painter, &c., till 450; with the Achilles painter the other boundary is crossed into the ‘classical’ period.¹