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 ...

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 ...

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