Volute Krater by the Berlin Painter

British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Where: Room 15 of Level 0 of the British Museum
When: Probably between 490 BC and 460 BC
What do you see? A monumental vase with two mythological scenes painted on the upper part, the neck. The vase is a masterpiece of the red-figure technique and one of the iconic examples of Athenian pottery. The shape of this vase is called a volute krater (named after the spiral handles resembling the volutes of the Ionian columns).

• Side A – Achilles and Memnon: On one side is the fight between Achilles and the Ethiopian king, Memnon—the brother of Priam, the last king of Troy. Watching it are Thetis (Achilles’ mother, goddess of water) and Eos (Memnon’s mother, goddess of the dawn). Achilles is charging at Memnon from the left -- traditionally the victor’s side -- holding the spear made of Pelian ash (it came from the ash tree at Mount Pelion).
  
  Memnon defends himself with a sword in his right hand while another one is at his left side (which is a peculiar detail of the image). Eos, at distance behind him, has stretched out her arms as if pulling her hair out; her lips are open in a cry as she is about to lose her son. 

Side A of the Volute Krater - British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

• Side B – Achilles and Hector: On the other side of the vase is another fight. This one is between Achilles (on the left) and Hector (on the right). On the far left, is Athena, the divine patroness of Achilles, the goddess of war and guardian of Athens. On the far right, behind Hector, is Apollo, who fought on the side of the Trojans. Notably, Apollo seems to be moving away from his protégée, and his raised hand holding the arrow seems to be the gesture of farewell. He knew Hector was doomed to die.
  
  ​Although Hector, the greatest fighter of Troy, will lose this fight to Achilles, soon after that Apollo will provide vengeance. He will guide the arrow shot by Paris to Achilles’ heel causing his death. Thus, the farewell was real, the arrow was symbolic. Apollo, indeed, was abandoning Hector, but the arrow in his hand foretold the way Hector’s defeater would soon lose his life.

Side B of the Volute Krater - British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

• Rest of the vase: The entire narrative is contained in one circular frieze, which the painter placed on the lower portion of the neck of the vase. The remaining part of the vessel, besides the complex decorative band patterns, remains black. The decorative bands separating the scenes from the rest of the vessel are the meticulously reoccurring palmettes and the buds of lotus. They form a chain on the upper portion of the neck. The line with tongue pattern adorns the narrow area above the foot of the vase.
  
  The lip of the vase features the signature decorative band pattern of the Berlin Painter, the ULFA pattern (from “upper, lower, facing alternately”). It is a complex combination of a stopt key alternating with the saltire squares (sometimes also with crosses, or meanders). The krater’s handles, beautifully ornamented with the black ivy pattern, complete the details.
  
  The overall effect is the magnificence of the imagery and the technique with which it was achieved. It is the vessel of depth and mystery, the meeting place of the two worlds: the divine is intertwined with the mortal. 

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Background: This vase is one of the early works of the Berlin Painter. Carol Moon Cardon situates it in the second group of vases from his early period, falling between 500-490 B.C.  The timeframes are often tentative, depending on the source or criteria by which scholars assign them. More generally, its place in art history falls into the Late Archaic period (circa 500 to 470 B.C.) There are four preserved volute kraters by the Berlin Painter, all in the red-figure technique.
 
The London krater is unique for a variety of reasons; its architectural design resembling the temple is among the most prominent of those. The fact that the painter decided to leave the entire belly of the vase black while placing the narrative and ornamentation on its extremes speaks of his highly sophisticated approach to design and the interpretative role he attached to imagery. 

​Red-figure technique: The red-figure painting technique appeared in Athens around 520 B.C. in what is known as the Pioneers’ Group—possibly the longest lasting and most influential red-figure workshop known. The Berlin Painter was possibly the student of one of the three most important of the Pioneers, Phintias. Prior to that, until about the second half of the sixth century B.C., the world of the vase painting was dominated by the black-figure technique.
 
The red-figure technique was actually simpler than the black-figure technique. The main principle in both was the skillful regulation of the flame and oxygen flow through the oven where the vases were fired to assure the proper oxidization of iron, which, in turn, allowed the painter to achieve the desired color. The black-figure technique rested, in principle, on adding varnish to the pre-contoured shapes on the surface of the vase to create fully developed objects and figures, which turned black upon firing; the red-figure technique was the reversal of the process.
 
Who is the Berlin Painter? Very little is known about the Berlin Painter in terms of the biographical information. It was not common for the vase painters to sign their names at that time. Interestingly, the Berlin Painter inscribed the names of his characters on the London krater. And yet, we do not even know his real name since none of the works attributed to him indicates it.
 
The nickname “The Berlin Painter” was given to him by the prolific scholar, Sir John Beazley, who attributed the makers of some 30 thousand items of Athenian ceramics. The nickname is based on the amphora located in Antikensammlung in Berlin, excavated in the Etruscan city, Vulci. This amphora served as the “mother-work” of the Berlin Painter--the vase to which other found works and fragments were compared in terms of stylistic details, resulting in matching them to the hands of one maker. 
 
Some of the stylistic details of the Berlin Painter, which revolutionized the red-figure technique, include:

• His design. He avoided the “crowded” scenes on vases and often placed just one figure per side,
• His style included a distinct use of the relief lines to depict certain features (like the nose, eye, fold of the drapery, but seldom to define contours). Sir Beazley described them almost poetically as “a wiry line that stands up from the surface of the vase, can be felt with finger, and looked at closely is seen to be composed of two ridges that stand up with a furrow between…”
• The diluted glaze the Berlin Painter frequently relied on to render musculature in general).
• There are also many features of detailed human anatomy, like ankles, chest, abdominals, which the Berlin Painter rendered in a distinct manner.
• He "grounded" the figures; the characters on the Berlin Painter's vases were no longer "floating," but felt connected to some foundation, even if invisible. Sometimes it was an actual line, and sometimes a boundary of different dimension. ​

 
What we know about him as a person, we can only guess from the themes he chose for his imagery; he was fond of animals and nature, probably liked poetry and city festivals and, of course, gave homage to the gods. He avoided the otherwise common themes of bloody combats and gory scenes, or those of debauchery and drunkenness. Even his depictions of satyrs seemed to emphasize their human nature over the animalistic. The Berlin Painter just seems like a mellow, content man.
 
Other works by The Berlin Painter: In 1911, Beazley assigned 38 vases to the Berlin Painter (“master of the Berlin amphora”) and outlined the characteristics of the Berlin Painter’s renderings. His drawing style was described in 1922 and by 1925 there were already 148 vases attributed to the artist. As of today, over 400 works of pottery and fragments are attributed to the Berlin Painter. Because of their masterful artistry, they are highly appreciated and sought by the world’s museums. In the Gregorian Etruscan Museum in the Vatican Museums, there is the beautiful hydria with Apollo sitting on the winged tripod, playing the lyre, as two dolphins below make their way back into waters.
 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has 13 vessels. Among them is another hydria, featuring Achilles slaying Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons. This museum has arguably one of the most exquisite of all vases by the Berlin Painter, the type C amphora with the beautiful walking-singing citharode—youth playing the kithara—on one side and the contest judge on the other side. The Louvre has the largest collection of his vases, for a total of 36. The only cup known to be painted by this artist (although debates over the attribution continue) is in the Agora Museum in Athens. It is called the Gorgos Cup, after the potter Gorgos, who provided the vessel to be decorated. The name "Gorgos" as the maker of the vessel is inscribed on the cup. While some painters were also potters of the vases they worked with (and it is possible the Berlin Painter was among them in some instances), the transition from potter to painter was not at all automatic.
 
There are also the Panathenaic amphorae painted by the Berlin Painter. Those were the vases that were filled with olive oil and given as prizes to winners of the Panathenaic Games. They were always traditionally done in the black-figure technique. Only highly esteemed painters were commissioned to provide those. Out of 21 vases painted by the Berlin Painter in the black-figure technique, possibly only two are not the Panathenaic amphorae (a fragmented amphora Type A in New York and a hydria in Frankfurt).

While vases, in general, were popular in antiquity and were given as burial offerings to go with the departed close ones, only the wealthy could afford to have a vase decorated by, say, the Berlin Painter or other artists of high esteem. The amphorae given to victors of the games were a sign of the prestige of the artist whom they were commissioned to.

Terracotta Amphora - Type C - by the Berlin Painter in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Attic Red-Figure Bell-Krater by the Berlin Painter

​Legacy: There were three immediate students of the Berlin Painter, who were all very important and painted a large number of vessels: The Providence Painter, Hermonax and The Achilles Painter. The last of them, along with his own student, the Phiale Painter, closed the workshop of the Berlin Painter in 425. Although the workshop closed, many features of the Berlin Painter’s innovative style remained with generations of vase painters. 
 
The students of the Berlin Painter and other followers who came even later into the vase painting world (the Harrow Painter, the Tithonos Painter, the Painter of the Yale Lekythos, Alkimachos Painter, just to name a few) carried on the legacy of the master by either adopting his ornamentation style, features of the design (the “less is more” on the vase), or took up shapes which were not popular among the red-figure artists before the Berlin Painter.
 
The Berlin Painter was not only the master of the already existing technique but developed it as well as expanded the repertoire of shapes which began to be painted in the red-figure technique. He was not just the master of his technique but a thinker and inventor.

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Written by Xavier Talvela
 
References:

• Boardman, J. 1975. Athenian Red Figure Vases. The Archaic Period. New York: Oxford University Press. 
• British Museum - Volute Krater
• Cardon C. 1977. “The Berlin Painter and His School.” Ph.D. diss., New York University.
• Kurtz, D.C. 1983. “Gorgos’ Cup: An Essay in Connoisseurship.” JHS 103: 68-86.
• Louvre - Attic Red-Figure Bell-Krater
• Metropolitan Museum of Art - Terracotta amphora (jar)
• Moore, M. 2006. “Satyrs by the Berlin Painter and New Interpretation of His Namepiece.” AntK 49: 17-28.
• Padgett, M.J. 2017. The Berlin Painter and His World. Princeton University Art Museum.
• Talvela, X. 2019. “The Berlin Painter: Metaphysics of Vase Painting and Reattribution of the Gorgos Cup.” M.A. Thesis, Wayne State University. 

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