Lydos - Themes

Themes

Lydos frequently panted mythological scenes and newly introduced several specific motifs of that genre to Attic vase painting. The quality of his paintings varies. He often painted so-called “penguin women”, wearing a cloak held together by the chest, probably by a kind of sash, and terminating in a tail-like feature at the back.His men often ere a himation, painted in diagonal stripes, so that they appear as if bandaged. An oinochoe, the vessel itself made by the potter Kolchos (Berlin, Antikensammlung F 1732) depicts mannerist figures. Athena (supporting Herakles who is fighting Kyknos is rendered as a silhouette figure in the stale of the Amasis Painter, while the figures of Ares and Zeus (who joins the fighting) represent an attempt to utilise the new three-dimensiol drawing style, developed around 540 BC. Lydos’s palmettes, placed on neck and handles of the vessel are stylistically transitional: they can be seen as a late form of the earlier black-figure style, but also as a the beginning of the decorative styles that were to folourish in red-figure vase painting. His best works also include several plates decorated with flying or running figures. One of his plates is decorated with a gorgoneion covering the entire surface.