Comparable with the Painter of Berlin A 34 - ABV 1 bottom - four swans - spiral hooks - Athens NM 993 - 01

The Painter of Berlin A 34 was a

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 ...

during the pioneering period of

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 ...

black-figure pottery Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are ...

. His real name is unknown, his conventional name derived from his

name vase In classical archaeology, a name vase is a specific "vase"In the study of ancient Greek pottery a "vase" is a general term covering all pottery shapes. whose painter's name is unknown but whose workshop style has been identified. The painter is co ...

in the

Antikensammlung Berlin The Antikensammlung Berlin (Berlin antiquities collection) is one of the most important collections of classical art in the world, now held in the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It contains thousands of ancient archaeological ...

. He is the first individual vase painter of the style in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

recognised by scholarship. His works are dated to ''circa'' 630 BC. Two of his vases were discovered in

Aegina Aegina (; el, Αίγινα, ''Aígina'' ; grc, Αἴγῑνα) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of the hero Aeacus, who was born on the island an ...

. Since the 19th century, those pieces were on display in Berlin, but they disappeared or were destroyed during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The artist is considered one of the best representatives of Protoattic vase painting. Following ancient tradition, he executed the faces of his figures as silhouette drawings. Their clothing, as well as decorative rosettes were applied in red and white paint. He used orientalising zigzag patterns and rosettes. On some of his vases, instead of using the conventional silhouette technique, he applied white paint directly onto a black slip base. His ornamentation is uniform and resembles contemporary Corinthian vases. His activity probably ceased by 620 BC, as no further vases by him are known. Although he is generally considered a pioneer, the breakthrough of the black-figure technique in Athens was probably achieved only by his successors. The human figures by the Painter of Berlin A 34 are within the pre-black figure (

Geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

and Orientalising) vase-painting traditions, but his animals are strongly influenced by contemporary works from

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part ...

, although they appear more stiff and strict. His

, ''Berlin A 34'', depicts a procession of several women, which is why he was initially also called the

Women Painter A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as " women's rights" to denote female humans regar ...

, a conventional name now given to an Attic painter of the red-figure style.

Works

* Berlin, Antikensammlung : Krater A 34 * Athens, Kerameikos-Museum : Krater 130; Skyphos-Krater 801

Bibliography

* John D. Beazley: ''Attic Black-figure Vase-painters''. Oxford 1956, p. 1. * John Boardman: ''Schwarzfigurige Vasen aus Athen. Ein Handbuch'', von Zabern, 4. edn. Mainz 1994 , p. 16.

External links

The name vase
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berlin A 34, Painter of Ancient Greek vase painters 7th-century BC painters