Euphronios - Apprenticeship in The Workshop of Kachrylion

Apprenticeship in The Workshop of Kachrylion

Euphronios appears to have started painting vases around 520 BC, probably under the tutelage of Psiax. Later, Euphronios himself was to have a major influence on the work of his erstwhile master, as well as on that of several other older painters. Later he worked in the workshop of the potter Kachrylion, under supervision of the painter Oltos.

His works from this early phase already show several of Euphronios' artistic characteristics: his tendency to paint mythological scenes, his preference for monumental compositions, but also for scenes from everyday life, and his careful rendering of muscles and movement. The latter aspects particularly indicate a close link with Psiax, who painted in a similar style. Apart from a few fragments, a bowl in London (E 41) and one in Malibu (77.AE.20) can be ascribed to this phase of his work.

The most important early vase, however, is a signed specimen depicting Sarpedon. It was only through the appearance of this vase on the international market that Euphronios' early works could be recognised and distinguished from the paintings of Oltos, who had previously been credited with some works by Euphronios. Although it later became common for painters to sign their best works, signatures were rarely used in black-figure and early red-figure painting.

Even Euphronios's earliest known works show a total control of the technical abilities necessary for red-figure vase painting. Similarly, a number of technical advances which were adopted as part of the standard red-figure technique can be first seen in his work. To render the depictions of human anatomy more plastic and realistic, he introduced the relief line and the use of diluted clay slip. Depending on how it is applied, the slip can acquire a range of colours between light yellow and dark brown during firing, thus mutiplying the stylistic possibilities available to the artist. Euphronios's technical and artistic innovations were apparently quickly influential; pieces produced during his early period by other painters working for Kachrylion, and even by his former teachers Psiax and Oltos, show stylistic and technical aspects first seen in Euphronios's own work.

Although Kachylion's workshop only produced drinking bowls, and Euphronios continued to work for him into his maturity, simple bowls soon failed to satisfy his artistic impulse. He began to paint other vase types, probably working with different potters. The Villa Giulia holds two very early pelikes by him. Such medium-size vases offered more space for his figural paintings. A psykter now in Boston is also counted among his early work, as it strongly resembles the work of Oltos: stiff garment folds, almond-shaped eyes, a small protruding chin and ill-differentiated hands and feet. Alternatively, it could be a relatively careless work from a later phase.

Such problems in assigning Euphronios' works to the different periods of his activity recur for several of his vases. Although the general chronology and development of his work is well known, some of his works remain difficult to place precisely. For example, a chalice krater in the Antikensammlung Berlin, depicting young men exercising in the palaistra is often counted among his later works due to the vase shape. Nonetheless, it seems that in spite of the occurrence of some advanced methods (careful representation of musculature, the use of the relief line), the krater must be dated to an earlier phase, since it borrows some stylistic motifs from black-figure vase painting. These motifs include an ivy garland below the mouth, the fairly small image format and the stylistic similarity to the work of Oltos.