|
Polyphemos Painter
( fl c. 670–c. 650 BC). Greek vase painter. He was active either in Athens or on the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. An imaginative innovator in mythical representation on a grand scale, he was named after the Middle Proto-Attic amphora from Eleusis (Eleusis Mus.) showing the intoxicated Polyphemos blinded by Odysseus (see GREECE, ANCIENT, fig. 90). His early work owes something to the Early Proto-Attic (c. 700–c. 670 BC) Mesogeia Painter (see GREECE, ANCIENT, §V, 4(iii)), who was perhaps his teacher. On the Eleusis amphora his style is mature, exploiting black and white paint equally. His human figures are in silhouette, except for outlined faces; heads are rounded above, with receding forehead and chin, and bull neck. Minimal use is made of incision, and figures do not overlap. On the neck the giant Polyphemos, blinded while asleep, holds a wine cup to explain his misfortune. On the body Perseus, having beheaded Medusa, escapes from her two enraged Gorgon sisters, protected by Athena; uniquely, the Gorgons’ faces are portrayed as Near Eastern metal cauldrons with serpents appended. The confronting lion and boar on the shoulder of the vase bare their teeth, typically aggressive specimens of this painter’s animal repertory.
Part of the Vase painters family
|
|
There are more than 45,000 articles in The Grove Dictionary of Art.
To access the rest of this article, including the bibliography, subscribe to
www.groveart.com.
To find out more about this subject, click on a related article below and
subscribe to www.groveart.com
|
