Andokides Painter

The Andokides Painter was an ancient Athenian vase painter, active from 535 to approximately 515 BCE. His work is unsigned, he is named therefore after the potter for whom he worked. His importance lies in the fact that he is believed to be the inventor of the red figure style of vase painting.

Beginnings of his art

The Andokides Painter began working at the time when the black-figure style predominated, undoubtedly he was a pupil of Exekias, one of the masters of the art. The technical limits of this technique that required incising the detail onto a silhouette of a figure were reached around the late 6th century BCE. After brief tests to apply white paint with the brush directly on a glazed black base, which made the added white wash fragile, as on an amphora preserved in the Louvre (inv.F203) which is ascribed to him, the Painter of Andokides had the idea to reverse the process radically and to reserve in black glaze the background instead of the silhouettes of the figures in front. In this way, the red color of the clay became the absorbing ground on to which were painted in black the details of the characters with a fine brush that allowed a greater precision of detail than before.

It was around 530 BCE that we first see evidence of this technique that will gradually spread to dominate the art. One can follow precisely the transitional period since the Andokides Painter produced amphoras which presents on one side the black figure style and on the other the red figure style, sometimes with the same scene, like tests to present a new technique not familiar to his customers. These vases are called bilingual. Thereafter, he will produce only vases in the red figure style.

He was not the only one to use these innovations, others, like Oltos or Epiktetos also produced bilingual vases, but the majority of the specialists agree to date works of the Andokides Painter to a few years before the production of the others, which makes it possible to think that he was the principal inventor of the technique of the red figure about 530 BCE, a novelty which will make the fortune of attic pottery for almost two centuries.

The style of the Andokides Painter

A score of vases with black figures, whose attribution is however disputed by some researchers, show that he had attained a great control and virtuosity in the details which are not present at once in the new technique, appearing a little stiff at the beginning, one still finds for example some uses of the incision for the hair. Thereafter, the technique exploits the benefits inherent in red figure, utilizing a range of colors from red to brown dark. He announces the arrival of the great artists of the red figure style like Euphronios. His preferred topics are the mythological scenes representing the gods and the heroes, in particular Heracles, his favorite character.

ee also

* Belly Amphora by the Andokides Painter (Munich 2301)

References

*John Beazley. "Attic Black-figure Vase-Painters". Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
*Boardman, J. "Athenian Black Figure Vases: A Handbook". London: Thames and Hudson, 1974.
*Williams, D. (1985). "Greek Vases". London: British Museum Press, 1999.
*Tansey, R. and F. Kleiner. 1996: Gardner's Art Through the Ages - 10th Edition, USA: Harcourt Brace College, 136-137.