The Discovery of Greek Vase Painters
In contrast to other artists, such as sculptors, no Ancient Greek literature sources refer specifically to vase painters. The copious literary tradition on the arts hardly mention pottery. Thus reconstruction of Euphronios's life and artistic development—like that of all Greek vase painters—can only be derived from his works.
Modern scientific study of Greek pottery began near the end of the 18th century. Initially, interest focused on iconography. The discovery of the first signature of Euphronios in 1838 revealed that individual painters could be identified and named, so that their works might be ascribed to them. This led to an intensive study of painters' signatures, and by the late 19th century, scholars began to compile stylistic compendia.
The archaeologist John D. Beazley used these compendia as a starting point for his own work. He systematically described and catalogued thousands of Attic black-figure and red-figure vases and sherds, using the methods of the art historian Giovanni Morelli for the study of paintings. In three key volumes on Attic painters, Beazley achieved a taxonomy that remains mostly valid to this day. He listed all known painters (named or unnamed) who produced individual works of art which can always be unmistakably ascribed. Today, most painters are identified, though their names often remain unknown
Read more about this topic: Euphronios, General Considerations
Famous quotes containing the words discovery, greek, vase and/or painters:
“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“... too many young painters of the day work for the crowd, and not for art. But, then, should not the painters of the day work for the education of the crowd?”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)