
The Pisticci Painter was a vase painter who lived in the second half of the 5th century BC. Many of his artistic works were discovered in
Pisticci
Pisticci ( Metapontino: ; ) is a town comune in the province of Matera, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata.
Pisticci is the fourth most populous town in the region and the most populous in the province after Matera. It is known for being ...
, a small town a few kilometers from
Metaponto
Metaponto is a small town of about 1,000 people in the province of Matera, Basilicata, Italy. Administratively it is a frazione of Bernalda.
History
The town was built by the ancient Greeks to defend Sybaris from the growth of Taranto. A 1&nbs ...
,
Lucania
Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy, corresponding to the modern-day region of Basilicata. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. It bordered with Samnium and ...
, Italy.
Ceramics of typically Attic taste began to be produced in the colonies of
Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...
toward the end of the 5th century BC. It is thought that the founders of those workshops were vase painters trained and educated in
Attica
Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...
. The political instability of the time in Athens very likely determined the migrations of those painters to the Magna Graecia colonies. Since the work of the Pisticci Painter can be related on the basis of stylistic characteristics to the school of
Polygnotus
Polygnotus (; ''Polygnotos'') was an ancient Greek painter from the middle of the 5th century BC. Life
He was the son and pupil of Aglaophon. He was a native of Thasos but was adopted by the Athenians and admitted to their citizenship.
Dur ...
, it may be supposed that he trained in
Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
with that artist.
The Pisticci Painter is considered the father of the Lucanian workshop, which is the oldest of the
Italiot workshops (the beginning of its activity is placed between 440 and 430 BC). The Pisticci Painter would therefore be the first master of
red-figure pottery
Red-figure pottery () is a style of Pottery of ancient Greece, ancient Greek pottery in which the background of the pottery is painted black while the figures and details are left in the natural red or orange color of the clay.
It developed in A ...
to have worked in Italy. His workshop also included other vase painters including the
Cyclops Painter, the
Amycus Painter, and the "PKP group" (the
Palermo Painter, the
Carnea Painter and the
Policoro Painter). The discovery alongside the northern walls of the city of
Metapontum
Metapontum or Metapontium () was an ancient city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Taranto, Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus (modern Basento). It was distant about 20 km from Heraclea (Lucania), Heraclea and 40 ...
of
kiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...
waste containing fragments of vases decorated by other painters who belonged to the Lucanian workshop suggests that the Pisticci Painter operated in this important
Achaea
Achaea () or Achaia (), sometimes transliterated from Greek language, Greek as Akhaia (, ''Akhaḯa'', ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Western Greece and is situated in the northwest ...
n colony.
The Pisticci Painter's depictions show an exquisitely Attic taste in both the choice of themes and the techniques employed. The scenes he most commonly painted are pursuit scenes (
Eros
Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite.
He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...
pursuing female or male figures,
Eos
In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Eos (; Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek ''Ēṓs'', Attic Greek, Attic ''Héōs'', "dawn", or ; Aeolic Greek, Aeolic ''Aúōs'', Doric Greek, Doric ''Āṓs'') is the go ...
pursuing
Kephalos
Cephalus or Kephalos (; ) is the son of Hermes, husband of Eos and a hero-figure in Greek mythology. Cephalus carried as a theophoric name by historical persons. The root of this name is , meaning "head".
Mythological
* Cephalus, son of Hermes an ...
or
Tithonos
In Greek mythology, Tithonus ( or ; ) was the lover of Eos, Goddess of the Dawn. He was a prince of Troy, the son of King Laomedon by the Naiad Strymo (). The mythology reflected by the fifth-century vase-painters of Athens envisaged Tithonus a ...
,
Boreas
Boreas (, , , , ; also , ) is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter. Although he was normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a northeast wind, equivalent to th ...
pursuing
Orithyia
In Greek mythology, Orithyia or Oreithyia (; ; ) was the name of the following women:
*Orithyia or Orythya, the Nereid of raging seas and one of the 50 marine-nymph daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. She and he ...
),
Dyonisiac scenes with
maenad
In Greek mythology, maenads (; ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of his retinue, the '' thiasus''.
Their name, which comes from μαίνομαι (''maínomai'', “to rave, to be mad; to rage, to be angr ...
s and
satyr
In Greek mythology, a satyr (, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( ), and sileni (plural), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. ...
s, scenes of the departure of warriors, athletes, oblations near
herm
Herm (Guernésiais: , ultimately from Old Norse 'arm', due to the shape of the island, or Old French 'hermit') is one of the -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, ...
s, and mythological scenes (
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god cooperated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name—inscribed against her figure on a white-ground '' ky ...
,
Io,
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Zeus is the child ...
and
Aegina
Aegina (; ; ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina (mythology), Aegina, the mother of the mythological hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king.
...
,
Polynices
In Greek mythology, Polynices (also Polyneices) (; ) was the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia and the older brother of Eteocles. When Oedipus was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, Oedipus was expelled ...
and
Eriphyle
Eriphyle (; ) was a figure in Greek mythology who, in exchange for the Necklace of Harmonia (also called the Necklace of Eriphyle) given to her by Polynices, persuaded her husband Amphiaraus to join the doomed expedition of the Seven against Theb ...
, the
Laocoön
Laocoön (; , , gen.: ) is a figure in Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology and the Epic Cycle.
Laocoön is a Troy, Trojan priest. He and his two young sons are attacked by giant serpents sent by the gods when Laocoön argued against bri ...
).
The works of this artist are included in the most prestigious collections of the world (the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
, the
Hermitage, the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 work ...
, the
Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...
, the
National Archeological Museum in Naples, and the
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums (; ) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the best-known Roman sculptures and ...
).
[Hurschmann, "Lukanische Vasen", in: ''DNP'' 7 (1999), col. 491]
References
External links
*
Terracotta bell-krater at the Metropolitan Museum of ArtPitcher at the Getty MuseumPelike sold by Christies
{{Authority control
Ancient Greek vase painters
Anonymous artists of antiquity
Year of birth unknown