Making the Ordered Cosmos: The Gigantomachy in Archaic and Classical Athenian Vase Painting Restricted; Files Only
Stratman, Julianne (Spring 2020)
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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