Exekias (, Exēkías) was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter who was active in Athens between roughly 545 BC and 530 BC.John Boardman, "Exekias," American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978): 13. Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of scenes using a clay slip that fired to black, with details created through incision. Exekias is regarded by art historians as an artistic visionary whose masterful use of incision and psychologically sensitive compositions mark him as one of the greatest of all Attic vase painters.John Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases: A Handbook (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 52. The Andokides painter and the Lysippides Painter are thought to have been students of Exekias.Evelyn Elizabeth Bell, “An Exekian Puzzle in Portland: Further Light on the Relationship between Exekias and Group E,” in Ancient Greek and Art Iconography, ed. Warren G. Moon (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press), 85. Regarding Exekias' relationship to the Lysippides painter see J.D. Beazley,Greek Vases: Lectures by J.D. Beazley, ed. Donna Kurtz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 9.
Background The works of Exekias are distinguished by their innovative compositions, precise draughtsmanship, and subtle psychological characterization, all of which transcend the inherent challenges of the black-figure technique. John Boardman, the eminent historian of Greek art, described Exekias' style as follows: "The hallmark of his style is a near statuesque dignity which brings vase painting for the first time close to claiming a place as a major art."Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases: A Handbook, 57. He was an innovative painter and potter, who experimented with new shapes and devised unusual painting techniques, such as the use of a coral-red slip, to enhance colour.
Fourteen signed works by Exekias have survived, while many more have been attributed to him based on the stylistic connoisseurship method developed by John Beazley.J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978), 143-49. See also J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black Figure Vase Painters and to Attic Red Figure Vase Painters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 59-62; Thomas H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV, and Paralipomena (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 39-42. A total of 32 vases are attributed to Exekias as painter in the most recent study, E.A. Mackay, Tradition and Originality: A Study of Exekias (Oxford: BAR, 2010). His signed pieces provide insight not only into the work of Exekias himself but also into the way ancient pottery workshops operated. Twelve of the fourteen vessels bearing his name refer to him not as their painter but as their potter, by adding the word epoíēsen (ἐποίησεν) to his name.J.D. Beazley, “Exekias,” The Development of Attic Black-Figure (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951; 1986), 58. This may be translated as "Exekias made [me]", in contrast to égrapsen (ἓγραψεν), which translates as "painted [me]" (literally: "drew [me]").John Boardman, The History of Greek Vases (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001) 128-30. On two amphorae, Berlin 1720 and Vatican 344, both terms are used in the iambic trimeter inscription, Exēkías égrapse kapoíēsé me ("Exekias made and painted me"), indicating that in these cases Exekias was responsible for both the potting of the vase and its painted decoration.Beazley, The Development of Attic Black Figure, 59-60. Fragments of a third amphora (Taranto 179196) also show the use of both terms, when the inscriptions are restored.Mackay, Tradition and Originality: A Study of Exekias, 135-136. This leads to speculation regarding the meaning of the epoíēsen signatures and why, in some instances, Exekias signed only as potter on vases that he clearly painted as well. It has been suggested that he chose to sign as painter only the works he was particularly proud of. According to a different approach, Exekias' epoíēsen signatures could be understood as functioning as a general workshop stamp, which would mean that Exekias may have simply been the master-potter who supervised the production of the vessel.R.M. Cook, “‘Epoiesen on Greek Vases,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 91 (1971): 137-38. Seven of the vessels signed "Exēkias epoíēsen," however, carry too little decoration to afford comparison. Only two of the remaining vases signed with epoíēsen can be attributed to the same hand as those signed "... égrapse kapoíēsé me"—that is, to the painter Exekias. Beazley attributed one of the vases with the potter-only signature to the so-called Group E, to which Exekias is closely related.Beazley, Athenian Black-Figure Vase-Painters, 136, no. 49; 143.
While Exekias' work itself offers a glimpse of the culture of ancient pottery, the find spots of his vases also reveal information about the market in which Exekias positioned himself. Fragments of column krater and a hydria attributed to Exekias were excavated on the Athenian Acropolis, suggesting that Exekias maintained a clientele in his home city. The fact that two of his vases were found on the Acropolis, an important religious sanctuary, underscores his prestige as a vase painter.Oscar Broneer, “A Calyx-Krater by Exekias,” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 6 (1937): 469-86; Mary B. Moore, “Athena and Herakles on Exekias’ Calyx-Krater,” American Journal of Archaeology 90 (1986): 35-39; Mackay, Tradition and Originality: A Study of Exekias, 47, 309. Exekias not only enjoyed a thriving market in Athens; many of his extant vases were also exported to Etruria, Italy, found at sites such as Vulci and Orvieto, where they were buried in Etruscan tombs.Beth Cohen, “The Literate Potter: A Tradition of Incised Signatures on Attic Vases,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 26 (1991): 57. Being admirers of Greeks and their arts and letters, the Etruscans developed a taste for Greek vases, over 30,000 of which have been found in the region.Robin Osborne, “Why did Athenian Pots Appeal to the Etruscans?” World Archaeology 33 (2001): 277. The presence of Exekias' work in Etruria indicates that foreigners also admired his vases, and that he catered to markets both at home and abroad.Beazley Archives, accessed
Group E In the words of Beazley, Group E is "the soil from which the art of Exekias springs, the tradition which on his way from fine craftsman to true artist he absorbs and transcends.”Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, 133. Based on the overarching stylistic similarities between the work of Group E and Exekias, Beazley hypothesized that Exekias first began his career in the workshop of the so-called Group E artists. "Group E" produced work that is not only considered closely related to the work of Exekias, but also represents a conscious break from the pottery traditions of the first half of the sixth century BC. Group E has been credited with the development of new, elegant vessel shapes such as the "Type A amphora". Exekias, however, is the only member of the Group who signed his products which suggests that Exekias may have been responsible for the development of such vessel shapes as the Type A cup, the Type A belly amphora and the calyx krater.Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases, 56-57. Apart from the specialization in certain vessel shapes, the Group E artists also shared a common range of subjects: the birth of Athena, Theseus fighting the Minotaur, Herakles fighting the Nemean Lion, and Herakles and the three-bodied Geryon, are among the themes most often pictured on vases by this group.
Vessel shapes
Exekias does not seem to have specialized in a specific vessel type. Among the vases made or decorated by him are neck amphorae, Type A and B amphorae, calyx kraters, column kraters, Type A cups, dinoi, hydriai, and at least one Panathenaic amphora. Probably his most unusual work is represented by two series of funerary plaques found in Athens (Berlin Antikensammlung 1811, 1814). The plaques, showing the funerary ritual for a deceased man, were probably attached to the walls of a funerary monument.John Boardman,"Painted Funerary Plaques and Some Remarks on Prothesis," The Annual of the British School at Athens 50 (1955): 51-66.
Themes
In his vase paintings, Exekias does not only reinterpret the mythological traditions of his time, but at times even sets new fashions. One of his most famous works is the so-called "Dionysus Cup", a kylix now in Munich (Antikensammlung 2044). The kylix falls into the "eye-cup" category and is decorated on the exterior with two pairs of eyes, which may be an original Exekian motif. The interior shows a depiction of the god Dionysos against a background of coral-red slip, which coats the entire picture space. Here, Exekias uses the tondo as a working surface for the main scenario: Dionysus was the god of inspiration, and the painting depicts his initial journey to Athens by ship. Pirates had seized the ship and were planning, perhaps, to sell Dionysus into slavery. Instead, the god caused vines to grow from the mast, frightening the pirates so much that they jumped overboard and were changed into dolphins, here seen swimming around the ship. Exekias is the first Athenian vase painter to depict Dionysus sailing in the expanse of the interior of a cup.Boardman, Athenian Black Figures Vases, 57. While many of Exekias' pieces display an image from a mythological story they are generally not the most famous moments. The "Eye-cup" that depicts Dionysus does not show the God fighting his kidnappers but instead shows him relaxing in his boat with his kidnappers turned into dolphins around him. Exekias could have chosen any moment, but this is the one he painted.