If you saw me now, 5,002 miles away from home and entrapped in a dusty, glass case, you wouldn’t guess how I used to beam under the Mediterranean sun. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve heard, the people who have lifted my rim to their lips, over and over, thirsting for more. But now I rest, steadfast and indignant, without purpose or cause. Up for display, visitors quickly stride past me or stop, just long enough, to notice the countless cracks that run through my surface. But, it wasn’t always this way and my cracks didn’t always exist. My sheen was polished and I was sturdy without a scratch or break or flaw.
Attica, 480 B.C. That’s where my life story begins. I was gruffly yanked from a clay basin, set in a tank, and mixed with water. Slowly my impurities began to rid themselves of me, wiggling free my grip and sinking away. The particles that once clung to me, now sat at the bottom of the tank, leaving me feeling naked. Once coarse and unrefined, I was cleaner now. Grabbing me, Euphronios, slammed me downwards, monotonously kneading me, over and over until I was soft and pliant. It was as if all life had been wrung out of me, not a single pocket of air left within my folds. Before I knew it, I was thrown atop the potter’s wheel and was being quickly spun about, the world revolving around me at a mile a minute. All the meanwhile, I was being pinched and widened, squeezed and lifted, until I suddenly came to an abrupt to halt and the world was still again. Except, I was no longer a lumpy fist-sized ball of clay, my body was now broad and shallow. I awkwardly sat atop the craftsman table, acutely aware that I was somehow incomplete. Bare, without a foot or neck or handles, I patiently waited as Euphronious painstakingly molded each individual piece by hand. Once dried to a leather hardness, my limbs were pieced together, part by part. Two horizontal handles were fixed to my left and right side, while a short neck and circular foot, supported me from the bottom. Euphronious seamlessly blended each piece into my body, until we all became one entity. I was small in stature, sitting at just 9.5 cm tall and 23.6 cm wide. I was wide and shallow. I was sturdy, but elegant. I was a warm, deep orange. I was a ceramic drinking cup. I was a kylix.
With my newfound form, I was almost ready to serve wine to the people of the Greek aristocracy, but not before I was painted upon and emblazoned with Greek imagery. I was brought to the workshop of the Foundry Painter at a time of active experimentation. He sought to break free from the conventions of black-figure painting, feeling limited by its confines. However, red-figure painting offered new possibilities, so the Foundry Painter set to work meticulously outlining figures and scenes using a black gloss made from highly purified clay. He sat hunched over the table, eyes squinted, making fast but deliberate marks on the inside of my cup body. I felt the heavy-handed stroke of the paintbrush as he covered the inside of my cup in a sheath of black paint, only avoiding the delineated imagery. While the background was painted black, the young, male figure in the center of the cup was left the natural rust color of the clay. Using a delicate paintbrush and black paint, the Foundry Painter added fine details and patterns, bit by bit revealing the intended scene. Finally, a circular figured scene was uncovered inside. As people drink from me, tipping the cup towards themselves, their eye will be drawn to the center where a circle has been painted using a decorative band of open meanders (INSERT FOOTNOTE HERE). Inside the circle, a young, male slave takes a stride to the left, towards the column-krater. The viewer only sees a portion of the column-krater, a container for mixing water and wine, as half of it is cut out of the scene. The young boy is carrying a kylix in his left hand and an oenochoe, a pouring jug, in his right. This scene illustrates a specific aspect of the Athenian symposium (FOOTNOTE), where in which the slave prepares the wine for drinking, by diluting it with water. Here, the boy uses the oenochoe in order to transfer wine into the krater to mix the correct proportion of water to wine, so as to support drinking in moderation. The Foundry Painter’s painting techniques exhibit a new sense of realism. The internal scene/the pictorial decoration not only allows viewers to experience a sense of Athenian life, but it also takes a much more naturalistic approach than that of many of his predecessors. In his illustration, The Foundry Painter presents a strong interest in the body in motion. Not only is the youth taking a stride, but his right arm is fully extended ahead indicating a pouring motion, while his left elbow is bent at a 45-degree angle behind him. Not only is he performing a practical action, but his posture is highly dynamic. With the advent of red vase painting, The Foundry Painter was able to articulate the subject’s figure in three-dimensional space. The male is rendered in such a way that the viewer sees a side profile of his legs in motion, a frontal view of his chest and pectoral muscles, and a profile view of his head as his gaze is directed backwards. As a result of the male’s twisted torso, multiple angles of the human form are featured in just one image, creating a comprehensive portrait. TRANSITION. The Foundry Painter utilizes drawn lines to show the musculature of the chest, torso, and legs. His increased attention to detail is shown through his use of fine brushstrokes in order to show the individual wisps of hair. CONCLUDING STATEMENT.
Once the Foundry Painter had finished painting my inner recess, he turned me over, my foot now sticking straight up in the air and he once again began to paint, carefully wielding the paintbrush atop my surface. But this time, he drew upon something different; he decided upon a scene that emphasized the value of combat and drinking to the society in which I lived. While my internal scene, depicting a slave preparing wine for the symposium, was rooted in a real-life act, my external scene draws upon mythology. The Foundry Painter adorned me with a painting depicting the Centauromachy, or the Battle of the Centaurs. As my outer façade illustrates, the battle erupted between the Lapiths, the people of Northern Greece, and the centaurs, a creature that is half-human and half-horse. As the fable goes, the battle erupted at the wedding of King Pirithous, where the Centaurs became drunk off of wine, causing their wild nature to surface. As a result, when the bride of King Pirithous was revealed, a centaur charged the bride in an attempt to rape her. At this moment, the battle between Lapiths and centaurs erupted. My surface captures a valiant moment in which five Lapiths fight to expel the centaur. The bearded centaur wears a leopard skin cape and wields a tall tree branch. Of the five Lapiths encircling the centaur, 2 brandish swords, while one holds a long spear, and the other uses a bow and arrow. With the exception of the Lapith shooting with the bow and arrow, they all hold shields depicting both snakes and scorpions. The Lapiths wear nothing but greaves, or shin armor, and Greek helmets. In the Foundry Painter’s depiction of the battle, he continues his pursuit of realism. The Foundry makes use of a wide range of poses as the figures all take on different, active postures. For example, while one warrior lies with his back on the ground and his body fully extended, another figure to the immediate right of the centaur, takes on a deep lunging motion. The scene is far from static, but instead shows the various dynamic movements that a warrior might have to take on in battle. All of the figures are well-observed, with realistic proportions and lifelike anatomy. The Foundry Painter diluted washes of the glaze to create a golden-brown color that he applied to render more subtle details. He used the finish to show the males’ curled wisps of hair, a leather belt, as well as to delineate the abdominal muscles of the warriors. He emphasized the reality and intensity of the battle by using the brown glaze to show spatters of blood shed from the Lapiths. Almost complete, I began a three-phase firing process in which I was fired in the kiln at 900 degrees Celsius. In the heat of the kiln, my black paint darkened in color while the natural color of my clay reddened to a deep rust. I emerged radiant, with my glossy black surface and intricate pictorial decorations, I was complete and ready to serve.
After having been painted and glossed to perfection, I was set to use, quenching the thirst of the male aristocracy. When my owner so felt like it, he hosted dinner parties for his fellow wealthy Athenians in his private home, and on these occasions, I was brought to use. These dinner parties, or Symposiums as they are known, were meant for wealthy men to enjoy music, conversation, food, and wine. On these nights, the men arrived and made their way to the center of the home, the men’s quarters, where the festivities were held. They reclined on cushioned, stone couches arranged around the border of the room, using their forearms to prop themselves up. As the banquet began, meat, olives, and figs were passed around. However, the true purpose of the evening was my contents, the wine. One of the guests was elected to be the master of drinking for the night and carefully controlled the dilution of wine. He directed the young, male slaves to mix, in the krater, one part wine with three parts water. Once diluted, the wine was then transferred from the krater to myself. I sat expectantly on the marble floor, waiting as a slave came to fill my shallow cup with the weakened wine. Once my body had been filled, a reclining guest reached down, grabbing me firmly by the handles and brought me to their lips, taking a long, extenuated, sip. He then returned me to the floor and interjected in the philosophical debate that had suddenly erupted. The men sat for hours into the night, indulging in scholarly conversations and discussing profound truths. Time and time again, I was picked up, set down, my contents emptied, and my contents refilled. In between sips, they spoke of politics and poetry. The more times the guest grabbed me by the handles and lifted my rim to his lips, the rowdier the conversation got and the more freely dialogue flowed.
Now I sit, a window to the past I serve as a testament to the importance of wine drinking in the lives of the Greeks.