next

Introduction

Beazley called the Kleophrades Painter the greatest pot-painter of the Late Archaic period, giving him precedence over his contemporary, the Berlin Painter, an artist whose best works are among the masterpieces of Attic vase-painting.1 The two painters are frequently compared and discussed in tandem, but although they shared a common background and were close in their early careers, they possessed different temperaments and developed markedly different styles. Of the Kleophrades Painter, Beazley remarked that "he may be said to play a kind of Florentine to the Berlin Painter's Sienese."2 Although this statement says as much about Beazley as it does the Kleophrades Painter, there can be no doubt what he meant. He was a painter of power, whose vital, robust figures, whether naked, armored, or swathed in luxurious drapery, are imbued with intelligence and will. The firm lines and clear compositions of his paintings were founded on careful designs, worked out in extensive preliminary sketches.3 In his earliest works, from the last decade of the sixth century, the influence of Euthymides is strong, and there can be no doubt that the Kleophrades Painter trained under him in the Pioneer workshop, where he would also have been exposed to the works of Phintias and Euphronios. The Berlin Painter had a similar training, though he was perhaps closer to Phintias than to Euthymides, whose influence on the Kleophrades Painter is so great that Beazley originally attributed to the older painter some works he later assigned to the pupil.4 His career lasted over thirty years, ending in the late 470s, before the Berlin Painter's latest works, which are so poor that one is thankful the Kleophrades Painter quit when he did.

1 For Beazley's remark, see ARV2, 181. For the Kleophrades Painter, see ARV2, 181-95, 1631-33, and 1705; ABV, 404-5, 696, and 715; Para., 175-76 and 340-41; Beazley Addenda 2, 105 and 186-89; J. D. Beazley, "Kleophrades," JHS 30 (1910) 38-68; Beazley 1974b; Richter 1936; Lullies 1957; Ashmead 1966; Greifenhagen 1972; Boardman 1975, 91-94; Frel 1977a; and Robertson 1992, 55-68. For the painter's Panathenaic amphorae, see S. B. Matheson, "Panathenaic Amphorae by the Kleophrades Painter," Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 4 (1989) 95-112. For his other black-figure work, see Kunze-Götte 1992.

2 Beazley 1918, 40-41.

3 For example, the satyr holding a shield on the neck-amphora Harrow 55 (ARV2, 183, 11) was originally sketched holding a cuirass; see P. E. Corbett, "Preliminary Sketch in Greek Vase-Painting," JHS 85 (1965) 16-28 (Harrow amphora: pls. IIb and III). On another amphora of this type, Villa Giulia 47836 (ARV2, 184, 18), the youth on the obverse was sketched holding a hare for the boy on the reverse, but the gift was omitted in the final drawing.

4 E.g. two very early psykters: Louvre G 57 and Compiègne 1068; Beazley 1925, 64, nos. 8 and 7; ARV2, 188, 65-66. It was Richter who, when she attributed the Harvard calyx-krater to the Kleophrades Painter (discussed below), recognized that the psykters must also be his (see Richter 1936). For Euthymides, see ARV2, 26-30 and 1620-21; Para., 323-24, 509, and 520; Beazley Addenda 2, 155-56; Hoppin 1917; L. Talcott, "A Stand signed by Euthymides," Hesperia 5 (1936) 59-69; M. Wegner, Euthymides und Euphronios (Münster 1979); Brijder 1984, 59-69, (M. Ohly-Dumm, "Sosias und Euthymides"); and E. Reschke, Die Ringer des Euthymides (Stuttgart 1990).

Created in electronic form.

National Endowment for the Arts provided support for entering this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: