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The Sisyphus Painter was an 
His early work includes a variety of bell ''kraters'', usually decorated with three figures. He mainly painted scenes of everyday life or dionysiac scenes. On the backs he always painted two or three cloaked youths. Towards the later phase of his activity, the quality of his work deteriorated, many of his late paintings appear very stereotypical, the faces rounder, their features coarser. His range of subjects also turns less and less imaginative, limited almost entirely to youths, warriors and women.
It is suggested that the Sisyphus Painter was influenced by some
Works at the Getty MuseumVase at the V&A Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sisyphus Painter 5th-century BC births 4th-century BC deaths Ancient Greek vase painters Anonymous artists of antiquity People from Apulia
Apulia
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n red-figure
Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting.
It developed in Athens around 520 BCE and remained in use until the late 3rd century BCE. It replaced the previously dominant style of black-figure va ...
vase painter
Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has ex ...
. His works are dated to the last two decades of the fifth century and the very early fourth century BC.
The Sisyphus Painter is only known by this conventional name, as his true name remains unknown. He is one of the most influential painters in the Apulian vase painting tradition, and thus in all South Italian
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, states = Italy
, region = Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Marche, Molise
, ethnicity = ''Mezzogiorno'' Ethnic Italians
, speakers = 5.7 million
, dat ...
vase painting. His conventional name is derived from the inscription on the heart-shaped gift held by a youth as part of the depiction of a wedding on one of his volute ''kraters''. He follows the tradition of the Painter of the Berlin Dancing Girl in whose workshop he is assumed to have started. Arthur Dale Trendall
Arthur Dale Trendall, (28 March 1909 – 13 November 1995) was a New Zealand art historian and classical archaeologist whose work on identifying the work of individual artists on Greek ceramic vessels at Apulia and other sites earned him in ...
described the Sisyphus Painter as "probably the dominant artist of the Taras
Taras may refer to:
Geography
* Taras (ancient city) of Magna Graecia, modern-day Taranto
* Taras, Iran, a village in Tehran province
* Taras, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland
* Taraš, a village in Vojvodina, Serbia
* Taras, Kazakhstan, a village in ...
School".Trendall, S. 29 Nonetheless, the quality of his works is uneven. Especially on larger vases he showed his quality as a painter of heads, often depicted in a three-quarter profile.
His early work includes a variety of bell ''kraters'', usually decorated with three figures. He mainly painted scenes of everyday life or dionysiac scenes. On the backs he always painted two or three cloaked youths. Towards the later phase of his activity, the quality of his work deteriorated, many of his late paintings appear very stereotypical, the faces rounder, their features coarser. His range of subjects also turns less and less imaginative, limited almost entirely to youths, warriors and women.
It is suggested that the Sisyphus Painter was influenced by some Attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
artists, namely the Dwarf Painter and the Kodros Painter. There are also some similarities between his work and that of Polion. The Sisyphus Painter stands at the starting point of both main currents of later Apulian vase painting: on the one hand the "Plain Style", with simple figural compositions on smaller vessels, on the other hand the "Ornate Style" with large vases depicting scenes connected with funerary rituals and grave cult. Some other important Apulian painters were closely connected with him, e.g. the Hearst Painter. The Tarporley Painter was his pupil and successor at his workshop.
Bibliography
*Arthur Dale Trendall
Arthur Dale Trendall, (28 March 1909 – 13 November 1995) was a New Zealand art historian and classical archaeologist whose work on identifying the work of individual artists on Greek ceramic vessels at Apulia and other sites earned him in ...
: ''Rotfigurige Vasen aus Unteritalien und Sizilien. Ein Handbuch.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1991 (Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt, Vol. 47), besonders S. 29 bis 35
References
External links
Works at the Getty Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sisyphus Painter 5th-century BC births 4th-century BC deaths Ancient Greek vase painters Anonymous artists of antiquity People from Apulia