Exekias

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Exekias

c. 570 b.c.e.–After 530 b.c.e.

Potter Vase painter

Known By His Vases.

The Greek artist Exekias represents black-figure vase painting at its height, a distinction he shares with a contemporary known as the Amasis-painter. Although the time period in which he flourished places him in Athens during the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, the only other biographical details about him come from his vases. His signature appears on two vases as both potter and painter, and on eleven others as the potter. Other vases are attributed to him on stylistic grounds and thus a total of about forty of his pieces survive. Exekias' career as a potter seems to have begun before he tried his hand at vase decoration. Scholars guess that he was probably born in the 570s b.c.e., and while the date of his death is unknown he seems not to have been active after 530 b.c.e.

Remarkable Skill.

Exekias is remarkable for the quality of his draftsmanship and his skill as a potter. He may have invented the type of vase known as the calyx crater, for he decorated the earliest surviving calyx crater. But it is his skill as a vase painter that is most impressive. His masterpiece is a black-figure amphora in the Vatican Museum showing Achilles and Ajax playing a board game, Achilles wearing his helmet and Ajax, bareheaded, bending intently over the board. After Exekias, this scene is repeated by later vase painters about 150 times. It refers to some incident in the Trojan War myth, but it is not mentioned in any of the classical literature that has survived. The Trojan War, however, seems to have been a favorite subject for Exekias. One vase shows Ajax lifting up the corpse of Achilles who has just been slain by the arrow of Paris. Another vase of his shows Ajax committing suicide: all alone he plants a sword upright in the sand and falls on it. Exekias has only one surviving scene from the sack of Troy. It shows Aeneas rescuing his father Anchises; Exekias managed to portray the haggard face of old Anchises with remarkable skill.

Other Subjects.

Exekias was also interested in other subjects. One splendid drinking-cup shows the god Dionysus in a boat that is sprouting a grapevine from its mast, while dolphins swim round about. The myth is well known: pirates kidnapped Dionysus who turned them into dolphins as punishment. Exekias also did a fine black-figure hydria—a small water jar with three handles and a small neck—showing Heracles wrestling with the Nemean lion. Heracles seems to have been a favorite hero in Athens of the sixth century b.c.e., though in the next century, he was supplanted to a large extent by Theseus who was made into an Athenian counterpart of Heracles. Heracles was too intimately connected with the hated Sparta whose kings claimed to be his descendants. Exekias did a scene from the Theseus-myth but the vase is broken and its scene cannot be reconstructed. Another of Exekias' amphoras shows Theseus' two sons, Demophon and Akamas, walking their horses. This, as far as we know, is the first time they appear in Athenian art.