The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23620

Why did soldiers stop fighting, athletes stop competing, and lovers stop having graphic sex in classical Greek art? The scenes depicted on Athenian pottery of the mid-fifth century BC are very different from those of the late sixth century. Did Greek potters have a different world to see—or did they come to see the world differently? In this engagingly written book, Robin Osborne argues that these remarkable changes are the best evidence for the shifting nature of classical Greek culture.

Osborne examines the thousands of surviving Athenian red-figure pots painted between 520 and 440 BC and describes the changing depictions of soldiers and athletes, drinking parties and religious occasions, sexual relations, and scenes of daily life. He shows that it was not changes in each activity that determined how the world was shown, but changes in values and aesthetics.

By demonstrating that changes in artistic style involve choices about what aspects of the world we decide to represent as well as how to represent them, this book rewrites the history of Greek art. By showing that Greeks came to see the world differently over the span of less than a century, it reassesses the history of classical Greece and of Athenian democracy. And by questioning whether art reflects or produces social and political change, it provokes a fresh examination of the role of images in an ever-evolving world.

Winner of the Runciman Award, 2019

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Print publication date February 2018 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780691177670

EISBN 9780300273939

Illustrations 179

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

List of illustrations

Red-figure type A amphora
Red-figure calyx krater
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Late Geometric II pitcher
Proto-Attic Burgon Lebes
Black-figure dinos and stand
Red-figure oinochoe
Kore of Nikandre
Kore of Phrasikleia
Kouros
The Strangford Appollo
Kritios Boy
One side of a base for a kouros
Drinking cup (kylix)
Red-figure pelike
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Reverse of red-figure Nolan amphora
Reverse of red-figure Nolan amphora
Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Red-figure volute krater
Red-figure cup
Panathenaic amphora
Grave stele, of Eupheros, shown as a young athlete, from the Athenian Kerameikos cemetery
Red-figure type A amphora
Red-figure type A amphora
Red-figure type A amphora
Red-figure calyx krater
Terracotta psykter (vase for cooling wine)
Terracotta psykter (vase for cooling wine)
Red-figure hydria
Red-figure cup
Cup, interior
Cup, exterior
Cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting palaistra scenes
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting palaistra scenes
Red-figure cup, exterior
Attic Red-Figure Kylix, exterior
Attic Red-Figure Kylix, exterior
Attic Red-Figure Kylix, interior
Red-figure cup (Kylix)
Red-figure cup (Kylix)
Red-figure cup (Kylix)
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting pentathletes
Red-Figure Kylix
Diadoumenos Vaison
Black-figure amphora
Black-figure amphora
Black-figure amphora
Black-figure amphora
Kylix
Column krater
Red-figure calyx krater
Black-figure interior of a red-figure cup
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Attic red-figure stemmed pottery cup depicting a battle scene
Pitcher (oinochoe) with Greek warrior attacking Persian archer
Attic Kylix of the Brygos Painter
Attic Kylix of the Brygos Painter
Red-figure lekythos
Drinking cup (kylix)
Drinking cup (kylix)
Red-figure pelike
Red-figure pelike
Black-figure cup
Black-figure cup
Black-figure amphora
Black-figure amphora
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Kylix (Drinking Vessel) with Woman Sacrificing
Kylix (Drinking Vessel) with Woman Sacrificing
Attic Red-Figure Cup
Attic red-figure pottery stemmed cup depicting an erotic scene
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure pelike
Red-figure bell-krater
Red-figure oinochoe
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Drinking cup (kylix) with women and a youth draping themselves with mantles, interior
Drinking cup (kylix) with women and a youth draping themselves with mantles, exterior
Drinking cup (kylix) with women and a youth draping themselves with mantles, exterior
Terracotta lebes gamikos
Two-handled jar (amphora) with a libation scene
Kylix (Drinking Vessel) with Woman Sacrificing
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure oinochoe
Red-figure oinochoe
Red-figure oinochoe
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)
Kylix (drinking cup): Woman Pouring a Libation at an Altar
Red-figure cup, interior
Bell-krater, exterior
Terracotta hydria: kalpis (water jar)
Red-figure hydria
Red-figure hydria
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure amphora
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure amphora
Red-figure amphora
Attic Red-Figure Cup
Attic Red-Figure Cup
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Column Krater Depicting Symposiasts and a Satyr Dancing with Youths
Bell-krater, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure pelike, exterior
Red-figure cup, interior
Red-figure cup, exterior
Red-figure bell-krater, exterior
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting a reveler (interior) and satyrs attacking maenads (exterior)
Drinking cup (kylix) depicting a reveler (interior) and satyrs attacking maenads (exterior)
Pitcher (oinochoe) with satyrs and a sleeping maenad
Red-figure cup, exterior
Trefoil-mouth oinochoe
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Red-figure cup
Red figure oinochoe
Red-figure bell-krater, exterior
Red-figure calyx krater
Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Red-figure cup, interior
One side of a base for a kouros
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure Nolan amphora
The Westmacott athlete
The Tyrannicides
Red-figure stamnos
Red-figure amphora
Red-figure amphora
Red-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Warrior Cutting Hair
Mixing bowl (bell krater) with the death of Aktaion and a pursuit scene
Apollo from the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia
Centaur and lapith from the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia
Athena receives the Stymphalian birds from Herakles, metope from west frieze of temple of Zeus at Olympia
Ludovisi Throne, front
Ludovisi Throne, side
Ludovisi Throne, side
Zeus
Warrior A
Warrior B
Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens
Grave stele
Stele of Dexileos
The Seer from the west pediment at Olympia
Study (Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea)
Athenian cup with male athletes, interior

Free

Contents

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Contents

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23621

Free

List of Figures

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Figures

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23622

Free

Abbreviations

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Abbreviations

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23624

Free

Preface

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~The pots painted in Athens in the middle of the fifth century BC depict different scenes from those painted at the end of the sixth century and depict them in a different way. This fact is so well known to scholars that it is taken for granted. In this book, I look more closely at what changes, and in particular at the changes in the scenes depicted,...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23625

Free

PART I

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Section I

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23626

1. The Art of Transformation

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

We all expect that is it possible to recognize the age to which a work of art belongs. We expect those who know anything about painting to be able to tell the difference between a seventeenth-century portrait and an eighteenth-century portrait...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.3-25

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.1

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23627

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensVases, Red-figuredKoraiAthens (Greece)--CivilizationPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

2. Athenian Pottery and Athenian Culture

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, study of Athenian painted pottery was dominated by the question of where the pots were made. Recovered in large numbers from Italian graves, the black- and red-figure pots...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.26-50

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.2

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23628

Chapter subject tags:Athens (Greece)--HistoryVase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensEtruscan influencesVases, Red-figuredPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Free

PART II

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Section II

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23629

3. Changing in the Gymnasium

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~Greek history begins, traditionally, with athletics. The date calculated in antiquity for the first Olympic games, 776 BC, has been held to divide prehistory from history.For how this date...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.53-86

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.3

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23630

Chapter subject tags:Athens (Greece)--HistoryVase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensGymnasiums--GreeceRed-figured drinking cupsPottery, GreekAthletics--Greece

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

4. Changing the Guard

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Kleisthenes’s reforms to Athens’s political organization also transformed Athenians’ experience of warfare. Athenian tradition told of a number of military engagements during the sixth century, but we know...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.87-121

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.4

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23631

Chapter subject tags:Athens (Greece)--HistoryGreece--History, MilitaryVase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensVases, Black-figuredPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

5. Courting Change

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~In the two previous chapters of this book I showed how the choice of scenes of athletes and warriors painted on Athenian pots changed markedly between what might broadly be called “archaic” and “classical” red-figure pot painting, between what was painted prior to the Persian War period and what was painted in the middle of the fifth...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.122-150

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.5

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23632

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensRed-figured drinking cupsPottery, GreekSexual intercourse in artWomen and gender, Ancient--GreeceHomosexuality in art

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

6. Sacrificing Change

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~The gods loomed large in ancient Greek life. This was true in terms of the time and energy that were devoted to their worship and in terms of the degree to which human life could be thought to be determined by the gods. A very large amount of Greek poetry either concerned the gods or was produced for performance at festivals of the gods. Historians, even...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.151-167

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.6

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23633

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensLibations in artAnimal sacrifice in artGods, Greek, in artPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

7. Drinking to and Reveling in Change

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~Containers for transporting wine and water (amphoras, hydrias), for mixing them (kraters, dinoi), for transferring the mixed wine and...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.168-187

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.7

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23634

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensRed-figured drinking cupsPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

8. The Changing City of Satyrs

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~There never were any satyrs. There were hardly even any stories about satyrs. Yet satyrs uniquely populated a whole dramatic genre, the satyr play, and made their way onto thousands more Athenian pots...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.188-204

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.8

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23635

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensSatyrs (Greek mythology) in artDionysus (Greek deityPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

Free

PART III

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

Section III

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23636

9. Morality, Politics, and Aesthetics

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~It would be no small shock to discover that what was being done and made in a society at one moment was identical to what had been done and made there fifty years earlier. Change in itself needs no explanation. Human societies are made up of individuals, not of clones, and individuals learn something, at least, from their particular experiences. It is not change...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.207-227

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.9

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23637

Chapter subject tags:Vase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensEthics--GreeceAthens (Greece)--Politics and governmentAesthetics, ClassicalPottery, Greek

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

10. The Road Not Taken

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~The account that I gave in chapters 3 to 8 of the changing imagery of war, athletics, sexual relations, relations with the gods, drinking parties and reveling, and of satyrs was a broad-brush...

Author

Chapter subject tags:Sculpture, GreekTheater--GreeceCritius (Sculptor), active 5th century B.C.Pottery, GreekTemple of Zeus (Olympia, Greece)Relief (Sculpture), GreekParthenon (Athens, Greece)Sculpture, ClassicalStele (Archaeology)--GreeceFuneral rites and ceremonies--Greece

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.228-248

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.10

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23638

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.

11. The Transformation of Art

The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece

~This book has tried to substantiate two claims, one in relation to art history and one in relation to Greek history. The big claim in relation to art history is that style and subject matter cannot be treated separately. What artists observe and record and how they observe and record are intimately linked. In particular, to tell and explain the story of what...

Author

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.249-257

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00355.11

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23639

Chapter subject tags:Art, ClassicalAthens (Greece)--HistoryAthens (Greece)--CivilizationAesthetics, ClassicalVase-painting, Greek--Greece--AthensPottery, GreekArt and philosophy

Access to this content is only available to subscribers. If you are at an institution that currently subscribes to the A&AePortal, please login to your VPN before accessing the site. If you have already purchased an individual subscription, please sign in to your account to access the content. Learn more about subscriptions.