Composition
In addition to the main tableau are subordinate ones. Where there are no tableaux, he uses rows of rosettes, spikes, spirals and plain bands. Sometimes he surrounds the main tableau with simple black, so that it appears suddenly, out of the darkness, so to speak.
It is diagnostic of Exekias that he uses the shape of the vessel and its protrusions as a terrain to which the lines and forms of the painting conform. As you gaze directly at the tableau, a center of attention appears: the game board, the face of Penthesilea, the starry robe of Dionysos, the sword implanted in the earth. In the round surface of the vase, this point is closest to the eye and is seen directly on.
All the other main lines are either concentric around the thematic center or lead to it as the spokes of a wheel: the spears of the warriors, the curved backs of their hunching forms, the wind-filled sails of the ship and its curved bottom, the circle of dolphins, etc.
Read more about this topic: Exekias
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;Mpoetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)