#francois vase

[en-theos]

i took pictures of the François vase a normal amount

first 5: band with thetis and peleus' wedding

next 2: band eith hephaestus' ascent to olympus

last 3: miscellaneous (ariadne, caeneus, priam)

[alabasterapricot]

The Calydonian Boar Hunt, depicted on the Francois vase, made by Ergotimos and painted by Kleitius in c. 570 BCE.

Depicting the moment of victory in which Melaeger, Atalanta, the Dioscuri, and Peleus (and others) kill the Calydonian boar.

All characters are named with inscriptions beside them. Antaios the hunter isn't doing too well. Nor is the dog.

There used to be white slip details (primarily the white dogs, one of which is clinging to the boar's back) but these have been worn away with time due to white clay slip being much more fragile.

[regardevouslebearpolar]

any classics nerds around get ready for the francois vase the musical with @the-stars-defy-you

[casskeeps]

francois vase - volute krater by kleitias

basic facts

date - c570 bce

style - early black figure

original location - found in an etruscan tomb

function - volute krater - mixing wine and water, but also for display at symposiums

size - 66cm tall

context

still in attica, we're getting even further from the tradition of using processions of animals and floral patterns to fill empty spaces. this krater is inscribed with the name of both the potter and the painter - ergotimos mepoisen and kleitias megraphsen meaning "ergotimos made me" and "kleitias painted me".

this pot is notable because it is covered in different stories - there are 270 individual figures, and 121 of them are labelled. this is unlike any of the other pots we study - most of them only show one or two narratives.

content (bottom up)

frieze one - the battle of the pygmies and the cranes. we are missing a MASSIVE chunk of this frieze, so it's difficult to comment on it, but this narrative does go the whole way around the frieze.

frieze two - a jagged tooth pattern !! this is one of our clearest nods to the remaining corinthian influence; here's a corinthian pot from the late 7th century bce. we usually say this is to focus the eye upwards towards the main decorated panels.

frieze three - our only decorative animals and floral patterns ! they are finally on their way out ! again, the missing pieces make it a little bit hard to comment on it in depth, but it looks like we have another instance of a floral design being used as a centre for symmetrical figures on either side

frieze four (the centre) - the story of troilus. an oracle said that if he reached adulthood, troy would never fall; achilles ambushed him when he went to water his horses. at the very left is apollo (a god of prophecy and a patron of troy), then a lovely peaceful little water gathering scene with troilus and his sister. next, we have three deities (we know this because they are tall and labelled): thetis, hermes, and athene - all three of these deities were on the greek side of the trojan war. in the centre, we see troilus fleeing on horseback, while achilles follows after him, although only achilles' leg remains. his sister watches, her water jar fallen to the floor. then, antenor (an elder) telling priam (sitting on the throne) of troilus' death, and two trojan princes appear from out of the palace.

frieze five - another depiction of the wedding of peleus and thetis, but with even more figures

frieze six - funeral games for patroklos ! the neck shows the chariot race, and there are labels used to distinguish the race from any less remarkable race.

frieze seven - the lip shows the hunting of the calydonian boar. we have a lot of labelled figures here, but one that stands out is meleager, the son of oenus (the king that invoked artemis' wrath - she sent the boar to ravage the countryside to punish this king for neglecting her sacrifices). on the other side is theseus on crete, leading a celebratory dance after his slaying of the minotaur. we also have theseus greeting ariadne, who enabled him to complete the mission, and the members of his crew waiting to escort him back to athens.

images

image one: the troilus frieze

image two: the battle on the foot of the krater and the decorative frieze

image three: the funeral games for patroklos

image four: theseus' crew

image five: the hunting of the calydonian boar

quick recap of the friezes

bottom - battle of pygmies and cranes

jagged tooth pattern

decorative frieze - animals and floral pattern

troilus frieze

wedding of peleus and thetis

funeral games for patroklos

hunting of the calydonian boar

stylistic features

somehow even more labels ?? kleitias wrote 121 labels and we're saying that sophilos liked the written word

we have more highly ornate robes - the patterns are achieved using incision

black-figure technique/era - specific points

incision has been used not just for the patterns on the clothing, but also in an attempt to show musculature of both animals (such as the horses and the calydonian boar) and people (such as the pectoral muscles on the crew members of theseus' ship)

we've got paint here too ! it's mainly used to colour the skin of the women on the pot - we can still see quite a lot of the white paint, although some has flaked off

we're still very silhouette-y and flat, as per the black-figure tradition

parallelism - where the figures are drawn almost entirely overlapping - this is particularly evident in the calydonian boar frieze, where kleitias was attempting to show depth / a 3d effect in the hunters

this is more a general archaic point, but in the battle of the pygmies and cranes, a lot of the men are depicted mid-stride, with both feet flat on the floor. this looks a lot like the kouroi of the era

composition

frieze one - battle of pygmies and cranes

this frieze is not particularly remarkable - we have a lot of repeating figures (like the group of three men on horseback, and there is an abundance of inverted "v" shapes from the legs of the men, horses, and cranes

frieze two - jagged tooth

even less remarkable - a repeated pattern that most people will say draws the eye to the friezes above

frieze three - decorative animals

we've got quite a lot of symmetry here ! the centre of both sides is a floral design, with two mythical creatures facing it on either side

we have more variation in the composition here than other decorative friezes - there are a few individual hunting mini-scenes with animals like lions and panthers

we could comment that this frieze is on a relatively minor position on the pot, demonstrating the attic move away from purely decorative friezes

frieze four - troilus

troilus' label is written in retrograde (backwards), probably to fill space

this frieze reads more like a comic strip than a single scene due to the portrayal of multiple different moments in the story in the same frieze

frieze five - wedding of peleus and thetis

this procession encircles the entire pot in spite of the handles

this is a very important place on the pot - it is the largest frieze and right in the centre

it's very repetitive - it's a lot of people walking

we are missing a massive chunk of it though so there's probably more interesting stuff somewhere

frieze six - funeral games for patroklos

very repetitive composition - lots of chariots and horses, lots of similar labels in the space between the horses' heads. there's also a lot of usage of incongruous items to fill the space underneath each horse

frieze seven - hunting of the calydonian boar // theseus on crete

compositional symmetry - the boar is flanked by balanced pairs of hunters

variety achieved through the differing poses and the use of the fallen hunter and dog (under the boar) to fill the space

repetitive patterns in the positioning of the bodies

much less predictability in the crew members of theseus' ship - nearly every character has an independent pose (including one person who has jumped off the ship and is swimming to the shore

scholarly references

"kleitias was a master story-teller." - woodford

"drawn with delicacy and precision" - woodford

"we are a long way from contemporary corinthian products" - osborne

final thoughts !!

there is so much going on in this pot

i don't hate it !! i think it's definitely done with more care than sophilos, but it feels like there's too much going on for me, especially as there isn't one obviously overarching theme with each of these narratives. if there are any good points to be made about the sophilos pot, you can make them about this pot with much more certainty

it is also important to note it is very damaged and we have a lot of it missing because a random museum guard in 1900 chucked a chair at it and broke it into 638 pieces

[kutxx]

1.

Kleitias (painter), Ergotimos (potter) (Pre-Classical Archaic period)

Francois Vase ((Black-figure pottery)

570 B.C., Florence Museum.

[thesefragilesplendors]

The Francois Vase

[winonaryderscrazyeyes]

The greeks had way too many damn vases.

Francois vase. Ergotimos and Kleitias.