Red-figure innovation in pottery
The figures of the Exekian vase are painted in black silhouette upon the red clay of
the pot. The potter then used an engraving tool as an incisor to give detailed lines to
his form. A major technical innovation occurred in the generation following Exekias
when an Athenian potter in about 530 reversed the process by painting an outline of
his figures and then colouring the background black so that the figures remained red.
The drawing of the figures was then completed not with an engraving tool but with
a brush whose supple strokes could be more readily varied to give fluidity and depth
to the figures. The subsequent red-figure technique gradually made the old method
of black-figure painting redundant. Painters took advantage of the flexible technique
of drawing to represent human anatomy and expression more naturally.
Wonderful as it is, Exekias’ representation of the heroic warriors seems stiff and
formal when set beside the girl going to wash on an Athenian cup (fig. 52) painted in
the early fifth century, little more than a generation later. In the overall design there
is still some trace of geometric patterning. The girl’s head, the pail and the basin form
a basic triangular frame within which there are two other lop-sided triangles formed
by the head, the bundle of clothes and the pail, and by the pail, the bundle and the
basin. The composition, reflecting the shape it is filling – note the incline of the head,
234 THE GREEKS
FIGURE 52 Athenian cup: girl going to wash
Source:Photo © RMAH, Brussels