Making the Ordered Cosmos: The Gigantomachy in Archaic and Classical Athenian Vase Painting Restricted; Files Only

Stratman, Julianne (Spring 2020)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/2514nm49h?locale=en
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Abstract

In the mythological battle to establish order over chaos, the Olympian gods prevailed over the

Giants. The Athenians celebrated the divine triumph in their most important religious festival,

the Panathenaia. The earliest known representations of this epic struggle, known as the

Gigantomachy, appear on Athenian vases dedicated on the Acropolis c. 560 BCE, coincident

with the reorganization of the Panathenaia. Artists continued to explore similarly configured

representations until c. 450 BCE, when the scenes took a different course and declined in

popularity. Although the over 600 surviving vases depicting the Gigantomachy from this period

are firmly tied to the visual traditions established by the earliest representations, we witness

striking ways in which the scene was adapted, abbreviated, and embellished. The tension

between the longevity of this lineage, on the one hand, and its subtle diversity, on the other,

allow us to move beyond an evolutionary description of iconography to focus on the dynamics of

image-making. Through both a close visual analysis and a quantitative approach, my dissertation

privileges the role of the artist through three aims: first, to investigate the relationships in the

vase-painting community by tracing how innovative artists developed and shared distinctive

visual motifs in the Gigantomachy both within and across workshops; second, to explore how

artists crafted their compositions in response to the shape, function, and consumer of the vessels;

third, to explore how vase-painters responded to and resisted external visual models, from

Panathenaic dances evoking the Gigantomachy to monumental sculpture on the Acropolis. While

monumental works have traditionally been credited as the source of innovations, recent revisions

to chronology suggest that vase-painters also played a critical role. Finally, this study proposes

that artists abandoned the archaic model of the Gigantomachy in the mid-5th century, well in

advance of the representation on the shield of Athena Parthenos usually credited with the change.

The Achilles Painter’s masterful calyx-krater, preserved in fragments in the Michael C. Carlos

Museum, represents a new classical Gigantomachy, informed but not dependent on wall

painting. Using digital technologies to reconstruct the vase, this study considers how and why the

Achilles Painter broke from tradition.

Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1

Research Questions ........................................................................................................................................ 4

Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 1 Gigantomachy in the Literature, Ancient and Modern ........................................... 9

Ancient Literature on the Gigantomachy: From Homer to Apollodorus ...................................... 9

Modern Literature on Representations of the Gigantomachy ....................................................... 20

Comprehensive studies and catalogues on the art and myth of the Gigantomachy .................................. 20

Excavation Publications and the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum .................................................................... 23

Studies on the Gigantomachy in Sacred Architecture ........................................................................................ 24

Studies on the Gigantomachy in the Panthenaic Festival ................................................................................. 28

Studies on the Gigantomachy in Attic Vase-Painting ........................................................................................ 30

Studies on the Gigantomachy outside of Mainland Greece ............................................................................. 34

Current Project .............................................................................................................................................................. 35

Chapter 2 Communication in the Kerameikos ......................................................................... 37

Potters, Painters, and Workshops .......................................................................................................... 37

Method of Micro-Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 43

Black-Figure Painters of the Earliest Gigantomachia ....................................................................... 44

A Leonine Artemis ......................................................................................................................................................... 44

Hephaistos’ Bellows ...................................................................................................................................................... 47

Late Black-Figure Painters (c. 520-500 BCE): The Leagros Group and Lekythos Painters . 48

Giants as Scythian Archers .......................................................................................................................................... 49

A nude hoplite Giant in black-figure ....................................................................................................................... 56

Red-figure Painters ...................................................................................................................................... 58

Poseidon’s Island ............................................................................................................................................................ 58

Wild Giants ....................................................................................................................................................................... 68

Apollo’s new gesture ..................................................................................................................................................... 73

Hephaistos’ Pincers ........................................................................................................................................................ 77

The Evolution of Dionysos ......................................................................................................................................... 80

Herakles as a Scythian Archer ................................................................................................................................... 86

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 88

Chapter 3 The Relationship of the Image with Shape, Context and Audience ..................... 90

Small Containers: Lekythos, Alabastron, Pyxis ................................................................................... 93

Pouring Vessels: Oinochoe and Olpe ................................................................................................... 101

Water Vessels: Shoulder Hydriai and a Kalpis ................................................................................. 103

Dedications: Plaques and Plates ........................................................................................................... 105

Lekanis .......................................................................................................................................................... 107

Drinking Vessels: Skyphos, Kantharos, and Cup ............................................................................. 108

Large sympotic vessels: dinos, krater, and stamnos ..................................................................... 113

Other sympotic shapes: Psykter and Kyathos .................................................................................. 118

Storage vessels: Pelike and Amphora ................................................................................................. 119

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 126

Chapter 4 Vase-Painters as Spectators of the Panathenaia and Sacred Architecture ........ 133

The Panathenaic Peplos .......................................................................................................................... 134

Panathenaic Apobates Contests and Pyrrhic Dances .................................................................... 149

Apobates Contest ......................................................................................................................................................... 149

Pyrrhiche ........................................................................................................................................................................ 154

The Built Environment ............................................................................................................................ 157

The Siphnian Treasury at Delphi ............................................................................................................................ 157

The Old Temple of Athena ....................................................................................................................................... 166

The Temple of Apollo at Delphi ............................................................................................................................ 171

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 173

Chapter 5 3D Modeling Mythology: Assembling the Achilles Painter’s Gigantomachy .... 174

Fragments of the Achilles Painter’s Gigantomachy ........................................................................ 176

The Achilles Painter .................................................................................................................................. 180

Digital Reconstruction ............................................................................................................................. 183

Procedure & Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 183

Shape of the Vase ........................................................................................................................................................ 184

Gigantomachy Comparanda from the second half of the 5th century ......................................................... 185

Reconstruction of the Achilles Painter’s Gigantomachy ................................................................................ 190

Space and Environment ............................................................................................................................................. 207

The Influence of Monumental Wall Painting on the Achilles Painter ...................................... 209

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 216

Figures ........................................................................................................................................ 224

References .................................................................................................................................. 239

Catalogue .................................................................................................................................... 258

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