PLATE XXXII
Amphora in Style of Andokides (British Museum).
Rev.: Herakles with Nemean Lion.
The characteristics of Andokides’ work are freedom of composition, delicacy of drawing,[[1232]] and wealth of detail; but he is always bound by conventionalities, and his power of observation is stronger than his power of correct delineation. Furtwaengler thinks his combinations of B.F. and R.F. were deliberately chosen to show the superiority of the latter.[[1233]] His date may be placed about 525 B.C., and it is probable that his name appears on a marble base found on the Acropolis of Athens. He seems to have learnt his art either from Exekias or Amasis, probably the latter.
Scholars are generally agreed in attributing to him the series of “bilingual” amphorae already mentioned, of which the most notable examples are one in Munich (388) representing Herakles banqueting, and one in Boston with Herakles and a bull.[[1234]] Even more probable is the attribution to his hand of some half-dozen amphorae of the type which he employed, with different designs on either side, but B.F. and R.F. respectively. The most interesting of these is an amphora in the British Museum (B 193 = Plates XXXI.-II.), with the typical B.F. representation of warriors playing with pessi on one side, quite in the manner of Exekias (see above), and on the other Herakles with the Nemean lion, in which scene the painter has attempted a new departure. The lion is already subdued, and the hero carries it in triumph on his shoulder, no doubt with a reminiscence of the Erymanthian boar types (see Chapter XIV.).[[1235]]
A curious group of B.F. vases found exclusively in Italy, and belonging apparently to the middle of the sixth century, is marked by the extremes to which the mannerisms of the artists Exekias and Amasis are carried. They are without exception amphorae, and so similar in style that they must all have been produced by one workshop, if not one hand. In spite of the excellence of technique and careful drawing which they exhibit, showing a really advanced stage of B.F. vase-painting, they are lifeless and monotonous almost to grotesqueness. Karo, in publishing the series,[[1236]] reckons forty-four in all, and points out the various Ionian peculiarities they present, which mark them either as an offshoot of the school of Amasis or a parallel development. Originally known as “Tyrrhenian,” from the form of the amphora (cf. p. [160]), they are now generally spoken of as “affected amphorae,” in allusion to their peculiar and mannered style. An example is given on Plate [XXIX].