François Lissarrague
Greek pottery, particularly that produced in Attica, struck archaeologists and collectors from very early on with the richness and diversity of its decoration. The quantity of images it set before our eyes appeared to be a source of information about the life and beliefs of the ancient Greeks. Eduard Gerhard, for example, in his remarkable report on the finds of Vulci, announces with quasi-prophetic enthusiasm: “here is a new spring … to nourish the work of historians.”1 Very quickly these vases were used to illustrate Greek mythology, to increase our knowledge of ancient life, and, not least, to give us an idea of what large-scale painting, known to us from texts, but forever lost, might have been like. Vases took the place of painting, and we speak more often of vase painting than of painted vases. Often these vases have been deliberately dematerialized by separating the images from the vases on which they appear: this choice is evident in the publication by Hancarville of the first Hamilton collection.2 In effect the shape of the vases is engraved separately, rendered in sober lines which show up their formal structure, with all the precision that one applies to the elements of architecture; the profiles are detailed, accompanied sometimes by measurements which give these vases the appearance of capitals. The images, on the other hand, are given a much richer treatment, in color, and set into large frames inspired by ornamental motifs found on the vases, but flattened out, so that spherical or circular shapes are transformed into flat, rectangular images. In sum, vases have been made rectangular and painting straightened out. Such a choice, even though it is not always as strongly marked in graphic reproductions, is characteristic of the majority of histories of Greek art, whether it be E. Pfuhl’s great book Malerei und Zeichniung der Griechen (1923) or Martin Robertson’s Greek Painting (1959), not to mention the work of Beazley, to whom we owe so much about the understanding of Attic pottery (Kurtz 1983). Great efforts were made, particularly by Reichhold, in his magisterial enterprise Griechische Vasenmalerei, together with Furtwängler, to reproduce the graphic richness of selected vases in magnificent drawings (Furtwängler and Reichhold 1904–1932). The same goes for Hall’s drawings for Richter at New York or Anderson and Chapman for Caskey and Beazley at Boston.3 Today too the methods of panoramic photography seek to eliminate the third dimension, to unroll images, which are spread out like a cylinder in order to make friezes which can be taken in at a single glance. All these methods have the effect of flattening the vase, of giving it a surface which is compatible with that of a book.4 In sum, the vase has been transformed into a picture.
This situation is in fact bound up with a double constraint, one intellectual, the other material. Intellectually, priority has been given to the image not only as a substitute for painting, but also as providing information on mythology, daily life, and customs. It is treated as documentary evidence, as a source. This intellectual choice is sometimes clearly adopted, as we have seen in the case of Gerhard, for example. It is deliberately highlighted by G. Nicole in the preface to his book: “We beg the reader, mainly curious about painting, to forget as much as possible that the support of the gracious representations analyzed in this book are made of clay” (1926, 5). But more often the choice remains implicit; vases are treated as images and the use of the object which carries them is, if not denied, at least passed over in silence. The material constraint which leads to this neglect of the vase as object is less obvious and barely discussed, but it is nevertheless very strong. We derive our knowledge of vases sometimes from direct experience in museums; in this case we approach these objects, which yet remain distant, separated by a glass and the reflections that it generates, without being able to touch them, since they are too fragile and too precious to be entrusted to any chance comer. Sometimes, and more often, we know about vases from publication in printed form in books. In both cases, whether book or museum, the vase is an immobile object, set at a distance, whose materiality is, as it were, completely removed by the engraving or drawing, or rendered inert by the conventions of museum display. We should not complain; these constraints are necessary for the conservation of often fragile objects, and the book (or the computer screen) remains the best means of disseminating widely what would otherwise be inaccessible. But we lose something essential of the poetics of these vases, certain aspects of which I should like to elucidate here. I shall do so without providing illustrations, which would contradict my purpose, but will instead describe the dynamic effects with regard to a selection of vases chosen to exemplify the possibilities. If we want to take account of the complexity of phenomena concerning painted vases, we must restore their three-dimensionality and the dynamics of their usage. We need to consider how the images are perceived by those who hold these vases in their hands, and at the same time how the images are linked by the painters who decorate them. It is therefore from a double perspective – the handling of the object-image, and the associations of the images on the object – that the following discussion is based.
The object-image. I borrow this notion from Jerome Baschet (2008 ) and medievalists who have used it in connection with the “vierges ouvrantes” or shrine madonnas and other ritual objects which incorporate images. Attic vases belong to this category; they are in essence used at the symposium and belong to the series of games and possible entertainments on offer to the drinkers. Nothing obliges the drinker to pay attention to the images which decorate the drinking vessels (cf. Veyne 1991, 341). The minute attention to detail with which we, as art historians, study these objects would no doubt surprise the symposiasts; we are like linguists who draw up the grammar of a language, not like native speakers who talk without thinking about such questions. But this detailed examination allows us to bring to light the possibilities of a system which connects the practical use of a vase with the perception of the images which it carries.
One rarely sees at a glance the entirety of an image on a vase, even if its dimensions are small. Lekythoi and pyxides whose surfaces are quasi-cylindrical need to be handled by the spectator if he wants to see as a whole the images which decorate them. Thus on a lekythos attributed to the Diosophos painter5 we see first a fountain and a warrior, but it is only when turning the vase that we see a young horseman galloping and a broken hydria beneath the horse; turning it again one sees a girl running away. The whole corresponds to the standard design of the pursuit of Troilus and Polyxena by Achilles. When turning the lekythos, the spectator enacts the movement which animates this pursuit. It is the same with certain pyxides which represent Peleus pursuing Thetis in a continuous frieze whilst the other Nereids flee, as on a pyxis at Copenhagen.6 Other scenes of pursuit, always on pyxides, are constructed according to the same dynamic model which uses the cylindrical surface of the vase as the motor of the movement represented on the image; thus Eros pursues women, Boreas Orithyia, Poseidon Amphitirite,7 and so on.
In other cases the dynamics of the image depend on the orientation given to the vase itself. On the medallion of a cup attributed to the proto-Panaitian group,8 two wrestlers confront each other beneath the gaze of a referee named Asopokles. The winner, on his knees, is named Euenor (the inscription is now very badly preserved); his opponent, whom he topples over his shoulder, is completely upside down, his head down, his feet in the air, leaning on the line of the medallion; he is named Antimachos (“opponent in contest”), which seems a very appropriate name, and the inscription itself is reversed: in order to read it one must turn the cup just as the wrestler turns his opponent. The writing, which is integral to the image, functions simultaneously as the vector and the motor of the representation.
In another case, the circularity of the decorated surface, which brings with it the effects of rotation, is sometimes used by painters to represent dancing. There is a fine example of this on a Boston phialē 9 where a line of women holding each other by the hand turn around an altar in front of which stands a musician. A more complex variant appears on a Corinthian phialē in the National Archaeological Museum at Athens;10 the central part of the phialē, the omphalos, is decorated with a procession of women who advance to the sound of a pipe, as in the earlier example. But this scene is in turn surrounded by another, on a larger scale, which occupies the whole area of the bowl. This time it is komasts who gesticulate in all directions, sometimes obscenely, in a movement which contrasts with the solemnity of the women. The two concentric circles both complement and contrast with each other: the men are oriented centripetally, the women centrifugally; the men are full of movement, the women are not; the scale of the men is double that of the women. The user of the vase is obliged to adapt his gaze depending on whether he focuses his attention on one or other of these two friezes.11 The effect achieved by the painter depends on two simultaneous and incompatible ways of looking, which makes the decoration of this vase unstable.
Very often it is in fact the relation between different images decorating the same vase which allows the play of tension, of variation, or of complementarity, whose complex typology merits closer investigation. Some vases carry a single painted surface, as we have seen. Others distribute their images on two sides, sometimes clearly separated, sometimes continuous; this is the case with amphorae, kratēres, and stamnoi, for example. Others have three registers of images, as with hydriae with predella or cups. Each vase is thus in itself the vehicle of a little system of images which are often freely associated, but which sometimes produce significant effects. This is not the place to make a complete examination, but one can define certain “rules of the game” and observe what they can allow, from the point of view of the poetics of the images. Again one must exercise caution: nothing compels the drinker to look at the images which adorn the vessel from which he draws the wine or drinks it. Nor is he compelled to look for an associative logic in these images. But the possibility of doing so exists; so it is worth examining its rules.
The relation between the different images which decorate the same vase varies according to the form and structure of the support: sometimes they are all visible together, but on different rungs, as on the neck of a kratēr or the shoulder of a hydria; sometimes they are visible in succession, from one side to the other of a vase. Thus one can see Heracles advancing on one side of an amphora, but without knowing toward what; it is only when turning the vase or changing places that one sees on the other side Geryon, for example,12 or the hydra of Lerna,13 an archer,14 or an Amazon.15 The effect of anticipation and surprise is possible with Heracles, the hero of multiple exploits, because there is scope for him to meet many different adversaries; in deferring the response the painter implicitly allows the spectator to anticipate the whole series of possible exploits, which adds more to the prestige of the hero. One finds the same effect with Zeus, alone on one side of an amphora, advancing toward Ganymede represented on the reverse,16 or toward a woman who is running away, perhaps Aigina.17 The same effect can be seen again, on a different register, with a referee who comes to complement a scene with a discus thrower18 or a citharode.19 One could multiply examples of this type of two-timed representation, which plays on the expectation of the spectator and the response depicted on the image. In all these cases the figure is not framed by an ornamental border, but floats on the black surface of the vase, as if the frame were the vase itself, as if the blackness of the glaze invited one to pass from one side to the other. Sometimes the division of the image on the two sides is made in a way that exploits these spatial properties. On a pelikē attributed by Martin Robertson to Euthymides,20 we see to the right of the scene an aulētēs accompanying two dancers who are jumping in the air. From one side they are seen facing us, on the other, with their backs towards us, as if the vantage point of the spectator, as he looks around the vase, makes the dancers turn around as well. The effect is not complete, because the image of the musician does not change from one side to the other, but the depiction of the dancers gives the impression that the vase and the figures merge into one space. In this case the painter has attempted something which is hardly ever repeated elsewhere. The Kleophrades painter tried an interesting variant. On an amphora in Würzburg21 we see Hector on one side (named by an inscription) holding a belt, viewed from behind and being dragged to the right by an old man whose name is lost (Priam or Antenor). On the reverse we see a warrior facing us holding a sword still in its scabbard, dragged to the left by an old man named Phoenix. We recognize the scene between Hector and Ajax, when their combat is interrupted by nightfall and they separate from each other whilst exchanging gifts, without either being able to reach his camp (Iliad 7.304ff.). The spatial effect marks at one and the same time the exchange of gifts and the separation of the heroes. The single image is split between one side and the other of the vase, creating a visual tension that is the pictorial equivalent of the interrupted duel and the exchange of gifts.
The same effect of cutting the image in two in order to divide it between one side and the other can be found on a pelikē in Berlin22 where one sees a fountain on each side, seen in profile and forming a kind of frame to the picture; on one side a woman comes to fill a hydria, in the conventional manner; on the other side there is a satyr filling an amphora. Viewed from the side, the two fountains are back to back as if to make one: the two elements which appear on one side (a satyr and an amphora) involve a reference to wine, which transforms the fountain of water into a fountain of wine and uses the standard schema to make a joke about wine and the drunkenness of satyrs.23
The connection which unites the two sides of a vase is sometimes less visually constraining when it depends not on a repetition but on an association (Steiner 2007), either narrative or formal. For example, on a bobin by the Pistoxenos painter,24 on one side is the figure of Heracles pursuing Nereus who is running away to the left; on the other side, Peleus pursues Thetis who is running away to the right. The connection between one side and the other is doubly marked: formally by the motif of the dolphin which accompanies the marine deities, Nereus, the father, and Thetis, his daughter; narratively by the schema of pursuit, which repeats the composition whilst varying its orientation. The homology between the two scenes, which are not necessarily connected from a narrative point of view (since the two episodes do not occur in a single story) is determined by the painter who organizes them in sequence. The same theme – Peleus seizing Thetis – figures on an amphora close to the Leagros group,25 joined on the other side with an image of combat at the center of which is the body of Achilles carried away by Ajax. Between the two scenes is a thematic link: Achilles, born from the union of Thetis and Peleus. The connection is made on this level alone, without any formal element inviting us to associate the two sides of the vase (Frontisi-Ducroux and Lissarrague 2012). In the same way, on an amphora which portrays the departure of a warrior on one side, and the return of a dead warrior on the other, the link is essentially thematic and non-visual;26 these are two sequences in the same ensemble.
In all these examples the association between one side and the other depends on a variety of phenomena: when facing an image the spectator is in suspense; he can make mental hypotheses which may or may not be confirmed by what is on the back. He can anticipate a narrative sequence following on from the first image. He can anticipate a thematic match, or an image which is formally homologous. He can anticipate the rest of the image when it is divided between two sides of a vase, and this “rest” may or may not create a surprise. In all cases, the perception of the image does not happen at once; there is the moment of anticipation, of handling the vase, the tension between expectation and response, which creates a form of aesthetic pleasure.
When the vase carries three or more images, the aesthetic play does not change radically, but becomes more complex. And this is the case both with hydriae and with cups, though in different ways. Hydriae often carry several images, all visible on the same side of the vase, but on different scales. This allows variation, whose possibilities several painters exploited. This is particularly the case with the Antimenes painter, who often decorated hydriae on the shoulder, body, and predella: three different levels for images whose connections vary. Sometimes the link is tight, as on a hydria in the Vatican27 which features Heracles’ fight against the Nemean lion on the shoulder, Heracles’ chariot, which accompanies Athena and Dionysus on the body, and a lion between two wild boars on the predella. The figure of the lion is found on all registers and clearly indicates Heracles’ strength. Sometimes the connection is looser, linking together two or three images, as on a hydria in Altenburg28 where the scene on the shoulder is echoed on the predella. Heracles fights against the Nemean lion, stretched out on the ground, whilst on the predella two lions have immobilized a bull on the ground: the animal combat is the exact metaphor for the heroic combat. Between the two minor scenes, an assembly of the gods has no direct connection with the Theban hero, but it places him on the threshold of Olympus, which he will eventually enter.
The perception of the images which decorate a cup necessarily has a temporal dimension. The drinker sees the exterior of the cup, then the interior, once he has drunk from it, or, conversely, the medallion and then the sides. Nothing is determined in advance; but there are always at least two successive time frames, if not three (if we include the movement from one side to the other). Often the scenes decorating a cup complement one another, particularly in the case of the great red-figure painters of the late Archaic period: Douris, Macron, and the Brygos painter among them. But very often the painters produce shifting effects, from one scene to another. Thus, we see a kōmos or a banquet on the outside of a cup and a Dionysiac figure on the inside,29 or, indeed, the opposite: the Dionysiac world on the outside, that of men on the medallion.30 We also move from the symposium to the kōmos, or from the symposium to athletic exercise.31 Each cup thus produces from a relatively limited repertoire a large variety of effects. Similarly, in the case of the mythological repertoire, the associations are not determined in advance. Very often a mythic scene occupies the two sides of a cup, and the medallion extends this theme, or suggests another. The ransom of Hector is an example. On a cup by Oltos in Munich,32 which depicts the ransom of Hector on the outside, we find on the medallion a handsome young man seated and holding a branch. On another cup in New York,33 the ransom occupies both sides, and the medallion, whilst focusing on the essential, takes up the motif of Priam seated at the foot of Achilles’ bed. An almost identical motif – the confrontation between Achilles and the corpse of Hektor – is found on the medallion of a cup in the Louvre,34 but the outside, in place of the ransom, depicts the sacrifice of Polyxena, after the death of Achilles. The association between the images, as we can see, is not programmed in advance, but plays on the different possibilities in a great variety of ways.
The series of cups representing the dispute over the arms of Achilles is remarkable from this point of view. We know of four cups, all of which show on one side the dispute between Odysseus and Ajax, on the other the vote, which gives the victory to Odysseus (Spivey 1994). The four medallions are different: the surrender of Briseis,35 the surrender of the arms to a young man,36 the suicide of Ajax,37 and Odysseus, Diomedes and Dolon.38
These different modes of association, of connection, and of complementarity vary according to the painters and are a constituent element of their styles. The Antimenes painter, discussed above, or the Berlin painter in particular made much use of these possibilities and invented original solutions. The spatial constraints produced by the shape of a vase and the different surfaces to be decorated necessitate a configuration of images, which we tend to forget when reducing the decoration of a vase to a flat image. The multiplicity of images on a vase creates an effect of variety – of poikilia, which is an essential part of the visual pleasure produced by these objects. When decorating the vase the painter can create the effects of sequential narrative, of thematic association, of formal homology, or of fragmentation, which the drinker, when holding the vase, can subsequently activate or not, depending on the degree of attention he pays to the object placed before his eyes and in his hands.
The examples so far considered involve relatively simple associations of images; but from the Archaic period onward there existed two more complex types of association which need to be taken into account for the sake of completeness. These are, on the one hand, so-called “synoptic” images, and on the other hand, cycles or iconographic ensembles which have been the subject of a number of discussions, in particular in terms of visual narrative (Stansbury-O’Donnell 1999 ; Giuliani 2013).
The term “synoptic” was used by Snodgrass (1998, 58) to describe an image which contains elements that are chronologically distinct. Thus on a cup in Boston,39 dated to the years 560–550, one sees, at the same time, (i) Circe transforming Odysseus’ companions into animals, (ii) Eurylochus departing to warn Odysseus of this danger, and (iii) Odysseus drawing his sword to interrupt the spell. These three successive moments in the narrative appear simultaneously in a single composition and allow the production of a visual equivalent of a verbal narration.
Another type of combination of narrative elements in a single image appeared, around 550, on an amphora in the Louvre40 where one sees (i) on the left Cassandra, pursued by Ajax, taking refuge as a suppliant by the statue of Athena, and (ii) on the right Neoptolemus using the infant Astyanax as a weapon to kill Priam who is taking refuge on an altar. These two scenes form a part of the Iliou Persis and, though they do not mark successive moments in a single action, they constitute distinct episodes of the same narrative ensemble which is often reworked by painters in the form of associated scenes (Moret 1975; Anderson 1997; Mangold 2000). One of the most complex examples from the Iliou Persis is depicted on the shoulder of a hydria attributed to the Kleophrades painter:41 one sees there on a single continuous frieze (i) Aeneas fleeing from Troy carrying Anchises on his back, (ii) Ajax and Cassandra, (iii) Neoptolemus and Priam, (iv) Andromache (?) attacking a Greek, and (v) Akamas and Demophon freeing Aithra. Rather than aiming at a complete narrative of the story, it is the accumulation of violence which determines the painter’s choice here. We can see a similar method in operation on a cup attributed to Onesimos,42 where the cumulative effect is reinforced by the device which places the murder of Priam by Neoptolemus on the medallion of the cup and distributes a series of eight other episodes on an area around the medallion: (i) Aithra freed by Demophon, (ii) Sthenelus and a Trojan woman, (iii) Ajax and Cassandra, (iv) a fight, (v) Odysseus, Antenor, and Theano, (vi) an almost completely missing scene, (vii) Menelaus and Helen, and (viii) Andromache(?) (Williams 1991).
This effect of accumulation is particularly significant in the case of Theseus, whose exploits constitute an initiatory journey from Troezen to Athens (Neils 1987; Calame 1990) which painters sought to represent in the form of a true cycle, as one sees on a cup by the Kleophrades painter43 and later on another one by Aison44 (Olmos 1992). The same Kleophrades painter is also one of the first to represent the series of Heracles’ exploits45 in the form of a continuous cycle, on the neck of a volute kratēr. In this case it is again the heroic dimension which is emphasized by the choice of images, which intensifies the theme through the multiplication of his deeds.
Apart from the synoptic image and episodes placed in a series, other combinations of images appear, on several registers, using several levels of representation on the surface of the vase. This phenomenon exists as early as the geometric period, in a purely rhythmical and ornamental form, just as in the various orientalizing styles of the seventh to sixth centuries. But from the end of the seventh century vases with complex decoration begin to appear, divided between several registers which are not repetitive, but seem to be organized according to a logic which scholars have tried to elucidate, without always reaching agreement. One of the earliest examples is a proto-Corinthian oinochoe, now in the Villa Giulia, which is generally called after the name of its owner, the Chigi olpē.46 This vase, of modest dimensions, consists of several zones placed on top of one another which completely cover the vase and represent (i) a hoplite battle on the top zone, (ii) below – and in a different pictorial technique – a narrow frieze of running dogs, then (iii) a parade of horsemen and the Judgment of Paris, and finally (iv) a hunting scene waiting in ambush. Hurwit (2002) was one of the first people to show that it was possible to establish a thematic relationship between war, hunting, and the parade of horsemen; the Judgment of Paris, which seemed out of place in such a context, in fact fitted perfectly into this scheme, signifying the passage of the young Paris into the adult world. Since then, scholars have suggested ways of deepening this type of analysis or of modifying its logic, but in all cases the idea of an iconographic program, more or less strict, has been defended with excellent arguments; this program is not narrative, but structural, combining different categories of cultural practice (Torelli 2007; Mugione 2012; D’Acunto 2013).
From this perspective, the most remarkable vase is undoubtedly the François Vase.47 This kratēr, signed by the painter Klitias and the potter Ergotimos, comprises a large number of scenes rigorously organized on six registers and distributed over the entire surface of the vase, including the handles and the foot, which is unique. The organization of such pictorial richness is probably not random, and from very early on interpreters have tried to account for its organization. No one contests the general idea of a figurative logic, but there has been no agreement on the various interpretations which have been advanced by modern interpreters (Torelli 2007; see Shapiro, Iozzo, and Lezzi-Hafter 2013, 9–17). These differences of opinion do not invalidate the idea of a coherent scheme, but they indicate a certain degree of flexibility which is inherent in the very principle of these “accumulations.” Each painter can associate or accumulate according to the different types of logic already discussed – homology, complementarity, or opposition – and the spectator in turn can react to these associations. On the François vase, Achilles is predominant on one side, Theseus on the other. The rest remains open, and the correspondences between the different zones are structural rather than narrative; the correspondences vary, depending on the interpretations attributed to each scene by commentators, but the principle remains the same.
This general principle applies to most of the vases used in the symposium. The François vase is one of the most elaborate cases, and an early one; one can imagine it standing in the middle of the dining room, among the drinkers; they do not have to produce an interpretation, as we do, but they could react, at will, in accordance with their culture and their memory, to the images displayed on the surface of this exceptional vase.
Ever since they started representing stories or describing aspects of Athenian life, in a more or less idealized way, vase painters tried to catch the eye of the viewer, and to please the drinker at the symposium by creating, through the images, interactive games. The vases are moving objects in the hands of the drinkers and what we could call the “poetics of vases” at the symposium is an interactive poetics, opening up a variety of possibilities which can be used by the drinker at will to enrich the verbal, visual, and poetic play in the space of the symposium. The images can be connected with one another in a variety of ways, creating the effects of anticipation, discrepancy, and surprise which assimilate the culture of images to a game. This is one of the pleasures of the banquet.
On the connectivity of images two articles, one by Stupperich (1992), another more recent by Dietrich (2013), can be considered as pioneering. The most important work on the dynamic aspect of the vase as an image bearer is by Martens (1992) (as it is in French, it has not received the attention it deserves). Hurwit (1976) and (1977), on frame, are a landmark. Lissarrague (1990) explores the role of vases in the symposium; Neer (2002) gives the best account of the relation between vase painters and sympotic circles. More recently, the relation between shape and iconography has been explored by Schmidt (2005), whereas the monograph by Lynch (2011) is an interesting case of a sympotic set of vases found in an Athenian house.
There is no study of the general structure of the repertoire of Greek vase painting; Metzger (1951) is still the only general survey for the fourth century; one can have a sense of the repertoire through the handbooks of Boardman (1974, 1975, 1989). The best general introduction to vase studies is Sparkes (1996).