Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, 8, 1, 6.
For some define [friendship] as a kind of resemblance, and claim that those who resemble each other are friends, whence is the saying “Like to like,” and “Jackdaw to Jackdaw,” and so on. Others, on the contrary, say that all such people are like potters to each other.
Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ὁμοιότητα τινὰ τιθέασιν αὐτὴν καὶ τοὺς ὁμοίους φίλους, ὅθεν τὸν ὅμοιόν φασιν ὡς τὸν ὅμοιον. καὶ κολοιὸν ποτὶ κολοιόν, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα. οἱ δ’ ἐξ ἐναντίας κεραμεῖς πάντας τοὺς τοιούτους ἀλλήλοις φασὶν εἶναι.
Evidently it was fully recognized that pottery was a craft which needed a long apprenticeship, and in such a highly specialized art we are not surprised to read of the keen rivalry existing among potters. The inscription by Euthymides on one of his vases, “Never has Euphronios painted the like of this” (cf. Hoppin, Handbook of Attic Red-Figured Vases, p. 432), is evidence of the same spirit.
Judging from the evidence collected above it is fair to assume that though the estimate of potters and pottery varied at different times, in the period of Athenian vase painting it was distinctly high. Potters had, it is true, no social status; but they were respected members of the community, and the keen appreciation of their work had as its natural result eager rivalry among the potters and the setting of high standards. That their craft was regarded as a “trade” is of course nothing new. Artists as a class have only lately been promoted to the higher social ranks. We need only recall Albrecht Dürer’s description of the great Procession from the Church of Our Lady at Antwerp, in which he lists the painters and sculptors and goldsmiths with “the masons, the joiners, the carpenters, the sailors, the fishermen, the butchers, the leatherers, the clothmakers, the bakers, the tailors, the cordwainers,” and refers to the group as “workmen of all kinds and many craftsmen and dealers who work for their livelihood.” This is not so much an indignity to art as a wholesome appreciation of all manual labor.
CONCLUSION
The following is a summary of the technical processes of the black-figured and red-figured Athenian vases in the order which our study of the subject has suggested.