Amasis

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Amasis

• The foreigner?
• Lover of domestic scenes

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Vases 3 and 4

• Vase 3 Weaving
• Vase 4 Wedding procession

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Amasis Weaving Lekythos

• Date 540
• ShapeShoulder Lekythos,
• Tpye black-figurePotter Attributed to the
  Amasis Painter Attributed to the Amasis Painter
  
• Height 17.2 cmSubjectOn the shoulder seated
  goddess approached by four youths and eight
  dancing maidensOn the body women working wool

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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Amasis Painter Style

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

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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).

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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.

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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.

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

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Drawing of the vase

• The decoration shows a scene of women making
  cloth.
• Textile historians have used this image to
  reconstruct Greek weaving techniques.

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Modern Weavers
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Modern upright loom
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Cf with the modern loom
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Ancient spinning with a weight
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Spinning

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Spinning and folding

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

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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

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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

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Wedding

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

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• 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.

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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.

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Long view
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Night procession

• The lead woman holds two torches, which indicates
  that the wedding procession, as was the
  tradition, took place at night.

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• Second torchbearer in the house
• Mother of the groom waiting to greet the couple

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• 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.

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• The procession has almost reached its
  destinationa 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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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

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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