Amasis

The foreigner?

Lover of domestic scenes

Vases 3 and 4

• Vase 3 Weaving

• Vase 4 Wedding procession

Amasis Weaving Lekythos• Date: 540• Shape:Shoulder Lekythos, • Tpye: black-figure

Potter: Attributed to the Amasis Painter: Attributed to the Amasis Painter

• Height: 17.2 cmSubject:On the shoulder: seated goddess approached by four youths and eight dancing maidensOn the body: women working wool

Shape & use

• This vessel is a lekythos, a small container for olive oil.

• Small closed shapes with narrow mouths, such as lekythoi, are more likely to have contained something that was sealed up with wax or a stopper, and they might have been used for storage.

Painter and Potter

• The Amasis Painter is named after the potter Amasis who produced vessels for this painter, though it is often supprsed that they are identical. The name Amasis is not Greek but Hellenized version of a common Egyptian name.

Secondary comment about Amasis

• John Boardman states

“…his choice of images and oddities of style often challenged the Black Figure style … and gave him the appearance of a foreigner to it.”

Importance of the Amasis painter

The Amasis painter deserves special attention, not just because of the controversy that surrounds whether the potter and the painter are one in the same, nor because of his skill as a draftsman, but because his vases influences our perceptions of Black Figure pottery.

Subject matter

• Less than half of his works depict no myth at all (Carpenter).

• All the detail aside, the image is nothing more than what it depicts. There is no subtlety, no artistic variation, and certainly no intuitive narration.

• What one understands about the image is simply what it presents.

Amasis Painter Style

• Amasis Painter shows superior quality in draftsmanship as well as a greater concern for aesthetic value.

• The Amasis Painter was not chiefly concerned with narrative, but simple, often cluttered, scenes (Folsom 123).

Amasis Painter Style

• The images are balanced perfectly, a pinnacle example of the Greek desire for balance and proportion.

Amasis Painter Style secondary sources

• The qualities most associated with his work are symmetry and precision; he was conventional and tame (Folsom 123).

• He was a master in his own right, not for any sort of innovation in his subject matter, but in the style he used to portray his art (Carpenter 32)..

• He was a formalist, paying more heed to his design than to his subject (Carpenter 32).

The womanly art of weaving

• One of the most important responsibilities of women in ancient Greece was making of textiles. This involved the preparation of wool and weaving of cloth.

• A good weaver was considered an attractive woman and also a good wife.

Ancient Greek Textiles

• Very few Greek textiles survive, but some of the women depicted on the vase wear fancy-patterned clothing, and Greek literature offers descriptions of bright-coloured garments, cushiony blankets, and splendid hangings woven with scenes from mythology.

Homer describes Penelope, the devoted wife of Odysseus, busy at her loom day after day.

Weaving

• The Amasis Painter has depicted a scene of women engaged in various stages of wool working. Here, in the center of the vessel, two women work an upright loom.

Drawing of the vase

• The decoration shows a scene of women making cloth.

• Textile historians have used this image to reconstruct Greek weaving techniques.

Modern Weavers

Modern upright loom

Cf with the modern loom

Ancient spinning with a weight

Spinning

• Two women on the extreme left use hand-held spindles to spin wool into a basket on the floor.

Workers at loom

• Here, in the center of the vessel, two women work an upright loom. Weights tied to the ends of the warp threads hold them taut. The woman on the left pushes the weft thread, while her companion separates the warp threads with a rod.

Weaving• Weights tied to the ends of the warp threads hold

them taut, and the weavers pass the weft threads back and forth across them.

Weighing under supervision

• To the right of the loom, three women perform the first step, which consists of weighing the wool taken from a basket; a third woman supervises the operation.

Spinning and folding

• Farther to the right, four women spin wool into yarn, while two others fold the finished cloth on a low stool.

Note making

• Shoulder scene: Use Pg 34 in C & H to take addition notes on this scene.

• Treatment of figures: Use Pg 34 in C & H to take addition notes on this scene

Wedding

• Shape Shoulder Lekythos, Date ca. 540 B.C.

• Type black-figurePotter Attributed to the Amasis unsigned

• Painter Attributed to the Amasis Painter unsigned

• Height17.5 cm• Subject• On the shoulder: women

dancing to the lyre and aulosOn the body: wedding procession to the home of the bridegroom

Wedding

• The scene is our earliest and most complete representation of an Attic wedding.(1000 sq miles around Athens)

• The bridal couple and the best man, the parochos, are seated in the foremost cart, which is drawn by two donkeys, distinguishable by their white muzzles and stringy tails.

Procession attendants

• Four guests, all men, follow in a second cart drawn by two mules. Beside each team, two women and a man walk in the procession, with the women on the left and the man on the right.

Long view

Night procession• The lead woman holds two torches, which

indicates that the wedding procession, as was the tradition, took place at night.

• Second torchbearer in the house

• Mother of the groom waiting to greet the couple

• The bride holds a wreath and pulls her veil forward in a gesture associated with marriage in Greek art. The bridegroom sits next to her, holding the reins; he has a beard and must be much older than the bride, as was the custom in ancient Greece.

• The procession has almost reached its destination—a brightly painted doorway flanked by two Doric columns just under the handle of the vase. This is the bridegroom's house, the place where the newlyweds will live.

• The doors are open and behind the entrance stands the bridegroom's mother, who carries a torch and raises her hand in a gesture of welcome.

Importance of Weddings

• The bridal procession, the critical point of passage between the bride's home and that of the groom, was the most conspicuous public part of a wedding ceremony in ancient Attica. Torches and songs added to the festive occasion when the bride's mother, torch in hand, led the couple to their new home.

The shoulder of the lekythos is painted with a scene of a dance.

Three groups of three women dance in a chain that is separated by a musician playing the lyre and another playing the aulos.

• In the Iliad, Homer describes an aulos and lyre that accompanied the wedding dance. In ancient Attica, both men and women danced at the wedding, but in separate groups well within view of each other.

Note making

• Clothing: Use Pg 35 in C & H to take notes on Clothing in this scene.

• Shoulder scene: Use Pg 35 in C & H to take addition notes on this scene.

• Treatment of figures: Use Pg 34 in C & H to take addition notes on this scene

Compare any Amasis vase with any Exekias vase in terms of:

Use a table format to do this.• Drapery• Animals• Humans• Composition• Incision details• Emotions and moement• Perspective