Chapter XVII
.), fall into three main classes—artists’ signatures, names with καλός, and descriptive names referring to the designs. On the last-named head no more need now be said; the second is more appropriately dealt with in the next chapter[1200]—although not a few καλός-names are found on B.F. vases; and it only remains therefore to treat of the artists whose signatures have come down to us.[1201]
We have already met with a few signed vases, among those of Corinth and Boeotia, of which the earliest go back to the beginning of the seventh century. Those of undoubtedly Attic origin fall into three or four main groups, the representative names in which may here be given.[1202]
(1) Early artists:
Klitias and Ergotimos, Taleides, Sophilos, Oikopheles.
(2) Middle period:
Amasis, Exekias, Kolchos, Nearchos, Timagoras, Tychios.
(3) Minor artists, who painted kylikes almost exclusively:
Archikles, Eucheiros, Glaukytes, Hermogenes, Phrynos, Tleson, Xenokles, Sakonides.
(4) Later artists, combining B.F. and R.F. methods, or painting in transitional style:
Andokides, Charinos, Nikosthenes, Pamphaios, Hischylos and Epiktetos, Pasiades.
Kittos, who painted in black figures a Panathenaic amphora of the later class (see p. 391), belongs to the middle of the fourth century.
Most of these artists use the formula ἐποίησε,[1203] implying that the same man both made and painted the vase; but Exekias in two cases (see below) says ἔγραψε κἀποίησε. The François vase, as we have seen, records the names both of painter and artist. Some of these painters give the name of their father, and thus we learn that Eucheiros (Class 3) was the son of Ergotimos (Class 1), Tleson (Class 3) the son of Nearchos (Class 2). The names Andokides and Nearchos are found among the dedications on the Athenian Acropolis. We now proceed to speak of these artists in detail.
In Class 1 Sophilos appears as the maker of a vase of which fragments were found on the Athenian Acropolis.[1204] In style it closely resembles the François vase, and its subject also appears to have been akin—the marriage of Peleus and Thetis—to judge from the figures of Horae still visible. Taleides, whose work is of early character, painted an amphora representing Theseus slaying the Minotaur and two men weighing goods in a balance.[1205] Ergotimos, besides the François vase, signed a kylix found in Aegina, and now in Berlin,[1206] with interior and exterior subjects.
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PLATE XXIX
[Illustration:
ATTIC BLACK-FIGURED AMPHORAE (BRITISH MUSEUM).
1. IN STYLE OF EXEKIAS; 2. IN “AFFECTED” STYLE. ]
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In the next group are two very interesting names, those of Amasis and Exekias, and both demand special attention, the latter for the excellence of his work, the former as connected with a special branch of Attic B.F. vases, which must be treated by themselves. The vases of =Exekias= include four amphorae, four cups (see Fig. 96), and two fragments, together with a few unsigned vases which for various reasons may be attributed to him.[1207] The finest of his works is an amphora in the Vatican,[1208] on one side of which are Ajax and Achilles playing draughts, the one calling out [ΤΕΣΑΡΑ] “four!” the other [ΤΡΙΑ] “three!”[1209] On the reverse are the Dioskuri, with Tyndareus and Leda. Besides the signature in iambic form
29[400]ΕΞΣΕΚΙΑΣ ΕΓΡΑΦΣΕ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΙΕΣΕΜΕ Ἐξηκίας ἔγραφσε καὶ ’ποιησέ με,
the vase is inscribed with the καλός-name Onetorides. The others are in the British Museum (B 210), the Louvre (F 53), and Berlin (1720) respectively, and are all painted with mythological subjects. A fragment of a _deinos_[1210] is interesting, as having, besides the signature, an iambic line in the alphabet of Sikyon (see