The Rider Painter was a Laconian vase painter active between 560 and 530 BC. He is considered one of the five great vase painters of Sparta.
His name is unknown, but he is called the Rider Painter after the horseman depicted on his name vase at the British Museum. He painted various shapes, including lebetes, a rare shape in Sparta, but predominantly kylikes. He primarily produced for export, as indicated by the fact that one of his works has so far been discovered in Laconia. His workshop cannot be located, but was perhaps in a perioikic settlement. Since identifiable painting styles and peculiarities in vase shapes tend to be consistent, it is assumed that the Rider Painter, like other Laconian vase painters, was both potter and painter. He is considered somewhat inferior in talent to the other four great Laconian vase painters. He mainly depicted scenes from Greek mythology, such as the blinding of Polyphemus, Kadmos or Herakles. Other motifs include scenes from everyday life, such komasts or the eponymous rider.
Bibliography
John Boardman: Early Greek Vase Painting. 11th to 6th Century BC. A Handbook, Thames and Hudson, London 1998 (World of Art), 188 ISBN0-500-20309-1
Pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it, it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society. The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were several vessels produced locally for everyday and kitchen use, yet finer pottery from regions such as Attica was imported by other civilizations throughout the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans in Italy. There were a multitude of specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery.
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic, is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BCE. Stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style.
Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting.
The Kleophon Painter is the name given to an anonymous Athenian vase painter in the red-figure style who flourished in the mid-to-late 5th century BC. He is thus named because one of the works attributed to him bears an inscription in praise of a youth named "Kleophon". He appears to have been originally from the workshop of Polygnotos, and in turn to have taught the so-called Dinos Painter. Three vases suggest a collaboration with the Achilles Painter, while a number of black-figure works have also been attributed to him by some scholars.
Euphronios was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter, active in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. As part of the so-called "Pioneer Group,", Euphronios was one of the most important artists of the red-figure technique. His works place him at the transition from Late Archaic to Early Classical art, and he is one of the first known artists in history to have signed his work.
The Naucratis Painter was a Laconian vase painter of the mid-sixth century BC. Naucratis was a Greek trading post (emporion) in Egypt. Two fragments of a kylix found in the Demeter Sanctuary, Cyrene, show that the Naucratis Painter was literate, and the form of a three-stroke iota suggests, moreover, that he was a foreigner in Laconia.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, c. 900–700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. The Greek Dark Ages lasted from c. 1100 to 750 BC and include two periods, the Protogeometric period and the Geometric period, in reference to the characteristic pottery style. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
The Amasis Painter was an ancient Greek vase painter who worked in the black-figure technique. He owes his name to the signature of the potter Amasis, who signed twelve works painted by the same hand. At the time of the exhibition, "The Amasis Painter and His World" (1985), 132 vases had been attributed to this artist.
The Pan Painter was an ancient Greek vase-painter of the Attic red-figure style, probably active c. 480 to 450 BC. John Beazley attributed over 150 vases to his hand in 1912:
Cunning composition; rapid motion; quick deft draughtsmanship; strong and peculiar stylisation; a deliberate archaism, retaining old forms, but refining, refreshing, and galvanizing them; nothing noble or majestic, but grace, humour, vivacity, originality, and dramatic force: these are the qualities which mark the Boston krater, and which characterize the anonymous artist who, for the sake of convenience, may be called the 'master of the Boston Pan-vase', or, more briefly, 'the Pan-master'.
The Penthesilea Painter was a Greek vase painter of the Attic red-figure style. His true name is unknown. His conventional name is derived from his name vase, "bowl 2688" in Munich, the inside of which depicts the slaying of Penthesilea by Achilles. On the basis of that work, John Beazley attributed 177 known vases to the painter, about 100 of which only survive fragmentarily. Bowls, 149 in number, represent the bulk of his work. The rest is distributed among small shapes like skyphoi, kantharoi and bobbins.
The Eretria Painter was an ancient Greek Attic red-figure vase painter. He worked in the final quarter of the 5th century BC. The Eretria Painter is assumed to have been a contemporary of the Shuvalov Painter; he is considered one of the most interesting painters of his time. Many of his best works are painted on oinochoai and belly lekythoi. His paintings often depict many figures, moving in groups across all available surfaces. He also painted such vessels as figure-shaped vases or head-shaped kantharoi. Even as the vase shapes he painted on are unusual, his themes are conventional: athletes, satyrs and maenads, and mythological scenes. There are also some careful studies of women. He also painted white-ground vases. A lekythos in New York shows a funeral scene, typical of white-ground painting: Achilles is mourning Patroclus; the nereids bring him new weapons. The Eretria Painter's drawing style influenced later artists, e.g. the Meidias Painter and his school.
The Marsyas Painter was an ancient Greek vase painter of the red-figure style active in Attica between 370 and 340/330 BC. The Marsyas Painter is sometimes considered the best of the Attic red-figure painters of the late 4th-century Kerch Style.
The Ilioupersis Painter was an Apulian vase painter. His works are dated to the second quarter of the 4th century BC.
The Cavalcade Painter is the conventional name for an ancient Greek vase painter who produced Corinthian black-figure vases. He was active during the Middle Corinthian period, around 580 BC.
Laconian vase painting is a regional style of Greek vase painting, produced in Laconia, the region of Sparta, primarily in the 6th century BC.
The Arkesilas Painter was a Laconian vase painter active around 560 BC. He is considered one of the five great vase painters of Sparta.
The Arkesilas Cup is a kylix by the Laconian vase painter known as the Arkesilas Painter, whose name vase it is. It depicts, and is thus named after, Arkesilaos II, king of Kyrene and is dated to about 565–560 BC.
Campanian vase painting is one of the five regional styles of South Italian red-figure vase painting fabricated in Magna Graecia. It forms a close stylistic community with Apulian vase painting.
The Mastos Painter was a painter of ancient Greek vases. He is named for a black-figure mastos used by the art historian John Boardman to illustrate the type, which is shaped like a woman's breast.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
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