A vase is an open container. It can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non-rusting metals, such as aluminium, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. Even wood has been used to make vases, either by using tree species that naturally resist rot, such as teak, or by applying a protective coating to conventional wood or plastic. Vases are often decorated, and they are often used to hold cut flowers. Vases come in different sizes to support whatever flower it is holding or keeping in place.
In the pottery of ancient Greece, a kylix is the most common type of wine-drinking cup. It has a broad, relatively shallow, body raised on a stem from a foot and usually two horizontal handles disposed symmetrically. The main alternative wine-cup shape was the kantharos, with a narrower and deeper cup and high vertical handles.
Ancient Greek 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.
Exekias was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter who was active in Athens between roughly 545 BC and 530 BC. Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of scenes using a clay slip that fired to black, with details created through incision. Exekias is regarded by art historians as an artistic visionary whose masterful use of incision and psychologically sensitive compositions mark him as one of the greatest of all Attic vase painters. The Andokides painter and the Lysippides Painter are thought to have been students of Exekias.
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.
An oenochoe, also spelled oinochoe, is a wine jug and a key form of ancient Greek pottery. Intermediate between a pithos or amphora, and individual cups or bowls, it held fluid for several persons temporarily until it could be poured. The term oinos appears in Mycenaean Greek, but not the compound. The characteristic form was popular throughout the Bronze Age, especially at prehistoric Troy. In classical times for the most part the term oinochoe implied the distribution of wine. As the word began to diversify in meaning, the shape became a more important identifier than the word. The oinochoe could pour any fluid, not just wine. The English word, pitcher, is perhaps the closest in function.
A lekythos is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil, especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no pouring lip; the oinochoe is more like a modern jug. In the "shoulder" and "cylindrical" types which became the most common, especially the latter, the sides of the body are usually vertical by the shoulder, and there is then a sharp change of direction as the neck curves in; the base and lip are normally prominent and flared. However, there are a number of varieties, and the word seems to have been used even more widely in ancient times than by modern archeologists. They are normally in pottery, but there are also carved stone examples.
A loutrophoros is a distinctive type of Greek pottery vessel characterized by an elongated neck with two handles. The loutrophoros was used to carry water for a bride's pre-nuptial ritual bath, and in funeral rituals, and was placed in the tombs of the unmarried. The loutrophoros itself is a motif for Greek tombstones, either as a relief or as a stone vessel. There are many in the funeral area at the Kerameikos in Athens, some of which are now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Psiax was an Attic vase painter of the transitional period between the black-figure and red-figure styles. His works date to circa 525 to 505 BC and comprise about 60 surviving vases, two of which bear his signature. Initially he was allocated the name "Menon Painter" by John Beazley. Only later was it realised that the artist was identical with the painters signing as "Psiax".
White-ground technique is a style of white ancient Greek pottery and the painting in which figures appear on a white background. It developed in the region of Attica, dated to about 500 BC. It was especially associated with vases made for ritual and funerary use, if only because the painted surface was more fragile than in the other main techniques of black-figure and red-figure vase painting. Nevertheless, a wide range of subjects are depicted.
Hermonax was a Greek vase painter working in the red-figure style. He painted between c. 470 and 440 BC in Athens. Ten vases signed with the phrase "Hermonax has painted it" survive, mainly stamnoi and lekythoi. He is generally a painter of large pots, though some cups survive.
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'.
Wedding Painter is the conventional name for an ancient Greek vase painter active in Athens from circa 480 to 460 BC. He painted in the red-figure technique. His name vase is a pyxis in the Louvre depicting the wedding of Thetis and Peleus.
The Comast Group was a group of Attic vase painters in the black-figure style. The works of its members are dated to between 585 and 570/560 BC. The artists of the Komast Group are seen as the successors of the Gorgon Painter. Its most important representatives were the KX Painter and the slightly later KY Painter. They painted vases shapes that had been newly introduced to Athens or that had not previously been painted. Especially commonly painted by them were '’kothon’’ and lekanis. From Corinth, then still the centre of Greek vase painting, they adopted the Komast cup and the skyphos (known as kotyle. The KY Painter introduced the column krater. Also popular at the time was the kantharos. The group adopted the Corinthian habit of depicting komasts, after which the group is named. It provided the group’s most commonly painted motif. The komast scenes permit Attic artists for the first time to reach the artistic levels of middle-ranking Corinthian vases. While the older KX Painter still mostly painted animals and only the occasional komast scene, the komos became a standard motif for the KY painter and further inferior successors. It is not clear to what extent the painters of the group really cooperated. It is possible that they all worked in the same workshop. The group influenced later Attic vase painters, including the Heidelberg Painter. Works by the Komast Group were not only found in Attica, but appear to have been exported widely. Vases and fragments have been found at many sites, including Naukratis, Rhodes, Central Italy, Taras, and even Corinth.
The Taleides Painter was an Attic vase painter of the black-figure style, active in the second half of the 6th century BC. His conventional name is derived from his close cooperation with the potter Taleides, many of whose vases he painted. He also worked for the potter Timagoras.
Pamphaios was an Attic potter active around the end of the 6th century BC. Pamphaios was the successor of Nikosthenes in that artist's workshop, and thus took over from one of the most influential and creative potters of antiquity. He probably took over the workshop before 510 BC and continued the tradition of his predecessor by producing typical shapes the latter had developed, such as the Nikosthenic amphora, the Nikosthenic pyxis or the Chalkidian style cup. At times, he developed these shapes further. Unlike Nikostehenes, Pamphaios favoured painters of the red-figure style, which was at the time replacing the previously dominant technique of black-figure vase painting. He also continued to employ many of the painters that had worked for Nikosthenes, such as Oltos, Epiktetos and the Nikosthenes Painter.
The Lysippides Painter was an Attic vase painter in the black-figure style. He was active around 530 to 510 BC. His conventional name comes from a kalos inscription on a vase in the British Museum attributed to him; his real name is not known.
The modern term West Slope pottery describes a type of Greek fine pottery from the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods.
Ancient Greek funerary vases are decorative grave markers made in ancient Greece that were designed to resemble liquid-holding vessels. These decorated vases were placed on grave sites as a mark of elite status. There are many types of funerary vases, such as amphorae, kraters, oinochoe, and kylix cups, among others. One famous example is the Dipylon amphora. Every-day vases were often not painted, but wealthy Greeks could afford luxuriously painted ones. Funerary vases on male graves might have themes of military prowess, or athletics. However, allusions to death in Greek tragedies was a popular motif. Famous centers of vase styles include Corinth, Lakonia, Ionia, South Italy, and Athens.
