Galanakis Libre

SOMA 2010

Proceedings of 14th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine, 23–25 April 2010

Edited by

Yana MorozovaHakan Oniz

BAR International Series 25552013

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SOMA 2010: Proceedings of 14th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, Taras Shevchenko Naional University of Kiev, Kiev, Ukraine, 23–25 April 2010

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35

The place of the Dipylon Master in Attic Late Geometric pottery of the mid-8th century B.C.

Konstantinos GalanakisUniversity of Birmingham, United Kingdom, Institute of Archaeology

Clay pottery before the 8th century B.C. is found almost everywhere in Attica but showed great power of invention in Athens. Many of these pots have been found in tombs and the bigger ones were made to stand as monuments over the graves. Many show obvious signs of earth wear and were made deliberately useless before their placing as grave monuments. The ancient custom of burying the dead with pots can be traced all over Italy, Sicily, east Mediterranean islands, Asia Minor and mainland Greece (Brann 1962: 111-13). Some of them, often less well-preserved, were dedicated as offerings to the gods or lesser divinities in Greek temples and shrines. Funerary vases constitute a unique type of pots but are fewer in number due to their exclusively votive purpose. The special character of their decoration and their size reveal their purpose and usage.

Already in the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., there are few rare instances of Attic vases being used as grave monuments, much enlarged beyond their normal size for domestic use. With the beginning of the Early Geometric style (c. 900-850 B.C.), one finds only abstract motifs in what is commonly called the “Black Dipylon” style which is characterized by the extensive use of black varnish. In the Middle Geometric period (c. 850-770 B.C.), figural decoration makes its appearance: they are initially identical bands of animals (horses, stags, goats, geese, etc.) which alternate with the geometric bands. In parallel, the decoration becomes complicated and increasingly ornate; the painter feels reluctant to leave empty spaces and fills them with continuous meanders and swastikas. A perfect example can be seen on the exquisite Middle Geometric double-handled amphora NM A00216 by the “Athens Painter” from Kerameikos (Kourou 1997: 43-53). This phase is characterized by the “horror vacui” and will not cease until the end of the Geometric period. At the same time, the patterns become more complex and extended to all areas of the vessel. Then human figures were introduced in the ornamentation with images of chariot processions, battles, funerals and other scenes. After the Middle Geometric period, full figured decoration was introduced into their repertory. The figures are represented as simple dark silhouettes with profile heads and legs attached to the full frontal body (Whitley 1991: 47-48, argues that the earliest post-Mycenaean figural representations (10th century B.C.) are to be found outside Attica, on the “archer” vase and the “tree of life” krater from Lefkandi in Euboea). As painters became more interested in figural decoration, restriction of the Geometric style loosened and they were ready to invent new styles.

Around 770 B.C., towards the end of the Middle Geometric period, the painter of the grave krater New York 34.11.2. from Kerameikos presented for the first time an extended figure scene, a “prothesis”, where the deceased man lies in state on his bier surrounded by mourners. Additionally, there is a continuous frieze below showing an extended naval battle where warriors fight each other with a sword, spear and bow. It would not be an exaggeration if we assume that this scene actually prepared the ground for what was about to follow in Late Geometric art (Coldstream 1991: 46).

In the Late Geometric period, the vessels became of great size – four or five feet high –and fitted with a pair of horizontal handles on each side so that two persons could lift them. The shapes offered wide areas to be covered by decoration and the motifs were arranged in a semi-architectural manner in order to help out and follow the vase shape. The zone punctuated by the handles was normally given particular attention, while the zone at the bottom of the vessel was normally covered with heavy and thick black stripes which served as a balance to the “half-tone” decoration higher up on the vessel’s body. During the 8th century B.C., the appearance of stylized animals and birds reveals the wide range of innovations that were attained by the Geometric painters. It is the first time that we are able to discern different painters and individual styles by observing technical and decorative details in the overall composition. Unfortunately, the painters were unable to sign their pieces – Greece was still illiterate at the time – so their conventional names were manufactured by modern scholars. The funeral scenes of a dead man on his bier under a canopy surrounded by male and female mourners would finally appear more complex during the Late Geometric Ia period (760-735 B.C.), to which the Dipylon Master can be dated. The name derived from the Dipylon cemetery (a small aristocratic cemetery) which was initially excavated in 1871 and offered a superb group of monumental vessels which stood over the burials. The Dipylon Master with his consistent, personal manner of drawing can be characterized as the inventor of the rich Late Geometric style in Athens (Knigge 1988: 20-24, pl. 13).

The scenes of mourning, seafaring and battle possibly led to a high demand for funerary pottery. Belly-handled amphorae, larger versions of the normal cremation urn for women, marked some rich female burials. The large pedestal kraters with chariot processions, fully armed warriors and scenes of fighting on land and sea were designed for men’s burials. For both types of monument, it was the custom to pierce a hole through the base before firing, so libations could be poured through the vessels

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to the person buried below. The Dipylon Master elevated the funerary type of decoration into a grand-scale work of exceptional quality.

It is of some importance to describe the decoration of the vessels in order to emphasize the importance of the works of the Dipylon Master as the epitome of the Late Geometric style. The belly-handled amphora NM 804 in Athens (fig. 1) has a “prothesis” as its main scene (CVA I: pl. 8; on the “prothesis” and “ekphora” subject, see Ahlberg-Cornell 1971). The bier is surrounded by family, friends and professional mourners, seated or kneeling with their hands raised to their heads in a gesture of grief. A subsidiary frieze of grazing and “regardant” deer on the neck complement the main panel which is framed by linear decoration and various types of meander patterns. The Dipylon Master worked out artistically elaborate decorative patterns like bands of antithetical cross-hatched triangles enclosing a dotted-lozenge band, chequered lozenges and detailed depictions of animals.

The belly-handled amphora NM 803 in Athens (fig. 2) is almost certainly another work of the Dipylon Master. It carries a mourning scene in its central panel but unfortunately it remains in a fragmentary state. It represents the “ekphora”, the next stage in the funeral ritual, where the body on the bier is conveyed towards the burial ground in a four-wheeled hearse. In this scene, two fragmentary horses are seen drawing a four-wheeled wagon with the bier resting on it. The deceased woman is surrounded by ten mourners in the rear panel, there are no animal friezes but several birds appear as filling ornaments under the wagon on the “ekphora” scene. The vessel’s body is mainly covered by linear decoration and various types of the meander pattern.

The pedestal krater Louvre A517 (fig. 3) in the section between the handles shows again a “prothesis” scene, with the body of the deceased laid on a bier surrounded by family and friends, professional female mourners and warriors (fig. 4). In this scene, the Dipylon Master found a unique way to portray human activity: it presents the currently earliest known gesture where the two persons next to the bier seem to be raising the chequered “blanket” or shroud with their extended hands so that we can see below the deceased man, a gesture which does not previously occur anywhere else. The decorative scheme is completed by an escort of warriors in chariots making the vessel a consummate expression of the militaristic values of the Athenian nobility of the period (fig. 5). Under the handle of the krater, there is a warship with four rowers on it and fish in the sea below (fig. 6). Probably the scene was associated with an extended naval battle which was depicted on the reverse side of the vase and has not been preserved. Boardman suggested that the extended naval battles are in fact indications of the marine trading methods of Attica at the time and not representations of dangerous episodes during the Attic colonial migration (Boardman 2001: 37). In any case, the Dipylon Master in this krater assimilates a “bird’s eye” view of the actions, allowing the

viewer to clearly understand the different scenes even by compressing several episodes together.

The Dipylon Master used the silhouette technique in order to depict the human body. His human figures are sketchy silhouettes with a single eye occupying the face, shown in profile. The triangular body is shown from the front with broad shoulders and simple thick lines indicating the arms, either raised towards the head in a gesture of grief (in the “prothesis” and “ekphora” scenes) or carrying weapons like the representation of a warrior with the “Dipylon” shield in the krater fragments Louvre A547 (along with a mourner figure) and A558 (fig. 7) (Richter 1915: 367-85, pls. XVII-XX, XXIII, 1). The legs are elongated with exaggerated thighs. It is possible that warrior figures are represented naked with their sword and dagger hanging from their middle section and holding one or two spears. Women are always dressed with their breasts indicated by two small lines (Boardman 2001: 34-5). In the “prothesis” and “ekphora” scenes, there is no attempt at realism: the body of the deceased and the chequered shroud are depicted as if viewed directly from above although the shroud seems to be held over the bier by two attendants like an awning (figs 1, 3). The difficulties of lending a sense of depth to the scene are circumvented by superimposing different planes, a solution that remained widespread until the discovery of perspective and the vanishing point. With his newly introduced elements, the Dipylon Master managed to overcome the old Geometric style with its constant repetitions that led to a final exhaustion. Attic Late Geometric pottery is probably the first fully fledged Hellenic figural decoration. Although figural decoration was not introduced by the Master himself, he was the first to combine successfully truly geometric elements with figures of canonical proportions and his innovations were later copied by other painters who became his heirs and established the Dipylon Workshop.

The restored splendid neck-handled “Elgin” amphora (British Museum GR 2004.0927.1) is certainly a work of the Dipylon Workshop, if not of the Master himself due to the remarkable skill and precision of its painting (fig. 8). The surface is covered with an intricate web of half-tone decoration. It has elaborately painted geometric decoration in black on a buff background combined with snakes decorating the handles and bands of water birds filling the narrow zone below the rim. An elaborate “tapestry” pattern fills the widest zone around the middle, a chequerboard motif decorates the shoulder, and an elongated double meander emphasizes the elegant neck. The amphora was probably used to hold wine at the funerary feast of a wealthy individual and then placed in his tomb perhaps along with some smaller vases (Williams 2009: no. 15).

In the years that followed, the apprentices in the Dipylon Workshop continued fervently the advanced technique and decoration of the Master. On the neck amphora Munich 6080 (Boardman 2001: 47) with friezes of grazing deer, the Dipylon Workshop shows its excellence in decorative manners by using varieties of the meander as

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KOnStAntinOS GAlAnAKiS: the plAce Of the DipylOn MASter in Attic lAte GeOMetric pOttery

the sole geometric ornament on the vessel (fig. 9). The oinochoe NM 152 with a slender grazing deer, forelegs of horses and meanders as filling ornaments, follows the Dipylon Master’s tradition and should be correlated to the Athens Agora fragments P10664 depicting remains of a “prothesis” scene and a chariot procession. Both fragments are often attributed to the Master himself, the first by Kahane (Kahane 1940: 464-82) and the second by Brann (Brann 1961: 93-146). Most notably, the Hirschfeld Painter and his workshop went on to become around 750-735 B.C. the most prolific imitator of the Dipylon Master and his workshop by producing the elaborate terracotta pedestal kraters NM 990 in Athens (Mannack 2002: 76) and New York 14.130.14. (Marwitz 1961: 39-48, no. 29, 45; Picón, Hemingway, et al. 2007: 413, no. 29), both with very lively “ekphora” and “prothesis” scenes respectively but with stiff and frozen chariot processions (fig. 10). On the Hirschfeld Workshop’s belly amphora in Basel, the funeral scene has become now a monotonous version of the Dipylon Master’s “protheses” (fig. 11).

The artistic tradition before the Dipylon Master consisted of painters executing mechanical repetitions of linear geometric ornaments and decorative patterns. The Dipylon Master perfected ornaments like the dotted lozenge and the “sunburst” motif, and his artistic value is confirmed by a sure brush that covers the whole surface of the vessel. Earlier motifs like the wheel consisting of concentric circles with central crosses -probably the commonest panel filler during the Middle Geometric period- were replaced in the Late Geometric period by the meticulous “Dipylon wheel” which probably represents the sun disc. Additional symbols were often taken at face value: on the monumental Dipylon vases birds are primarily the inhabitants of “heaven” while snakes are the guardians of the underworld, both representing the complementary forces of life and death. The Dipylon Master managed to paint the symbols more carefully on the body of his masterpieces with a craftsmanship almost flawless. The Dipylon Workshop followed the main aspects of its Master’s craft (and also his mannerisms) but it seemed to prefer a combination of his types and the innovations of subsequent Late Geometric painters. Their productions are characterized not by technical discipline but mainly by narrative power in a period when the repertoire of mythological subjects was gradually increasing. After the peak of the Dipylon Master’s career, some of the commonest shapes, like the belly-handled amphora for instance, died out. The Dipylon Master offered a final and glorious lease of life to a shape that was already almost obsolescent in his time.

The Dipylon Master was the inventor of three new shapes: the pitcher, the giant oinochoe and the high-rimmed bowl (the latter with an earlier parentage as a variation of the Middle Geometric skyphos). His oinochoai with the taut, spherical body crowned by a tall straight neck was a shape inherited directly from the Middle Geometric lekythos-oinochoe. The pitcher with rounded profile and thinner body had also roots in the past, from the old shoulder-

handled amphora which died out before the Late Geometric I period. The Master insisted on rounded forms in spite of the period’s general spirit which preferred straight profiles and small proportions. His innovative program included the enlarging of the two most favoured vessel shapes, the belly-handled amphora and the pedestal krater. He transformed them into gigantic vessels with monumental dimensions as funerary vessels and grave monuments.

The Dipylon Master succeeded in sweeping away the Middle Geometric dark ground style by applying the “half-tone” decoration which covered the whole surface of the vessel (figs. 1, 8). The commonest decorative element, the meander, played no longer a dominant role, while the ornamental wealth did not obscure the underlying shape. It was he who devised the famous “tapestry” design that included a row of large separate dots, a chain of tangential dots, sigmas, tall single zigzags, cross-hatched triangles and combinations of all the above. He continued to apply ornaments that had been already adopted in earlier periods like the interlocking rows of hatched equilateral triangles, the vertical wavy lines and the chequered zones. The Master was surely an innovator but he did not reject the tradition that had started before him. He managed to give a breath of life to the old style which turned out to have been a mere repetition of styles, shapes and plain figural decoration without any varieties. His monumental vases are always covered with bands of decorative motifs without the fear of monotony and without the risk of obscuring the underlying shape. His figures are delineated, taller than the Middle Geometric ones, and the upper part of their body becomes a tall isosceles triangle. The position of the arms is usually indicative of the activities of the participants (as described above in the fragmentary pedestal krater Louvre A517, fig. 4). The peculiar angle at their waist and elbows indicate mourning gestures and the fingers are sometimes painted very expressively. Men are depicted mainly in martial scenes, most of the times naked, and women are mostly draped. Animals, especially horses, are delineated and their use is sometimes decorative except when they appear to draw chariots (fig 5). His overall compositions appear in fact more complex and carefully studied than they seem to be at first sight. With the works of the Dipylon Master, the first consistent figural style appeared consisting of sophisticated funeral scenes full of stability and vigor and perfectly assimilated into their geometric stylistic background. The Master represents the first link of an unbroken line that ends with the Analatos Painter (700-675 B.C.) and is usually termed as the “classical tradition”. A parallel artistic movement is represented by the works of other, lesser, local craftsmen influenced by the main stream but not influencing it (the local styles are described in detail in Coldstream 1968). It is obvious that the Master was the first to introduce a consistent and rich style in pottery which definitely influenced the local trends in Athens at the time.

In general terms, the rest of the Attic Late Geometric pottery, although it shows new elements that differed from the Middle Geometric tradition, seems to be without careful

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application and with hasty and careless brushstrokes caused by the many orders that craftsmen had to fill. This geometric routine consisted of exact patterns and shapes with minor variations and is well represented by the Athens Agora Well Groups in Agoraios Kolonos, Areios Pagos and Peristyle Square. Their ceramic productions consist of Late Geometric pottery with panels, unit rather than frieze ornaments, and decorative animals. These products differ from the works of the Dipylon Master who probably may have worked at the same period after his apprenticeship in a Middle Geometric workshop.

It has become apparent that the Dipylon Master was an innovator who improved many of the aspects and features that characterized the preceding Middle Geometric pottery. He did not reject the tradition that had started long time before him but he chose to apply different arrangements. He succeeded in improving many decorative patterns and he was the inventor of new shapes and motifs. The first figural scenes like “prothesis” and “ekphora” (figs 1, 2, 4), the battle and martial scenes with their stylized design (figs 5, 6, 7), show how curiously differentiated from actual observation was the geometric concept of the human figure at the time. The Dipylon Master has earned an exceptional position in the history of Greek pottery as an artist who showed great respect to tradition but managed to innovate in some crucial factors in order to transform his pieces of art to perfection. The earliest of the great Greek vase painters was active in the Kerameikos area from 770 to 750 B.C. and was followed by his successful workshop. The painted designs by his hands are so perfectly adapted to the shapes of the vases that we may infer that he was both the potter and the painter. So far, some fifty vases have been attributed to his workshop including several amphorae, kraters and oinochoai of large dimensions. We expect to find many more in the future.

Bibliography

Ahlberg-Cornell, G. (1971) Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, 32, Göteborg, Paul ̊ströms Förlag.

Brann, E. T. H. (1961) Late Geometric Well-Groups from the Athenian Agora. Hesperia, 30, 93-146.

Brann, E. T. H. (1962) The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. VIII: Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery: Mid 8th Century to Late 7th Century B.C. Princeton (N.J.), American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Boardman, J. (2001) Early Greek Vase Painting. Greek translation. Athens, Kardamitsa Publications.

Coldstream, J. N. (1977) Geometric Greece. London, Ernest Benn.

Coldstream, J. N. (1991) The Geometric Style: Birth of the Picture. IN Rasmussen, T. and Spivey, N. eds, Looking at Greek Vases. Cambridge University Press, 37-57.

Coldstream, J. N. (2008) Greek Geometric Pottery: A Survey of Ten Local Styles and Their Chronology. Updated 2nd ed. Exeter, Bristol Phoenix (first published in 1968 by London, Methuen).

Davison, J. M. (1961) Attic Geometric Workshops. Yale Classical Studies, 16, New Haven, Yale University Press.

Knigge, U. (1988) Der Kerameikos von Athen. Führung durch Ausgrabungen und Geschichte. Deutsches

Archäologisches Institut Athen. (Greek translation [1990]: Ο Κεραμεικός της Αθήνας. Ιστορία-Μνημεία-Ανασκαφές. Athens, Krene Publications).

Kourou, N. (1997) A New Geometric Amphora in the Benaki Museum: The Internal Dynamics of an Attic Style. IN Palagia, O. ed., Greek Offerings. Essays in Greek Art in Honour of John Boardman. Oxford, Oxbow Books, 43-53.

Lemos, I. S. (2002) The Protogeometric Aegean. The Archaeology of the Late Eleventh and Tenth Centuries B.C. Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Mannack, T. (2002) Griechische Vasenmalerei. Eine Einführung. Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

Marwitz, H. (1961) Ein attisch-geometrischer Krater in New York. Antike Kunst, 4: 44, 39-48, no. 29, 45.

Picón, C. A., Hemingway, S., Lightfoot, C., Mertens, J. R., Milleker, E. J. (2007) Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven and London, Yale University Press.

Richter, G. M. A. (1915) Two Colossal Athenian Geometric or “Dipylon” Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. American Journal of Archaeology, 19 (October-December), 367-85, pls. XVII-XX, XXIII, 1.

Schweitzer, B. (1969) Die geometrische Kunst Griechenlands: Frühe Formenwelt im Zeitalter Homers (Unter Mitarb. von Jochen Briegleb hrsg. von Ulrich Hausmann.). Köln, Du Mont Schauberg.

Snodgrass, A. M. (2000) The Dark Age of Greece: An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth Centuries B.C. 2nd ed. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press (first published in 1971).

Whitley, J. (1991) Style and Society in Dark Age Greece. The Changing Face of a Pre-Literate Society 1100-700 B.C. New Studies in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press.

Williams, D. (2009) Masterpieces of Classical Art. London, British Museum Press.

Sources of figures

Fig. 1 available from<http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/pottery/painters/keypieces/geometric/default.htm>

Figs 3, 4, 5 and 6 available from <http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_i d = 1 0 1 3 4 1 9 8 6 7 3 2 2 5 1 9 7 & C U R R E N T _ L LV _

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NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225197&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500782&baseIndex=14&bmLocale=en>

Fig. 7 available from<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Procession_Dipylon_Louvre_A547.jpg>

Fig. 8 available from<http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/e/elgin_amphora.aspx>

Fig. 9 Boardman 2001: 47, fig. 48

Fig. 10 available from < h t t p : / / w w w. m e t m u s e u m . o r g / w o r k s _ o f _ a r t /c o l l e c t i o n _ d a t a b a s e / g r e e k _ a n d _ r o m a n _ a r t /terracotta_krater_hirschfeld_workshop/objectview.aspx?collID=13&OID=130009382>

fiG. 1: belly-hAnDleD AMphOrA by the DipylOn MASter,

nM 804, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-750 b.c., nAtiOnAl

ArchAeOlOGicAl MuSeuM, AthenS

fiG. 2: belly-hAnDleD AMphOrA by the DipylOn MASter,

nM 803, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-750 b.c., nAtiOnAl

ArchAeOlOGicAl MuSeuM, AthenS

fiG. 3: peDeStAl KrAter by the DipylOn MASter, lOuvre

A517, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-750 b.c., lOuvre

MuSeuM, pAriS

fiG. 4: “prOtheSiS” Scene On peDeStAl KrAter by the

DipylOn MASter, lOuvre A517, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-

750 b.c., lOuvre MuSeuM, pAriS

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fiG. 5: chAriOt prOceSSiOn Scene On peDeStAl KrAter by

the DipylOn MASter, lOuvre A517, lAte GeOMetric iA,

760-750 b.c., lOuvre MuSeuM, pAriS

fiG. 6: wArShip Scene On the peDeStAl KrAter by the

DipylOn MASter, lOuvre A517, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-

750 b.c., lOuvre MuSeuM, pAriS

fiG. 7: MOurnerS AnD wArriOr with “DipylOn” ShielD On

A frAGMent Of the KrAter lOuvre A547 by the DipylOn

MASter, lOuvre MuSeuM, pAriS

fiG. 8: the “elGin” AMphOrA by the DipylOn MASter, Gr

2004,0927.1, lAte GeOMetric iA, 760-750 b.c., britiSh

MuSeuM, lOnDOn

fiG. 9: necK AMphOrA by the DipylOn wOrKShOp,

lAte GeOMetric iA, Munich 6080, StAAtliche

AntiKenSAMMlunGen Munich

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fiG. 10: peDeStAl KrAter by the hirSchfelD pAinter,

new yOrK 14.130.14., lAte GeOMetric ib, 750-735 b.c.,

MetrOpOlitAn MuSeuM Of Art, new yOrK

fiG. 11: belly-hAnDleD AMphOrA by the hirSchfelD

pAinter wOrKShOp, lAte GeOMetric ib, After 750 b.c.,

AntiKeMuSeuM, bASel

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