Marathon (490 B.C.) the latest offering was a sherd of the kylix type with simple maeander (c.p. Fig. 115) which appears in the later ‘Leagros’ period. The Acropolis finds, which are prior to the Persian conflagration (480 B.C.), have not yet been sorted and sifted.
According to this chronology the red-figured style must have made its entry into Athens about fifty years before the Persian War, with which it is customary to close the archaic period of Greek art, i.e., about 530 B.C.
We saw above, that the workshops of Pamphaios and Nikosthenes open their doors to it: neither master breaks abruptly with the old style, which often asserts itself together with the new on the same vase. This contrast of the two styles is made clear by no one more obviously than the potter Andokides on his fine amphorae, which are directly in line of succession with Exekias; never is the essence of both styles so plain as when on such a vase the same subject is treated by the same painter’s hand in the old and in the new technique. The unsigned, but certainly Andokidean Munich amphora (Fig. [103]) is not one of these instances in spite of the similarity of the subject; its black-figured Herakles scene is certainly by a different hand from its red-figured, in which the same delicate and original artist as on most of the signed works (the ‘Andokides’ painter) expresses himself. If this painter is identical with the potter, Andokides was not merely in shape and decoration of his vases but also as draughtsman a pupil and successor of Exekias. He has inherited the feeling for elegant detailed drawing and for richly ornamented garments. In the Herakles scene we see the same joy in a harmonious picture as in the sea-voyage of Exekias (Fig. [93]) and the game of draughts (Fig. [96]), which he actually copied; and the same intense absorption in the subject makes all other works of Andokides charming. In much the drawing reminds us of the teacher, particularly the flat layers of drapery, which already resolve the chitons into rich folds and end in the border more naturally, but do not attain the life-like waving of the late works of Amasis. The filling of the space with vine branches also is more in accord with the old technique than the new. But the more advanced pupil is shown not merely by the renewed study of the body, which appears in the drawing of hand and foot, in pointed elbow and knee, and in Herakles’ leg shown through the drapery, but also by the more compact composition and the individual treatment of the heads.
The entirely red-figured vases by Andokides are not necessarily older than the black-figured: the latest vase signed by him (in Madrid) still combines both techniques. It must have been decorated by a third artist less archaic in feeling, who also worked for the potter firm of Menon. The Menon painter adds to the Andokidean framing patterns the row of circumscribed palmettes, though not yet in their final shape, and approximates in style to the young Euphronios and his rival Euthymides. The ornament of the Madrid vase does not seem to have been devised as border pattern. It must be derived from the tendril-composition, which on red-figured vases takes the place of the Amasis ornament (Fig. [98]) and is in great favour as handle-ornament for kylikes. On the fine amphora in Paris, which the transitional master Pamphaios made after the patterns of Nikosthenes, and Oltos probably painted with scenes of hetairai and satyrs (Fig. [104]), it appears as handle decoration together with an equally novel calyx and leaf ornament, which adorns the shoulder. The free decorative method of composition, which can be traced back through Amasis ([p. 105]) and Klazomenai to the Fikellura style (p. [61]) is exactly in the manner of the red-figured style, which not only shakes off the frieze constraint but
PLATE LIX.
[Fig. 104]. HETAIRA; SATYR AND MAENAD: AMPHORA WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER PAMPHAIOS.
